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Inscription on main menu graphic


Danny
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Hi all.  I'm consistently impressed with the quality of artwork in this game good job all.  That includes the main menu background done by dashinvaine.  Top notch.

My question is about the inscription on the pillar.  I've been trying to decipher it, and having trouble.  Yes, my Greek is rusty. The best I get is something like:

"an army from Pontus, reasonable sized (or perhaps, twenty?), of the message because of the Ephesians and other Ionians, a publication."

That obviously makes a lot of sense.  Can someone with better knowledge of Greek piece it together better for me? Searching on these forums came up with nothing except this quote from Aristosseur:

A correction should be made hence the account creation: on the sacrificing pillar it speaks of Ionian colonies and the Spartans were Dorian, it's a completely wrong inscription that would not be found in Sparta.

Though I still don't understand the inscription, I probably agree with Aristosseur that it doesn't make much sense on a Spartan pillar as all the places mentioned are in Anatolia.

This may seem esoteric, but in a game that attempts to be historically accurate it shouldn't be difficult to come up with a realistic inscription.

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I just tried to translate this and couldn't manage to do anything either... I think the original sentence was cut at the wrong place :(

Εικος is the neutral form of εικως, which is a perfect participle of a defective verb. For this verb, the perfect has the value of a present, and it means "looking like" or "suitable". If it's the former it would call the dative, which would explain "γνωμῃ" and would mean "looking like intelligence", "looking like spirit". I would translate the whole thing as "clever" or "smart", but it's a nominative and there is no neutral nominative substantive in the sentence.

"λογων ενεκα Εφεσιων και των αλλων Ιωνων" should be "because of the words of Ephesians and other Ionians", I think placing "ενεκα" inside was done on purpose, to stress the fact that Ephesians themselves made speeches.

There is nothing that explains that "Ποντικον στρατον" is an accusative, but it does mean "an army from the Pontus".

So my guess would be that we lost a couple of words. I have a suggestion, if we just add "Το συλλεγειν" at the beginning, we have our neutral nominative and the infinitive calls the accusative. The sentence then suddenly makes sense and becomes "The fact of raising an army from the Pontus, based on reports from Ephesians and other Ionians, [was] apparently clever". Of course this is just speculation :)

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Good work.  You got a good bit further than I did.  It's a bit of a puzzle, isn't it.

3 hours ago, Itms said:

"λογων ενεκα Εφεσιων και των αλλων Ιωνων" should be "because of the words of Ephesians and other Ionians", I think placing "ενεκα" inside was done on purpose, to stress the fact that Ephesians themselves made speeches.

That's obvious now that you say it! I'm not sure why I didn't see it before.  Good job.

3 hours ago, Itms said:

Εικος is the neutral form of εικως, which is a perfect participle of a defective verb. For this verb, the perfect has the value of a present, and it means "looking like" or "suitable". If it's the former it would call the dative, which would explain "γνωμῃ" and would mean "looking like intelligence", "looking like spirit". I would translate the whole thing as "clever" or "smart", but it's a nominative and there is no neutral nominative substantive in the sentence.

...

So my guess would be that we lost a couple of words. I have a suggestion, if we just add "Το συλλεγειν" at the beginning, we have our neutral nominative and the infinitive calls the accusative. The sentence then suddenly makes sense and becomes "The fact of raising an army from the Pontus, based on reports from Ephesians and other Ionians, [was] apparently clever". Of course this is just speculation :)

Adding "Το συλλεγειν" at the beginning (or something similar) is reasonable and explains the accusative well, though obviously that has to remain conjecture.

I'm less comfortable with "[was] apparently clever". γνωμῃ has as its root meaning "a means of knowing". This leads to several derivative meanings. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B3%CE%BD%CF%8E%CE%BC%CE%B7 lists: 

  1. means of knowing: sign, mark
  2. mind, intelligence
  3. judgment, understanding, reason
  4. will
  5. opinion
  6. decision

This broad range of connotations could lead down a number of rabbit trails.  But I think the most likely must be to tie γνωμῃ back to λογων somehow.  It is the report of the Ephesians and others that has made known such-and-such about the Pontic army.  Or taking the context seriously, on a monumental inscription, it could be referring to the inscription itself as the means of making known the reports.  Such statements were more or less common place on inscriptions. But judgments of whether something is clever would belong more comfortably in the literary works of the poets and satirists.

Hmm, it's kinda fun dissecting a fake inscription as if it were real. Thanks for the help. But can we agree that the inscription makes no sense on a Spartan pillar, and that we can fairly easily find or create a better one to grace the front page of this game?  I might start browsing sources for actual Spartan inscriptions.

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46 minutes ago, Danny said:

I'm less comfortable with "[was] apparently clever".

Well this is obviously a big liberty I took, but it sounds better than "[was] looking like intelligence". :P

46 minutes ago, Danny said:

But I think the most likely must be to tie γνωμῃ back to λογων somehow.

Grammatically that would be possible but I can't find a meaningful translation with this hypothesis. Maybe we're missing more words ;)

 

50 minutes ago, Danny said:

But can we agree that the inscription makes no sense on a Spartan pillar, and that we can fairly easily find or create a better one to grace the front page of this game?  I might start browsing sources for actual Spartan inscriptions.

That's right. But the problem is rather that we have to find an artist able to replace that inscription. The one who created this background is long gone, and I don't think we have any WIP version with a pillar without inscription. Anyhow, I don't think anyone will be really bothered by that. I personally am a huge fan of Ancient Greek inscriptions and I love translating them, but in nearly three years of opening 0 A.D. daily it never occured to me to take a look at the meaning of this phrase :)

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11 hours ago, Danny said:

Though I still don't understand the inscription, I probably agree with Aristosseur that it doesn't make much sense on a Spartan pillar as all the places mentioned are in Anatolia.

I'm learning more history, and I find the inscription might not be as far off as I thought.  Not only did Sparta invade Ionia in 401-394 B.C., but Sparta had also (probably) received monetary contributions from Ephesus and other Ionian cities earlier during the Archidamian War (431-421). Then there is the First Mithridatic War (c. 88 BC) in which Mithridates raised a large army from Pontus, invaded and conquered Roman Asia (including Ephesus) and sent an army over to the Peloponnese, where Sparta was at least briefly an ally of Pontus against Rome.  But I think the term Ionia had already fallen out of disuse by that time.

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17 minutes ago, Itms said:

That's right. But the problem is rather that we have to find an artist able to replace that inscription. The one who created this background is long gone, and I don't think we have any WIP version with a pillar without inscription. Anyhow, I don't think anyone will be really bothered by that. I personally am a huge fan of Ancient Greek inscriptions and I love translating them, but in nearly three years of opening 0 A.D. daily it never occured to me to take a look at the meaning of this phrase :)

Understood :) But in the meantime, I'll look for possibilities.  It's just for fun anyway...

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Well, a verb would lift a lot of the confusion.. This seems hard even for a native Greek speaker.

ΠΟΝΤΙΚΟΝ ΣΤΡΑΤΟΝ : (acc) it could mean "army from the seas" but it propably means "from Pontus"

ΕΙΚΟΣ: rightful / rightfully , justified, etc -this is possibly linked to the missing verb

ΛΟΓΩΝ : (pl, genitive) of the reasons, of the word (speeches - reasons, to be literal )

ENEKA : because of

ΕΦΕΣΙΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΤΩΝ ΑΛΛΩΝ ΙΩΝΩΝ: of Ephesians's and other Ionians's

ΓΝΩΜΗΙ: can't find that - it is propably "ΓΝΩΜΗΣ" (gen) : opinion, decision, argument

I hope this helps though without that verb we don't really know...

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Welcome, Bichtiades! Thanks for the input.

10 hours ago, Bichtiades said:

ΓΝΩΜΗΙ: can't find that - it is propably "ΓΝΩΜΗΣ" (gen) : opinion, decision, argument

This is dative (second declension) of γνωμη, which more commonly appears with the final iota as an iota subscript, γνωμῃ. As noted above, it means "a way of knowing" or one of its derivative meanings. Why it's in the dative is still unclear, though Itms suggested that it might be called by εικος.

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6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Perhap it should be the famous cenotaph:

"Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, by their law, we lie." Something like this. (y)

I've thought the same.  But I thought the poem was actually a much later composition. Now that I look it up, I find it was in Herodotus attributed to Simonides, concurrent with the actual battle of Thermopylae. As such, I think that is perfect! Couldn't get a more appropriate inscription to introduce the game.

 

Here is the text:

ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε

κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι

 

Which on the inscription (all caps, no accents, etc.) would look like this:

Ω ΞΕΙΝ ΑΓΓΕΛΛΕΙΝ ΛΑΚΕΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΟΙΣ ΟΤΙ ΤΗΔΕ

ΚΕΙΜΕΘΑ ΤΟΙΣ ΚΕΙΝΩΝ ΡΗΜΑΣΙ ΠΕΙΘΟΜΕΝΟΙ

 

Would also need to leave out the spaces.  I've left them in right now to make it easier to work with. It might end up something like this:

ΩΞΕΙΝΑΓΓΕΛΛΕΙΝ

ΛΑΚΕΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΟΙΣ

ΟΤΙΤΗΔΕΚΕΙΜΕΘΑ

ΤΟΙΣΚΕΙΝΩΝΡΗΜΑΣΙ

ΠΕΙΘΟΜΕΝΟΙ

As far as the art goes, it's not difficult at all to take the existing graphic and wipe the marble clean of the current inscription in Photoshop. Thus no need for a WIP version, just start with the current version.  The new lettering will be slightly more work, but surely there is an artist among us that can handle that!  

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Just now, Danny said:

 

Would also need to leave out the spaces.  I've left them in right now to make it easier to work with. It might end up something like this:

ΩΞΕΙΝΑΓΓΕΛΛΕΙΝ

ΛΑΚΕΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΟΙΣ

ΟΤΙΤΗΔΕΚΕΙΜΕΘΑ

ΤΟΙΣΚΕΙΝΩΝΡΗΜΑΣΙ

ΠΕΙΘΟΜΕΝΟΙ

As far as the art goes, it's not difficult at all to take the existing graphic and wipe the marble clean of the current inscription in Photoshop. Thus no need for a WIP version, just start with the current version.  The new lettering will be slightly more work, but surely there is an artist among us that can handle that!  

Danny: I will try this in Photoshop right now, guy. (y)

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21 minutes ago, Danny said:

Perfect!

Question: Would Sparyan cenotaph be center justify or left justify or either? I try left justify here:

hellenes1-3.png

 

Here you go guy. It is this kind of detail by which 0 A.D. can truly shine! Thank you guys for bringing this to the fore front! Hopefully developers are still active and can include this into the game.

 

Developer: Hear out plea! :)

Edited by wowgetoffyourcellphone
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Hello guys. Sporry for the delay. These past 4 days have pneumonia. Not severe, so no worry, and I am recovery at home quite nicely. Here is what I think will satisfy you. I also fix the alpha channel a lot from original (most will not notice this however).

 

 

 

hellenes1-3.png

Edited by wowgetoffyourcellphone
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2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Hello guys. Sporry for the delay. These past 4 days have pneumonia. Not severe, so no worry, and I am recovery at home quite nicely. Here is what I think will satisfy you. I also fix the alpha channel a lot from original (most will not notice this however).

 

 

 

 

Not bad... If you don't tell, you can trick me.( for real)

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