In ancient Greece, the Muses stood at the gateway of human inspiration. Calliope gave us epic poetry....
Classics
Encounter the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome through the texts they produced and the worlds revealed by material evidence. These studies connect classical antiquity with its enduring influence on later societies.
Written under the patronage of the first emperor of Rome, Virgil’s ‘Aenied’ can be understood as political...
The culture of antiquity played an important role in the literary and artistic endeavors of the Middle...
Memories of the past were an important guide to the future. This is in part why the...
The Homeric Multitext, Creative Commons Women’s discourse in Greek society has been traditionally controlled and restricted by...
Linguistic dating is in close agreement with historians’ and classicists’ beliefs derived from historical and archaeological sources. ...
Handscroll, ink and color on silk, 24.4 x 343.8 cm / British Library Exploring some of the...
David, The Love of Helen and Paris (detail), Wikimedia Commons Helen’s homecoming was on the surface successful, but there was...
Giotto’s Last Judgment in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, inspired by Dante Alighieri’s vision of heaven and...
Fresco showing a woman called Sappho holding writing implements from Pompeii Naples National Archaeological Museum. Wikimedia Commons Sappho...
Virgil reads the Aeneid to Octavia and Augustus. Angelica Kauffmann/Hermitage/Wikimedia Commons Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid documents the founding of Rome by a...
Hera, Athena and Iris in the Trojan War (Iris, at the Behest of Zeus, Warns Athena and...
Helen McCrory as Medea. Richard Hubert Smith/National Theatre By Dr. Laura Swift / 07.23.2014 Lecturer in Classical Studies The Open...
A dramatic tale of love, betrayal, and vengeance, Medea is continually reinvented for new audiences. By Dr. Mary...
The limestone relief on this Roman sarcophagus, c. AD 190, depicts the Triumph of Dionysus. / Walters Art Museum A guide...
A family visiting the Getty Villa explores ancient art, history, and mythology through frescoes from the ancient...
Sandra Marquez as Clytemnestra and Stephanie Andrea Barron as Iphigenia in the Court Theater production of Euripides’s Iphigenia...
The Sack of Troy: A warrior kills Astyanax, son of Hektor, dealing the final blow to the...
Detail of Colossal Krater from Altamura, about 350 B.C., Greek, made in Apulia, South Italy. Terracotta, 63 in. high...
Alexander the Great Confronts Darius III at the Battle of Issos (or possibly Battle of Gaugamela), floor...
Triumphant Achilles dragging Hector’s lifeless body in front of the Gates of Troy. (From a panoramic fresco on the upper level...
Pentheus torn apart by Agave and Ino. Attic red-figure lekanis (cosmetics bowl) lid, ca. 450-425 BCE /...
Ancient Greek garden / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Annette Lucia Giesecke Chair, Department of Languages, Literature and...
Mask of Agamemnon, from shaft grave V, grave circle A, c.1550-1500 B.C.E., gold, 12 inches / 35...
By Dr. Gregory NagyFrancis Jones Professor of Classical Greek LiteratureProfessor of Comparative LiteratureDirector, Center for Hellenic StudiesHarvard University In...
Dying Warrior sculpture from the East Pediment of the late archaic Temple of Aphaia in Aegina,c.500-480 BCE,...
Statue of the ancient greek historian Herodotus at the parliament of Vienna / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Gregory...
Detail of a relief depicting the “Apotheosis of Homer,” attributed to Archelaos of Priene, ca. 225 BCE–205...
Odysseus and his crew escape the cyclops, as painted by Arnold Böcklin in 1896. Wikimedia By Dr. Chris...
Odysseus departs from the Land of the Phaeacians, painting by Claude Lorrain (1646) / Louvre Museum, Paris By Dr. Gregory Nagy...