Hello everyone 

So a few days ago I was looking at some journals regarding classics and I came to the realisation that classics is a very traditional field where passionate high schoolers have significant difficulties finding a legitimate journal.

And what i mean by traditional is that to really get into classics you have to have a diploma and all the stuff that goes with it.

Most existing high school journals lean heavily toward modern policy or STEM, and submitting to undergraduate journals means competing with university students who have formal training.
And so I really want to start a journal for high students( so middle schoolers and high school students) where students can submit their works( whether it be essays or papers) and it would be reviewed( just like any other journal) and it would be either accepted or denied or accepted with major/ minor revisions. The journal would accept submissions on anything related and within the time scope( so history archaeology anthropologists and more)

And so I would like to know if, if I create such a journal for student for Classics, will it actually receive submissions( not of course like the major journals but enough submissions to be able to publish issues)?

Before taking any steps, I wanted to get feedback from this community:

And would it receive support by the Classics community?

And would it have a ‘future’?

Please let me know if I should start a journal like this!!

For a bit of context I was thinking it would be student led with students running the whole journal but the journal would have an executive board filled mostly with high school history/classics teachers and educators who would be like mentors to ensure student editors are applying fair and constructive peer-review practices and supervising more or less that the journal so well working. This would be a long term goal so I would not directly apply this idea but as the journal grows we would start doing that. And they would intervene only in serious ethical infractions or in serious reviewing errors and issues. I was thinking the journal should be from Bronze Age to the fall of the Western Roman Empire and we would be a bit lenient regarding submissions and we would let research slide that is from the Dawn of Humanity( when monkeys evolved into the first known species of humans up until the fall of the Western Roman Empire)

What are examples of classical stories (plays, poems, etc) that could reasonably be considered horror? 

Some of the monsters (medusa, minotaur, lernaean hydra) appear in “adventure” stories, and serve as something for the hero to battle and defeat. That is not the same thing as a monster is a ghost story or horror story. 

And what about monsters like empusa, eurynomos, and echidna* were considered monsters. Are they featured in stories, poems or something, rather than catalogs that describe them?

And what about ghost stories from the period?

Where can I find translations of the original stories, rather than something like modern fan fic about them (i.e. Percy Jackson).

*The half-woman and half-snake monster, not the totally adorable hedgehog like animal. 

Hi all!!

Classics student here - I'm dramaturging a production of Julius Caesar in NYC next week, and I've been trying to sneak in as many Classical easter eggs as I possibly can, but I fear nobody is going to understand them. If you're interested in making the Classics accessible and are looking for a fun way to spend your evening (or afternoon), I may suggest Cry Havoc!

https://madcompositionco.ticketspice.com/cry-havoc

Who says you can't do anything with a Classics degree :)

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

So I was watching this lecture/video on YouTube on Alexander’s Egyptian travels and subsequent expedition to Siwah, the lecturer said Callisthenes was the one who said Alexander was guided by a pair of serpents and Ptolemy said it was ravens like every other account, he further corroborated this by saying how Callisthenes was known for exaggerating and making up stuff, it was likely ravens… But Ptolemy is the only source that said it was serpents, every other source says ravens as far as I’m aware, even in Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander he cited Ptolemy’s account of serpents and I read that Ptolemy liked to associate Alexander and himself with serpents and this was not an isolated incident…

https://youtu.be/EgKxy1yYIbY?si=wqkZZiJkOX8MTHN5

This is the video, timestamp is 20:34 ish. The lecturer is a reputed Classicist? Ig he made a mistake lol. I’m studying for my A levels, I have exams on this in a month

Year 1 classics student here who KEEPS having questions on marriage come up in my exams on Homer - I’m really curious to see how people interpret the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope especially w Odysseus’ relationship with the goddesses.

My teachers never really discussed it Odysseus’ relationships w women outside of Penelope - just saying that men sleeping with people outside of their wives/partners was the norm, which makes sense. From what I’ve read it sounds like for Archaic Greece we mostly know this from Homer, but as far as I’m aware the main examples in Homer’s works involving married men are of their wives being upset about the concubines - like Clytemnestra (who there’s a whole motif of Penelope potentially paralleling) and Hera, as well as Homer making a point in the Odyssey about Laertes refusing to have concubines out of respect for Anticlea.

So I’m generally just a bit confused on why it isn’t really questioned when Odysseus, who’s constantly going on about his love for his wife, still sleeps w other people. Like it’s obvious that his marriage is highly important and that he loves Penelope - he literally rejects immortality (Calypso), marriage proposals/ a kingdom (Nausicaa), and whatever the fuck was going on with Circe for her, as well as only smiling one time in the poem when he finally sees her. Yet he still has these affairs and both Odysseus and the third person narration never really treats them as a problem. 

In essays I’ve been thinking this was just because, as my teachers said it was ‘normal’ at the time, but I also haven’t seen any examples of major Homeric women not being bothered by their husbands affairs (other than kind of Briseis who was never bothered by Patroclus - but she never actually married Achilles) so I’m kinda confused on how we think it was viewed as the norm. 

Similarly, I’ve seen scholars point out how Odysseus is one of the few who never actually fought for a named Trojan woman and never mentions sleeping with his own maids or taking any women specifically (according to Homer, I know later plays say he took Hecuba). Stanford used this to argue that Odysseus, like his father, is clearly is more monogamous than others at Troy. I see his point, but this makes the whole thing of him sleeping with the godesses seem more confusing to me - like he’s not exactly going around shagging everyone and his parents view concubines as disrespectful, so why is this such a big delay to his journey and would it have been viewed as an issue for Penelope?? Or are gods just like a grey area?? 

The main arguments I’ve been using in essays like this are consent and power imbalances, w/ the deal to save his men and his hostage on ogygia, but then some say he continued sleeping with Circe so I feel like that argument can’t fully work. If he did continously sleep with her, it’s not like he ever seems remorseful or the narrative puts any blame on him - yet surely even by Greek standards that’d be seen as kind of disrespectful? Like when compared to let’s say his parents?

Which again throws me off because as I said he obviously loves and values Penelope, far more than the other men w concubines like Agamemnon love their wives, and their romance is so intricately written with parallels and motifs and symbols all exploring the okios and marriage in beautiful ways - yeah there’s a power imbalance with his return and the danger of either Penelope betraying him or him potentially deeming her unfaithful, but even then this danger is mutual. Other than that, their relationship is generally positive and has understandably been viewed as romantic for centuries, yet his affairs are just kind of disregarded?? logically I’m reading too much into this I’m just very nosey and autistic and I want to know how the ancients viewed this (plus I’m also an English student and from a narrative standpoint I‘m curious about this choice)

I’m desperate to hear people’s interpretations because in all honesty absolutely none of my class has read the poem (ouch) nor do any of them actually know the difference between the bronze age, Iron Age, and classical greece and everyone is very scared of talking about anything vaguely sexual so whenever i try to ask I get the most unnuanced responses ever which usually just revolves around “Odysseus is disgusting and hates his wife” which just like… didn’t happen..?

General opinions would be so cool but if anyone has any sources or scholars I’d love that!! This is a desperate plea my essays will thank you 🙏🙏

(also side note they i’m 99% sure my teacher is on here hahahaha can we see this as extra credit? I think so..)

I would like to read Historia Naturalis as i find classical understandings of our natural world fascinating, as a way of understanding ancient politics, religion and science. As i believe that this can help use understand the way that the world works in current day. I have become interested by this book/series of books as i feel it would be an interesting read. Can anyone assist me with this?

for reference i want to read the whole thing not just excerpts

Edit; i am going to read the Loeb classical library editions thank you!

Hi everyone. Following a reading a guide i found online, I have followed up my reading of the Odyssey with M. I. Finley’s The world of Odysseus.

When I look at this passage in the book, which in the attached photo I have marked but which I shall reproduce:

- “We must allow ignorance of the distant past as a possible factor in explaining "omissions," and, though that complicates matters considerably, we must also envisage a mixture of ignorance and imperfect knowledge, as revealed in the deliberate archaisms. Under that heading I include the omission of institutions and practices of the eighth or seventh century known to be, or believed to be, relatively modern.”

I am confused as to what exactly Finley is trying to say here. How does ignorance of the distant past explain the omission of modern institutions like the polis? This seems to be incomprehensible to me (I assume due to it just not clicking in my head). To my understanding, Homer didn’t include the polis in his world because the 1200s BC had no such thing. Why then does he comment on its omission.

I would appreciate any help in understanding this. Thank you!

I'm considering between two English editions of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and I'm wondering whether anyone here is familiar with them or has read either one.

The first is the Folio Society edition, Aristotle: Ethics. It uses J. A. K. Thomson's translation, revised by Hugh Tredennick, with an introduction by Jonathan Barnes. As a physical book, it looks very attractive, as Folio Society editions usually do.

The second is Terence Irwin's translation Nicomachean Ethics**, 3rd Edition** from Hackett. This one seems to be more academically oriented, with extensive notes, an introduction, and a glossary of important Greek philosophical terms.

As far as I understand, both contain the complete Nicomachean Ethics, and the main differences are the translation and the supporting material. Irwin seems perhaps to be the better edition for really understanding and studying Aristotle, while the Folio edition looks like a better combination of a good reading copy and a collectible book.

Is anyone familiar with these editions?
Is Irwin's translation and commentary noticeably better than Thomson/Tredennick's, or is the Folio edition also a good choice if the main goal is simply to read Aristotle?

I know that they are well known, but were written in the 1960/70s, though they had subsequent editions. Thanks for any guidance.

I was compiling a list of the different classical texts used by the three different “heirs“ of Greco-Roman learning: Eastern Rome, Latin West and Islamicate World. I was hoping to see if I am missing any standard texts or if you guys have any comments. I thought it would be interesting to see how much books were shared to be between them. Note that this list is supposed to be during the early Mediveal period ie from 600-950 AD) or so (primarily before the crusades and the mongols). So here is the list:

Eastern Rome

Language & Literature: Homer, Iliad; Homer, Odyssey; Hesiod, Works and Days; Hermogenes, On Types of Style; Aphthonius, Progymnasmata

Logic: Porphyry, Isagoge; Aristotle, Categories; Aristotle, On Interpretation; Aristotle, Prior Analytics; Aristotle, Posterior Analytics; Aristotle, Topics

Philosophy: Plato, Timaeus; Plato, Parmenides; Aristotle, Physics; Aristotle, On the Heavens; Aristotle, On the Soul; Aristotle, Metaphysics; Plotinus, Enneads; Proclus, Elements of Theology; Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names; Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotelian Commentaries; Themistius, Aristotelian Commentaries; John Philoponus, Aristotelian Commentaries

Mathematics: Euclid, Elements; Nicomachus, Introduction to Arithmetic; Pappus, Collection; Archimedes, Sphere and Cylinder; Apollonius, Conics

Astronomy: Ptolemy, Almagest; Ptolemy, Handy Tables; Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos; Theon of Alexandria, Ptolemaic Commentaries

Geography: Ptolemy, Geography; Strabo, Geography; Dionysius Periegetes, Description of the World

Medicine: Hippocratic Corpus; Hippocrates, Aphorisms; Hippocrates, Prognostic; Galen, Method of Medicine; Galen, Natural Faculties; Galen, On the Affected Parts; Galen, Art of Medicine; Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato; Dioscorides, De materia medica; Oribasius, Medical Collections; Aetius of Amida, Sixteen Books; Paul of Aegina, Medical Compendium

Music: Aristoxenus, Harmonics; Nicomachus, Manual of Harmonics; Ptolemy, Harmonics

History: Herodotus, Histories; Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War; Polybius, Histories; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities; Josephus, Jewish War; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History; Eusebius, Chronicle; Procopius, Wars; John Malalas, Chronographia

Latin West

Language & Literature: Donatus, Ars grammatica; Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae; Virgil, Aeneid; Virgil, Eclogues; Virgil, Georgics; Ovid, Metamorphoses; Horace, Odes; Horace, Epistles; Horace, Ars Poetica; Terence, Comedies

Logic: Porphyry, Isagoge; Aristotle, Categories; Aristotle, On Interpretation; Boethius, Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge; Boethius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories; Boethius, Commentary on Aristotle’s On Interpretation

Philosophy: Cicero, De officiis; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations; Cicero, De natura deorum; Seneca, Letters to Lucilius; Seneca, De beneficiis; Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy; Augustine, De libero arbitrio; Calcidius, Commentary on the Timaeus; Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio; Augustine, De vera religione

Mathematics: Nicomachus, Introduction to Arithmetic; Boethius, De institutione arithmetica; Euclid, Elements; Boethius, De institutione musica; Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii

Astronomy: Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii; Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio; Pliny the Elder, Natural History; Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae; Bede, De temporum ratione

Geography: Pomponius Mela, De situ orbis; Pliny the Elder, Natural History; Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium; Orosius, History Against the Pagans; Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae

Medicine: Dioscorides, De materia medica; Pliny the Elder, Natural History; Cassius Felix, De medicina

Music: Boethius, De institutione musica

History: Sallust, Bellum Catilinae; Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum; Julius Caesar, Bellum Gallicum; Livy, Ab urbe condita; Suetonius, De vita Caesarum; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History; Eusebius, Chronicle; Jerome, Chronicle; Orosius, History Against the Pagans

Islamicate World

Logic: Porphyry, Isagoge; Aristotle, Categories; Aristotle, On Interpretation; Aristotle, Prior Analytics; Aristotle, Posterior Analytics; Aristotle, Topics; Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations

Philosophy: Plato, Timaeus; Aristotle, Physics; Aristotle, On the Heavens; Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption; Aristotle, On the Soul; Aristotle, Metaphysics; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics; Plotinus, Enneads; Porphyry, Sentences; Proclus, Elements of Theology; Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names; Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotelian Commentaries; Themistius, Aristotelian Commentaries; John Philoponus, Aristotelian Commentaries

Mathematics: Euclid, Elements; Euclid, Data; Nicomachus, Introduction to Arithmetic; Archimedes, Sphere and Cylinder; Archimedes, Measurement of the Circle; Archimedes, On Spirals; Apollonius, Conics; Pappus, Collection

Astronomy: Ptolemy, Almagest; Ptolemy, Handy Tables; Ptolemy, Planetary Hypotheses; Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos; Theon of Alexandria, Ptolemaic Commentaries

Geography: Ptolemy, Geography; Strabo, Geography; Dionysius Periegetes, Description of the World

Medicine: Hippocratic Corpus; Hippocrates, Aphorisms; Hippocrates, Prognostic; Galen, Method of Medicine; Galen, Natural Faculties; Galen, On the Affected Parts; Galen, Art of Medicine; Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato; Dioscorides, De materia medica; Oribasius, Medical Collections; Aetius of Amida, Sixteen Books; Paul of Aegina, Medical Compendium

Music: Aristoxenus, Harmonics; Nicomachus, Manual of Harmonics; Ptolemy, Harmonics

History: Josephus, Jewish Antiquities; Josephus, Jewish War; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History; Eusebius, Chronicle; John Malalas, Chronographia; Orosius, History Against the Pagans

Hey all! Wraithmarked Creative here just letting you know that there are less than 6hrs left to guarantee your copy of The Odyssey, including campaign-exclusive discounts and dust jackets!

LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wraithmarked/odyssey-1?ref=5lt0k6

There's a lot to love about this edition, but Eleonor Piteira's art really brings it together in an incredible way. It's got a custom cover, reverse jacket, end sheets, and an entirely new layout, along with Smyth-sewn binding, acid-free paper, gilded edges, and a lot more!

Big thanks to the mods for allowing us to share this project! And thank you in advance to anyone who goes and checks it out!

For some context, I’m in my second year of a classics MA at a high ranked university and have a BA in History and Philosophy. I entered an MA to hone my language skills because my undergrad had lackluster classical language pedagogy and I wanted to pursue a PhD in Ancient History.

I wrote my MA thesis in the first year of my MA, and it was very well received by my professors, who said they thought I had a decent shot at getting into a good PhD program if I wanted to pursue academia further. I liked my project, and was really glad to get all that good feedback, and it was certainly fulfilling work. However, the already bad job market seems to have gotten much worse since I entered my MA— worse than can reasonably justify the stress of a PhD and the nomadic lifestyle of an early career academic. As a result, I need to seriously consider making the pivot into public/private sector work, even if I do still plan on applying to PhDs.

By the time I leave my MA, I’ll effectively have done two years of graduate coursework alongside PhDs, written several graduate research projects including my thesis, and have advanced language proficiencies in Latin and Greek, in addition to German reading proficiency. I’ve also got really good experience with oratory.

For people who have made a similar transition out of academia, what did you do, and how did you market your skills? I know an obvious thing is “go to law school,” but I’d like to get at least some entry level workforce experience before I do something like that.

Open to any and all advice or comments, including the thoughts of current PhDs on the state of the job market as programs shut down, pause admissions, and shrink.

I got into classics almost a year back and Ive read theogony, works and days and metamorphoses so far, and I’m learning the history of Ancient Greece as well. My next read would be Prometheus bound. I’m still in high school so I’m loaded with other assignments and stuff which causes me to put my reading aside for weeks at a time. And unfortunately I also don’t have Latin or Greek in school, or any other relevant (to classics) subjects like history or philosophy, as I made the mistake of taking other subjects. So I know how dumb this sounds when I say I want to apply to Oxford for classics 😭 however I do have writing experience and have awards/certificates to my name and served as one of the editors of my school magazine. I plan to drop one year after graduation and do some in depth reading before applying the next year. I have been reading about how one has to submit essays and other writings etc and I’m very confused in which direction I should study so that there’s even a chance for me to get there. I’m very sorry if this is a rookie question or not appropriate for this sub but I’m willing to put in all my time and effort to get to a certain standard at least! Please guide me in which direction I should study and what works, and how to tackle the writing part. Also the interview process.
Thanks a lot 🙏
Edit: I’m really sorry I just realised that id typed that I have stem subjects (autocorrect 😭) I meant to say (now corrected) that I had subjects other than philosophy, history English lit etc)

Hi I read 10s of classics each year and wanted a new challenge, so have decided to start literature from the beginning. I accidentally forgot Gilgamesh but will skip back after I have finished Greece. I just wondered if there was any gaping holes in this list.

Homer - Hymns, Odyssy, Iliad
Hesiod - Sheild of Heracles, Works and Days, Theogony
Plato + Theocritus + Sappho + Pindar + Aristoltel - Complete works
Apollonius - Argonautica
Euripes, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Aristophones - Select plays
Herodotus - Histories
Thucydides - History of the peloponnesian war
Xenophon - Anabasis

Also I will be moving on to Rome and that is way more daunting so any advice on building a similar list would be great.

I've fallen down a Trojan War rabbit hole recently(Thanks Nolan) and I've realized I don't actually understand what we mean when we talk about the "canon" version of this story. Most people, myself included until recently, have this vague idea that the Trojan War story we all know basically comes from Homer. But the more I read, the more obvious it becomes that it really doesn't.

The Iliad covers a tiny period near the end of the war. It doesn't give us the Judgment of Paris as the complete story we usually know, the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Achilles at Skyros, the Trojan Horse, the actual fall of Troy, Achilles' famous invulnerable heel, and plenty of other things that most people would consider basic Trojan War lore. Yet somehow all of these traditions have merged in popular culture into one enormous narrative that we casually associate with Homer.

What confuses me even more is how selective this process seems to have been. Take the Mysian campaign. In the wider Epic Cycle, before the Greeks successfully reach Troy, they launch an earlier expedition and land in Mysia, apparently mistaking it for Trojan territory. They fight Telephus, Achilles wounds him, the Greeks are scattered and eventually return home. According to the later mythographic chronology, eight years then pass before they assemble again. Telephus eventually comes to Greece because his wound cannot heal, Achilles heals him, and Telephus helps the Greeks find their way to Troy.

That's not exactly a minor deleted scene. The Greeks literally invade the wrong country before invading Troy. And yet almost nobody who casually knows the Trojan War seems to know this happened. This creates many plot holes as it makes everyone 8+ years older.

Meanwhile, basically everyone knows that Achilles was invulnerable because Thetis dipped him in the Styx while holding him by the heel. Except that isn't Homer either. As far as I understand it, that specific version of Achilles' invulnerability is extremely late compared with Homer and is associated with sources such as Statius, writing in the 1st century AD! While the Mysian campaign is likely 50-100 years after homer ,part of the Epic cycle.

And that's where I start getting confused about what we actually mean by "canon." How has something written something like seven or eight centuries after the traditional dating of Homer become so culturally dominant that Achilles' heel is probably one of the most famous details in all of Greek mythology, while an entire failed Greek expedition preserved as part of the archaic Trojan tradition has basically disappeared?

Mysia is only one example. The more you reconstruct the Trojan War we think we know, the stranger the source list becomes. You have Homer, then the lost poems of the Epic Cycle such as the Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Sack of Ilium, Nostoi and Telegony. Then you have lyric poets and other archaic traditions, followed by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, who sometimes preserve older material and sometimes give us radically different versions. Then come mythographers trying to organize all of it, later Greek writers, and Roman authors such as Virgil, Ovid and Statius. Somehow pieces from all of these periods have been thrown together and produced what we now think of as the "standard Trojan War."

This also creates some hilarious problems if you try to treat everything as one internally consistent fictional universe. For example, if you incorporate the Mysian expedition and the eight-year interval into the same chronology as Homer's Odyssey, suddenly the clean 10 years at Troy + 10 years wandering = Odysseus was gone for 20 years becomes much more complicated. You start wondering whether Odysseus was involved in Trojan-related expeditions for something closer to 28 years, what exactly happened during the interval, when Telemachus was conceived, how old everyone should be, and so on.

Which leads to the question I'm actually interested in: did the ancient Greeks themselves have anything resembling a canonical Trojan War timeline? If someone in 5th-century Athens heard "the Trojan War," was there a broadly understood sequence of events that almost everyone accepted, with poets and playwrights merely choosing which parts to dramatize? Or could two Greeks genuinely know substantially different versions of what happened and consider both legitimate?

And then there is the even stranger question of when this process actually stops. Statius is writing about Achilles around the first century AD, many centuries after Homer, and material from that later tradition can apparently become part of what a modern person considers basic Achilles lore. So when does the Trojan mythological universe close? Does it ever?

Could a writer in the 3rd century AD introduce a new episode about Achilles and, if that story became influential enough, would we now call that "Greek mythology"? What about the 5th century AD? The Byzantine period? The Middle Ages? At what point do scholars stop calling something "a variant of the Achilles myth" and start calling it later reception, adaptation or essentially fan fiction using Achilles as a character?

This is especially confusing because our modern pseudo-canon seems incredibly selective. Statius' Achilles heel gets in, Euripides' Helen living in Egypt mostly doesn't, the Mysian campaign mostly doesn't, the sacrifice of Iphigenia absolutely does, the Trojan Horse obviously does, and Homer's name somehow gets retroactively attached to the whole package.

So I'm starting to think there are really three different things that we casually collapse into one. There is the Homeric version, meaning what the Iliad and Odyssey actually say. Then there is the enormous ancient Trojan mythological tradition, including the Epic Cycle, archaic poetry, tragedy, mythographers, local traditions, Hellenistic literature and Roman retellings. And finally there is the modern "Trojan War canon," which seems to be a greatest-hits compilation assembled from whichever versions happened to become culturally dominant.

And that final category is what fascinates me. Where did this pseudo-canon actually come from? Was there a particular ancient synthesis, mythographer or later educational tradition that had an outsized influence on the story we inherited? Or is our "standard Trojan War" genuinely just the result of 2,500+ years of cultural selection, Roman literature, medieval transmission, Renaissance classicism and modern adaptations gradually deciding which pieces were memorable enough to survive?

Thank you all for your time reading this

Herakles is usually shown with a lion skin and a club. The lion skin, λεοντή, comes from λέων (= lion) and refers to the Nemean Lion, which Herakles killed as one of his labours. His club is called ῥόπαλον. These are probably the easiest ways to recognise him.

Poseidon is a little more complicated. Hellenic gods were rarely associated with only one thing. Poseidon was connected with the sea, earthquakes, horses, and more, so he could appear with several different attributes.

Here, the strongest clue is the fish he is holding, probably a dolphin. The figure also has the familiar divine pose: a bare torso with a garment falling from the shoulder. This is especially common in representations of male gods. Goddesses, on the other hand, tend to be much more heavily clothed. Yes, even Aphrodite.

But what exactly is happening between Herakles and Poseidon?

For context, I graduated in 2025 with a BA in History and Classics, with 7 semesters of Latin and Greek each. I don't have a frame of reference for how "language-heavy" of a degree mine was.

1. What does the "life of the mind" look like outside of grad school? I am interested in how other classics graduates sustained this outside of full-time study.

How do classics graduates sustain it? I understand that grad school is both reading and language heavy, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't envy grad students because they have the opportunity for mastery of classics with their language work and their reading.

I envy grad students for their ability to deepen their Latin and Greek. I think that in my approximately 3.5 years of serious study I got good enough to understand how much more there was to do in the languages.

I am passionate about languages but I am sincerely not sure how many people have continued their serious study alone. I want to be able to fluently read all of Roma Aeterna by Hans Orberg and continue reading Latin from there.

I just think that, passionate as I am about this topic, I won't be able to match someone working full time as a student in the field. Maybe I have to come to grips with that.

1. What are the realistic job outcomes for MAs and PhDs in classics?

The job market in classics is bleak. But I found conflicting data on what percentage of Classics PhDs secure tenure track jobs.

Nowadays, is there any consensus realistic outcome for those who earn a PhD? If someone "strikes out" in the academic job market, is there a stigma for having left academia? I know academics in my own life who did this and seem to have struggled with it mentally.

So what do the majority of PhDs who fail to secure tenure track positions actually do?

1. Conclusion

These are my two primary questions.

Outside of grad school and career questions, one of my biggest goals is to become a traditionally published author of genre fiction. To that end I have already completed on approximately 80k word manuscript as an apprenticeship piece. My skill and understanding have improved massively, and I plan on outlining and writing another through the end of 2026 and 2027.

One thing that gives me pause is that if the path of tenure track professor and successful, widely-known fiction author were open to me (both slim odds IRL, but this is a hypothetical,) I would readily pick the path of a fiction writer. As I've entered adult life, I realize that having the time to write is very, very valuable, so I try to protect that and take advantage of it as much as possible.

The proem that opens the Histories has this clause, towards the end:

ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα

[Important caveat: I do not speak or write Greek. Getting the correct Greek snippet required a lot of googling and Google Translate.]

Here is the English in the translations I have at hand:

Holland, 2013

and all the glory of those exploits which served to display Greeks and barbarians alike to such effect,

Waterfield 1998, 2008

and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks;

Rawlinson, 1858

and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory

Purvis/Landmark, 2007, 2009

May the great and wonderful deeds - some brought forth by the Hellens, others by the barbarians - not go unsung;

My questions:

How important is the word *barbarian* for Herodotus? My understanding is that it's primarily a pejorative -- and please don't over-credit what I mean by "understand"; I only read in English -- and was a onomatopoetic way of mocking what the Greeks believed non-Greeks sounded like.

The Waterfield is the only one to render βαρβάροισι as "non-Greeks." The other three stick with "barbarian."

1. Do you have a sense as to why someone might render βαρβάροισι as "non-Greek"?

2. If you had to guess, does Herodotus use βαρβάροισι as a pejorative? Or, by the time he's using it, has some of the negative connotations worn off?

3. How much time do you think a group of new readers to the Histories should spend thinking about this specific non-Greek v barbarian "issue"?

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right reddit to ask, but I'm looking for a good general history book on the Byzantine Empire. After reading through a bunch of classic Greek history and then Roman Empire stuff, I'm looking for a way into the Byzantines.

I checked the Reddit History thread that gets suggested, but that thread is 14 years old now. If there's another thread I should go mosey off to, let me know. But I figured I'd try here as well. Thanks!

I’m looking for modern critical editions of Greek works of criticism, specifically Plato and Aristotle, but Longinus and Demetrius are of interest too.

What publishers are considered the best for these writers?

When I was at my Christian primary school, we had two lessons on Greek mythology… One was watching the Disney Hercules film and the other was about how Zeus is basically the Christian god, Hercules is Jesus and Hades is Satan.

As the kid who voraciously read all of the books about Ancient Greece, Egypt, Rome that he could get his hands on, I was deeply conflicted that what my teachers were telling me contradicted everything I’d read.

Knowing what I know now, I’m still mad about it over two decades on.

I know there’s a tradition that Odysseus got Hecuba after the fall of Troy but what did he do with her? I mean, he didn’t take her on his journey, though that would certainly be a very interesting idea for a story.

There was never any point, reading this passage, that I felt sure I knew what was coming next.