OK, I’ll strike a more sober note today. Recently, the upheaval of higher education funding and student fees in the UK (where I am employed) has caused a great deal of discomfort (even the potential for sore egos, although misery always loves company). The… Read more
This week I have been looking at representations of klinai (couches) on Greek vases . . . lots of klinai on lots of Greek vases, thanks to the miraculous Beazley Archive Pottery Database. I am intrigued by the variety of ways Greek vase-painters depicted the couches on which their… Read more
Since I spent part of the past week working on a new (Greek) literary fragment from the dossier of the priests of Soknebtunis, I thought that I would devote this post to some brief remarks concerning the Greek reading interests of the Tebtunis clerics. Even a cursory examination of the… Read more
Philip of Thessalonike not only collected the epigrams of other authors, but, like Meleager, he also wrote poems of his own. One that never fails to make me laugh tells the story of ants searching for honey: Βωλοτόμοι μύρμηκες, ὁ γῆς στρατός, ἡνίκ’ ἔτενδε γειομόρου μελιχρὴν σμηνοδόκου χάριτα, μηνίσας ὁ… Read more
In Lucian’s dialogue On pantomime one of the characters, Lycinus, explains that Proteus, the mythical master of metamorphoses, was really just a very skilled dancer, a proto-typical pantomime-performer. This reinterpretation of Proteus’ metamorphoses as a form of artistic skill is quite remarkable and invites some further reflection on the relationship… Read more
