This month we continue our "long summer read" of The Fall of Troy, or Posthomerica, by Quintus Smyrnaeus. For July, we will read Books 5–9, which feature the contest for the arms of Achilles, Eurypylos the son of Telephos, Neoptolemos, and the death of Eurypylos. Discussion will start and continue in the forum, and we will meet via Zoom on Tuesday, July 28, at 11 a.m. EDT. Read more
"I'll find some isolated place and then inter my sword, of all my weapons the one I most despise. I'll dig the earth where no one else will see. Then let Night and Hades keep it there below the ground." The Book Club selection for this month is the Ajax of Sophocles. The discussion will start in the forum, and we will meet via Google+ Hangout at 11 a.m. EDT… Read more
Here is a foretaste of what is to come during Spring 2018 at the Book Club, in which we read selections from secondary sources and from ancient Greek and Roman primary texts. Look out for further announcements in April, May, and June with details of the selections, links to free online versions, and the hangout dates. We are all looking forward to future conversations. Read more
Achilles and Ajax playing a game, Exekias, circa 530 BC, [Public domain, CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia CommonsMany community members have been reading Gregory Nagy’s “A Roll of the Dice for Ajax” on Classical Inquiries, which explores how “Ajax dooms himself to… Read more
We had seen in ‘Oinops and the Wide Open Sea’ that most of the examples of oinops occurred with pontos, and many of them had to do with that dangerous stretch of water that had to be crossed. However, there were two occurrences of oinops with the word βοῦς [bous], meaning ‘ox’. How could an ox be ‘wine-dark’? But as we have seen, the word can mean ‘wine-faced’. Read more
