It struck me after viewing the Gallery concerning Aphrodite’s birth, that many strange births occur in Greek mythology. Was it the idea of being able to envision the possibility of giving birth without following the usual and natural birth delivery, be it a goddess or a woman or even horses? Was it the need to add mysterious and supernatural elements to creation, to give eccentric accounts? A famous goddess, Athena,… Read more
There has been much discussion in the forum about the birth of Aphrodite, taking as a starting point the account in the Hesiodic Theogony, after Kronos cuts off the genitals of his father Ouranos: But the genitals, as after first severing them with the steel, he had cast them into the heaving sea from the continent, 190 so kept drifting long time up and down the deep, and all around… Read more
Asklepios sits between his daughter Hygieia and a man. This Gallery will take you to the well celebrated world of medicine. In Homeric poetry doctors are precious, valued and well respected. As Idomeneus says to Nestor in Iliad 11.514–551: “A physician is worth more than several other men put together, for he can cut out arrows and spread healing herbs.” (Sourcebook[1]) In Iliad Scroll 4, when Menelaos is wounded, Agamemnon… Read more
Detail showing Hecuba finding the body of her son I am starting to look back at some photos that I took during the six weeks I spent in Europe, just before the confinement. During several days, the Louvre was closed, because of the pandemic, but not the Louvre Collection in the Inventory of the Department of Prints and Drawings. This amazing place is open to the general public. You just… Read more
PaulT: Antonine Wall west of Bonnybridge CC BY-SA 4.0 Ask most people what the northernmost frontier of Roman Britain was, and they would probably say it was Hadrian’s Wall. But there was, for a short time, a boundary further north: the Antonine Wall, now a World Heritage Site. This ran between the Firth of Clyde in the west and the Firth of Forth in the east. NormanEinstein: Map showing locations… Read more