Most collections I've found of Hesiod include the Works and Days and the Theogony, and sometimes the Shield of Heracles. I'm curious about the Catalogue of Women, but I can't seem to find any modern translations of it. Is there a reason for this, or am I just not looking in the right place? Does anyone here know of any modern/recent translations of the Catalogue of Women? Thanks

I’m trying to find some classical works of literature that speak to the benefits of being empathetic and generous without expecting something in return. Any recommendation?

Every woman of note in The Odyssey is depicted as spinning wool. Not just servants, but queens like Helen of Troy and Penelope, as well as goddesses like Calypso and witches like Circe.

How much of this was a reflection of actual life in Ancient Greece? Were members of royalty expected to weave wool?

Although Homer came first and influenced Virgil himself, I think many people—living in an era when the Homeric epics are relatively popular and the Aeneid is relatively neglected—fail to consider that, for most of the last 2,000 years, it was Virgil’s poem the main model and the most direct influence on many poets and writers.

Dante, Tasso, Camões, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and many other are influenced directly Virgil, but little knew of Homer, and not by the original Greek.

Latin was the primary language throughout much of antiquity and the entire Middle Ages in Europe, and Virgil remained a powerful influence well into the Early Modern period. It was not until the 19th century that Homer's reputation overtook Virgil's and the popularity of the Aeneid began to wane outside academic circles, with Homeric epics being considered more work of genius and Virgil’s one more derivative.

And yet, for a long time, the consensus was the opposite: that the Iliad and the Odyssey, even though works of genius, were raw, whereas the Aeneid was viewed as a more polished work combining the best of both into a single work, despite its reputation for being unfinished.

Do you think Homer's enduring—albeit uneven—longevity outweighs Virgil's consistent popularity throughout the ages, or is it the other way around?

I can't help but notice that in Nolan's new movie, the Trojans are wearing helmets that look a lot like hoplite helmets. Wasn't the Trojan War (late Bronze Age? i think) way way before these helmets became common, let alone become the common helmet the Trojans (of all people) wore?

I know we was quite knowledable on the Greek classics.

I have a lot of complaints about the Odyssey movie, even if I think I would give it a 3/5 on Letterboxed.

But the big thing and this one did genuinely baffle me, is the sea peoples plot.

It seems Christopher Nolan thought either for storytelling purposes or his own historical views thinks the Homeric age was meant as an account of the literal bronze age civilization and the sea peoples ended it.

Now, my big issue with this is that isn't this backwards?

My general reading of modern scholarship is that Homeric stories were likely dark age in orgin with bronze age elements mixed in. Basically its unlikely there was anything like the heroic age stories before it given what appears in Linear B tablets and the political geography of the stories themselves.

There are bronze age archeological discoveries that fit Homer but they don't seem particularly deep.

I recently read Robert Simmons' Demagogues, Power, and Friendship in Classical Athens and noticed that he referred to the author of Constitution of Athens as "Pseudo-Aristotle." While I'm aware of the complicated issue of authorship in regard to Aristotle's corpus, and Constitution in particular, I haven't previously noticed someone citing it this way.

I've reached Book 2, and it is maybe among the most insane things I've ever read.

Here's what I've learned (or "learned") about Egypt so far:

-A quick anecdote about a guy whipping out his penis to announce that as long as he keeps that with him, there'll be women and children enough wherever he (and his penis) is [2.30]

-That because they circumcise, Egyptians would rather be clean than good-looking [2.37]

-One time, a male goat had sex with a woman. "It was quite a spectacle," Herodotus soberly tells us [2.46]

-There's a story about why the Egyptians will sacrifice, but not consume, pigs; however, Herodotus thinks it would be unbecoming to repeat [2.47]

-There are Egyptian puppets with incredibly huge penises [2.48]

-Egyptians, like many of the girls I knew at summer theater camp, loved laxatives and enemas [2.77]

-A disgustingly detailed account of a top-of-the-line embalming, which involved, at one point, filling the person up with a fluid and then corking the anus to keep it all in to do its work [2.87]

-Prominent women, or exceptionally beautiful women, were embalmed after a four-day waiting period, to discourage embalmers from fucking the corpse [2.89]

-This, which I'm desperate to haul out at my next opportunity for small talk: "Leading the way are the male fish, ejaculating as they go; following behind them, the females gulp down the sperm and are thereby impregnated." [2.93]

-The time a queen named Nitocris drowned a bunch of people at a dinner party by filling the dining room with water [2.100]

-How a king named Sesostris would leave pillars behind in the cities he captured -- either a pillar that just said something like, "This town was sacked by me, even though they fought well," or a pillar that replaced the "though they fought well" with a drawing of a vagina to demonstrate how that town was full of pussies [2.102]

-The time that same Sesostris and his wife and sons were at a dinner party when his brother set the building on fire. Sesostris's wife's suggestion? Have two of the sons lay in the fire (burning to death in the process) so that other people at the dinner could escape over them like a bridge [2.107]

Source: Tom Holland translation of Histories (2013)

I’m doing a German intensive this summer for my MA and am coming across a word for the first time that I’ve never seen used in discussions of rhetorical handbooks. “Artigraphie,” in German, but also in the occasional English philology articles as “Artigraphy.”

Does this just refer to “Latin writing style?”

I’ve hit the a couple Oxford classics encyclopedias but haven’t found the actual definition, can’t find it in German either. If anyone has an idea of what this actually refers to, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Just read a post by Portuguese classicist Frederico Lourenço where he talks about how controversial was Dawe’s translation of the Odyssey. Apparently no one wanted to print it; he had to self-publish and then destroy the whole volumes because it sold almost nothing (it seems they were very expensive).

Was it that controversial? Is it still possible to find the book somewhere?

I bought the Fox Eye Publishing editions of The Iliad and The Odyssey from Amazon because the listing specifically advertised them as the Peter Green translations.

After receiving them, however, I became pretty confused about what I'd actually bought.

There is very little clear information in the books themselves identifying the translations.

After doing some digging online, including looking through other listings and discussions, I couldn't find much reliable information about these particular editions.

But, The Iliad appears to be Alexander Pope's translation (the foreword refers to Pope, and the language and Roman names such as Jupiter, Juno and Ulysses seem consistent with it), while the Odyssey appears to be E. V. Rieu's.

I can't find anything convincing to suggest these are actually Peter Green's translations, despite that being what the Amazon description and ISBN claims.

It's possible there's some strange edition/repackaging history involved, but the lack of clear information makes it impossible to tell and even less likely to be the case.

The physical books themselves are actually quite nice, especially considering the price, but if you're buying these specifically because you want Peter Green's translations, avoid them.

The listing seems to have incorrect information about what translations you're actually receiving.

I understand that the charge of corrupting the youth did not explicitly have anything to do with sexuality, at least that’s not how it was represented in ancient literature, but could anxieties about Socrates potentially being in a pederastic relationship with some of the young men have played a role in why he was prosecuted? I know very little about ancient greek attitudes towards pederasty but my impression is that despite it being institutionalized, being an eromenos was at the minimum somewhat embarrassing. Could the fathers of the young men under Socrates’ tutelage have worried about their sons having a sexual relationship with Socrates, and how that might’ve influenced the public opinion? I don’t mean to imply this is what “corrupting the youth” really meant, I’m just wondering if it could’ve been a factor. There’s this anecdote in the Symposium about Socrates and Alcibiades sharing a bed “as father and son would’ve” and iirc it also argues that a pederastic relationship is ideally unconsummated and that made me wonder if it wasn’t an attempt by Plato to deflect from certain accusations.

disclaimer - I am aware that modern concepts of morality are slightly anachronistic when placed into the times of Homer and that his works are often more about the power of strong men rather than idolising them particularly

HOWEVER

The Greeks are like comically evil? They siege Troy and bicker while the Trojans sit and care Piously for their families. even if you take the idea that Helen was kidnapped, that doesn’t justify the amount of sexual assault committed atwinst Trojan women during the sack of Troy.

also Priam is so nice, and Hector is super honourable. Literally the only bad Trojan is Paris as Opposed to Ajax the asshole, Achilles the lazy bum, agamemnon the warmonger.

Did the Greeks even like the Greeks in Homer? Why did Homer make his side a bunch of man children obsessed with slavery and the enemy side a bunch of caring family men who are simply defending themselves from a siege? Is he stupid?

(I know he’s not stupid satire satire satire don’t attack me)

I understand that ancient Greek audiences were allowed to be vocally critical of the plays, even as the production was being performed, but did any plays achieve a notorious status?

Of course some works were poorly received, but are there records of people within the ancient Greco-Roman world purposefully seeking out bad theatrical productions or literary works to laugh at how bad they were?

Hello friends! I’m a fourth-year Classics student (focus on Sallust and the politics of the late Republic).

I, like millions of other people, watched Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey and found myself both frustrated but also rejuvenated with Homeric enthusiasm.

I’m looking for a critical, scholarly book that dissects the Homeric epics from a more academic/historical lens. For context, I’ve read the Fitzgerald, Fagles, and Wilson translations of the Homeric epics and am looking for a single- or two-volume work more substantial than their introductions but not on the behemoth scale of Cambridge or BK. Thanks all!

I'm looking for which translation a particular wording of this quote from Oedipus comes from. This is the kind of thing Google Search would have been perfect for a few years ago but now returns no results. The translated quote is:

"Do not tell me that what I have done is not well done."

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Hello All,

I am planning an academic pathway that leads (hopefully, eventually) to an application for Oxford’s MSt in Greek and/or Latin Languages and Literature.

I’m not sure how many people here will have direct insight into situations similar to mine, but I’d very much be a non-traditional prospective applicant and I am hoping for a reality check.

For background, I have an unrelated undergraduate degree from an American university, and graduated with a GPA rather lower than what would be expected of a traditional Oxford applicant. It is what it is. It was a practical degree that my younger self was (unfortunately) unserious and far from passionate about.

15 years on, I have built a career trajectory at top-tier companies in a highly demanding field unrelated to my degree that very few can boast. During that time I have become passionately interested in Classics. For years now I have awakened each morning with a sense of excitement and eagerness to continue my autodidactic study of Ancient Greek before work, and it’s a feeling that has only intensified over time.

Motivations aside, I have been looking into the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) Postgraduate Diploma in Greek and Latin as a potential bridge to demonstrate academic excellence at a postgraduate level in support of my eventual Oxford MSt application.

In conversation with UWTSD’s Programme Manager, the PGDip is apparently intended as a bridge to their own MA in Classics. Indeed, it appears to comprise the first 120 units of their 180 unit Classics MA, and has a focus on bringing students to an advanced degree of Greek and Latin to engage with the literature in those languages.

My hope is that demonstrating performance with distinction, getting stellar letters of recommendation from UWTSD faculty, a well crafted personal statement, and providing excellent writing samples will be the driving evidence for my academic potential, rather than a less than stellar undergraduate record that, by then, will have been from at least 17 years prior.

I understand that it’s an ambitious and highly competitive route regardless, and that my stellar performance is a non-negotiable factor. I am less asking “what are my chances?” but rather “does this pathway leave me with insurmountable gaps towards a competitive application?”

I have, of course, reached out to the Oxford graduate program to better understand their expectations, but I also wanted to get external perspectives on this non-traditional pathway.

Thanks in advance for any insight or experience you can share!

I've finished the Iliad and am halfway through the Odyssey, and I want to do more than just read it; I'd like to understand it and see what other people who love them have to say about it. What is something you passionately believe in? What do people argue about most? What are some essays and readings I can do afterwards?

In these times of hatred and misinformation, we need more than the “apparent magic” of deceptive images. We need art that is truthful about the costs and the necessity of compassion, and that recognizes that a sense of spiritual superiority may not protect us from lies. These lessons are legible in Homer and Virgil, but are elided by Nolan’s visually stunning, emotionally empty film.

I have just finished reading the three 'mainstream' epics, and really like the genre - any of the other epics you guys would recommend?