Iliad

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Waste in Antiquity, with Dan-El Padilla Peralta

We welcomed Professor Dan-El Padilla Peralta of Princeton University for an Open House Discussions on Waste in Antiquity. The discussion took place on Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 11:30 a.m. EST, and was recorded. You may like to read the following focus passages in the Sourcebook to get ready for the event. Iliad 22.395–428 Iliad 23.770–785 Odyssey 17.280–300 You can watch the recording in the frame below, or on our YouTube… Read more

Travel

Myths of Achilles in 18th Century Threads

Tapestry of the story of Achilles, Ateliers Bruxellois de Jean François et Pierre Van Der Boorcht (around 1740) “Thetis plunging Achilles in the Styx   In September, I saw a nice Rembrandt exhibition at the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris. This is a wonderful museum, with an amazing collection. The restaurant is decorated with four tapestries. A fifth tapestry is in the hall. The tapestries represent some events from the myths… Read more

Reading Homer

Homeric Iliad 1.1–67

Apollo, Golden Bronze, (200CE) Louvre A guest post by Kevin McGrath Greetings everyone and welcome to Hour 25. What I would like to do today is to view briefly the first sixty-seven lines of Scroll 1 of the Homeric Iliad and then, prompted by you, to reread some of those lines and images more closely. As you well know the first word of the poem, mēnis, indicates ‘anger’, as both… Read more

Topic for Discussion

Thersites: An Unbridled Tongue

Mixing bowl (volute krater)Museum of Fine Arts of BostonAccession Number 03.804 He is one of those bit players in Homer who are so unforgettable. Caustic, repulsive, and comedic all at the same time, Thersites has always been the source of controversy. Who was he? And was he intended to be dangerously insurrectionist or only entertaining? It is an often overlooked aspect of the Thersites story that he was said by post-Homeric… Read more

Topic for Discussion

The Homecoming Queen

A guest post by Timothy Banks When we first meet Helen in the Iliad the goddess Iris has led her to the Scaean Gates of Troy, where she looks out onto the battlefield. There she laments the actions that brought her to Troy and longs for home: “…would that I had chosen death rather than to have come here with your son, far from my bridal chamber, my friends, my… Read more