We are excited to share the themes for the upcoming Hour 25 Book Club selections. Look out for further announcements with details of the texts, and the related forum threads, nearer the time! March: Herodotus April: Aesop May: Celtic mythology There will also be CHS Open House discussions to tie in with these themes. Read more
This gallery will take you to Delphi in Greece. Plutarch, who was a priest of Apollo in Delphi for several years, wrote a book about the oracles. Here are two passages from his book. Plutarch describes "the shrine of Earth" τὸ τῆς Γῆς ἱερὸν. "Accordingly we went round and seated ourselves upon the southern steps of the temple, looking towards the shrine of Earth and the stream of water" Read more
I was reading Gregory Nagy's translation of the Sappho Brothers poem (“But you are always saying, in a chattering way, that Kharaxos will come in a ship full of goods”), and it made me think of Works and Days, in which Hesiod seems to have a similar concern about his brother Perses (“my father and yours, you inept Perses, used to sail around in ships, lacking a genuine livelihood.”) I… Read more
Herodotus is fascinating, and I have dreamed of Mesopotamia many times while reading his chapters about it. This gallery is going to take you through the rooms dedicated to Mesopotamia in the Louvre. Herodotus writes about Babylon, and Hit, a city near the Euphrates River in his Histories. Read more
Some words, such as 'this' and 'that', point toward things in space and time and can function either as pronouns or adjectives. These pointing words are sometimes called demonstratives and they are some of the most common words you will find when you look at ancient Greek texts. Even though they occur frequently, these words can be loaded with meaning, so learning a bit about how they work can be very rewarding. Read more
