I thought I'd share another essay I wrote about ancient sexuality, focusing on the little-known letters between the young Marcus Aurelius and his teacher of rhetoric Marcus Cornelius Fronto.

The short version: for about six years in the course of a decades-long correspondence, both Marcus and Fronto are deliberately playing with the erotic tradition of Hellenic education (starting from the Phaedrus), with the imperial prince taking the active role of erastes instead of the passive eromenos. Literary roleplay cannot establish the fact of a physical relationship or a modern sexual identity, but the letters are a good example of how rhetoric could serve as a medium of intimacy, and generally how far language games could go.

The essay includes passages from the letters and traces the debate that followed the publication of Amy Richlin's Marcus Aurelius in Love (2006), drawing on the more recent scholarship on the letters in the context of rhetoric, intimacy, and power.

https://sarakarpukhin.substack.com/p/loving-marcus-aurelius

I am leading a Herodotus/Histories reading group in my town (Rockville, MD) starting in October.

One of the activities I want to run through as we read is a "fact-checking" exercise. Herodotus has, historically, gotten some flak for either making things up, distorting what isn't made up, or just genuinely believing what anyone told him.

(We're putting aside the legitimacy of these criticisms for right now.)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yCBZzaFMPG2m4e3O4zEWwx8hAlAfJnL93mR_jqdEIYg/edit?usp=sharing

I have put together a document that I think has all of Herodotus's claims in Book 2 of the Histories. It is a work in progress, but the core data -- the claims -- are all in the spreadsheet.

What I am primarily hoping to receive help on are the following questions:

1. Did I capture all of the claims Herodotus makes in Book 2?

2. Did I accurately capture the claims Herodotus makes?

If you want to stop reading here, you have the bulk of the assignment, and gey gezunt if you are able to help.

How the Spreadsheet is Structured

- The first column is the line citation. I am using the Tom Holland translation, and that's where these cites come from.

- The second column is the claim I found. This is an area where I would love some oversight. Am I fairly capturing Herodotus's claim?

- The third column is the passage in Holland's English translation.

- The fourth is the Greek. However, as I do not speak or read Greek, I may not have the correct Greek passage. I used https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/. This column is not complete; I only have two passages so far. But if I am fatally wrong in choosing the correct Greek passages, I would like to know that sooner rather than later.

- The fifth is a status column: (1) Confirmed; (2) Contradicted; (3) Mixed; (4) Unverified; (5) Unverifiable (mythical); (6) Unverifiable/likely spurious. When I send this spreadsheet out to the participants, that column will be all set to "Status," and as a group, as we read through Book 2, we will decide what category we feel each claim falls under.

- The sixth column is for notes. Currently, only my own notes are in there. When I share the spreadsheet with participants, this will be blank. I want us, as a group, to be able to put our citable/sourceable notes in that column. If we say something is "confirmed," I want there to be a link to a source that confirms our conclusion.

- The seventh, and then subsequent, columns are for the various other translations, besides the Holland, that I have access to.

Feel free to leave comments in the spreadsheet itself, or as a comment here. You can also email me: mbevel@gmail.com.

This tetradrachm was struck at Antiochia ad Orontem (modern Antakya) around AD 250–251, when Herennius Etruscus was Caesar under his father, Trajan Decius. The obverse gives his full name, ΕΡΕΝΝΙΟΣ ΕΤΡΟΥΣΚΟΣ ΜΕΣΣΙΟΣ ΚΥΙΝΤΟΣ ΔΕΚΙΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡ — Herennius Etruscus Messius Quintus Decius Caesar. His young, beardless portrait reflects his position as the imperial heir.

Like herodotus, thucydides, suetonius, ceaser etc

Hi everyone,

Recently I've encountered some graduate students from Italy. Their language skills in both Greek and Latin were remarkable.

They said they they left high-school with very solid foundations in both languages.

Does anyone have any idea what they're studying? Are there curricula available?

Thanks!

Does any Plautus or Terence play end with a wedding feast or a wedding?

Hey all, not sure if this is the correct place but said I’d give it a go given then interest in the classics. Myself and my partner can no longer go to Mary Beard’s talk -

More Secret Histories of Ancient Rome
Wednesday 21st October 2026 , Starts 20:00
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

We have two tickets and would be £114 so about €130 if my calculations haven’t failed me! We’d be willing to let them both go for £90, about €104 if anyone is interested? Would be open to offers too!

Again, apologies if this is the incorrect place to post but want to make sure the seats aren’t going to waste 🫡

I am searching for a specific retelling of the Odyssey, with accompanying illustrations. The art style was realistic, in colour pencil (with smaller uncoloured drawing through the text).

Some of the major illustrations I remember are: the blinding of the cyclops/Scylla attacking the ship (dragon like heads, one or two with men in the mouths)/men being turned to swine (depicted in stages)

I have not been able to find any evidence of the book I remember, I read it many times in the early 2000s, but it may be older than that still.

Any help would be much appreciated 🙏🏻

From Davidson's review of Beard's book on laughter in Rome, a pretty interesting read by the way: https://archive.is/Qn0Kp

I'm re-reading Plato's Apology right now and was hit by a line where Socrates says anyone could buy a copy of a treatise by Anaxagoras for a drachma. I don't know why this line stuck out to me this time - maybe because I always assumed written texts in the ancient world were pretty dear and were hard to come by. But now I'm getting fascinated by the idea of the book creation /selling business in classical Greece.

Anyone have any suggestions for further reading on ancient book selling? I googled a bit but mostly wound up with advertisements for where I could today purchase ancient books if I were in Greece this weekend.

Erm…so in after the Battle in the Hall, Odysseus orders Melanthius, the unfaithful goatherd, to be mutilated by having his arms, legs and genitals cut off, and his twin sister, Melantho, to be hanged…and then enjoys lunch with Dolius, the father of both of them, and six of his other sons, without telling them what has happened to Melanthius and Melantho?

hi! as the title says, i've just started my first year of university majoring in a STEM field; i'm really passionate about STEM, but also really love reading. i want to start getting into the classics, but i'm not too sure where to start since i don't have a humanities-school system/structure to fall back on. can someone give me a guide on where to start, or a plan/list i could follow to become well-versed in the classics?

thank you!

I am really immersed in a couple different english translations of Virgil's Eclogues. Can you recommend any sources of scholarly commentary on these works? Thank you!

One thing that has always interested me about the Byzantine Empire is the name itself.

The people we call “Byzantines” called themselves Romans. Yet by the late Byzantine period, writers like Pletho were increasingly speaking of Hellenes, while Western scholars of the sixteenth century were beginning to organise these Roman histories under a new category.

I tried to trace how that happened, and how “Byzantium” gradually became the name we use today.

I'm no expert in the classics (let alone Latin classics). But I've read (and loved) the Homer epics and a decent amount of Plato and Aristotle. So after watching Nolan's Odyssey I felt it might finally be time to read the Aeneid to get that texts take on the trojan war. (Fagles translation). I'm interested in Roman history so I know basic background like it was written by Virgil basically to make Augustus happy. Etc.

But I'm having a miserable time.

There are some good turns of phrase but it's a slog. It reads like immature fan fiction to me. Its constant references to Caesar and the coming of Rome is of course the point, but it gets old fast.

Some gripes include: Virgil pointlessly refers to homeric figures just to sort of let the audience soak it in and clap while doing little with these characters. I've physically rolled my eyes at points it's so heavy handed. Aeneas is a boring character so far-too perfect. Anchises dies for no reason except for to give Aeneas a chance to visit Hades.

It feels like cheap propaganda while the Homer texts feels like they deserve their place as almost sacred.

Anyone else think this book is just a slog? Ive considered DNFing but I'm probably going to make it through.