A "Portrait" of Book XII of the Æneid: the Mosaic of the «House of the Medusa» (Alter do Chão, Portugal)

This paper addresses the study of a mosaic discovered in 2007 at the archaeological site of Alter do Chão, Portugal, whose central panel represents the penultimate scene narrated in the last Book of the Æneid – a Roman epic composed by the poet Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BC – AD 19), at the request of Gaius Julius Cæsar Octavianus Augustus (63 BC – AD 14): it shows the very moment when Turnus, the Latin king of the Rutuli, kneels before Æneas, considered the precursor to the foundation of Rome (Virgil, Æneid, XII, 926-950).

Medusa ACC module

Test site

El naufragio de la Medusa : Europa, en el nuevo contexto geoplítico.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación

Los ordenadores, el sistema escolar y la innovaci??n pedag??gica : de ??baco hasta Medusa

Se hace una descripci??n de c??mo han evolucionado los programas institucionales destinados a integrar las nuevas tecnolog??as en el sistema escolar espa??ol desde los a??os ochenta hasta la actualidad, haciendo referencia al ya desaparecido proyecto Atenea y los desarrollos en las distintas Comunidades Aut??nomas. Se analiza con detalle el proceso de la integraci??n escolar de las nuevas tecnolog??as en Canarias, desde el programa ??baco hasta el proyecto Medusa, analizando los avances y aspectos problem??ticos. Adem??s se hace una breve referencia a los m??todos de ense??anza con ordenadores, la innovaci??n de los nuevos modelos pedag??gicos y el uso de Internet en el aula apoyado en los principios constructivistas.

Medusa, Antaeus, and Caesar Libycus

Although it is well known that Lucan’s Libya is a wild and threatening place, its threat is not restricted to indigenous people, places and things, such as Hannibal, Cleopatra, the Syrtes, or the desert with its catalogue of horrifying snakes. He also associates Libya with anti-Republican Romans, above all Julius Caesar, who endangers the Republic with his excessive, animalistic energy and resembles the continent where he is trapped in the final book. Although the gods as characters are removed from the world of the Bellum Civile, Lucan allows supernatural traces to linger in particular locations such as the Gallic grove in Book 3 or Thessaly in Book 6. Libya is by far the greatest of these reservoirs of frightening myth and fantasy, which do violence to the historical credibility of the narrative, just as Libya itself is presented as the origin or conduit of a number of historical characters who assault Italy and Europe. Lucan’s two mythic narratives (Antaeus in Book 4 and Medusa in Book 9) are essential parts of the hostile Libyan landscape, but in very different ways. The male Antaeus, associated with lions, is connected with a region of solid rock where he was destroyed. The female Medusa, associated with snakes, is connected with a region of shifting sands where she left a deadly, everlasting legacy. To complicate matters further, even though Medusa’s snakes represent the annihilation of the Republican self, the logic of the narrative is undermined and there is even a sympathetic subtext. As part of Libya’s historical and mythical legacy, these stories reveal that for Lucan, historical epic is linked with Republicanism, but mythical epic is in the service of dictatorship.