In the spring of 479 BCE, although defeated at Salamis, the Persians were still in control in most of the Ionian cities. Their citizens revolted against this and asked Athens for support. In response, 40 triremes of the remaining Athenian fleet, under command of Xanthippus, joined the allied fleet of 110 triremes which was under the command of King Leutychides II of Sparta. They defeated the Persians at Mykale in… Read more
The city of Thebes has always been of interest to scholars working within mythographical and literary traditions, precisely because its presence looms large in our corpus of extant textual and especially non-textual sources. Looming even larger is the absence of a monumental epic to encapsulate its story in the manner that the Iliad and Odyssey do for the Troy story. Myths set in Thebes or involving Theban characters occupy a… Read more
Detail from Filippo Albacini: The Wounded Achilles. 1825. From the Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth The book Villing, A. et al. 2019. The BP Exhibition: Troy: Myth and Reality. London: Thames & Hudson/The British Museum. The British Museum’s “Troy: Myth and Reality” exhibition is its major tourist attraction for Spring 2020. It covers the stories of the myth, the archaeology of Troy, and the reception of the story. The book that accompanies… Read more
We were excited to welcome Robert Cioffi of Bard College for an Open House. The title of the discussion is “Disease and Social Order: The Plague Narratives of Thucydides and Lucretius”. The discussion took place on Thursday, April 2 at 11:00 a.m. EDT, live-streamed, and was recorded: scroll down to view the video. Robert introduces these narratives as follows: Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War about the conflict between Athens… Read more
When I first heard that the British Museum was putting on an exhibition “Troy: Myth and Reality” I knew I had to go, and I was so happy that friends from the Kosmos Society were able to visit at the same time so we could share the experience with each other. In this post we continue our series of impressions and highlights. Upon entering the first part of the exhibition… Read more