~ A guest post by Laura Ford ~ The ancients seem to have had as many questions about Homer as we moderns do. At the end of the Apology, Plato has Socrates wonder aloud how marvelous it would be if we could anticipate actually meeting and conversing with Homer (along with Orpheus, Musaeus, and Hesiod) in the afterlife: “…if this be true, let me die again and again.” (41a, Sourcebook).… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Maria G. Xanthou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, for an Open House discussion on ‘Mothers of Heroes and Monsters: Althaea and Callirhoe’. She introduces the topic as follows: Mothers of Heroes and Monsters: Althaea and Callirhoe Maternal figures are inescapable in the fragmentarily preserved Stesichorean poetry. Two of them, Althaea (P.Oxy. 3876) and Callirhoe (P.Oxy. 2617) await a comprehensive literary appreciation. The article focuses on motherhood… Read more
~ A guest post by Jessica Eichelburg ~ As members of “Team Antigone” tasked with flagging the HeroesX core vocabulary and modernizing Jebb’s great translation, we worked slowly with the text, examining each word, and discussing best practices for how to capture the clarity and subtlety of Sophocles’ Antigone. In the process of “Hero-izing” the text, we were confronted with a word—deinos—that launches the Chorus’ famous ode on man (starting… Read more
Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies has announced the publication of Classics@12: Comparative Approaches to India and Greece. This online volume contains papers comparing specific literary and cultural traditions in India and Greece. The papers served as the basis of discussion at an event organized by the Center for Hellenic Studies in association with the Embassy of India. “India and Greece, four comparative approaches: An evening of conversation with four scholars”… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Yiannis Petropoulos, Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece, to an Open House discussion on ‘Monster Menageries of Homer and Hesiod’. He introduces the topic: Liberally populating ancient Greek poetry, monsters cannot be taken for granted and should not be treated as preposterous irrelevancies. Their function, ‘meaning’, and the way in which Homer and other poets describe or fail to describe them are… Read more