yet ANOTHER great thing he's done. just add it to the list
Cuccinelli channels John Ashcroft, censors Roman goddess’ clothing on the Virginia seal.
The “Great Seal” of the Commonwealth of Virginia depicts the Roman goddess Virtus standing over the defeated Tyranny and has been in use since 1776. Virtus is holding a spear and a sheathed sword, and the garb she is wearing exposes her left breast. (An earlier rendition of the seal traced back to Thomas Jefferson shows the goddess wearing even less clothing.) However, far-right Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) is now tinkering with the historic seal:
The seal depicts the Roman goddess Virtus, or virtue, wearing a blue tunic draped over one shoulder, her left breast exposed. But on the new lapel pins Cuccinelli recently handed out to his staff, Virtus’ bosom is covered by an armored breastplate.
When the new design came up at a staff meeting, workers in attendance said Cuccinelli joked that it converts a risqué image into a PG one....................
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4 comments:
Isn't Virtus one of those gender-confused Roman deities?
well what i DO know is:
# Virtus Bologna, an Italian basketball club
# Virtus (program), a program of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S.
i can say no more
Well, in my entirely inexpert Latin (it has been awhile), it's a very Guy word (vir = "man", and -us is a masculine ending), which means not so much "virtue" as we tend to understand it but "man-ness" (cf previous discussion of peeing on your own two feet...or not actually peeing on them but...you know.)
Anyway, I suppose it's a question of context, b/c Virtus can as easily be represented by a male figure as by a female one, and the Romans would have considered adding a breastplate to the female one as trans-vestism (a good latin word), not that they had a problem with that where deities were concerned, but nor were they afraid of breasts.
(Neither, apparently, were the people who chose Virtus to represent VA to begin with -- the Founding Guys, with their good Classical educations, which you can tell they had since they didn't name the capitol of their Republic "Jerusalem", nor did they install a king there.)
disclaimer: Anyone with an actual Classics degree may weigh in and slap me around on the facts.
even though in my early rose bush days i attended catholic school, i never learned latin. perhaps it was a boy thing? thanks for the history though. i enjoy learning new things. well i enjoy your writing as well
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