Archive

Announcements

Travel to Greece: March 10–19, 2017

March 10th–19th, 2017 Join Professor Gregory Nagy and a small group of intergenerational learners for an immersive, 10-day exploration of Greece. As a HeroesX participant (past or present), you are eligible for special rates! Travel back through time to ancient Greece on this annual spring break favorite. Start in the charming seaport town of Nafplio, home to Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies. Then proceed through the Peloponnese to Delphi… Read more

Video

The Psychology of Alcibiades

Professor Norman Sandridge of Howard University gave a speech at Villanova University titled The Psychopathy of Alcibiades: Applying a Modern Psychological Construct to an Ancient Leader. Professor Sandridge says, “In this lecture I make the argument that Plutarch’s portrait of the fifth-century Athenian statesman, Alcibiades, shares many character traits with the contemporary construct of the psychopath, namely, grandiosity, low emotional affect, instrumental aggression, and chameleon-like versatility. Moreover, Alcibiades’ conduct as… Read more

Word Study

Core Vocab sophos, sophiā

A guest post by Sarah Scott This month I looked for sophos [σοφός] ‘skilled, skilled in understanding special language’; sophiā [σοφία] ‘being sophos’.[1] For if one possesses good things without a lengthy ordeal [ponos], many think that he is sophos, that he is not one of the ignorant, [75] the way he arranges his life, they think, with straight-planned stratagems. But that is not ordained to be, in this world… Read more

Video

Homeric Questions with Leonard Muellner

In his book Homeric Questions, Gregory Nagy explains his choice of title as follows: The title of this work is marked by the word Questions, in the plural. It takes the place of the expected singular, along with a definite article, associated with that familiar phrase, “the Homeric Question.” Today there is no agreement about what the Homeric Question might be. Perhaps the most succinct of many possible formulations is this… Read more

Travel

The Romans were Everywhere: a Cruise in the Western Mediterranean

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