Often before now have I applied my thoughts to the puzzling question — one, probably, which will puzzle me for ever — why it is that, while all Greece lies under the same sky and all the Greeks are educated alike, it has befallen us to have characters so variously constituted. Proem of Theophrastus Characters, translated by R.C. Jebb For April, our Book Club selection is the Characters of Theophrastus. Theophrastus,… Read more
There is nothing sweeter than to fly [petesthai]. Aristophanes Birds 1343 Flying has often been one of our challenges as humans. We like to watch birds fly and we have been trying to copy them. And in myth gods and other entities are able to fly. Here are some passages from the ancient world about flight that is not by birds. Actors representing birds. Black-figured wine-jug, c 510–490BCE. © The… Read more
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is running an exhibition called Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality until July 30, 2023. I couldn’t resist a visit! The story of Theseus and the Minotaur in the labyrinth at Knossos was well known, and there had been various conjectures about whether the site really existed. The original discovery of buildings and items at Knossos was by a Cretan, Minos Kalokairinos, in 1878. However, although… Read more
March 13 sees 10 years since the start of the first iteration of the MOOC ‘The Ancient Greek Hero’. Happy anniversary, HeroesX! In 2013 MOOCs — massive open online courses — were in their infancy, and this was one of the first Humanities courses on edX. The Ancient Greek Hero is based on the Harvard course taught by Gregory Nagy since the late 1970s, and has the same content as… Read more
We were excited to welcome Graeme Bird for an Open House entitled “Euclid Saves Us from Ignorance.” The event took place on Friday, March 10, at 11:00 a.m. EST and was recorded. To get ready for the event, you might like to read the PDF handout linked below: Passages for Euclid You can watch the video below, or on our YouTube channel. You may now view the slides that were… Read more