To tie in with this month's Book Club readings which include the Epinician Odes of Bacchylides, this Gallery features some ancient Greek artworks featuring the kinds of athletic contests celebrated in the poems. These contests seem to have been a favorite subject in the visual as well as the verbal arts from the earliest periods. Read more
I used to be an apobatēs of sorts. It was a horseless chariot I rode in, but it had plenty of horsepower. Thirty years ago I would ride the public buses that ploughed the streets of Karachi to get to and from school, carrying on my shoulders a heavy bag laden with books filled with solid knowledge. These ‘chariot’ buses of Karachi were lovingly adorned by their owners with decoration,… Read more
This gallery displays different means of transportation used by the Ancient Greeks: chariots, horses, ships. Chariot were also associated with funerals. In the following passage, Achilles is honoring Patroklos: 'But Achilles would not let the Myrmidons go, and spoke to his brave comrades saying, “Myrmidons, famed horsemen and my own trusted friends, not yet, I say, let us unyoke, but with horse and chariot draw near to the body and… Read more
Standing over there is a stump of deadwood, a good reach above ground level. |328 It had been either an oak or a pine. And it hasn’t rotted away from the rains. |329 There are two white rocks propped against either side of it. |330 There it is, standing at a point where two roadways meet, and it has a smooth track on both sides of it for driving a… Read more
