Category: Greek history
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The Argonautica
The Argo, by Constantine Volanakis, c. 1800 One of the oldest sources for the story of Jason and the Argonauts is the Argonautica, an epic poem in the same vein as Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey, written by Apollonius of Rhodes. Apollonius was an inspiration to the Latin poets Virgil and Flaccus when they wrote their own epic poems, and he was both innovative and…
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Hesiod & The Five Ages of Mankind
Marble bust of Hesiod The Five Ages of Man is a creation story written by a Greek shepherd named Hesiod, who lived somewhere between 776 BC and 650 BC, who along with Homer was one of the epic writers of Greek poetry. It is likely that Hesiod ‘borrowed’ some of his poem from an unidentified…
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A poem by Sappho
A Fayum mummy portrait, a painted portrait on wooden board attached to the body of an usually upper class person before burial in Roman Egypt. Immortal Aphrodite, on your intricately brocaded throne, child of Zeus, weaver of wiles, this I pray: Dear Lady, don’t crush my heart with pains and sorrows. But come here, if ever before, when you heard…
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Raunchy, Rowdy, and Rotten: Provocative Poetry in Ancient Rome
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Please be warned, the content of this post is (very) adult in nature. ”In around A.D. 64, Marcus Valerius Martialis (A.D. 31-41 to 103), better known as Martial, arrived in Rome aged 26 from his Spanish hometown of Bilbilis, famous then for its iron mines and for the manufacture of steel, and a center of Roman…
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Pericles’s Funeral Oration: The Influential Speech of 431 BC
Pericles’s Funeral Oration by Philipp Foltz (1852) In 431 BCE the Athenian statesman Pericles (495 – 429 BC) delivered one of the most influential speeches of all time, his Epitaphios or Funeral Oration. The occasion was at the funeral of the first Athenian soldiers to lose their lives in the Peloponnesian War. The speech was recorded by…
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Erisychthon
Adam Cvijanovic (American citizen, born 1959) Erysichthon, oil on Masonite Praise for Tales from Ovid: ‘A breathtaking book…To compare his versions with the Latin is to be awestruck again and again by the range and ingenuity of his poetic intelligence…He rescues the old gods and goddesses from the classical dictionaries and gives them back their…
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Prometheus – The Titan who created Mankind
Prometheus, possibly meaning “forethought” is a god of fire and his adaptability in the face of brutality has become legendary. He is known across the world for defying the Zeus by stealing fire from him and giving it to humanity in the form of technology and civilization. His story inspired the famous Greek play Prometheus Bound. In the time before…
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Ancient Greek Miracle Plant Rediscovered
This post was written by Giovanni Prete writing for the Greek Reporter GreekReporter.com – Ancient Greek Miracle Plant Used in Ancient Greece Rediscovered After 2,000 Years – December 2024 The “miracle” plant Silphium consumed by Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, which was thought to have become extinct two thousand years ago, has recently been rediscovered…
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Tiresias
Praise for Tales from Ovid: ‘A breathtaking book…To compare his versions with the Latin is to be awestruck again and again by the range and ingenuity of his poetic intelligence…He rescues the old gods and goddesses from the classical dictionaries and gives them back their terror. There should be a copy of his book in…
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Hercules and Dejanira.
Praise for Tales from Ovid: ‘A breathtaking book…To compare his versions with the Latin is to be awestruck again and again by the range and ingenuity of his poetic intelligence…He rescues the old gods and goddesses from the classical dictionaries and gives them back their terror. There should be a copy of his book in…
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