Category: Uncategorized
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One For the Girls: The Daughters of Heracles
Daughters are so easy to forget — Catherine of Aragon, Six: The Musical While hunting about for a good topic for this week’s entry, I ended up falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about the Heracleidae, the children of the Greek hero Heracles (Roman: Hercules). While Heracles is generally given four official wives (Megara, Omphale, Deianira, and…
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Rigid Flexibility: Change & Continuity in Ancient Egyptian Art
“Slide your feet up the street, bend your back/ Shift your arm then you pull it back/ Life is hard you know (oh way oh)/ So strike a pose on a Cadillac” – The Bangles (again) I thought this week we’d look at an evergreen topic—Egyptian art. In part because I like doing art entries…
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Rome’s Mystery Goddess: Bona Dea and Her Cult
“[C]um fuget a templis oculos Bona Diva virorum, praeterquam siquos illa venire iubet.” (“Bona Dea bars the eyes of men from her temple, except such as she bids come there herself.”) – Ovid, Ars Amatoria This week I thought we’d jump back into some ancient festivals, and coming up next week on December 3rd is the…
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Jacobean Gossip Girl: Mary Wroth’s Urania
“[2/5 stars] I died and seriously started contemplating why I’m in the English program.” – Goodreads reviewer “I don’t think I want you to pass that one along to me.” – my mom One day I might use this space to talk about popular Renaissance literature, but today is apparently not that day. But in…
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Rumor, Roses, and Revenants: Ten Unusual and Obscure Greek Deities
“Fabulous party. You know, I haven’t seen this much love in a room since Narcissus discovered himself.” – Hermes, Hercules All of you probably thought I had forgotten about the Greeks when I did my entries on lesser-known Egyptian and Roman gods and goddesses, but never you fret, dear readers. You might think you know all…
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Expedition Unknown: The Lost Land of Punt
“They arrived safely at the desert-country of Coptos: they moored in peace, carrying the goods they had brought. They [the goods] were loaded, in travelling overland, upon asses and upon men, being reloaded into vessels at the harbour of Coptos. They [the goods and the Puntites] were sent forward downstream, arriving in festivity, bringing tribute…
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The Bones Are Their Dollars: Ghosts in the Ancient World
“Hail thou One, who shinest from the moon. Grant that this one may come forth among thy multitudes who are at the portal. Let [me] be with the Light-god. Let the Duat be open to [me].” – The Book of Coming Forth by Day “We’ve been going about this all wrong. This Mr. Stay Puft’s okay!…
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Lost, Cursed, and Found: The Ring of Silvianus and Latin-Celtic Britain
Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul. – The curse of the One Ring, The Lord of the Rings A lot of times when I’m writing about things here, I’m delving into stuff that has come up in my book research, or is a topic I’ve always been interested in. But this…
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“That Best of Men”: Virgil, Horace, and a Friendship in Verse
As usual, I spent most of the past couple of days being completely stymied as to what to talk about this week, but then I remembered that today (October 15th) is Virgil’s birthday (he’s turning 2,091). So in his honor, I thought we’d talk a little about ancient Rome’s most famous poet. But since Virgil…
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History’s Heirs: The Royal House of Mauretania
Great neighbouring regions of the world, which divides the Nile,/ Swollen from black Ethiopia, divides,/ You have created common kings for both through marriage, making one race of Egyptians and Libyans./ Let the children of Kings in turn hold from their fathers a strong rule over both lands. – epigram on the occasion of the marriage…
Sarah Holz 