Members of the Kosmos Society have been reading sections of Xenophon’s Anabasis, and this post provides a brief historical context to that work. The text is available on Perseus, both in Greek and in an English translation by Carleton L. Brownson (1922). Historical context The Anabasis by the Athenian soldier, historian and philosopher Xenophon, also known as The Anabasis of Cyrus, The March of the Ten Thousand and The March… Read more
Translation and notes by Jack Vaughan Pindar, First Nemean Epinikion For Khromios of Aetna or Syracuse, Victor in Four-Horse Chariot Race Sacred precinct where Alpheus comes to rest and catches breath[1], Ortygia, child of famed Syracuse, bedstead of Artemis, sister isle of Delos, from you my sweet-voiced hymn proceeds to set forth great ainos of storm-footed horses, gifts of Aetnaean Zeus. Nemea spurs on the chariot of Khromios[2] to yoke… Read more
The spectator on the aft deck A clay model found in a tomb at Amathos[1] tells us the story of a man who comfortably sits on the back of his ship without a helm, having such a clear vision over the well-built ship—and where it is going to—that we could call it a modeled scene of a theōriā: the figure being a spectator who looks with his eyes and his… Read more
A guest post by Bill Moulton Ah, ah! Oh, oh, the agony! 1215 Once more the dreadful ordeal [ponos] of true prophecy whirls and distracts me with its ill-boding onset. Do you see them there—sitting before the house—young creatures like phantoms of dreams? Children, they seem, slaughtered by their own kindred, 1220 their hands full of the meat of their own flesh; they are clear to my sight, holding their… Read more
In recent posts, Rhodes: the isle of Helios and Thera: the island of many names, we visited two Greek islands on the Aegean Sea. In this post, we will be sailing towards the sunset, to a mountainous island that was home to a famous trickster. 19 I am Odysseus son of Laertes, and I, with all [pāsi] my acts of trickery, [20] I-am-on-the-minds-of [melō] all [pāsi] humans, and my glory… Read more