The Greeks imagined the afterlife in a variety of ways, from a shadowy continuation of existence in the Homeric Hades to a dramatic compensation for one’s actions in life, either horrific torments in the underworld or blissful feasts and celebrations in paradise. Whether the afterlife was thought of as a continuation or a compensation, however, the same ethical standards govern existence in the afterlife as in life itself; virtues and vices deserve the same kind of recompense, and the overall happiness (...) of the individual is reckoned in the same ways, even though the individual ceases to be an ethical actor after death. As “The Ethics of Afterlife in Classical Greek Thought” argues, the afterlife is always good to think with, and the Greek ideas of afterlife differ not so much from place to place or from time to time, but rather from text to text, as particular authors make use of different elements of the tradition to express their ideas. (shrink)

The fragments of a hexameter poem about Dionysus recently discovered in a palimpsest (Sin. Ar. NF 66) reveal some different faces of Dionysus, including an Adonis-figure at the heart of a dispute between two goddesses (Persephone and Aphrodite), and a personified wine-god, Oinos, threatened by the machinations of his enemies in the court of Zeus. These palimpsest texts help to illuminate some of the allusions to the early life of the god that have long puzzled scholars, especially in some of (...) the early Christian apologists and the collection of OrphicHymns. (shrink)

To explain Strepsiades' initiation in Aristophanes' Clouds, recent scholars have referred to a thronosis ritual at the Eleusinian mysteries to describe the process wherein the initiate sits on a stool with head covered. The term thronosis, however, properly belongs to Korybantic initiation ritual, not to the Eleusinian Mysteries. Not only are the terms employed to describe the rituals different, but the iconographic representations of the ritual and the mythic paradigms are different as well. The purificatory silent sitting of the Eleusinian (...) initiate should not be confused with the bewildering and terrifying treatment of the enthroned initiate in a Korybantic initiation. (shrink)

Plato and the Power of Images addresses ways Plato has used images and the ways to understand their status as images, particularly how an image resembles what it represents and how to avoid mistaking that image for what it represents.