Category: Uncategorized
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Poetry, Treason, and Payback: Roman Censorship and Ovid’s Exile
“I am the only one whose own Muse has been his ruin.” — Ovid, Tristia I swear one day this blog will get back to the Egyptians or the Greeks (or, gosh, maybe something novel). But since this is Banned Book Week in the US, it seems like a good time to talk about something ancient that…
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The Iceman Cometh: The Birth of Gaius Octavius and Roman Myth-Making
In the interest of continuing to mix things up, I had meant to pivot back away from Rome this week, though those of you who managed get through last week’s nonsense will be incredulous that I was still finding unused Teutoburg memes among my photo files days after posting. But as I was meditating on what to…
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Missteps and Mayhem: The Battle of Teutoburg Forest and the End of Early Roman Imperial Expansion
“There is a sweeping curve of glen, made for ambushes/ and devices of arms. Dark thick foliage hems it in on either hand,/ and into it a bare footpath leads by a narrow gorge and difficult entrance./ Right above it on the watch-towers of the hill-top lies an unexpected level, hidden away in shelter, whether…
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The Flying Was Inside Him All Along!: Gods of Egypt and the Egyptian Pantheon on Film
“This makes Thor AND Thor: The Dark World look like Citizen Kane.” — me, at the hour and a half mark “Rufus Sewell is right, that necklace does look super cheap.” — also me Okay, so I’m writing this up on Labor Day in the US, so I’m admittedly feeling a little lazy vis á vis a serious scholarly…
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More Gods Behaving Badly: Ancient Mythology & Cultural Narrative (Part 2)
Last week, we talked about myths as half-remembered histories and cultural origin stories through the lens of Egyptian myth. This week we’re going to shift more thoroughly to the Greeks and dissect Plato’s idea that myths-as-stories that are based on the gods having passions and struggles — what he calls false myths — and try…
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Gods Behaving Badly: Ancient Mythology & Cultural Narrative (Part 1)
Because I spend too much time (i.e., any time) lurking on classical-centric social media, and in this case, especially Twitter, I’ve been thinking a lot about mythology, third-wave feminism, and contemporary scholarship. Mostly, I love the direction of modern academia in the classical world and history in general, where it’s moving towards being more inclusive…
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Barefoot in Rome: The Political Iconography of the Prima Porta Augustus
I’ve been talking a lot about Egypt and Greece for the last month or so, I thought I’d circle back to Rome and talk about some more political art during the early imperial era. Specifically, we’re going to take a deeper look at the the Augustus of Prima Porta, the best-known of Octavius’ portraits and arguably…
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No Business Like Show Business: The Greeks and the Invention of Western Theatre
ὑπολεπτολόγος, γνωμιδιώτης, εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζων (“[You have become] a quibbler of words, a maker of maxims, a Euripidaristophaniser”) — Cratinus on Aristophanes As case numbers for the delta variant in the US continue to rise, and what would have been the summer concert season draws ignobly to a close, I’ve been feeling nostalgic for live theater, one…
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Inventing (Everything But) the Wheel: Egyptian Innovations & Notable Firsts
When people think of things the ancient Egyptians did first, they’re usually thinking of papyrus, or cat-based theology. But I thought this week, we’d look at a few lesser-known things the Egyptians came up, and perhaps get a better sense of the wide scope of human endeavor we can trace back to the Nile Valley.…
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Glory of the Gods: A Brief History of the Ancient Olympic Games
You must be swift as the coursing river/ With all the force of a great typhoon/ With all the strength of a raging fire/ Mysterious as the dark side of the moon — “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”, Mulan This week, I thought we’d tackle something topical and talk about the original Olympic Games,…
Sarah Holz 