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
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
Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island, which I will describe. Looking towards the sea, but in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the island… Read more
Hold it right there. Tell me this, Ion—respond to what I ask without concealment. When you say well the epic verses and induce a feeling of bedazzlement [ekplēxis] for the spectators [theōmenoi] —as you sing of Odysseus leaping onto the threshold and revealing himself to the suitors and pouring out the arrows at his feet, or of Achilles rushing at Hector, or something connected to the pitiful things about Andromache… Read more
Quite regularly the conversation of the Kosmos community returns to the subjects of astronomy and geography. In this post I will attempt to summarize what has been discussed, while focusing on the work of Anaximander, my favorite physiologos. His approach of understanding the world through rationalization and argumented dialogue [logos] was the logical next step after the period of oral tradition. No less than the messenger of the gods, Hermes,… Read more