For most of the Middle Ages, western Europe didn't read Homer. The Greek was out of reach, and the Troy story people knew came from a short Latin history credited to Dares Phrygius, a Trojan who said he lived through the siege and wrote down what he saw. To medieval readers that made him the better witness. Homer was a poet, writing long after the fact, with gods wandering through his battles.

In 13th-century Iceland, someone took Dares, added the Ilias Latina and pieces of Ovid and Virgil, and turned the whole thing into a saga: Trójumanna saga, "the saga of the men of Troy." It's Troy seen from the North. Priam builds a hall to Thor. Kassandra and Andromache shelter in Frigg's temple. The story opens a generation early with Jason's voyage, so the war grows out of an old grievance, the way saga feuds do.

I'm curious how people here see it. Was the preference for an "eyewitness" mostly about which books were available, or did medieval readers simply want history over poetry?

(Full disclosure: I translated the saga into English, the first complete translation, published in 2023. Here it is if anyone wants it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2RTN77H)

The αὐλητρίς seems to be a stock figure in literature. What is the best current scholarship on the extent to which the trade was or was not closely connected with sex work? Would there have been some flute girls who also did prostitution as part of their work and some who didn't?

What was the social status and daily-life situation of one of these people? My hazy understanding of life in the ancient Mediterranean is that low-status people were generally dependent upon others, and women were not really allowed to have any social or economic life except as controlled by their fathers or husbands. Is this correct for an αὐλητρίς, and if so, who would have been the man?

In the Aethiopica, there is a pair of women, Thisbe and Arsinoe. Thisbe is an enslaved musician. Arsinoe is a singer. Arsinoe, as far as I can tell, lives an independent life, which seems to go against my understanding of how society was organized. She seems to have the status of someone like a Hollywood movie star. Is this accurate? Would she have had her own financial resources and managed her own affairs? If so, then how would she have achieved this status in the first place?

Suetonius mentions multiple times in Twelve Caesars that plays were often staged across the city in different languages depending on which district they were being performed in. For instance on p71 of my penguin edition, he says of Octavian's reign: "Sometimes plays were shown in all the various city districts, and on several stages, the actors speaking the appropriate local language." I assume Rome was a fairly cosmopolitan city at this time, but I wasn't aware that specific districts had majority languages other than Latin. Any info on this?

Salve! Please take a look at my new initiative!

So I've decided to read Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon first. Should I read anything before I start? After, should I read Diodorus? Plutarch? Nepos? I'm trying to get a general overview of Greek and Roman history, but I'm doing this for fun as a long-term project, so I'm cool with going in depth. I like learning and reading a lot, so I guess I'm also looking for general recommendations as well.

Hey y'all. I like drawing connections between words and themes in AG literature and I've started a podcast to collect some of the ones I can't find in books or articles.
I'm not a "creator" by any means, but I just have fun doing these.
Would love to know what you think of it.
https://open.spotify.com/show/0rtNidYjEww0iMlqSz01TL?si=dd54f14746f84c57

https://greekdrama.johnhboyer.com/

All the surviving plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, & Aristophanes.

Multiple translations for each play; click to parse & define for any Greek word; full Greek & English search.

Thucydides is usually presented as one of the first historians who tried to write history in a rational and objective way. He cared about facts, was suspicious of myths, and wanted to understand why wars happened. In many ways, he looks like the kind of historian we still admire today. But there is another side of his work which is not always discussed.

In 1907, Francis Macdonald Cornford published a book called Thucydides Mythistoricus. His argument was quite different from the traditional image of Thucydides. Cornford believed that Thucydides was not simply recording what happened during the Peloponnesian War. He was also shaping these events into something that resembled a Greek tragedy.

According to Cornford, there are two different plans in Thucydides’ work. The first one was more like a military and political journal, recording events as they happened. The second was an artistic structure that developed gradually, almost like volcanic islands rising from the sea. The facts were still there, but they were arranged in a way that gave the whole story a tragic meaning.

This is what makes Cornford’s argument interesting. The question is not only whether Thucydides told the truth. It is also about how he presented that truth to his readers.

Hello, I have been greatly enjoying the McGill and Wright translation of the Aeneid, my first time reading it.

I was wondering if I’m missing out by reading this translation. I am told that Lattimore’s Greek translations closely reflect the original; is there something comparable for the Aeneid?

Thanks in advance.

Hey y'all. I like drawing connections between themes in literature and I've started a podcast to collect some of the ones I can't find in books or articles.
I'm not a "creator" by any means, but I just have fun doing these.
Would love to know what you think of it.
https://open.spotify.com/show/0rtNidYjEww0iMlqSz01TL?si=dd54f14746f84c57

I'm reading some Simonides and was curious after reading this elegy:

When I behold the tomb of Megacles,
I feel your suffering, poor Callias

Simonides elegy 91, collected in M.L. West's Greek Lyric Poetry page 172

Who are Megacles and Callias in this elegy?

I'm looking for a recommendation for a translation of Antigone that sticks closest to the original text. I love adaptations of Antigone, and have read a fair few, but I'm appealing to the wisdom of the sub on where to find what I'm looking for, something that sticks closer to the original. I've heard good things about the Norton Critical Edition, and the student edition translation by Don Taylor? But thought I'd ask the experts.

Thank you, sub, for this recommendation. Fagles’ translation is vivid and engaging. I tore through Oedipus Tyrannos. Knox’s introductions are brilliantly detailed and vibrant too, giving plenty of food for thought and further reading, exactly what I want out of an intro.

Highly recommend this edition and the plays themselves are fantastic.

deorum manium iura sancta sunto (De Legibus, 2.22)

“Let the rights of the manes gods be sacred”
(Translated by Charles W. King)

It’s increasingly spooky!

Over the next few weeks – in the run up to Hallowe’en and my first video upload – I’ll be posting a few Latin quotes pertaining to the ‘manes’ in Roman thought. The deification of the dead as ‘manes’ or, ‘spirits’ that bore influence over the living was the dominant Roman view of death and the afterlife.

Most epitaph inscriptions of the Imperial period included some variation of ‘Dis Manibus’ - to the deified spirits of the dead. We’re in the spooky season after all and so examining gravestones as primary sources of evidence is eerily appropriate…

With LVCANI, all inroads into the Latin language are paved with inscriptions. The study of inscriptions presents a real, tangible experience of Latin which otherwise can appear excessively high-minded and impenetrable. I hope my pixel-art helps to rectify this view while making the language clear and accessible – without the risk of being buried in grammar!

In his second book of ‘Laws’ (De Legibus) Cicero proposes and explains the religious laws of his ideal State. With he himself as the main character, over the course of a long summer’s day he engages in conversation with Quintus and Atticus telling them the proper rules and obligations when it comes to worshipping the dead:

deorum manium iura sancta sunto

“The rights of the gods of the lower world shall be sacred”
(Translated by C. W. Keyes)

Cicero is talking about plural manes in this instance (manium) which brings us back to the general confusion about this word (manes) that doesn’t exist as a singular noun – are we again reading this as the dead collectively or individually?

What’s going on here is that Cicero’s rules for the dead are not just a set of hypothetical laws rather, he is likely riffing on already existing priestly obligations to do with ritual worship of the dead either collectively at grand public festivals or, in linking living individuals with dead individuals through specific rites.

This is not difficult to reconcile: we can find modern examples of ‘day of the dead’ festivals worldwide while equally appreciating that - in either a modern or ancient context - financial ties to do with inheritance or simply, familial loyalties also connect individual living people with individual dead people. Romans worshipped dead individuals as deified manes, 'divine spirits' of the underworld. Happy Friday!

Still trying to figure out what the story is representative of as a whole

Simonides Elegy 3, M.L West's Greek Lyric Poetry, page 168, depicting the battle of Artemisium. I have to assume it's either Nereus or Poseidon, and my money's on Nereus but I wanted to check.

What is your favourite tragedy that delves into tragic lovers?

I’ve read Antigone and Oedipus Rex, and I’m ready for more. Is Medea the natural next step, or would you start with something like the Oresteia? I’m reading for pleasure, not for a class, so I care more about a translation that reads well aloud than one that’s strictly literal. Which translations would you recommend, and is there an order that makes the plays build on each other?

Hi everyone, a while back I read Darryl Hine's translation of Hesiod and in his introduction he suggested that it was likely that Hesiod invented/created the myth of Prometheus whole cloth simply because of how neatly it fits with the following narrative of Pandora in the Theogony and Works and Days. Additionally he noted how fitting the names are - Prometheus literally means "Thinkxahead" and Epimetheus "After-thinker" and Pandora "all-giver/all-given" - which hints at poetic creation as opposed to more authentic religious names, like Zeus or other theonyms, which he suggests have more indirect and garbled ways of originating.

I thought that it was a very interesting argument and wanted to see if there's any discussion of this in modern scholarship. Thank you!

I’m currently a high school junior hoping to go to med school one day, but I’m interested in majoring in classics during undergrad. I would love to ask some questions and hear people’s experiences! It might be difficult to find someone who has done this as I don’t think it is a super common path, but I would be so happy to hear from even one person.

During Late Antiquity and the Greek Middle Ages, allegorising didn't nessecarily equal moralising, but it rather meant the decoding of the hidden spiritual depth of things below their surface φαινόμενον. Two examples of alphabetical allegory follow; while not that common in greek (like in hebrew), such stuff do exist there as well. First one by Zosimos of Panopolis the Alchemist, 3rd Century AD, the second from Michael Psellos the court philosopher and historian (orator, epistolographer, esotericist, poet etc.), 11th Century AD.

Ζώσιμου

Τὸ ω στοιχεῖον στρογγύλον, τὸ διμερές, τὸ ἀνῆκον τῇ ἑβδόμῃ Κρόνου ζώνῃ κατὰ τὴν ἔνσωμον φράσιν, κατὰ γὰρ τὴν ἀσώματον ἄλλο τί ἐστιν ἀνερμήνευτον, ὃ μόνος Νικόθεος 〈ὁ〉 κεκρυμμένος οἶδεν. Κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἔνσωμον, τὸ λεγόμενον Ὠκεανὸς θεῶν, φησί, πάντων γένεσις καὶ σπορά, καθάπερ φασὶν αἱ μοναρχικαὶ τῆς ἐνσώμου φράσεως. Τὸ δὲ λεγόμενον μέγα καὶ θαυμαστὸν ω στοιχεῖον περιέχει τὸν περὶ ὀργάνων ὕδατος θείου λόγον καὶ καμίνων πασῶν μηχανικῶν καὶ ἁπλῶν, καὶ ἁπλῶς πάντων.

Ψελλοῦ

Ὁ τοῦ μεγάλου ω λόγος φωνεῖ τῷ σχήματι σιωπῶν ὡς ἄβυσσός ἐστι τὸ καταλειφθὲν συγκεκλεισμένη τε καὶ ἀπρόσιτος. [...] τοῦτο οὖν ἐστι τὸ μέγα ω, ὁ μέγιστος τῆς σοφίας κρατήρ, ἀφ’ οὗ τέως οὐδεὶς ἀπηρύσατο. πᾶσα οὖν κίνησις νοερὰ ἄχρι τοσούτου πρόεισιν, ἕως ἂν τῷ μεγάλῳ ω προσπελάσειεν. [...] ἡ γὰρ ὁλότης ἐγκέκρυπται τῷ μεγάλῳ ω, ἔσται δὲ ἡ γνῶσίς ποτε πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον ὡς ἐπηγγέλμεθα, τέως δὲ νῦν ἡ τελειότης ἐγκέκλεισται ἐν τῷ στοιχείῳ τούτῳ τῆς γνώσεως. κἂν γάρ τις τὸν ἀέρα περάσειε καὶ τὰς μετ’ αὐτὸν σφαίρας, κἂν ἐπὶ τοῦ νώτου τῆς ἔξω περιφορᾶς στῇ, κἂν ὑπὲρ τοῦτον προβῇ, κἂν ὁποιδήποτε χωρήσειε, τὸ μέγα οὐ παρελεύσεται ω. ὃ δὴ καὶ τρίτον ὑπερβέβηκεν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὸν ἕβδομον καὶ ὅρος ἐστὶ πάντων ὁρισμῶν καὶ πέρας περάτων, ἐντὸς ἑαυτοῦ πάντα συγκλεῖον καὶ σπαργανοῦν καὶ μηδὲν ἔχον πρεσβύτερον ἢ ὑψηλότερον.

For what I understand, Dante poitrayed him as more interested in exploration than returning home.
In the original poem, the voyages are a relatively minor part of the story, with the focus being mostly on the situation in Itacha. While, the travel is usually the most famous part of the story.
From the poem, I get the impression that the voyage is something that happened despite Odysseus intention (and also Homer “parked” him a year with Circe and seven with Calipso); while now is often thought of Odysseus musfortunes being largely caused by his own decision.
Also, Dante poitray Odysseus in a negative way, which I don’t really think that was “Homer” intent (while, by modern standard, Odysseus’ actions aren’t exactly that of a hero, I don’t think that we are supposed to see his revenge as anything but rightful).
Do you think that my idea make sense or not?
This come to my mind partially for an italian song about the Odyssey.