Ajax

Book Club

Book Club | July 2020: Quintus Smyrnaeus Fall of Troy 5–9

So when all other contests [aethloi] had an end, the goddess Thetis laid down in the midst great-hearted Achilles’ arms immortally wrought; and all around flashed out the cunning work with which mighty Hephaistos overchased the shield fashioned for the the dauntless-spirited descendant of Aiakos. ….. Then among the Argives Thetis dark-veiled in her deep sorrow for Achilles spoke these words [mūthos]: “Now all the contest [agōn] prizes [aethla] have… Read more

Book Club

Book Club | May 2018: Sophocles Ajax

And so I’ll go to the bathing waters by the sea shore and wash off my defilement. I will deflect the weighty anger of the goddess there. When I leave, I’ll find some isolated place and then inter my sword, of all my weapons the one I most despise. I’ll dig the earth where no one else will see. Then let Night and Hades keep it there below the ground.… Read more

Book Club

Forthcoming Book Club selections | Spring 2018

Thanks to all who have participated in the forum and via hangouts in the Kosmos Society Book Club discussions so far this year. You can still post in the forums if you missed the live sessions, have anything further to add, or if you have read additional parts of the selected works. Here is a foretaste of what is to come during Spring 2018 at the Book Club, in which… Read more

Topic for Discussion,  Word Study

Connections: Dice Games, Ajax, and an Epic Loss

Achilles and Ajax playing a game, Exekias, circa 530 BC, [Public domain, CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia CommonsMany community members have been reading Gregory Nagy’s “A Roll of the Dice for Ajax” on Classical Inquiries, which explores how “Ajax dooms himself to an eternity of angry frustration over losing a chance to become the best of the Achaeans.”  We are happy to share a curated selection of resources designed to help readers… Read more

Word Study

Oinops and Oxen

~ A guest post by Sarah Scott & Jacqui Donlon and the Oinops Study Group ~ …and aboard each vessel crowded full Arcadian companies skilled in war. Agamemnon himself, the lord of men had given them those well-benched ships to plow the wine-dark sea, since works of the sea meant nothing to those landsmen.  Iliad II [1] We had seen in ‘Oinops and the Wide Open Sea’ that most of the… Read more