A wedding ceremony is a celebratory marker for the bride and groom as well as for their two families. Further, this joyful event, rich with rituals, extends to the community that the bride and groom are part of. In ancient Greece, weddings were celebrated with many customs and rituals attached. The roles were assigned and expected to be performed according to traditions. In this post, let us journey through wedding… Read more
"Achilles...went a space away from the pyre, and cut off the yellow flowing lock which he had let grow for the river Sperkheios. ...and said, "... now, therefore, that I shall see my home no more, I give this lock as a keepsake to the hero Patroklos." Who offers their hair and under what circumstances? What is the significance of the river gods? Do customs vary in different regions? How does… Read more
"My describing the Lives of Homer as aetiologies converges with the general direction of my argumentation, which is, to show that the narratives of these Lives are myths, not historical facts, about Homer. To say that we are dealing with myths, however, is not at all to say that there is no history to be learned from the Lives. Even though the various Homers of the various Lives are evidently… Read more
“Then they would have hacked at one another in close combat with their swords, had not heralds, messengers of gods and men, come forward, one from the Trojans and the other from the bronze-armored Achaeans—Talthybios and Idaios both of them honorable men; these parted them with their staves…” I have become interested in the role of the herald. Does this carry a special status and have particular responsibilities? Is a… Read more
~ A guest post by Brian Prescott-Decie ~ In the course of searching for simple texts for a student of Latin who has been making rather heavy weather of Agricola, and needed some light relief, I recently came across the History of Apollonius, King of Tyre, a Latin… Read more
