Peace, comedy by Aristophanes, performed at the Great Dionysia in 421 BCE. The plot concerns the flight to heaven on a monstrous dung beetle by a war-weary farmer, Trygaeus (“Vintager”), who searches for the lost goddess Peace only to discover that the God of War has buried her in a pit. The play was written during the Peloponnesian War fought between Athens and Sparta. It was staged about seven months… Read more
In part 1, we looked at dreams as represented in Homeric epic. In part 2, we continue our exploration with some passages from other texts. Starting with tragedy, we learn from Jean Alaux Lectures Tragiques d’Homère that “According to Jacques Jouanna, there are two types of dreams: the vision-dream which offers the sleeper a symbol to decipher … and the visitation–dream where a god or a messenger or a ghost… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Jeffrey Rusten of Cornell University, Department of Classics for an Open House discussion about Zeus in Comedy. In preparation, you might like to read: Iliad 14.153–360, 15.1–235, 16.419–461, 22.157–187 Aristophanes Plutus (“Wealth”) lines 33–144 and 1019–1190 Passages from Lucian (PDF) You can watch the event in the frame below, or on our YouTube channel. You can join the discussion in the forum. For further videos please visit the Watch… Read more
What an unhappy fate, great gods, to be the slave of a fool! A servant may give the best of advice, but if his master does not follow it, [5] the poor slave must inevitably have his share in the disaster; for fortune does not allow him to dispose of his own body, it belongs to his master who has bought it. Alas! ’tis the way of the world. But… Read more
We are excited to share the themes for the Fall 2017 sessions of the Book Club when we will be reading selections from the following: September Aristophanes Plutus October Albert Bates Lord Epic Singers and Oral Tradition November Poetry of Horace Look out for announcements with details of the selections, and the related forum threads, which will be posted near the beginning of each month, with the hangouts scheduled for… Read more