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…
Latin Epitaphs
By Dara Sanchez
Observe traveler, the epitaphs of a long-gone era. In the field of classical studies, scholars mostly spend time looking over the grand works of Roman elites. Of course, we learn a lot about Roman society in this way, but with these translations, I wanted to highlight funerary epitaphs and get a glimpse of the people who were once beloved as daughters and wives or even had the more complicated status of being freedmen or enslaved…
Iliad, Hector, and Andromache
By Doulin Appleberry
In this excerpt from Book 6 of the Iliad, Hector is speaking with his wife Andromache for the last time before his death. Andromache begs him to stay, but he insists he must go fight. I have translated the Greek text, originally in dactylic hexameter, into English iambic pentameter blank verse…
Are the Romans Better Than the Greeks in Philosophy?
By Hanzhao Kuang
In a 2012 survey, Philosophy Now asked seventy-five academics to vote on the five most important/interesting philosophers from history. Among respondents, many Greek thinkers were popular choices: Aristotle came in first with forty-four votes and Plato ranked third with thirty-one votes. But Roman philosophers came short: Cicero, a famous Roman philosopher, received merely two votes…
For Medea, Love is Fear, and Love is Fire
By Rebecca Onken
Medea is, for many (classicists and armchair consumers alike), the quintessential classical witch. Her powers dazzle. Her escapades are many and run the gamut of moral acceptability: she ensures Jason’s success in attaining the golden fleece by means of wondrous “medicines,” returns the blush of youth to an ailing old man, orchestrates the murder of a different old man, kills roughly three family members, and spirits away from her crimes on a chariot drawn by dragons…
Pericles’s Funeral Oration: A Partial Translation of The History of the Peloponnesian War 2.37-41
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. As 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…
Revisiting Lofty Arches: the Transmigration of Souls in Aeneid 6
By Erin Schott
In the beginning, the inner spirit
nourishes the sky, lands, and liquid fields,
the shining globe of the moon and Titan’s stars…
Catullus Carmen 5
By Dara Sanchez
Live, laugh, love. A unifying anthem for mothers across America. Yet, in Carmen 5, Catullus finds a way to enthrall us with his amorous descriptions of thousands of kisses. He reminds us of…
The Burden of Snow on Struggling Trees
By Noah Apter
Do you see how Mount Soracte stands, pure white with deep snow, and how the struggling trees can no longer bear the burden of snow, and how the rivers have frozen over with biting frost? Ward away the cold by generously tossing…
Dialogues of the Dead 23
By Noah Apter
Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead contains thirty largely comedic miniature dialogues between deceased Greek figures. The 23rd dialogue, which is notably more somber than the others, occurs…