…chaplets were employed in honour of the gods, the Lares, public as well as domestic, the sepulchres, and the Manes. The highest place, however, in public estimation, was held by the plaited chaplet; such as we find used by the Salii in their sacred rites, and at the solemnization of their yearly banquets. In later times, the rose chaplet has been adopted, and luxury arose at last to such a… Read more
The occasion was a horse race at the great Panathenaic festival. Callias, the son of Hipponicus, being a friend and lover of the boy Autolycus, had brought the lad, himself the winner of the pankration, to see the spectacle. As soon as the horse race was over, Callias proceeded to escort Autolycus and his father, Lycon, to his house in the Piraeus, being attended also by Niceratus. But catching sight… Read more
How, then, shall I sing of you who in all ways are a worthy theme of song? For everywhere, O Phoebus, the whole range of song is fallen to you, both over the mainland that rears heifers and over the isles. All mountain-peaks and high headlands of lofty hills and rivers flowing out to the deep and beaches sloping seawards and havens of the sea are your delight. Homeric Hymn… Read more
This month’s selection is Plato’s Symposium, a discussion or series of speeches that takes place at a feast or banquet, in which the participants discuss Eros, or Love/Desire. In his “Introduction to the Symposium,” W.R.M. Lamb says: The Symposium of Plato holds an acknowledged place among those few masterpieces of human art which unveil and interpret something of the central mystery of life. It has been a source of light… Read more
Our Book Club selection for January is Pausanias Description of Greece, Book 1. In this work we possess a plain, unvarnished account by an eye-witness of the state of Greece in the second century of our era. … Pausanias, a contemporary of Hadrian … wrote his description of Greece. He came in time, but just in time. … Again and again he notices shrunken or ruined cities, deserted villages, roofless… Read more