This month’s Core Vocabulary discussion, based on terms listed in The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours[1] and tracked in the Sourcebook[2] is “biā [βία] (biē [βίη] in the language of Homeric poetry) ‘force, violence’.” As we read passages together, among the questions we might ask are: what kinds of force are exhibited, and is it ever depicted as a desirable or undesirable quality? Here are a few examples to… Read more
A guest post by William Moulton One Saturday in July I arrived at the British Museum about 11:30, just in time for the free tour of the Nereid Monument. I always thought it was a nymphaeum—a shrine to the Nereids—but it isn’t. I discovered that it was the tomb of Arbinas the dynast of Lycia—a sort of a sub-king to the Persian king. For those who don’t know, after Alexander… Read more
In this video, Gregory Nagy, Douglas Frame, Leonard Muellner, and Keith Stone have an informal discussion about the role of dialects in the Homeric poetic tradition, introducing the Mycenaean phase, and Homeric forms in Arcadian. They include examples from formulas such as epithets within Homeric poetry, and also refer to the work of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Related topics Greek dialects and the poetic super-language Greek dialects in epic: the cake… Read more
A guest post by Leonard Muellner In October of 2016, I had the pleasure of talking about Homeric poetry to the largest audience I have ever addressed in the many years I’ve spent teaching Classics—over 500 students in a huge new amphitheater at the University of Lille in northeastern France. The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Lille is part of an emphatically public system, supported by tax dollars… Read more
…Latinus himself was amazed at these mighty men, born at opposite ends of the world, meeting and deciding the outcome with their swords. As soon as the field was clear on the open plain, they both dashed quickly forward, hurling their spears first from a distance, rushing, with shield and ringing bronze, to battle. The earth groaned: they redoubled their intense sword-strokes, chance and skill mingled together. (Aeneid 12.707–714, translated… Read more