In the last days of September of the year 480 BCE, King Xerxes proceeded to Athens, after having had his victory at Thermopylae. Also his naval forces moved southward for the final stroke. Among the Persian naval contingent were 120 triremes from Thrace, 100 ships from Ionia, 60 ships from Aeolia including Lesbos and Samos, and an unspecified number of ships from the Greek islands, including the Cyclades, and lastly,… Read more
Victorious poet (inscribed “He is beautiful”) reciting (“As once in Tiryns…”) In Part 1 we looked at the role of aoidoi as depicted within epic poetry itself. Now we turn to later sources in which the word rhapsode comes into use. In that post, we touched on the performance of Achilles and Patroklos in relay. Gregory Nagy comments: 8§28…Homeric poetry was performed at the Panathenaia by rhapsōidoi, ‘rhapsodes’ … The… Read more
A translation and notes by Jack Vaughan For Timodemos of Archarnai, Victor in Pankration Much as Homerid singers often begin their weaving of songs with a prelude honoring Zeus, this man, too, for a start has received an installment of a victory-studded career in the sacred contests in the much-celebrated hallowed precinct of Nemean Zeus. It still behooves him, the son of Timonoos, if his life’s time, guided straight according to the ways of his fathers, has been given as an adornment to… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Professor Christopher Brown, William Sherwood Fox Professor of Classics at Western University, Ontario, Canada, who joined members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion on Ares, Aphrodite, and a Monkey’s Rump: Some Thoughts on Public Humiliation. Professor Brown revisited a passage in the Odyssey that he published as an article in 1989, the story of the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite (Odyssey 8.266–366).… Read more
We are delighted to share the first of a series of Office Hours video discussions with Professor Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. In these videos, the ordeals of becoming a hero will be explored through the greatest works of Ancient Greek literature. In these ‘Ancient Greek Heroes’ Office Hours videos, Gregory Nagy and his colleagues will provide additional… Read more