Daedalus and Icarus: A Tale of Many Metamorphoses
By Erin Schott
In his fifteen-book magnum opus, Ovid recounts over 250 myths. These range from the disturbing and violent (Procne and Philomela) to the sweet and innocent (Baucis and Philemon) and all shades in between. Yet what unites this seemingly disparate set of myths is the poem’s title Metamorphoses, for each myth describes a change or evolution…
Analysis of a Surveyed Landscape: Euesperides, Cyrenaica
By Josiah Canon DeSarro-Raynal
Lying on the northwest coast of Cyrenaica in modern Libya, Euesperides is an important archaeological site that has been the focus of extensive research through surveys and excavations since the mid-twentieth century. Demonstrated through the findings later explored in this analysis, the site offers an exceptional opportunity to reconstruct the physical appearance of a Greek city from the late-sixth century to the mid-third century BCE…
The Very Best Men in Greek Mythology
By Maggie Yuan
Nearly every classics student that I’ve met was obsessed with Greco-Roman mythology as a child. It didn’t matter whether we read D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths or Percy Jackson, we were all fascinated by this ancient world filled with trickster gods and dashing heroes. But looking back, the stories themselves were pretty intense for a readership of children…
Athens and Its Allies
By Daniel Stein
In March of 2021, Discentes published an article by Andrew Liu entitled “Athens: Cruel Imperial Power or Falsely Maligned?” It argued that the fifth century Athenian Empire was “a cruel imperial power” that maintained a “regime of control . . . based on fear and intimidation, not willing compliance” over subject peoples, concluding, “it is hard to argue that the Athenians were not a cruel and hated empire.”[1] This essay will take the opposing position. I argue that the Empire was not universally hated…
Seneca Minor, Epistles, CIV.XVI–XX
By Hadleigh Zinsner
Seneca the Younger’s Moral Letters, written and published in the final years of his life, have often been considered the philosopher’s finest contribution to the Western canon, if only for the clarity they have provided future historians in dissecting the core tenets of Stoicism. For example, Letter 104, which I have translated below, expresses the importance of ἀπάθεια, or indifference, towards one’s surroundings…
Plague and Politics: The Combination of Disease and Narrative in Thucydides’ History
By Joshua Rose
At this point in the Covid-19 Pandemic, it should be unnecessary to reiterate just how devastating the virus has been over the past several years. And yet, even rolling past the third year of masks and intermittent lockdowns, we are constantly given new updates on the serious toll Covid has taken. One particularly grim new statistic shows that the US death toll from Covid will soon reach one million people…
Plague, Climate Change, and the End of Ancient Civilizations
By Daniel Stein
Periodically, civilizations collapse. Whether through war, disease, famine, or internal strife, complex societies can rapidly vanish, leaving the survivors to start a process of rebuilding that can take centuries. “A society has collapsed,” writes anthropologist Joseph Tainter, “when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of social complexity”…
Ancient Greek Pancakes
By Adrian Altieri
Although the concept of a pancake, especially one with toppings like chocolate, fruit, or whipped cream, may seem like a more modern idea, a particular version was a staple of the Ancient Greek breakfast. This type of pancake, referred to as a “girdle-cake” (ταγηνίτης, tagenites) by the Athenians or a “griddle-cake” (τηγανίτης, teganites) by the Anatolian Greeks, is a mixture of wheat flour and water, fried in olive oil, including either sea salt, honey, or sesame seeds…
History of the Peloponnesian War
By Noah Apter
Pericles’s Funeral Oration comes down the centuries as one of the most difficult pieces of ancient Greek literature to properly translate. To us classicists, it seems that Thucydides wishes to help us sharpen our teeth on his grammar. Why? It is in the nature of speeches to differ from narrative texts, the former tending to be “live,” while narratives deliver recollections of events past…
Women, Barbarians, and Gendered Xenophobia
By Diotima Belmehdi
In Agesilaos, the Athenian historian Xenophon recounts that while attempting to rile up his troops against the Persians, King Agesilaos of Sparta did the following…