Archive

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Aesop and Fable, with Arti Mehta

We were pleased to welcome Arti Mehta, Lecturer in Classics at Howard University, for our Open House discussion on Aesop. To prepare for the discussion, participants might like to read Mehta’s handout and article: “Aesop and Fable: A God of Small Things,” handout: [Word | PDF] “Fox and Jackal: The Individual Against the Collective” (online in Classics@ 12: “Comparative Approaches to India and Greece”). You can watch the recording of this discussion… Read more

Ancient Greek language

News: Introduction to Attic Greek

We are pleased to share news about a new Learning Module: Introduction to Attic Greek. This comprises a series of video presentations made by Professor Leonard Muellner and Belisi Gillespie. These videos cover the content covered in two semesters of a college-level Introduction to  Ancient Greek course. They are designed to be used in conjunction with the book Greek: An Intensive Course by Hardy Hansen and Gerald M. Quinn. The… Read more

Gallery

Gallery: Pompeii

Marine Fauna, Mosaic, Pompeii, House of the Geometric Mosaics, Naples, MANN Pliny the Younger (61–113 CE), an author and a lawyer, was a direct witness of the eruption of the Vesuvius in 79 CE. Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae were covered by ashes as a result of the eruption. Pliny wrote several letters to Tacitus about this terrible event. His uncle Pliny the Elder (23–79CE) died during the eruption. Pliny the… Read more

Word Study

Core Vocab: thūmos

Our next exploration of Core Vocab terms is about thūmos [θυμός] ‘heart, spirit’ (designates realm of consciousness, of rational and emotional functions). Here Professor Nagy explains the meaning a little further: The word thūmos, which I translate here as ‘heart’, expresses in Homeric diction the human capacity to feel and to think, taken together. In some Homeric contexts, thūmos is used as a synonym of phrenes, which can also be… Read more

Topic for Discussion

The Mountain Gods and Musical Contests

A guest post by Bill Moulton It is odd, that a culture that seems to personify every river, creek, lake, spring, meadow, vale, city, region, and sea with a deity shows so little knowledge of the gods of the mountain peaks. The Hesiodic Theogony lists none of the mountains by name and expends only one line of poetry addressing this. By contrast, it names forty-one of the three thousand Oceanides in… Read more