What an unhappy fate, great gods, to be the slave of a fool! A servant may give the best of advice, but if his master does not follow it, [5] the poor slave must inevitably have his share in the disaster; for fortune does not allow him to dispose of his own body, it belongs to his master who has bought it. Alas! ’tis the way of the world. But… Read more
We are excited to share the themes for the Fall 2017 sessions of the Book Club when we will be reading selections from the following: September Aristophanes Plutus October Albert Bates Lord Epic Singers and Oral Tradition November Poetry of Horace Look out for announcements with details of the selections, and the related forum threads, which will be posted near the beginning of each month, with the hangouts scheduled for… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Kevin McGrath for an Open House discussion about Indo-European Epic Poetry. In preparation, you might like to read and think carefully about Odyssey 8.487–491. Demodokos, I admire and pointedly praise you, more than any other human. 488 Either the Muse, child of Zeus, taught you, or Apollo. 489 All too well, in accord with its kosmos, do you sing the fate of the Achaeans [490]… Read more
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