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Plato's klinai

To follow up on my last post, which concerned the great variety of couch styles represented on Athenian vases: If there were so many different types of klinai in the repertoire of Athenian vase painters, why did Plato choose to use the kline as a paradigm in his… Read more

The Signature of the Muses: Epigram as Everyday Miracle?

In a recent article on artists' signatures in antiquity, Osborne has argued that such signatures reveal the socially embedded nature of pots, sculpture, gems etc., a collaboration between artist, object and end-user. As Osborne states, "What they all [plastic arts and literature] share is the sense that there is an 'author,' that the identity of the creator of these works is something worth knowing—and worth knowing because these are works… Read more