A guest post by Anne Spendiff It seemed that when I watched TV programmes about Rome they featured gruesome death, sex, or communal toilets. Now I know that death, sex and toilets are part of life, but I did not want my first cruise to the Western Mediterranean, and my first trips to Rome and Pompeii, to focus on them. In preparation, I read Mary Beard’s Pompeii[1], and researched various… Read more
In this episode, Gregory Nagy and Claudia Filos respond to comments and questions from the community about: The hero as a cult hero and as a tragic hero Oedipus as a savior Myth, ritual and miasma Oedipus as a turannos Hippolytus and Phaedra with reference to Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, and Hippolytus of Euripides. This dialogue also includes discussion about the following movie clips: The opening scene from The Night… Read more
We welcomed Professor Dan-El Padilla Peralta of Princeton University for an Open House Discussions on Waste in Antiquity. The discussion took place on Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 11:30 a.m. EST, and was recorded. You may like to read the following focus passages in the Sourcebook to get ready for the event. Iliad 22.395–428 Iliad 23.770–785 Odyssey 17.280–300 You can watch the recording in the frame below, or on our YouTube… Read more
Welcome to the November session of the Book Club! This month we will be reading selections from Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War: Books 1 and 2. You can find the text on Perseus in a translation by Benjamin Jowett (who also provides a helpful Note on the geography of Thucydides), here: Book 1 Book 2 There is also a translation by Thomas Hobbes: Book 1 Book 2 A translation… Read more
A guest post by Sarah Scott This month I’m inviting everyone to explore the word turannos [τύραννος], which is defined in the Core Vocabulary: “turannos, plural turannoi (Lydian word for ‘king’): ‘king’ (from the viewpoint of most Greek dynasties); ‘unconstitutional ruler’ (from the viewpoint of Greek democracy).” A more detailed explanation is given in H24H[1][1] 19§6, where the focus is on Oedipus in the Sophocles drama Oedipus Tyrannus: In this book, the… Read more