The Center for Hellenic Studies

PUBLICATIONS
Curated Books

Rhythm without Beat: Prosodically Motivated Grammarisation in Homer

In this study, the author argues that syntactical development beyond the autonomy of single words or word groups was facilitated by an aspect of Homeric prosody that differs from the metrical surface structure, though it is realized together with meter. The focus will be on the strength of metrical boundaries as phonetically realized pauses. This work will deal, in other words, with the combination of metrics and phonetics. The hypothesis… Read more

Curated Articles

Poetics of Fragmentation in the Athyr Poem of C. P. Cavafy

[Originally published in Imagination and Logos: Essays on C. P. Cavafy (ed. Panagiotis Roilos) 265-272. Cambridge, MA 2010. The original pagination of the article will be indicated in this electronic version by way of curly brackets (“{“ and “}”). For example, “{265|266}” indicates where p. 265 of the printed article ends and p. 266 begins.] Ἐν τῷ μη[νὶ] Ἀθύρ [[1]] Μὲ δυσκολία διαβάζω    στὴν πέτρα τὴν ἀρχαία. [[2]] <<Κύ[ρι]ε… Read more

Curated Articles

Different ways of expressing the idea of historiā in the prose of Herodotus and Thucydides

[This is an early draft of an article eventually published in Pushing the Boundaries of Historia, ed. Mary C. English and Lee Fratantuono, Routledge 2018, pp. 7–12. It appears here by permission of the editors. The page-breaks of the printed version will be indicated within braces: for example, “{7|8}” indicates where page 7 stops and page 8 begins.] The point of departure for this essay is the fact that Herodotus uses… Read more

Primary Sources

Euripides, Herakles

Translated by Robert Potter Adapted by Mary Ebbott and Casey Dué Further adapted by Miriam Kamil Introduction: Herakles has gone to the underworld, where he was sent by Eurystheus to drag to light the triple-headed dog Cerberus. Lykos, king of Thebes, certain that the enterprise will prove fatal to the hero, seizes on his three sons, together with their mother Megara, and grandfather Amphitryon, in order to allay… Read more

Donum natalicium

Anthroponymica Mycenaea: e-ti-me-de-i (dat.) /hEnti-mēdēs/ ‘(the one) who accomplished his plans’, Homeric ἐξήνυσε βουλάς

back José L. García Ramón (Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC) 1. The Pylian man’s name e-ti-me-de-i (dat.) occurs in PY Fn 324.1 (S324, Ciii), a tablet of contributions of barley (HORD, with indication of the quantities) beside a series of names.* Some of them, all in dative, are surely Greek, [1] among others a-ka-ma-jo .4 /Akmaiōi/ or /Alkmaiōi/ (:… Read more

Curated Articles

Review of Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer (London: Allen Lane, 2008)

[This article is a draft of a review later published in Journal of Hellenic Studies 131 (2011) 166–169 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075426911000127). Page numbers for that publication have been added in curly brackets. For instance, {166|167} indicates the break between pages 166 and 167.] For the author (hereafter LF), the ‘epic age of Homer’ is the 8th c. (here and hereafter, all dates are BCE). The word ‘travelling’ refers to… Read more

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

Old Norse Mythology—Comparative Perspectives

Old Norse mythology is elusive: it is the label used to describe the religious stories of the pre-Christian North, featuring such well-known gods as Odin and Thor, yet most of the narratives have come down to us in manuscripts from the Middle Ages mainly written by Christians. Our view of the stories as they were transmitted in oral form in the pre-Christian era is obscured. To overcome these limitations, this… Read more

Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature Series

The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A Discourse on Method

This work explores the role of orality in shaping and evaluating medieval Icelandic literature. Applying field studies of oral cultures in modern times to this distinguished medieval literature, Gísli Sigurðsson asks how it would alter our reading of medieval Icelandic sagas if it were assumed they had grown out of a tradition of oral storytelling, similar to that observed in living cultures. Sigurðsson examines how orally trained lawspeakers regarded the emergent written… Read more

Curated Articles

Further Thoughts on Linear B po-re-na, po-re-si, and po-re-no-

1. Introduction §1. Opinions have varied and swayed regarding the interpretation of the Linear B term po-re-na. Whatever meaning is assigned, many would draw the forms po-re-si and po-re-no- into their interpretation of po-re-na, and vice versa. In this investigation I begin with the interpretation of po-re-na that appears most probable and reconsider po-re-si and po-re-no- on the basis of both internal and comparative evidence. 2. Po-re-na §2. Pylos tablet… Read more