We were pleased to welcome again Jeffrey Rusten of Cornell University, Department of Classics. for a CHS Online Open House: Thucydides on Early Greece and the Trojan War. The event was streamed live on Thursday, January 11, at 11 a.m. EST, and was recorded. There is a handout of focus passages associated with this discussion. Read more
A guest post by Bill Moulton Ah, ah! Oh, oh, the agony! 1215 Once more the dreadful ordeal [ponos] of true prophecy whirls and distracts me with its ill-boding onset. Do you see them there—sitting before the house—young creatures like phantoms of dreams? Children, they seem, slaughtered by their own… Read more
Finding Helen in texts is frustrating. Many contradictory facts may be encountered. Who was Helen? What about her life, her power, her birth, her beauty? Was she hated or was she loved? If we were to write a short biography, it might read like this: Helen was the daughter of Leda and Tyndareus/Zeus, and Clytemnestra, Castor and Polydeuces' sister. Penelope was her cousin. She married Menelaos king of Sparta, was… Read more
Virgil, who lived during the same era as Augustus, wrote the Aeneid. This epic poem tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas and his adventures to found a new city in Italy and to start a new generation for the beginning of Rome. Augustus is cited several times in the Aeneid. This Gallery will show pictures of art inspired from the Aeneid and from the Roman Republic, and the… Read more
Did Odysseus return to Troy after his initial departure? And if so, why? The Iliad, which ends before the fall of Troy, gives us no information about the sack of the city or the departure of the Greeks. But there are some scanty details offered in the Odyssey and in the summaries of the poems of the Epic Cycle. Read more
