Finding Helen in texts is frustrating. Many contradictory facts may be encountered. Who was Helen? What about her life, her power, her birth, her beauty? Was she hated or was she loved? If we were to write a short biography, it might read like this: Helen was the daughter of Leda and Tyndareus/Zeus, and Clytemnestra, Castor and Polydeuces’ sister. Penelope was her cousin. She married Menelaos king of Sparta,… Read more
A guest post by Bill Moulton It is odd, that a culture that seems to personify every river, creek, lake, spring, meadow, vale, city, region, and sea with a deity shows so little knowledge of the gods of the mountain peaks. The Hesiodic Theogony lists none of the mountains by name and expends only one line of poetry addressing this. By contrast, it names forty-one of the three thousand Oceanides in… Read more
A guest post by Laura Ford Plutarch’s essay on Herodotus has been described as “the world’s earliest known book review.”[1] We all have seen examples of this type of writing: a scathing review by a reviewer whose negative comments reveal an underlying bias against the author or his work that seems to obviate any pretense of an objective appraisal. Such an approach is puzzling in this case in that it… Read more
…He [Agammenon] took moreover the richly-wrought shield that covered his body when he was in battle—fair to see, with ten circles of bronze running all round it. On the body of the shield there were twenty bosses of white tin, [35] with another of dark lapis in the middle: this last was made to show a blank-eyed Gorgon’s head, fierce and grim, with Rout and Panic on either side. The… Read more
A guest post by Sarah Scott Gold: a precious metal that seems to shine like the sun, and does not tarnish or rust. No wonder it is associated with the gods. We see this when the gods meet: Now the gods were sitting with Zeus in council upon the golden floor while the goddess Hebe went round pouring out nectar for them to drink, and as they pledged one another… Read more