Sunday, April 5, 2026

“Mixed Aorists” in Homeric Greek

Curated Books

“The Homeric poems provide some of the easiest reading in Greek literature, as well as some of the most rewarding, and so we are introduced to them at an early stage in our study of the language. But when we learn more, we discover that Homeric Greek is not so simple after all. Some of its phenomena remain unexplained after two millennia of scholarship. For instance, we come across imperatives like οἴσετε, ἄξετε, ὄρσεο, λέξεο, δύσεο, βήσεο and secondary tense forms like ἄξοντο, ἐδύσετο, ἐβήσετο, ἵξον. When we look in the usual grammar books, Smyth for example,[1]  we find these forms labeled “mixed aorists,” and are told that they combine the sigma of the first aorist with the thematic vowel of the second aorist. That description is an admission of ignorance. How could such a “mixture” happen? What kind of process is being attributed to the grammar of the epic language? What is Homeric grammar anyway? How can one tell what is grammatical and what is not?

In order to answer such questions, we must start by understanding the peculiar character of the epic language: its basic units are not so much single words as formulae ready-made to fit various parts of the hexameter verse.”

— From the Introduction

Online version of a 1990 volume in the series Harvard Dissertations in Classics, by Garland Press. Copyright, Catharine P. Roth. Published here with permission of the author.

Use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Roth.Mixed_Aorists_in_Homeric_Greek.1990.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License.

 

 

 

Lovers of the Soul, Lovers of the Body: Philosophical and Religious Perspectives in Late Antiquity

Hellenic Studies Series

The relationship between the soul and the body was a point of contentious debate among philosophers and theologians in late antiquity. Modern scholarship has inherited this legacy, but split the study of the relation of body and soul between the disciplines of philosophy and religion. Lovers of the Soul, Lovers of the Body integrates, with Plato and Aristotle in the background, philosophical and religious perspectives on the concepts of soul and body in the transformative period of the first six centuries CE, from Philo to Olympiodorus. The polyphonic—but not dissonant—philosophical and theological dialogue is recreated and rethought by an international group of leading experts and up-and-coming scholars in ancient philosophy, theology, and religion.

The synthetic approach of the volume presents the understanding of human psychology in late antiquity, without labels and borders. It invites both experts and enthusiasts to crisscross the pathways of philosophy and religion in pursuit of new crossroads and greater common ground.

Available for purchase in print via Harvard University Press.

Slaveva-Griffin, Svetla, and Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, eds. 2022. Lovers of the Soul, Lovers of the Body: Philosophical and Religious Perspectives in Late Antiquity. Hellenic Studies Series 88. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.EBOOK:CHS_RamelliIlLE_Slaveva-GriffinS_eds.Lovers_of_the_Soul_Lovers_of_the_Body.2022.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License.

 

 

 

 

Au prisme des goûts: Sociétés phéniciennes et puniques

Enquête sur la construction du goût dans la Méditerranée du ier millénaire av. n. è., cet ouvrage explore les dimensions alimentaires, esthétiques et stylistiques des sociétés phéniciennes et puniques, sans cesse façonnées par des interactions ethniques et culturelles. À travers une approche pluridisciplinaire et comparatiste, les auteurs s’attachent à croiser les sources traditionnelles (textuelles, archéologiques et iconographiques) avec des outils innovants (analyses biochimiques des restes et archéozoologie) pour étudier les stratégies de distinction et d’adaptation développées par ces sociétés. Ils s’interrogent aussi sur les modalités selon lesquelles certains goûts sont attribués aux Phéniciens au regard des « Autres », qu’il s’agisse des auteurs grecs et latins ou d’interprétations modernes.


Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Creative Commons - Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 . Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Éditeur : Casa de Velázquez

Lieu d’édition : Madrid

Publication sur OpenEdition Books : 4 juillet 2025

ISBN numérique : 978-84-9096-446-0

DOI : 10.4000/14a8b  

Collection : Collection de la Casa de Velázquez | 203

Année d’édition : 2025

ISBN (Édition imprimée) : 978-84-9096-445-3

Nombre de pages : XIII-374


 

Histoires des handicaps à travers les siècles: Identifications, trajectoires, institutions et sociabilités

L’histoire des personnes dites handicapées, sourdes ou malades mentales est peu étudiée sur la longue durée. L’ouvrage comble cette lacune en posant les questions — du Paléolithique jusqu’à nos jours — de l’identification des personnes handicapées, de leurs trajectoires personnelles et collectives, des institutions et des communautés de vie qui les concernent, des sociabilités et des mobilisations collectives dont elles sont à la fois les objets et les sujets. Comme le dit Henri-Jacques Stiker, auteur de l’ouvrage fondateur de 1982 Corps infirmes et sociétés : « Prometteuse et réjouissante est la manifestation d’une génération d’historiennes et d’historiens venant d’horizons différents qui s’intéressent à la surdité, à l’infirmité ou à la folie et à leur croisement. »


Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Creative Commons - Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 . Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire. 

Éditeur : Presses universitaires de Rennes

Lieu d’édition : Rennes

Publication sur OpenEdition Books : 19 février 2026

ISBN numérique : 979-10-413-1077-7

DOI : 10.4000/15q46  

Collection : Histoire

Année d’édition : 2026

ISBN (Édition imprimée) : 979-10-413-0827-9

Nombre de pages : 332


 

Saturday, April 4, 2026

Poetry and the Polis in Euripidean Tragedy

Hellenic Studies Series

Most critics agree that Euripidean tragedy addresses a wealth of political questions, and that it successfully incorporates and engages with a variety of ancient Greek poetic traditions. Nevertheless, these topics and questions have generally been treated separately. In this book, Jonah Radding contends that the political issues addressed in Euripides’s tragedies are inextricably related to his employment of choral lyric genres such as paean and epinician, and to his engagement with canonical poetic texts such as the Iliad and Aeschylus’s Agamemnon.

We see that Euripides consistently recasts traditional poetic genres and texts in order to dramatize and illuminate political questions that are central to his tragedies. At the same time, Radding suggests that the dramatic politicization of the poetic tradition also serves to question the manner in which ancient Athenians understood and utilized these various poetic forms in their own polis. Ultimately, we see that the relationship between poetry and politics in Euripidean tragedy is truly reciprocal, for both aspects illuminate—and are illuminated by—the other, each becoming a more powerful force in the process.

Available for purchase via Harvard University Press.

Radding, Jonah. 2022. Poetry and the Polis in Euripidean Tragedy. Hellenic Studies Series 95. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:RaddingJ.Poetry_and_the_Polis_in_Euripidean_Tragedy.2022.

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Women Weaving the World: Text and Textile in the Kalevala and Beyond

Curated Books

Second, online edition (2018) of a thesis presented to the Department of Comparative Literature and the Committee on Degrees in Theater, Dance, & Media in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 7, 2017.


Use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_PsychasHE.Women_Weaving_the_World.2018.

Copyright, Hanna Eilittä Psychas. Published here with permission of the author.

 

 

The Culture of Kitharôidia

Hellenic Studies Series 

Kitharôidia was arguably the most popular, most geographically widespread, and longest-running performance genre in antiquity. From the archaic period to the late Roman imperial era, citharodes enjoyed star status, playing their songs to vast crowds at festival competitions and concerts throughout the Mediterranean world.

The Culture of Kitharoidia is the first study dedicated exclusively to the art, practice, and charismatic persona of the citharode. Traversing a wide range of discourse and imagery about kitharôidia—poetic and prose texts, iconography, inscriptions—the book offers a nuanced account of the aesthetic and sociocultural complexities of citharodic song and examines the iconic role of the songmakers in the popular imagination, from mythical citharodes such as Orpheus to the controversial innovator Timotheus, to that most notorious of musical dilettantes, Nero.

Available for purchase in print via Harvard University Press.

Power, Timothy. 2010. The Culture of Kitharôidia. Hellenic Studies Series 15. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Power.The_Culture_of_Kitharoidia.2010.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License.