The Milman Parry Collection The Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature is the largest single repository of South Slavic heroic song in the world. It comprises the following separate collections. All of these are currently housed in Harvard University’s Widener Library, Room C: 1. The texts and recordings of oral literature, including epic, lyric songs, and ballads, some stories, and conversations with singers and others,… Read more
External Resources for Research in the Classics Please visit the following links for more information about The Center for Hellenic Studies, CHS affiliates, and other useful Hellenic and Classical Studies websites. Regional Organizations American Classical League American Philological Association AAH Association of Ancient Historians AIA Archaeological Institute of America… Read more
Collaboration The Center For Hellenic Studies collaborates with several partners to promote Hellenic Studies and the electronic publication of scholarly works. Click on the links following each overview to read more about CHS partners. The Milman Parry Collection The Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature is the largest single repository of South Slavic heroic song in the world. It comprises the following separate collections. All of… Read more
Lecture Four Champions of dikê (justice) A) Odyssey xix: “Lady;” answered Odysseus, “who on the face of the whole earth can dare to chide with you? Your fame [kleos] reaches the firmament of heaven itself; you are like some blameless king, who upholds righteousness [= good dikê], as the monarch over a great and valiant nation: the earth yields its wheat and barley, the trees… Read more
Lecture Three Part 1 This brief segment explores the Odyssey and its “captain” Odysseus as a metaphor for governing the Greek city state. On the surface the Odyssey is a story about a voyage and homecoming, but the subtext has to do with the agenda of the city state. The Greek word for captain, kubernêtes, becomes the Latin word gubernator and our word “gubernatorial. Part 2 The ainos as Key… Read more
Lecture Two Part 1 A) from Odyssey i: [1] Tell me, O Muse, of that many-sided hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the people with whose customs and thinking [noos] he was acquainted; many things he suffered at sea while seeking to save his own life [psukhê] and to achieve the… Read more
Lecture One A. Here is an essential fact about ancient Greek religion (for a working definition of this general term, see item B): not only were the gods worshipped. Heroes too were worshipped. The worship of heroes was very much like ancestor worship. (Compare similar customs in other traditional societies, including the Japanese.) A1. Besides the word worship, we may use the word cult. As… Read more
Background Lecture For this series, we have provided an on-line text of the Homeric Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler and revised by Gregory Nagy and Timothy Power. This revised translation includes glosses of key Greek words in the text. The entire Odyssey can be found here (or by using the button on the menu to the left). You may also use another translation if you prefer. Relevant facts about… Read more
Punishment in Ancient Athens Danielle S. Allen, University of Chicago Part I) Introduction Ask any modern citizen to name a punishment meted out by their state and odds are the first thing she will say is “imprisonment.” Ask the same citizen then to say why modern states use imprisonment as their preferred penalty, and he’ll say, “We need to keep the bad guys off the street! Prisons are for deterrence.”… Read more
Gadfly on Trial: Socrates as Citizen and Social Critic ©Josiah Ober, Princeton University Suggested Reading: Plato, Apology Plato, Crito Socrates of Athens is an enduring presence in the western imagination, in part because he presents us with a mass of contradictions: Most eloquent of men, yet he never wrote a… Read more
