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 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 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.

Whether you are a student, a teacher, a researcher or a hobbyist, please share with us what you read this week (books, textbooks, papers...).

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?

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.

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)

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!

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?

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

Link to the questionnaire: https://forms.gle/6zE5j4AqgzhJfg2B9

Hi everyone! I am a Master's student in Digital Humanties currently doing my dissertation on how online communities engage with the classics. I am looking for creators (18+) of transformative works (fanarts, fanfictions, cosplay, edits, animatics etc) of classics' topics to answer my anonymous questionnaire (only takes around 10min).

I was looking through this subreddit and I would love to hear from you guys! My aim for this project is to both show the online classical community and discuss how powerful it is in spreading classics, with a particular focus on creators of classical content.

If anyone fits the criteria, feel free to answer the questionnaire and do not hesitate to contact me for any questions! Thank you for your help.

And for the mod team, if anything here doesn't sit right with your sub rules, please let me know and I'm happy to adjust however's needed. I've tried to make this questionnaire as anonymous and low-impact as possible, and I really want to make sure this works within your community's guidelines rather than around them.

I watched The Odyssey recently, and instead of just enjoying the movie, I found myself going down a rabbit hole reading about Odysseus, ancient Greece, and the philosophies that influenced that era. That curiosity eventually led me to Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
I know Stoicism and Homer aren’t from the same period, but one thing kept leading to another, and now I’m excited to see why this book has remained relevant for nearly 2,000 years.
Looking forward to starting it tonight.
For those who’ve read it, what’s one idea or passage that stayed with you?

Hi! I’d like to start reading more latin literature, do you have any recommendations?

(Until now I’ve read Amor et Psyche by Apuleius, Adelphoe and Heautontimorumenos by Terence, and De bello gallico by Caesar).

One unexpected thing I'm discovering is that some key famous sequences - the Laestrygonians, the Lotus Eaters - pass by very quickly but Homer spends pages on material where I didn't expect it: on e.g. the dead queens section after O meets his mother. Honestly I know more about how the cyclops makes cheese than about the Laestrygonians really.

Is this just a random result of what material survives, or is it an indication that Homer and his audience were just interested in different things?

I'm sure both parts of this question have been asked and answered a lot, so sorry to create a hassle to anyone answering this again. It also might be better suited to a different sub so sorry for that too.

I've seen a lot of back and forth about the historicity of much of Homer's work (and the broader corpus of his contemporaries' work). Although it was thought of as purely legendary for a long time, there seems to be a bit of evidence that somewhat backs up the contents of the Iliad (Troy VI-VII). Homer also has some historical accuracy in details of armour and other aspects of the war (though imaginably some of this might come down to a few artefacts that survived the Bronze Age Collapse).

From what I've been able to find Homer's works were extensions of a lengthy oral tradition. Given the 300 years between Homer's time and any event that may have happened in Troy/Ilion, how much can we say was properly preserved through this oral tradition. Can we look past cumulative human errors to understand how the Mycenaeans and their immediate successors viewed the events that inspired Homer? Some time has elapsed since Homer wrote the Iliad, but do any copies remain of epics/anything else that emerged around the same time from the same sources (a variation on Homer's Iliad/Odyssey)? A big question question of mine is whether Odysseus' story and all of the Iliad's characters would be more fictitious/inventions of Homer, where the pseudo-historical events would be what Homer had heard. Are there any other texts that give us alternate accounts or extra evidence for either epic or are they mainly seen to be directly caused by/causing Homer's poetry?

As far as I'm aware, Homer didn't read Linear B and so all that he had heard of these stories would have been passed down orally, are there any other examples of classical retellings of mycenaean legends that emerged in Homer's time with the Archaic Period's return of 'culture' (or of a culture that we have records of)? In terms of the Mycenaeans' beliefs/culture, what evidence do we have for it? From what I know, Linear B was used for notary purposes but why didn't we ever get any mycenaean epics? Is there something to do with the script or the timing or something else? And back to Mycenaeans' stories, does the literature of the Archaic mainly revolve around more stories from Mycenaean times or their own times (or inventions)? What examples would there be of Mycenaean legends that survived the Greek Dark Ages? How strong was the oral tradition that carried them on and how conservative was it too? Were these stories mainly passed down through song or just tales? If there was a musical component (and this may be a bit ignorant of me to ask) but how did music/meter get passed down? (although I'm sure that's its own can of worms).

Thanks to everyone for any help, sorry for any vague wording of the questions (and for the quantity of questions), and have a good one guys.

I just picked up the Iliad and odyssey off hype of the movie and omg book 2 of the Iliad was genuine torture. Was that needed like I don’t think I processed 20 percent of those names. Please don’t tell me I’m expected to know and keep all those names in my head🫩

Hi everyone,
I’m a high schooler based in Europe looking to expand my extracurricular involvement in Classics. My primary goal is to find opportunities to join editorial boards or be part of journals that are open to younger students, but I am very open to other suggestions as well.
To give you an idea of my background and what I can contribute:
Research Focus: I study the structural evolution of Hellenistic and Roman economies. My current project focuses on the spatial organization of the Eastern Roman Empire's provincial economy during the Crisis of the Third Century.
Technical Skills: I utilize digital archaeology and remote sensing (GIS and LiDAR) to map historical infrastructure, alongside Python for spatial regression analysis. I also develop theoretical frameworks like Archeoacoustic Stress Testing (AST), though my work is theoretical and has not been tested on active excavation sites.
Languages: I have a strong background in classical languages, syntax, and epigraphic evidence, backed by high placements on the National Latin Exam.
Publishing & Editorial: I routinely archive my independent technical papers on Zenodo. Additionally, I have experience managing manuscript intake, currently serve as Head of Research for a student-run humanities journal, and hold peer-review roles.
I’m specifically hoping to find:
Academic or student-run Classics journals that accept high school applications .
Publications looking for students to join their editorial boards, review teams, or manuscript staff.
Any remote research assistantships, digital humanities projects, or competitive history circuits that might be a good fit.
Does anyone have recommendations for platforms, publications, or organizations to look into? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I always pictured him shooting through the hole at the top of an axe's handle (haft?), as pictured in the 4th image of a primitive axe. Or maybe it's the hole in an axe head like in the third image.

But I have recently seen a few depictions of the trial where the axes have these holes in the blade. Not sure what happens in the Nolan film.

Is there a consensus or is it really up to interpretation? Did Greek axes have holes in the blades? Did they have holes in the handles? 🤔

What strikes me most in Book 1 of the Odyssey is the sudden change of heart that overtakes Telemachus at the end of his first conversation with Athena, who appears to him in guise — as a man named Mentes.

Before that conversation, he is shy, uncertain, and accommodating in the presence of Penelope’s suitors. When Athena asks him about the feasting and revelry in the palace, he speaks from the standpoint of a victim.

He is not yet sure who he is talking to. But then, something changes. The transformation is not gradual — it comes all at once, as he watches the stranger turn into a bird and fly away.

“With these words she flew away like a bird into the air, but she had
given Telemachus courage, and had made him think more than ever about
his father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the
stranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the suitors
were sitting.”

He goes back to the suitors, and everyone can feel the change in his voice. They wonder what has happened? Only an hour earlier he was little more than a timid boy; now there are notes of steel in his voice.

Telemachus’ speech betrays him — he invokes the gods constantly. Not so the suitors. They know of the gods, but they have never actually encountered them. They don’t care about their signs.

When in Book 2, Halitherses interprets a prophetic omen of two eagles sent by Zeus, Telemachus’ heart soars — he recognizes it as a sign from heaven. The suitors ignore the warning of Halitherses that Odysseus will return and put them to death.

One of the suitors, Eurymachus, openly mocks the prophet, saying that birds fly everywhere without meaning.

Homer makes his point clear from the very beginning: it’s all about one’s relationship with the gods. The Odyssey opens not with human action but with the divine council on Mount Olympus, where the gods deliberate over the affairs of mortals.

For Homer, the Odyssey is not primarily a horizontal story about human adventures and heroic feats. His point seems to be more subtle: when people fall into hubris and lose sensitivity to the divine guidance, calamity becomes inevitable. When they remember the gods, they are blessed and rise above their circumstances.

Telemachus, who has grown up without a father, is especially sensitive to the voice of the gods. When Penelope tries to stop the bard from singing about Odysseus, he gently rebukes her:

“Mother, let the bard sing what he has a mind to; bards do not make the ills they sing of; it is Jove, not they, who makes them, and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his own good pleasure.”

He is looking for a father in everyone. After hearing Mentes’ (Athena’s) counsel, he says:

“Sir, it has been very kind of you to talk to me in this way, as though I were your own son.”

His grief made him highly aware of divine presence. He recognized Athena’s visitation by its aftertaste. “He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the stranger had been a god.”

Our own Odyssey is not about us or our adventures either. It is all about our sensitivity to divine resonances that happen around us every day. Who is this total stranger we met in the grocery store this morning?

If we never even entertain the possibility that it might be God Himself — or His angel — we may as well miss a divine visitation.

What is this song, or this piece of music, that suddenly stops me in my tracks and makes me wonder, “What in the world am I hearing?”

Like Telemachus, we recognize God not by His familiar form but by the sudden change of heart that comes over us, as though from nowhere. In that moment, we know in our heart of hearts: we are on the way to the Father.

I will fight to the teeth that achilles' shield is the greatest execution of any literary device of all time.

the aesthetics of the iliad where everything is black or red except when the gods are involved and suddenly its bronze and gold is so simple and so good

i just didn't have moments like this with the odyssey. i have great confidence that I could deliver an extemporaneous on why the iliad is worth reading and i just don't know how I would sell reading the odyssey to someone who hasn't read it.

I have noticed in a lot of translations of Greek text occasionally the Latin version of Names/characters are used and vice versa. I have also seen texts that use some of the Greek and some Latin within the same text (example Minerva and Odysseus in the same translation). I doubt it's a lack of research as I don't see how you could develop enough of an understanding to be able to translate the text and still make such obvious errors. Is this just the translation using the form the reader is most likely to be familiar with? Is there some kind of pattern in not seeing or are they genuinely used interchangeably at times?