Browsing The Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) by Title
Now showing items 131-150 of 284
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The Last Words of Socrates at the Place Where He Died
(2015-03-27)In H24H 24§45, I quote and analyze the passage in Plato’s Phaedo 117a–118a where Socrates dies. His last words, as transmitted by Plato, are directed at all those who have followed Socrates—and who have had the unforgettable ... -
Learning to sing, and a dead master of song
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-03-14) -
Lelantine War, Eretria and Chalkis, and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-06-01)This post is about a poetic competition or Certamen ‘Contest’ that took place, story has it, between Homer and Hesiod. In all attested versions of the story, Hesiod won and Homer lost. In some versions, as we will see, the ... -
The Library as a garden of the Muses
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2020-06-05)In the Candide of Voltaire, first published in 1759, the last words famously read: mais il faut cultiver notre jardin ‘but we must cultivate our garden’. Following such a mandate, I return here to cultivate a garden of my ... -
"Life of Homer" myths as evidence for the reception of Homer
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2015-12-18)This inquiry centers on the surviving texts of ‘Life of Homer’ narrative traditions, to which I refer simply as Lives of Homer. These Lives, I argue, can be read as sources of historical information about the reception of ... -
Longinus and a theological view of Zeus as god of the sky
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2016-05-05) -
Looking for references to Sappho’s songs in Athenian vase paintings: preliminary comments
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2020-10-30)In this essay, I am not looking for references to the text of Sappho’s songs in Athenian vase paintings. Instead, I look merely for traces of pictorial references to the contents of these songs, especially as performed in ... -
Looking through rose-colored glasses while sailing on a sacred journey
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2015-09-03)After Theseus dives into the depths of the sea, the sea goddess Amphitrite welcomes him, enveloping the hero in a purple robe (line 112) and crowning his head of hair with a garland made of roses (line 116: ῥόδοις)—a ... -
Mages and Ionians
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2017-06-25) -
Martin Scorsese, master of fusing the visual art of film with other media: a brief example
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-09-15) -
Mērionēs Rides Again: An Alternative Model for a Heroic Charioteer
(2015-05-01)The date for my putting together a posting for this week, 2015.04.30, coincides with the date of a special day set aside for celebrating the life and accomplishments of Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, whose premature death on ... -
Minoan and Mycenaean fig trees: some retrospective and prospective comments
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2019-12-27)The photograph I have chosen to illustrate my all-too-brief comments for this posting shows a fig tree. My first impression when I look at any adult fig tree in general is that its branches seem to crisscross each other, ... -
A Minoan-Mycenaean scribal legacy for converting rough copies into fair copies
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2020-01-03)In an earlier work, Nagy 2011 (in the Bibliography), where I studied traces of dialectal variation in the Greek language as spoken in the Mycenaean era and as written by way of the so-called Linear B script, I argued that ... -
Minoan-Mycenaean Signatures Observed by Pausanias at a Sacred Space Dominated by Athena
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2020-05-15)In the previous posting, Classical Inquiries 2020.05.08, I noted the obvious fact that the acropolis of Athens was not at all the only such place that was sacred to the goddess Athena, and that the traveler Pausanias, who ... -
More about Minoan-Mycenaean signatures observed by Pausanias at sacred spaces dominated by Athena
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2020-05-23)In the previous posting, Classical Inquiries 2020.05.15, I highlighted details that I described as signatures of a Minoan-Mycenaean phase in the evolution of the figure known in classical and post-classical times as Athena. ... -
More on the love story of Phaedra and Hippolytus: comparing the references in Pausanias and Euripides
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2018-08-03) -
"The mother, so sad it is, of the very best": The lament of Thetis in Iliad 18
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2015-10-29) -
Musings about a scene pictured by the Achilles Painter
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2019-02-14)On the cover of an earlier posting of mine for Classical Inquiries, Nagy 2019.01.31, we see a facsimile of a picture painted on an Attic white-ground lekythos, dated somewhere around 440–430 BCE, by an artist who is known ... -
A Mycenaean background for Hēraklēs as a model for athletes
(Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies, 2019-07-19)As I argued in the previous posting, Classical Inquiries 2019.07.12, the name of Olympia as a setting for the myth about the founding of the Olympics by Hēraklēs is linked with the name of Mount Olympus as the setting for ...