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It’s all about the ancient Mediterranean in modern pop culture and also neat stuff I discover while researching my thesis
I’ve added a lot of cool stuff to my Substack since I first made this post. If you’d like to tune in, DM me or leave a comment on this post 🧿
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the iliad
the odyssey
herodotus’s histories
the peloponnesian war
lucian’s a true history
the poetry of sappho
the idylls of theocritus
Study for Homer with the Poets Ovid, Horace, and Lucan, Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)
So, my university does a lot of outreach Classics work, trying to make it less of an elitist subject and more accessible to children, and as part of that, I went to give a talk to a class of 6 and 7 year olds a few months back.
And here’s the thing. Classics is really often portrayed as the last bastion of academic privilege, a subject that is only taught to rich white kids so that they can brag about knowing Latin and get jobs as Tory MPs. But these kids were OBSESSED. They had already done some stuff on myths, and they were so excited to talk about it. They knew all the stories, all the heroes, the gods, the monsters. I have never seen such an excitable group of kids as these 6 year olds shouting about Odysseus.
For the lesson, I asked them to think of their favourite myth and to consider it from the point of view of the monster rather than the hero. The end goal was to show that often the monsters and heroes are quite similar. We decided to do Polyphemus (the Cyclops) in the Odyssey, and so I asked them why they thought Polyphemus might have been so angry at Odysseus that he killed some of his men.
Because he came home and found lots of strange men in his house, eating his food, said the kids.
So, I asked them, do you think that was a good reason to kill people?
No, they said, but he was very cross, and he didn’t do it because it was fun.
And then this KID, this SIX YEAR OLD CHILD, put her hand up and said “well, it was very bad of him, but if we’re cross with him then we have to be cross with Odysseus too, because when he came home from his adventure and found lots of men in his house, trying to marry his wife, he killed them, and that’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
AND LET ME TELL YOU
I am a published Classicist! A PhD student! And I have never made that connection before! Not once! And this child was six years old! And she made the link! By herself!
And so I tried not to show how gobsmacked I was, and we talked more about other monsters, including Medusa, and at the end of the lesson a lot of them said that they thought the monsters were not as evil as we usually think, and then I went home.
But I honestly haven’t got over how excited and engaged those kids were, in a totally regular primary school. Classics, in that classroom, was not elitist or inaccessible. It was something they understood, could really get their teeth into and use to think of new ideas of good and bad, of why we demonise different people for doing the same things. And that’s how I like to think about Classics. Not a series of dry texts in ancient languages, but as living stories that you actually can’t help but love, just a bit.
Hey sorry to bother you but I recently went to a classics uni taster course and sat there completely overwhelmed because whilst the actual lessons given were tailored to potential students who have never studied classics before (me), nearly everyone else there had and were engaging with the material in a way I simply couldn’t understand. Do you have a recommended reading list I could use over summer so that I don’t completely go in the deep end? :) thanks so much !
You’re not a bother at all, friend!
It is really overwhelming when you’re not used to it - and don’t worry, I have a whole degree in Classics, and I still get overwhelmed! It’s perfectly normal. There’s a lot of information and the Classical world spans so many locations and time periods, it’s a lot to take in. Everyone is going to be at different levels and remember - you can always learn. Your point of view and your voice is important, so if you have trouble engaging in the material how others are presenting it, think of how you engage with the material and how you would present it to others. You might be giving a lot of people another aspect of the material that they themselves had not considered.
Anyway!
So, before I went into my Classics degree, I had only read The Iliad and The Odyssey, and I didn’t even read them all the way through, but that’s where I would begin!
The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid are the “big 3″ that I had to keep reading over and over again, no matter what level of Classics I was in. However, there is a lot more reading!
The recommended reading list for Classics undergraduates from Yale University is found here (https://classics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/downloads/YaleUndergraduateReadingList.pdf) and is as follows (and please remember that this is for the whole of your undergraduate career, not what you should have done before you start):
Ancient Greek:
Additional English Readings:
That sure is a lot! But, again, remember, this is the reading list from which most undergraduates would be working off of for their final and comprehensive examinations, if your university conducts those types of requirements. This isn’t a list of things you should know before you’re in your program, but moreso what you should know at the end of it. So, here’s my recommendations from that list that I would suggest for you to read before you begin your program (in English, but if you have some knowledge of Ancient Greek, it would be good to give it a go for the recommendations listed here! But don’t worry, you don’t need to know everything before the first day of class).
Ancient Greek Readings (My Recommendations from the List Above):
These are the ones I would start with; it’ll get you familiar with the type of readings you will have, it’s a little less overwhelming than the first list, and I’m going to be perfectly honest with you that I’ve not read a good chunk of the people on the list myself. But, I think that my recommendations are a little easier to digest and easier to get through than trying to read the whole list recommended for undergraduates. Onward we go!
Latin:
Quite a lot here, too! From what I had to read in school as an undergraduate, I will give you a few recommendations for the Latin readings you might want to explore in English before you dive in to the works in Latin (again, if you are familiar with Latin, feel free to try and work through some of the recommendations above!)
Latin Readings (My Recommendations from the List Above):
Remember, these are all to start you off, and if you complete all of the readings I recommended, you can explore the expanded list and see what’s interesting to you. The recommendations I’ve made on what to read before you go into your program is based on what I read as an undergraduate and whether I had read it at all before I began graduate school. If anyone wants to specifically recommend anything I didn’t list as a must before beginning a program, please add it!
Here are the best places to find translations of these works, in case you cannot find them in your local library or don’t have the money to invest in all of them:
I hope this helps and please let me know if you would like me to expand on anything else for you. Happy reading!
All the best,
The Ancient Geeko-Roman
Virgil, Aeneid (II.255)
Aristophanes’ Skenas katalambanousai/ Women Claiming Tent Sites: Women compete with men over shelters at a festival
Aristophanes’ Daedalus: Zeus uses Daedalus’ skill as a craftsman in an erotic adventure
Eupolis’ Baptai/ Dippers: Parodies a performance for the Thracian goddess Cotyto where men apparently dressed up as women
Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros: The Judgement of Paris but with Dionysos as Paris
Cratinus’ Pytine/ The Wine Flask: Cratinus was frequently mocked by other comedic writers for his love of drinking. In reply he wrote The Wine Flask which features himself as the main character. He is married to Comedy who accuses him of cheating on her with Pytine. The real Cratinus won first prize for this play.
Eupolis’ Taxiarchoi/ Commanders: The god Dionysos joins the army
