Velleius’ history is an epitome, or summary, and necessarily clipped at times, but it has an unpretentious and sonorous simplicity. The apparently clumsy contrast here is between the qualities of […]
Author Archives: Steve Jenkin
Virgil Aeneid 9.314-50 (contributed by Caroline Lawrence)
I’ve been reading book 9 of the Aeneid. Not often studied, it is the book with the most battles in it. Aeneas has gone off to recruit help and left […]
Ibycus | Fragment 6 (contributed by Mariangela Labate)
Fr. 6 D. = 286 P. Mariangela Labate Head of Classics ἦρι μὲν αἵ τε Κυδώνιαι μαλίδεϛ ἀρδόμεναι ῥόαι τʹ ἐκ ποταμῶν, ἵνα Παρθένων κᾶποϛ ἀκήρατος, αἵ τ’ οἰνανθίδες αὐξόμεναι […]
Ficino | Philosophy and Philosophers
When translating this commentary three or four years ago, the first sentence of this passage filled me with such wonder that it was not possible to proceed with the work […]
Ficino | Human Nature. Inspiration for Botticelli’s Venus?
This exquisite description paints an image in the heart which reminds us of the innate beauty of the human being. Were it not for the sweet grace of love, its kinship, […]
Ficino | Letter to Lorenzo Lippi (Contributed by Jane Mason)
After my first year studying Classics at university I found that the life seemed to have gone out of it because it had all become a mere intellectual exercise. Luckily […]
Martial: Greek Mythology in Roman Spectacle
The following are selections from Martial’s De Spectaculis Liber. I have selected according to the theme “Greek Mythology in Roman Spectacle”, including epigrams that contain reference to display of a […]
Sappho and the Moon (contributed by Terry Walsh)
Sappho, the mystical poetess of the 7th century BC, has some beautiful lyrics about the night. The Moon was believed by the ancients to be the controller of all things […]
Sappho Fragment 31 (contributed by Mariangela Labate)
This is one of the most appreciated poems of classical antiquity; in fact it has been imitated and revised by many poets (see Catullus, Carmina 51). The first lines of […]
Aeschylus Agamemnon 72-82 (contributed by Zachary McGar)
“Gorgeous” is not likely to be the first adjective that one would use to describe either Aeschylus or his work, but his writing exhibits a staggering, almost uncalled-for beauty. If […]