When one visits the famous ancient sites of Greece, one soon realizes that most of these were built at places sacred to one or more of the ancient Greek gods—Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Athena and Poseidon among them. It seems the gods were a real presence to the ancient Greeks, influencing how they lived their everyday lives, their political decisions, and their world view. They seem to have believed they could… Read more
Our Book Club selection for January is Pausanias Description of Greece, Book 1. In this work we possess a plain, unvarnished account by an eye-witness of the state of Greece in the second century of our era. … Pausanias, a contemporary of Hadrian … wrote his description of Greece. He came in time, but just in time. … Again and again he notices shrunken or ruined cities, deserted villages, roofless… Read more
L’univers est une espèce de livre, dont on n’a lu que ta première page quand on n’a vu que son pays. The universe is a kind of book of which one has read only the first page when one has seen only one’s own country. From de Montbron, Le Cosmopolite, quoted by Lord Byron in the “Preface to the First and Second Cantos” of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage When I received… Read more
Members of the Spring Break trip 2019 Gregory Nagy will again be leading the Spring Break Trip in Greece for Students and Alumni of Harvard University. There may still be waiting-list places available for the next trip, March 13–March 21, 2020. For further details, please see the Harvard Alumni website, here. Whether or not you are able to attend yourself, you might like to read about the experiences of one… Read more
We were pleased to welcome back Olga M. Davidson, Boston University, for a discussion on ‘Persian epic and the embedding of a song of lament’. The event took place on Thursday, September 19 at 11 a.m. EDT, and was recorded. You can watch the event on our YouTube channel, or in the frame below. In connection with this discussion, you might like to read her article “Women’s Lamentations and the… Read more