Saturday, February 27, 2021

Open Access Monograph Series: Corinth

[First posted in AWOL 11 June 2014, updated 27  February 2021]

Corinth

 

Many volumes within the Corinth ("Red Book"), Athenian Agora ("Blue Book"), and Hesperia Supplement series are out of print, and there are no plans to reprint the volumes at least for the next few years. In 2014, the Publications Committee of the ASCSA's Managing Committee voted unanimously to allow PDFs of these out-of-print volumes to be posted to the ASCSA's website as Open Access. You may freely read, download, and share these files under the BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license (non-commercial use; you must cite the ASCSA as the source; you may not make derivatives). The scans were created by JSTOR, and through the ASCSA's Content Sharing Agreement with JSTOR, we can make these PDFs available to individuals at no charge.

I.6: The Springs: Peirene, Sacred Spring, Glauke, by Bert Hodge Hill (1964) (text and plates)

III.1: Acrocorinth: Excavations in 1926, by Carl W. Blegen, Richard Stillwell, Oscar Broneer, and Alfred Raymond Bellinger (1930)

III.2: The Defenses of Acrocorinth and the Lower Town, by Rhys Carpenter and Antoine Bon (1936)

IV.1: Decorated Architectural Terracottas, by Ida Thallon-Hill and Lida Shaw King (1929)

V. The Roman Villa, by T. L. Shear (1930)

VI: Coins, 1896-1929, by Katherine M. Edwards (1933)

VII.1: The Geometric and Orientalizing Pottery, by Saul S. Weinberg (1943)

VII.2: Archaic Corinthian Pottery and the Anaploga Well, by D. A. Amyx and Patricia Lawrence (1975)

VII.3: Corinthian Hellenistic Pottery, by G. Roger Edwards (1975)

VIII.1: Greek Inscriptions, 1896-1927, by Benjamin Dean Meritt (1931)

VIII.2: Latin Inscriptions, 1896-1926, by Allen Brown West (1931)

VIII.3: The Inscriptions, 1926-1950, by John Harvey Kent (1966)

X: The Odeum, by Oscar Broneer (1932)

XI: The Byzantine Pottery, by Charles H. Morgan II (1942)

XII: The Minor Objects, by Gladys R. Davidson (1952)

XIII: The North Cemetery, by Carl W. Blegen, Hazel Palmer, and Rodney S. Young (1964)

XIV: The Asklepion and Lerna, by Carl Roebuck (1951)

XV.1: The Potters' Quarter, by Agnes N. Stillwell (1948)

XV.2: The Potters' Quarter: The Terracottas, by Agnes N. Stillwell and J. L. Benson (1984)

XVI: Mediaeval Architecture in the Central Area of Corinth, by Robert L. Scranton (1957)

Open Access Monograph Series: Hesperia Supplements

 [First posted in AWOL 11 June 2014, updated 27 February 2021]

Hesperia Supplements


Many volumes within the Corinth ("Red Book"), Athenian Agora ("Blue Book"), and Hesperia Supplement series are out of print, and there are no plans to reprint the volumes at least for the next few years. In 2014, the Publications Committee of the ASCSA's Managing Committee voted unanimously to allow PDFs of these out-of-print volumes to be posted to the ASCSA's website as Open Access. You may freely read, download, and share these files under the BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license (non-commercial use; you must cite the ASCSA as the source; you may not make derivatives). The scans were created by JSTOR, and through the ASCSA's Content Sharing Agreement with JSTOR, we can make these PDFs available to individuals at no charge.

1: Prytaneis: A Study of the Inscriptions Honoring the Athenian Councillors, by Sterling Dow (1937)

2: Late Geometric Graces and a Seventh-Century Well in the Agora, by Rodney S. Young (1939)

3: The Setting of the Periclean Parthenon, by Gorham P. Stevens (1940)

4: The Tholos of Athens and its Predecessors, by Homer A. Thompson (1940)

5: Observations on the Hephaisteion, by William B. Dinsmoor (1941)

6: The Sacred Gerusia, by James H. Oliver (1941)

7: Small Objects from the Pnyx I, by Gladys R. Davidson and Dorothy B. Thompson (1943)

8: Commemorative Studies in Honor of Theodore Leslie Shear (1949)

9: Horoi: Studies in Mortgage, Real Security, and Land Tenure in Ancient Athens, by John V. A. Fine (1951)

10: Small Objects from the Pnyx II, by Lucy Talcott, Barbara Philippaki, G. Roger Edwards, and Virginia R. Grace (1956)

11: Fortified Military Camps in Attica, by James R. McCredie (1966)

12: The Athenian Constitution after Sulla, by Daniel J. Geagan (1967)

15: The Lettering of an Athenian Mason, by Stephen V. Tracy (1975)

18: Lasithi: A History of Settlement on a Highland Plain in Crete, by Lance V. Watrous (1982)

Open Access Monograph Series: Athenian Agora

[First posted in AWOL 11 June 2014, updated 27 February 2021]

Athenian Agora
Many volumes within the Corinth ("Red Book"), Athenian Agora ("Blue Book"), and Hesperia Supplement series are out of print, and there are no plans to reprint the volumes at least for the next few years. In 2014, the Publications Committee of the ASCSA's Managing Committee voted unanimously to allow PDFs of these out-of-print volumes to be posted to the ASCSA's website as Open Access. You may freely read, download, and share these files under the BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license (non-commercial use; you must cite the ASCSA as the source; you may not make derivatives). The scans were created by JSTOR, and through the ASCSA's Content Sharing Agreement with JSTOR, we can make these PDFs available to individuals at no charge.

I: Portrait Sculpture, by Evelyn B. Harrison (1953)

II: Coins: From the Roman through the Venetian Period, by Margaret Thompson (1954)

III: Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia, by R. E. Wycherley (1957)

IV: Greek Lamps and Their Survivals, by Richard Hubbard Howland (1958)

V: Pottery of the Roman Period: Chronology, by Henry S. Robinson (1959)

VI: Terracottas and Plastic Lamps of the Roman Period, by Clairève Grandjouan (1961)

VII: Lamps of the Roman Period: First to Seventh Century after Christ, by Judith Perlzweig (1961)

VIII: Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery: Mid-8th to Late 7th Century B.C., by Eva T. H. Brann (1962)

IX: The Islamic Coins, by George C. Miles (1962)

X: Weights, Measures, and Tokens, by Mabel Lang and Margaret Crosby (1964)

XI: Archaic and Archaistic Sculpture, by Evelyn B. Harrison (1965)

XIII: The Neolithic and Bronze Ages, by Sara Anderson (1971)

XIV: The Agora of Athens: The History, Shape, and Uses of an Ancient City Center, by Homer A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley (1972)

XV: Inscriptions: The Athenian Councillors, by Benjamin D. Meritt and John S. Traill (1974)

XVI: Inscriptions: The Decrees, by A. Geoffrey Woodhead (1997)

XVII: Inscriptions: The Funerary Monuments, by Donald W. Bradeen (1974)

XIX: Inscriptions: Horoi, Poletai Records, and Leases of Public Lands, by Gerald V. Lalonde, Merle K. Langdon, and Michael B. Walbank (1991)

XX: The Church of the Holy Apostles, by Alison Frantz (1971)

XXI: Graffiti and Dipinti, by Mabel Lang (1976)

XXIV: Late Antiquity: A.D. 267–700, by Alison Frantz (1988)

XXVI: The Greek Coins, by John H. Kroll, with Alan S. Walker (1993)

XXVIII: The Lawcourts at Athens: Sites, Buildings, Equipment, Procedure, and Testimonia, by Alan L. Boegehold et al. (1995)

Open Access Journal: Cuneiform Digital Library Preprints (CDLP)

[First posted in AWOL 25 November 2017, updated 27 February 2021]

Cuneiform Digital Library Preprints (CDLP)
Home
CDLI is pleased to present here the results of research in progress submitted, for inclusion in a preprint series hosted by the project, by experts in fields associated with Assyriology and Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology. We anticipate that these papers in their final form will eventually be available in journals (in some cases our own) or in edited volumes; or will, by authors' preference, remain unpublished in the formal sense, so that this may be a final venue for work that might otherwise remain unnoticed in the field. Authors who are interested in submitting contributions to the CDLP should be generally aware of the editorial policies of the journals CDLJ & CDLB; while submissions in English are preferred, CDLP does, however, accept preprints in the other major languages of academic communication. Significant and nearly complete, or dormant research papers are particularly welcome, regardless of their length and scope. Authors should make their submissions in both originating text-processor/layout file, and in the PDF format in which it will be made available here. International A4 or US letter format are both allowed, portrait or landscape. In most cases, if the submission is acceptable for distribution, we will merely add a lead page of the form visible in the files listed below. We invite interested authors to make use of this series to communicate their research to a broader community in advance or in stead of undertaking the rigors of a peer-reviewed standard publication, and we hope the feedback that results from a paper’s dissemination through CDLP contributes to its ultimate impact.
 
A paper can be updated with a simple new submission by the author(s); to retain a sense of the history of research, we will list new versions one after the other with new “Date posted;” we limit such updates to one (1) per calendar year following the initial posting. We will not retire CDLP entries that move on to formal publications; rather, we request that authors send us notice and citation of the publication, that will be entered to our list for easy reference.
 
The CDLP is under the editorial supervision of Bertrand Lafont (CNRS, Nanterre), to whom queries and submissions should be directed.

No.  
Author
Title
Date posted
Download file
20.0 Karlsson, Mattias The Depictions of the “Other” on the Balawat Gates 2021/01/08 PDF
19.0 Karlsson, Mattias Assyrian Royal Titulary in Babylonia 2020/08/14 PDF
18.0 Leroy, Pauline Elamite bricks from the Museum of Hotel Sandelin (France, Saint-Omer) 2020/04/20 PDF
17.0 Peterson, Jeremiah The Literary Sumerian of Old Babylonian Ur: UET 6/1-3 in Transliteration and Translation with Select Commentary Part 3/3 2019/04/16 PDF
16.0 Peterson, Jeremiah The Literary Sumerian of Old Babylonian Ur: UET 6/1-3 in Transliteration and Translation with Select Commentary Part 2/3 2019/04/16 PDF
15.0 Peterson, Jeremiah The Literary Sumerian of Old Babylonian Ur: UET 6/1-3 in Transliteration and Translation with Select Commentary Part 1/3 2019/04/16 PDF
14.0 Dahl, Jacob L.;
Hameeuw, Hendrik;
Wagensonner, Klaus
Looking both forward and back: imaging cuneiform 2019/03/19 PDF
13.1 Huber, Peter J. Early Linguists 2019/11/15 PDF
13.0 Huber, Peter J. Early Linguists 2018/11/07 PDF
12.0 Gentili, Paolo Sargonic Names in the Diyala Region and Beyond 2018/02/06 PDF
11.0 Brunke, Hagan Zur Frage von Ausdruck und Normgültigkeit mathematischer Regeln in Mesopotamien 2017/12/18 PDF
10.0 Brunke, Hagan A New Geometric School Text from Cornell 2017/12/18 PDF
9.0 Cripps, Eric L. The Structure of Prices in the neo-Sumerian Economy (III); Cults and Prices at the Collapse of the Ur III State (now published as: JCS 71, 2019, 53-76) 2017/09/25 PDF
8.0 Cripps, Eric L. The Structure of Prices in the neo-Sumerian Economy (II); The Wool:Silver Price Ratio (now published as: RA 113, 2019, 13-38) 2017/09/25 PDF
7.0 Cripps, Eric L. The Structure of Prices in the neo-Sumerian Economy (I); Barley:Silver Price Ratios 2017/09/25 PDF
6.1 Kaula, Jörg „Nachdem das Königtum vom Himmel herabgekommen war…“. Untersuchungen zur Sumerischen Königsliste 2021/02/25 PDF
6.0 Kaula, Jörg „Nachdem das Königtum vom Himmel herabgekommen war…“. Untersuchungen zur Sumerischen Königsliste 2016/11/21 PDF
5.0 Proust, Christine Floating calculation in Mesopotamia 2016/05/02 PDF
4.0 Panayotov, Strahil V. „Die Lampe am Krankenbett“. Untersuchungen zu altorientalischen Gebeten an den Lichtgott Nuska 2016/01/23 PDF
3.0 Foxvog, Daniel A. Elementary Sumerian Glossary 2016/01/04 PDF
2.0 Foxvog, Daniel A. Introduction to Sumerian Grammar 2016/01/04 PDF
1.3 Huber, Peter J. On the Old Babylonian Understanding of Sumerian Grammar (now published as: LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 87 [Munich 2018: LINCOM GmbH]) 2018/01/02 PDF
1.2 Huber, Peter J. On the Old Babylonian Understanding of Sumerian Grammar 2017/01/01 PDF
1.1 Huber, Peter J. On the Old Babylonian Understanding of Sumerian Grammar 2016/04/01 PDF
1.0 Huber, Peter J. On the Old Babylonian Understanding of Sumerian Grammar 2015/09/03 PDF

 

Ancient Greek Grammars Online

 [First posted in AWOL 9 December 2013, updated 27 February 2021]

 Ancient Greek Grammars Online

Chris Francese of Dickinson College Commentaries discusses the grammars that have been made available online and provides a list of what is now available:

Perseus digitized some Greek grammar resources early on (see below), but since then more has become available in .pdf form from thanks to Google Books and Archive.org. This survey for some reason does not include scans of books. One need in my view is for a good searchable school grammar of ancient Greek. The searchable ones currently available are of the more systematic variety, and are potentially bewildering to students and non-expert readers. Smyth and his 3048 chapters is not for everybody. The best choice in English in my opinion would be Goodell (see below). This spring DCC will be embarking on a project to digitize it properly, making it searchable, and integrating it into the notes of our forthcoming Greek commentaries. This will be done with crucial assistance from Bruce Roberson at Mount Allison University, and Rigaudon.

 who would have used these

Frontispiece of Greek grammar, William Camden, 1598, via museumoflonson.org.uk

Another problem with the existing Greek grammar digitizations at Perseus is that the indices have not apparently been included. The index, as anyone who uses the print versions of these books will be aware, is the primary way that we consult these works, and not having the index amounts to a serious impediment to usability. Our Goodell will be browse-able via the index. And we are almost finished with a modification of the Perseus XML of Allen & Greenough’s New Latin Grammar that includes the index. We hope to make an index-browseable A&G available early in the new year.

Ok, here are some Greek grammars. Let me know your favorites, and if you think I am misguided in my love of Goodell.

Babbit, Frank Cole. A Grammar of Attic and Ionic Greek (New York: American Book Co., 1902). Google Booksarchive.org

Buttman, Alexander. Grammar of the New Testament Greek (Andover: Warren F. Draper, 1891) at archive.org

Brugmann, Karl. Griechische Grammatik 3rd edition (Münich: Beck, 1900) at archive.org, and Google Books

Goodell, Thomas Dwight. A School Grammar of Attic Greek (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1903) Google Books. Archive.org (better scan)

Goodwin, William W. Greek Grammar, revised and enlarged (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1896). Google Books.

Hadley, James. Greek Grammar for Schools and Colleges, revised and in part rewritten by Frederic De Forest Allen (New York: American Book Company, 1912) Google Books.

Meyer, Gustav. Griechische Grammatik, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1886) at archive.org and at Google Books (and another).

Monroe, D.B. A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect (Oxford: Clarendon, 1891) at archive.org.

These items are already available at Perseus:

Goodwin,William Watson.  Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb (London, Melbourne, Toronto 1889) Goodwin’s Moods and Tenses

Gildersleeve,Basil Lanneau. Syntax of Classical Greek from Homer to Demosthenes (New York 1900)

Smyth, Herbert Weir. A Greek Grammar for Colleges (1920) and (also at Philologic Chicago)

Kühner, Raphael, Friedrich Blass, and Bernhard Gerth. Ausführliche Grammatik der Griechischen Sprache (ed. Ildar Ibraguimov, Hannover und Leipzig, 1904).

Friday, February 26, 2021

Google Ancient Places

[First posted in AWOL 9 November 2011. Updated 26 February 2021]

Google Ancient Places

The Web is seeing an explosion of digitized material being made freely and openly available online. Google Books alone has some 12 million books in over 300 languages; but other collections, such as the Open Library and the Hathi Trust, are also making accessible texts, many of which were previously available only in prestigious university libraries. But the challenge is: What’s there? And how can it be used?

With funding from Google’s Digital Humanities Research Awards, the Google Ancient Places (GAP) project addresses these two primary concerns of discovery and usability using ancient world places as the target information that we want to able to find and visualize. We call this automated process the ‘there and back again’ principle: it’s not enough to empower users to discover ancient places in large text corpora; we also allow users to move back again to find the books that refer to them.

On the discovery front, we have used and adapted the Edinburgh Geoparser to find (“geotag”) references to ancient places in the text and then link (“georesolve”) them to a gazetteer. Since we want to maximise usability, we have identified all the places found using Pleiades, which provide unique labels (or URIs – Uniform Resource Identifiers) for each location. In this way every place that we find has a URI that allows it to link to, or be linked from, other resources with information about the same place.

For visualization purposes, we have used a single-screen application with various components to help the reader navigate through a text geospatially. See the GapVis page for more information or go straight to our GapVis interface to start playing.

GAP is a proud member of Pelagios, the information superhighway for the ancient world,

 

The Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae Digital Collection at the University of Chicago Library

[First posted in AWOL 20 December 2012, updated 26 February 2021]

The Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae Digital Collection
http://speculum.lib.uchicago.edu/images/speculum-banner.jpg
The Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae is a collection of engravings of Rome and Roman antiquities, the core of which consists of prints published by Antonio Lafreri and gathered under a title page he printed in the mid-1570's. Copies of the Speculum vary greatly in the number of prints, and individual prints were reissued and changed over time.

The University of Chicago Library's copy of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae contains nearly 1,000 prints and is the largest in the world. The Library's copy arrived in the 1890's as a part of the Berlin Collection, a large lot of books and manuscripts purchased for the Library from S. Calvary and Co. in Berlin.

A list of sources from the 1973 catalog is available here.

Introduction

Antonio Lafreri's Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae and the digital collection.

Itineraries

Choose a virtual itinerary to explore the collection, with an expert as your guide.

Search and Browse

Search and browse the collection.

Links

View some related sites as well as links to thesauri, standards, and tools used in cataloguing.

The Nolli Map Website

© 2005-2021 University of Oregon

Jim Tice, University of Oregon Dept of Architecture
Erik Steiner, InfoGraphics Lab, Dept of Geography
Consulting: Allan Ceen PhD., Penn State/Studium Urbis

PREFACE

The 1748 Map of Rome, by Giambattista Nolli is widely regarded by scholars as one of the most important historical documents of the city ever created. This project is a collaborative exploration of the exquisite Nolli engraving, through its historic significance and contemporary application.

A seamless digital remastering of the Nolli Map serves to geo-reference a vast body of information to better understand the Eternal City and its key role in shaping Western Civilization. The Nolli Map Web Site introduces students to Rome and the structure of its urban form; it illustrates the evolution of the city over time; and it reveals diverse factors that determined its development.
Read more...


THEMATIC ESSAYS

Natural Features

The Forgotten Landscape of Rome: The Disabitato
Jim Tice


Architecture and Urbanism

The Walls of Rome
Jim Tice & Allan Ceen


Social Factors

Rioni: The Districts of Rome
Allan Ceen & Jim Tice


Cartography

The Nolli Map as Artifact
Allan Ceen & Jim Tice

Nuova Pianta di Roma Data in Luce da Giambattista Nolli l'anno MDCCXLVII
Allan Ceen

The Nolli Map and Urban Theory
Jim Tice

 

Kosmos Society Text Library

https://kosmossociety.chs.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Kosmos-head-revamped-2c.jpg

Below are downloadable source texts, along with links to html versions online at the Center for Hellenic Studies Publications. This list will develop over time, so please check back periodically. Enjoy!

You can click on the links in the following list to jump to the relevant part of the page, or you can scroll down:
Homeric and Epic Poetry | Other Poetry | Histories | Tragedy | Philosophy and other texts | SourcebookCenter for Hellenic Studies
At the end of the page you can find links to further reading available from the Center for Hellenic Studies Online Publications.

Homer, Hesiod, Epic Cycle, Homeric Hymns

Iliad1 VenetusA

Related

Homeric Iliad

Statue of Achilles with sword and shieldHomer, Iliad [html | PDF]
Samuel Butler’s translation, revised by Timothy Power, Gregory Nagy, Soo-Young Kim, and Kelly McCray.

Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

The wrath [mēnis] of Achilles dominates the action of the Homeric Iliad, Set during the Trojan War, which has been going on for more than nine years. Paris (Alexandros), the son of Priam, has taken Menelaos’ wife Helen. The Achaean forces are assembled along the beach near Ilion, comprising forces from all across Greece, under the leadership of Agamemnon, to reclaim Helen.

This first of the greatest epics of ancient Greece opens with a quarrel between Achilles, best of the Achaeans, and Agamemnon. As a result, Achilles withdraws from the fighting, leaving the others to battle the Trojans and their allies. The gods, divided in their support for the warring sides, watch and sometimes intervene in the action. There are great battle sequences, vivid micro-narratives, and sweeping drama, with the anger, and the grief, of Achilles culminating in powerful and emotional scenes.

Image: Sir Richard Westmacott: Statue of Achilles, Hyde Park, London. Photo: Kosmos Society

Homeric Oydssey

Bust of OdysseusHomer, Odyssey [html | PDF]
Samuel Butler’s translation, revised by Timothy Power, Gregory Nagy, Soo-Young Kim, and Kelly McCray. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook 

Odysseus, versatile in his thinking, full of wiles, wandering far and wide on his attempt to find his way back from the Trojan War, constantly reinventing himself, encountering men, monsters, storms, deities, supernatural beings, and even the dead in Hādēs, while he is always longing to return to his wife Penelope.

This second great epic features the hero who, unlike Achilles, was actually there at the fall of Troy. However, his return voyage, which starts with Odysseus still full of his exploits, keeps taking unexpected turns, many as the result of his own choices. Meanwhile, back on Ithaka, Penelope and their son Telemachus have problems of their own, with the persistence of the suitors. The narrative takes as many twists and turns as Odysseus himself, until the final climax and the reunion of all the threads in this intricately woven tale.

Image: Head of Odysseus, Roman, late 1st to early 2nd century CE. Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins. Photo: Kosmos Society

Epic Cycle

Frieze of warrior and womanThe Epic Cycle [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

The Epic Cycle comprised a number of epic poems covering the events leading up to the Trojan War, the war itself, and its aftermath. Only summaries or fragments remain of most of these, with the exception of the Iliad and Odyssey.

This translation is of Proclus’ summaries of: the Cypria, attributed to Stasinus of Cyprus (the Judgment of Paris, Paris and Helen’s departure for Troy, and the start of the Trojan War; the Aithiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus (the Amazons, Memnon, and the death of Achilles); the Little Iliad, attributed to Lesches of Lesbos (the judgment for the armor of Achilles, the retrieval of Philoctetes and Neoptolemos, and the deployment of the Wooden Horse); the Iliou Persis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus (the destruction of Ilion); and the Nostoi, attributed to Agias of Trozen (the Homecomings).

Image: carved marble slab from frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassae. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license  © The Trustees of the British Museum

Hesiodic Theogony

Bust supposedly HesiodHesiod, Theogony [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy and J. Banks and adapted by Gregory Nagy.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Image:
Marble head of an old man, perhaps the poet Hesiod. Roman copy after a lost Hellenistic original of 2nd century BCE. British Museum.
Photo: Kosmos Society

 

Hesiodic Works and Days

Hesiod, Works and Days [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Homeric Hymns

Homeric Hymn to Demeter 

Bust of DemeterHomeric Hymn to Demeter [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Homeric Hymn (2) to Demeter tells the story of Persephone’s abduction by Hādēs, god of the underworld, and of her mother Demeter’s reaction in her great grief. It incorporates another narrative, about how Demeter, in the guise of an old woman, takes on the care of Metaneira’s baby son, although her efforts to secure immortalization for the boy are misunderstood by the household. Despite revealing her true identity and receiving honors there, Demeter still grieves for her daughter and prevents the grain from growing. Finally, to prevent famine, Zeus arranges for Persephone to return and the fertility of the land to be restored. This myth is one version of how the cult of Demeter and her Mysteries began, associated with Eleusis. Gregory Nagy’s notes to this translation throw light on the sometimes obscure references to the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Image: Demeter. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original from the 4th century BCE. Museo nazionale romano di palazzo Altemps. Photo: Jastrow, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Homeric Hymn to Dionysus

Homeric Hymn to Dionysus [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

2012-07-09 10.56.30

Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

The greater of the two Homeric Hymns celebrating Aphrodite is a beautiful hymn for its subject matter and style, and an important poetic text in the history of Greek religion and world literature. It begins as a hymn celebrating the aretai and tīmai ‘honors’ of the goddess Aphrodite, distinguishing her jurisdiction and influence from three other goddesses into whom she does not strike erotic desire and passion—Athena, Hera, and Hestia—and celebrating her beauty, virtues, and legends in a narrative tantamount to small epic (epyllion). The focus of the narrative is the story of Aphrodite’s herself being struck with passion, instigated by Zeus, for a Trojan hero Anchises, son of Dardanos, appearing in human disguise to Anchises as he was herding cattle on the lonely slopes of Mount Ida, becoming the mother of Aineias (or as the Romans would spell the name, Aeneas), and parting with instructions to Anchises not to tell anyone of the affair. Wrapped in the narrative are a wealth of exquisitely composed epic scene painting (particularly outstanding the description of the wild animals whose breasts Aphrodite fills with desire) and the Aphrodite’s Ganymede and Tithonos (exemplum) micronarratives.

The poem is a great read and study in itself, and as part of the greater Homeric hymn song culture. Students of Virgil who have read and understood this hymn understand Aeneas’ birth and upbringing, as well as other important aspects of Aeneas’ background that will enrich understanding of the Aeneid. Visiting scholar Leonard Muellner’s video posted on the Kosmos Society website explains the significance of Aphrodite’s evidently unheeded warning to avoid the mēnis ‘cosmic anger’ of Zeus, as well as other deep aspects of the narrative and connections with relevant Greek thought about their gods and relationships between gods and mortals. Coming after Professor Muellner’s and Professor Nagy’s discussions of mēnis in HeroesX, this hymn and Professor Muellner’s video build on the content of HeroesX, but for students and scholars who have not participated in HeroesX, they may serve as a good introduction to Professor Muellner’s cosmic mēnis hermeneutics and provide content that may be helpful to readers of the Iliad. The Homeric Hymns, including the Hymn to Aphrodite, are an important body of poetic work surviving from early Greek epic song culture, much admired by the Hellenistic scholar-poet Callimachus, who pays homage to them by imitating them, and by the great Latin poet Lucretius, whose great ode to alma Venus owes much to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.
(overview by Jack Vaughan)

Other Poetry

Related

Pindar

Athletic victorPindar, Pythian 8 [html | PDF]
Translation and notes by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Pindar was a lyric poet who flourished in the first half of the fifth century BCE. The victory ode, or epinician, is the only lyric genre to survive from Pindar’s vast lyric repertoire as a near-complete corpus. Pythian 8 , composed by Pindar to be sung and danced by an ad hoc local khoros in the island-state of Aigina, was commissioned by the family of an aristocrat named Aristomenes, as a celebration of his victory in the wrestling event at the Pythian Games of 446 BCE. Also included are short passages relevant to the poetics of Pindar.
(overview based on introductory notes by Gregory Nagy in the translation and in Pindar’s Homer)

Related

Sappho

Bust of SapphoPoetry of Sappho, [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy, further selections translated by Julia Dubnoff
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook 

Image: Head of the poetess Sappho, Marble copy of Hellenistic prototype. Photo: P Vasiliadis, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license via Wikimedia Commons.

Sappho was a lyric poet who composed in the late seventh and early sixth century BCE.  Her poetry was much admired in antiquity, but only a few poems and fragments remain of her prolific output. Little is known of her life, but her poems capture personal emotions, ritual contexts, longing, and beautiful imagery. The poems include a “Prayer to Aphrodite,” the “Wedding of Hector and Andromache,” the “Brothers Song,” and selected fragments. Also included are passages from other sources that are relevant to the poetics of Sappho, including epigrams and related sources, with summaries and commentary by Gregory Nagy.

Related

Alcman

Alcman, Partheneion [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Theognis

Detail from Piraeus ApolloTheognis of Megara [html | PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

We find exponents of justice who become cult heroes by way of their poetry. … And there are exponents of justice who are worshipped as cult heroes in individual city-states. Some of these heroes are viewed as lawgivers or quasi-lawgivers. When a hero is viewed by a city-state as its lawgiver, he can also be viewed as the author of that given city’s customary laws. In myths about lawgivers, such authorship is traditionally correlated with some kind of fundamental crisis that afflicts the given city. Theognis of Megara is one such example. There is no fixed date for Theognis: he is credited with the creation of poems that can be dated as far apart as the late seventh and the early fifth centuries BCE. Although the poetry attributed to Theognis can be traced back primarily to one specific social context, which was the metropolis or ‘mother city’ of Megara and its daughter cities, most of this poetry is composed in such a generalized way that it can apply to a wide variety of other social contexts in other cities.
(overview based on extracts from Gregory Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours)

Image: detail from Piraeus Apollo, bronze, 530–500 BCE. Archaeological Museum of Piraeus. Photo: Giovanni Dall’Orto, attribution via Wikimedia Commons.

Related

Other poets

“Shuttles that sang at dawn”: a dedicatory epigram from The Greek Anthology translated by Jack Vaughan

Ariadne: Abandonment and Translation | Nonnos Dionysiaka 47. 265–313, translation and notes by Jack Vaughan

History

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Herodotus: Histories

Roman bust of HerodotusKnown as the “father of history,” Herodotus (c 484–424 BCE) introduces his work as follows: “This is the making public [apodexis] of the inquiry [historiā] of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that what arises from human essence not become faded [exitēla] by time, and that great and wondrous deeds, some performed [apodekh-] by the Hellenes, some by the barbarians, not lose their kleos, including for what cause [aitiā] they waged war against each other.”

His Histories were based on accounts he collected during his extensive travels, and provide evidence of local traditions, myths, and rituals using very precise language.

Herodotus, Selections Part I (from Scroll 1) [html | PDF]
First phase of translation by Lynn Sawlivich. Second phase of translation by Gregory Nagy, Keith DeStone, Claudia Filos, and Sarah Scott. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

The first selection of passages is taken from Scroll 1, and focuses on the Lydian ruler Croesus, including his encounters with the Athenian lawgiver Solon, and with the Persian ruler Cyrus. Herodotus also tells about the use of oracles, the discovery of Orestes’ bones, and the customs of people in different countries.

Herodotus, Selections Part II (from Scrolls 1–9) [html | PDF]
First phase of translation by Lynn Sawlivich. Second phase of translation by Gregory Nagy, Keith DeStone, Claudia Filos, and Sarah Scott. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

The second selection of passages is taken from Scrolls 1–9, and includes accounts of mythical and historical figures and various military and naval engagements. The subjects of the selections are: Kyrnos, Tīmēsios, Hēraklēs, Hesiod and Homer, Philippos, Onesilaos, Marathon, Miltiades, Helen, Astrabakos, Artakhaiēs, Talthybios, Thetis, Plataea, and Protesilaos.

Image: Marble bust of Herodotos, Roman, 2nd century CE, copy of Greek original bronze of 4th century BCE. Public domain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Tragedy

Related

AESCHYLUS

Aeschylus Seven Against Thebes

Sculpture representing Seven Against ThebesSeven Against Thebes, Aeschylus [html | PDF]
Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth, revised by members of Kosmos Society.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

Introduction to the play, by Jack Vaughan (PDF)
Introduction to Aeschylus Seven Against Thebes

From its first performance at the City Dionysia in 367 BCE, this drama has been widely recognized as an exceptional tragedy. A strong point of Aeschylus’ dramatic poetry, like Homer’s epics, is that allies and enemies are portrayed as lifelike or equally larger than life, evenhandedly critical, not patently reductive of a whole cast of characters on the other side. It delivers the scenes of battle at the seven gates by great narrative delivered by the scout “messenger” who focuses on key aspects of the scenes at the gates, not least the shields of the leaders of the attacking armies, and the scout’s candid reports of what he has seen and heard during stage time and his characterizations of the adversaries. The play continued to be popular in the post-classical period and in later Antiquity. One reason may have been that, like tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides included in corresponding Byzantine triads, it tells so much of the subject of the in Antiquity prized Theban epic Thebais. Today it is a great read (very moving in live reading in parts) both for the drama, including the characterizations of the heroes on both sides and the role-reversing character development of Eteokles and the Chorus of Theban maidens onstage, and for Aeschylus’ bold heroic poetry. (overview by Jack Vaughan)

Image: Ευπάτωρ Etruscan architectural plaque from the column of the temple A at Pyrgi. Scene from the Theban Cycle, the Seven against Thebes, c470–460 BCE, GFDL 1.2, from Wikimedia Commons

Oresteia Trilogy

Aeschylus Agamemnon

detail from "Menelaus Supporting Patroclus 4," by Mary Harrsch, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mharrsch/13300541/, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/]Agamemnon, Aeschylus [html | PDF]
Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth. Revised by Gregory Crane and Graeme Bird. Further revised by Gregory Nagy.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Agamemnon is the first of the Oresteia trilogy of tragedies, the best-known works of Aeschylus, first produced in 458 BCE as part of the Athenian City Dionysia. In Athenian society at this period, tragedies were performed as part of ritual dramatic festivals and formed part of the education of young citizens. The dramas focused on the sufferings of the hero and through their reactions the audience shared in these ordeals as they were reenacted.

As is typical of the plays of Aeschylus, Agamemnon centers on a hero who was familiar from the epic cycle. The drama focuses on his homecoming, in which he finally has to face the consequences of his actions.

Agamemnon had led a fleet of Achaeans to Troy, in a quest to reclaim Helen, the wife of his brother Menelaos, and the drama opens with the news that, after ten years, Troy has finally fallen, and that Agamemnon is returning in triumph. But with lament of the Chorus, it becomes clear what terrible price Agamemnon had paid to ensure the fleet sailed in the first place. Clytemnestra’s apparent welcome hides her dark intention for vengeance. Another victim is the seer Kassandra, whom Agamemnon has brought home from Troy as part of his spoils. The city of Argos is left in the hands of Clytemnestra’s lover, Agamemnon’s cousin Aegisthus, but with the prospect of a continuation of the cycle of killing and revenge that has already been part of the family history for two generations.

Image: detail from “Menelaus Supporting Patroclus 4,” by Mary Harrsch, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Aeschylus Libation Bearers

Orestes_Elektra_Altemps_Inv8604_n2Libation Bearers, Aeschylus [html | PDF]
Translated by Jim Erdman. Further revised by Gregory Nagy.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

In the second play in the Oresteia trilogy, the action continues with Agamemnon’s daughter Electra seeking to conduct the appropriate libation rites to honor her father. When she encounters her brother, Orestes, who has returned from exile at the behest of Apollo’s oracle, their reunion at their father’s grave reinforces their desire to avenge his murder.

Having gained admittance to the palace, Orestes successfully kills Aegisthus, and, despite her attempts to win back his sympathy for her as his mother, he also kills Clytemnestra.

But now a new wave of vengeance seems likely to begin, with Orestes being haunted by a vision of the Erinyes, or Furies, hounding him in his turn, leaving him no option but to flee into exile once more.

Image: Orestes and Electra, Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license

Aeschylus Eumenides

Orestes_Fleeing(1848)Eumenides, Aeschylus [html | PDF]
Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth. Revised by Cynthia Bannon. Further revised by Gregory Nagy.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

In the final instalment of the trilogy, Orestes has taken refuge at the temple of Apollo. Following the advice of the god, Orestes sets out to seek release at the temple of Athena in Athens. But the dreadful ghost of Clytemnestra still calls for vengeance and the Erinyes pursue him relentlessly, throwing curses in his wake.

In Athens, Orestes supplicates Athena, and the goddess hears his story. She sets in motion a tribunal, appointing judges from the citizens, and both Orestes and the Erinyes state their case, with Apollo speaking on Orestes’ behalf. Athena herself makes the final judgement, and establishes a new order in which the cycle of vengeance is replaced: she offers to the Erinyes a place where they can be worshipped and honored as the Eumenides and bring abundance to the land.

Image: Orestes Fleeing From the Furies, by Herman Wilhelm Bissen, public domain, Wikimedia Commons

EURIPIDES

Euripides Helen

Bust of Helen of Troy, Antonio Canova, 1812.Helen, Euripides [html | PDF]
Translated by E.P. Coleridge, revised by members of Kosmos Society (then Hour 25.)
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

Helen of Troy—a misnomer according to Euripides. As Helen herself tells us in her monologue that opens Euripides’ Helen, Helen of Sparta never went to Troy with Paris, but a lookalike phantom [eidōlon | εἴδωλον] given by Hera to Paris made it seem so. The Trojan War was fought not over her, but over an illusion. When the fake likeness of Helen went to Troy; Hermes removed the real Helen to the palace and protection of the kings of Egypt, the deceased Proteus and now, since Proteus’ death, his son and successor Theoklymenos. Helen informs the audience that she has remained faithful to her Achaean husband Menelaos, although her reputation has been damaged to the point that she is hated throughout the Greek world. Now that Theoklymenos is on the throne, she no longer enjoys the protection of her chastity that Proteus had provided. Theoklymenos even wants to bed and wed her. The ensuing drama, like other Euripidean tragedies proceeds swiftly through a series of charged dramatic scenes with speech and song of the heroes and supporting characters, including a chorus of Greek women, that come together to deliver a two-part cliffhanger, of which both parts are stages of the protagonist Helen’s and her husband’s salvation, and both hinge on themes of purposeful disconnects and interplay between appearances and reality. The first grand illusion was a creation of the gods. The second is the eponymous hero’s (heroine’s) plan. Together they make complementary statements about deceptive appearances’ great destructive potential in some cases and elements of improbable rescue in others. Helen is a fine drama, a succession of scenes packed with irresistible suspense and dramatic irony punctuated by some of Euripides’ most beautiful choral odes. It features a strong protagonist, Helen, and a cast of heroic and other supporting characters, all parts brilliantly scripted for their characters and roles in the drama. Although, like Sophocles’ tragedy Philoktetes and other Ancient Greek, including Euripidean tragedies, the drama ends happily for the major characters, it is a serious tragedy that grapples with serious issues of the human condition—love, war, and the limits of human knowledge and understanding. (overview by Jack Vaughan)

Image: Antonio Canova: Helen of Troy. 1812. V&A, London. Photo: Kosmos Society.

Related

Euripides Herakles

2012-07-09 10.58.59Herakles, Euripides [html | PDF]
Translated by R. Potter, adapted by M. Ebbott & C. Dué.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

A Sampling of Comments on Euripides’ Herakles
by Gregory Nagy is now available at Classical Inquiries 2018.04.20

In H24H Professor Nagy points out that “Hēraklēs means ‘he who has the kleos of Hērā’” so he has kleos built into his name. That is, there is ‘glory, fame (especially as conferred by poetry or song); that which is heard’ (Core Vocab) and he is established as a model hero, one about whom songs would be sung.

Hērā was jealous because Zeus had fathered Herakles of Alkmene so arranged for Eurystheus to be born first and become king according to the oath Zeus had sworn (blaming Atē). Eurystheus sets Herakles a series of tasks.

In this drama, Euripides presents the aftermath of the task in which: “Hēraklēs descends to Hādēs and brings up Cerberus the Hound of Hādēs from the zone of darkness to the zone of light and life.” (H24H 1§43) Meanwhile his wife, Megara, and their three sons are under threat by Lykos, ruler of Thebes, and are taking refuge at the altar of Zeus.

Image: Detail from Farnese Heracles, via Wikimedia Commons.

Related

Euripides Medea

medea-statueMedea, Euripides [htmlPDF]
Translated by E.P. Coleridge. Revised by Roger Ceragioli. Further revised by Gregory Nagy. Now newly revised by members of Kosmos Society (then Hour 25.)
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

When Jason came to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece, he succeeded with the aid of Medea, who accompanied him back to Corinth. As the play opens she is experiencing grief and fury at his betrayal of her as he prepares to marry the ruler’s daughter. Far from her native land, and threatened with exile, Medea seeks revenge on Jason’s bride, on the bride’s father, and finally on Jason himself. By contrast when she seeks help from Aegeus he promises a place of safety in return for her help.

Euripides presents this part of the myth as more than a portrait of a woman scorned: her terrible acts of vengeance are also shown as consequences of the acts of those around her who break sacred oaths and act with hubris.

Image: By François TR, [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Related

Euripides Trojan Women

statues of mourning womenTrojan Women, Euripides [html | PDF]
Translated by E.P. Coleridge, revised by members of Kosmos Society
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

Introduction to the Trojan Women (PDF) by Jack Vaughan

The Trojan Women portrays the sad lot of the surviving women and children of Troy after the taking of their beloved city by the Greeks. The Chorus represents and speaks for the Trojan women as a group. The drama presents through the sequence of scenes, as dramatic centerpieces, individual Trojan noblewomen: devastated widowed queen and mother Hecuba, raving grief-stricken assault-victim Kassandra, widowed mother Andromache, hapless young Polyxena—whose fate, being sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles, fulfilled offstage, is presented through reports, to the audience in Poseidon’s opening monologue, to the women onstage later by Talthybios—and Paris’ (Alexandros’) widow, Spartan runaway Helen, held captive along with the Trojan women. All of the individually presented women, and the child whose fate is decided by the Greeks in the action portrayed in the drama (Hector’s and Andromache’s hapless son Astyanax), are associated with the royal family. The women who appear onstage through actors—Hecuba, Kassandra, Andromache, and Helen—each have different viable claims to being much greater figures of Ancient Greek Myth and World Literature than the great nameless crowd, here represented by the Chorus, of captive Trojan women facing concubinage or enslavement in Greece. As in Homer and other poets before Euripides, Helen has a dual Greco-Trojan identity. Before leaving Sparta with Paris to be his wife in Troy, Helen was a female Ancient Greek hero in her own right. Hecuba, Kassandra, and Andromache are noble women forced to endure extreme injustice and inhumanity. Their different responses to the situations unfolding in the tragedy elicit audience sympathy and pity appropriately accorded to tragic heroines. Helen, universally blamed as the cause of the ten-years war, faces threats of a similarly ruinous fate, but—after tense confrontation by Menelaos and a three-way debate joined by Hecuba with the Chorus chiming in on her side, advancing that Menelaos punish and kill the faithless traitor woman—the Menelaos-Helen Episode ends with Menelaos and Helen leaving the stage to sail back to Greece together. The native Trojan, Phrygian, or Anatolian women who survive the Greek invasion, occupation, and killings, face at the end of the drama transport to Greece, bereft of city, home, family, and hopes of freedom and happy lives.
(overview by Jack Vaughan)

Image: Group of Statues of Mourning Women (4), 300–275 BCE, Terracotta, 85.AD.76, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California Open Content Program

Related

Euripides Bacchae

Euripides, Bacchae [html | PDF]
Translated by T. A. Buckley. Revised by Alex Sens. Further revised by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Related

Euripides Hippolytus

Euripides, Hippolytus [html | PDF]
Translated by E. P. Coleridge. Revised by Mary Jane Rein. Further revised by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

SOPHOCLES

Sophocles Antigone

Beautiful_Greek_woman_statueAntigone, Sophocles [html | PDF]
Translated by Richard Jebb, revised by Pierre Habel, further revised by Gregory Nagy. Now, newly revised by members of Kosmos Society (then Hour 25).
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

Introduction to Antigone

For ancient Greeks engaging with such a living mytho-poetic system, Antigone would need no introduction. First-time modern readers, however, may at find it helpful to know just the basic facts about Sophocles’ use of this myth before beginning. In this tragedy, Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus the former king of Thebes who brought about his own destruction by unknowingly killing his father and marrying his mother Jocasta. After Oedipus’ self-blinding, exile, and death, his two sons (and Antigone’s two brothers), Eteokles and Polyneikes, end up quarreling for control over Thebes. War ensues when Polyneikes and six other heroes attack the seven gates of the city (the mythical “Seven Against Thebes”). In a final military confrontation, the brothers kill each other. Antigone’s uncle Creon takes control of the city and decrees that Eteokles should be given the funeral of a hero, while Polyneikes must be left unmourned and unburied. Anyone who defies this edict faces death. This is where the tragedy begins. (overview by Antigone Team)

Image: By Wonderlane (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Related:

 

Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus

Old_man_vatican_pushkin01Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles [html | PDF]
Translated by R. C. Jebb, Revised by Roger Ceragioli, Further Revised by Gregory Nagy
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Oedipus is presented as a blind old man in a life of wandering, led by his daughter Antigone, when he arrives at a sacred place some distance from the city of Athens—Colonus [Kolōnos]. The region is controlled by Athens, and its leader Theseus promises help to Oedipus.

But he and his family come under threat when Creon and Polyneikes, each representing opposing factions in Thebes, wish Oedipus to return to lend support to their cause.

Ultimately, with the help of Theseus, Oedipus is able to meet his mystical, wondrous end in this sacred landscape.

Image: Head of an old man in a coverlet. Marble. Mid-1st century BCE Rome, Vatican Museums, Wikimedia Commons

Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus

Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus [html | PDF]
Translated by R. C. Jebb. Revised by Alex Sens. Further revised by Gregory Nagy. Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Related

Philosophy and other texts

Related

Plato

Bust of SocratesPlato, The Apology of Socrates [html | PDF]
Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Adapted by Miriam Carlisle, Thomas E. Jenkins, Gregory Nagy, and Soo-Young Kim.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Plato, Phaedo [html | PDF]
Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Adapted by Gregory Nagy, Miriam Carlisle, and Soo-Young Kim.
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.

Image: Portrait of Socrates. Marble, Roman artwork (1st century), perhaps a copy of a lost bronze statue made by Lysippos. Louvre.
Photo: Sting, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license, via Wikimedia Commons
Included in Sourcebook

PlatoFurther Selections  [html  |  PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy
Published under a Creative Commons License 3.0.
Included in Sourcebook

Aristotle

Selections from Aristotle  [htmlPDF]
Translated by Lynn Sawlich, revised by Gregory Nagy
Included in Sourcebook

Additional Selections

Additional Selections from Ancient Greek and Other Texts [html  |  PDF]
Translated by Gregory Nagy
Included in Sourcebook

The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours Sourcebook

Screen Shot 2014-07-04 at 1.20.56 AMSourcebook of Original Greek Texts Translated into English
v14: July 2020
[ epub]
PDF ]
[ Kindle-compatible mobi file ]
(add the .mobi extension when you have downloaded it)

General Editor, Gregory Nagy

The Sourcebook of Original Greek Texts Translated into English contains accessible and enhanced translations of all the primary texts discussed in Nagy’s The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours, making it the perfect companion volume for those working through H24H or other HeroesX content. Yet the Sourcebook also stands on its own as a unique, open-source publication. Edited with the help of Nagy’s fellow teachers and researchers, these translations are enhanced with transliterated Greek tags that to allow readers to track the use of key terms and concepts.

Here’s how Nagy describes the Sourcebook in H24H. “The process of editing this Sourcebook is an ongoing project that I hope will outlast my own lifetime. All the translations in this online Sourcebook are free from copyright restrictions. That is because the translations belong either to me or to other authors who have waived copyright or to authors who died in a time that precedes any further application of copyright. The texts of these translations in the Sourcebook are periodically reviewed and modified, and the modifications are indicated by way of special formatting designed to show the differences between the original translator’s version and the modified version.”

The texts provided include: the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey; Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days, Homeric Hymns, a selection of lyric poetry by Alcman, Sappho, and Pindar; Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and the Eumenides by Aeschylus; Oedipus at Colonus and Oedipus Tyrannus by Sophocles; the Hippolytus and Bacchae of Euripides; selections from Aristotle, Herodotus, and Pausanius; and Plato’s Apology and Phaedo.


Other publications

The Best of the Achaeans

Best of the Achaeans coverThe Best of the Achaeans [html]
Gregory Nagy

The Best of the Achaeans is intended for both non-specialists and specialists in Homer and in other forms of archaic Greek poetry. More generally, it is for non-Classicists as well as Classicists (that is, those who study Greek and Roman antiquity). All quotations from the ancient texts are translated, and all cited words are defined in context.

This book is about how to read Homerboth the Iliad and the Odyssey—and various related forms of Greek poetry in the archaic period, most notably the Hesiodic Theogony and Works and Days and the Homeric Hymns, especially the Apollo, the Demeter, and the Aphrodite. Other related poetic forms include the praise poetry of Pindar and the blame poetry of Archilochus. The readings are infused with references to non-canonical traditions as well, especially women’s laments and the earliest attested versions of Aesop’s fables.

The object of all the readings is to understand simultaneously the form as well as the content of a wide variety of traditional media conveying various basic concepts of the ancient Greek hero. The most basic of all these concepts is a single all-pervasive historical fact of the archaic period and beyond: the cult of heroes. Heroes were not only the subjects of narrative and dramatic media but also the objects of worship. This book integrates heroic song, poetry, and prose with the ancestral practices of a wide variety of hero-cults. More generally, it explores the heroic tradition within the cultural context of pan-Hellenism, to be defined as an early form of Hellenism that eventually became the nucleus of Classicism.

Browse all publications from the Center for Hellenic Studies