Follow the handsome advice that old Nautus gives: take chosen youth, and the bravest hearts, to Italy. In Latium you must subdue a tough race, harshly trained. Yet, first, go to the infernal halls of Dis, and in deep Avernus seek a meeting with me, my son. For impious Tartarus, with its sad shades, does not hold me, I live in Elysium, and the lovely gatherings of the blessed. Here… Read more
The April Book Club selection features Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates. Join in by reading this month’s Book Club selection, a short text by Xenophon about Socrates. The hangout discussion will be on Tuesday, April 25 at 11 a.m. EDT. It might be interesting to compare Xenophon’s view with Plato’s, who also wrote an Apology of Socrates (which you can find in the Sourcebook.) You can read any translation you like.… Read more
The March Book Club selection continues the theme of Roman texts. This month features a tragedy by Seneca: Phaedra, which is also sometimes referred to as Hippolytus. It is a treatment of the same myth with which many members will already be familiar, Euripides Hippolytus, so it might be interesting to make comparisons. You can read any translation you like. There is a free online translation by Frank Miller Justus:… Read more
After the gods had seen fit to destroy Asia’s power and Priam’s innocent people, and proud Ilium had fallen, and all of Neptune’s Troy breathed smoke from the soil, we were driven by the gods’ prophecies to search out distant exile, and deserted lands, and we built a fleet below Antandros and the peaks of Phrygian Ida, unsure where fate would carry us, or where we’d be allowed to settle,… Read more
But the god of the trident, who rules the ocean waters, grieved, with a father’s feelings, for the son changed into a swan, the bird of Phaethon, and, hating fierce Achilles, he nursed an excessive anger in his memory. (Ovid Metamorphoses 12.580–584) The Book Club selection for January is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which will provide a Roman perspective of some stories and characters we have previously encountered in the ancient… Read more