…is a graffito scratched into a street in the Athenian deme of Thorikos. Who Chares was, and whether he really was as fine a whore as his ‘admirer’ suggests, is anyone’s guess. Graffiti like this, which comment on the sexuality of a person, are common in the ancient world however. Read more
In antiquity, gesture and facial expressions were not thought simply to refer to language, but to the underlying emotions or psychic states (Quintilian, Orator’s education 11.3.66). It is all the more surprising that in the case of pantomime, ancient accounts often emphasise the close correspondence between gestures and words, for… Read more
In a post two weeks ago, I discussed an amusing if tendentious story about Aristotle and his crew usurping Plato’s turf in the garden of the Academy and suggested that this story helps us to imagine the ways in which partisans of various students of Plato (e.g. Read more
“For just as all the sophisticated doctors and most sophisticated athletic trainers pretty much agree that those who are to be good doctors or trainers must be experienced about nature – and indeed much more than the former … in the same way, the statesman must have certain norms taken… Read more
In his “biography” of the first king of the Persian Empire, Xenophon says of Cyrus the Great: In his nature Cyrus is reputed and still celebrated even now among the barbarians as most beautiful in his form and most loving of humanity (φιλανθρωπότατος) in his soul, as well as most… Read more
