As I have talked about elsewhere, translations of Homer are creations of their own, serving their audiences and contexts in important ways and sometimes standing as works of art on their own. The act of translation, however, in creating something new, does not fully represent the range of meaning or tones available in the original.
Even spending many years studying ancient Greek rarely provides us with the depth of understanding necessary to appreciate Homeric language and meaning. Studying Homer takes repetition and sustained reflection, alongside discussion with others. For those interested in learning a little more about the Homeric texts and trying to make some sense of them on their own, I have included some tools here.
Because of the complexity of options available, the Scaife Viewer takes a little time to get used too. But it provides lexical, morphological, and commentary tools (with bibliography). Make sure to turn on the “highlight” function under TEXT mode nd the right hand column can provide definitions, parsing, and access to commentary on the word and line in particular.
Another tool that is probably the coolest thing on the internet (for a Homer-dork like me) is the Homer Multitext Project. This interface allows you to look at high-resolution images of some of our best medieval manuscripts of Homer.
The manuscripts are transcribed, so you can compare what appears in each on to what you find on Scaife elsewhere. But what is super cool is that the links to the side are keyed to the various levels of scholia (marginal comments, think footnotes from ancient scholars) all throughout the text.
This can give you access to transcriptions of the scholia throughout the manuscript. If you are ambitious, you can use the transcriptions and the images to teach yourself a little palaeography too.
Other web based tools:
A combination of the resources above and some others available online can help make anyone today the envy of Homerists only two generations ago. Here are a few more:
The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, which keeps promising to be completely free some day, has been one of the most important tools in digital humanities since before the term was even coined. Its accessibility and paywall issues, however, have limited its impact outside of academic circles. In its full form it has all of extant Greek literature, but the major content-based limitation (as with other digital interfaces) is that the contents are based on specific editions of ancient texts without a sufficient apparatus criticus (the system of notes at the bottom of a critical edition that indicate manuscript variants and editorial choices). Like the Loeb and Perseus, this means TLG texts have the appearance of unity and authority, without actually possessing either.
The first book of the Iliad is often a surprise to readers who come to it from general knowledge of myth. It not really about the Trojan War. It is a narrative set in a Trojan War that sets up surprising inversions and initiates a plot that advances some kind of a plan (be it cosmic and about the end of the race of Heroes, or local, and really about honoring Achilles by harming the Trojans). As I discuss in an earlier post the beginning of the Iliad contains thematically resonant language that engages with the larger poetic tradition while also informing audiences what to expect from this poem.
The introduction—called a ‘proem’ by classical scholars—does most of the work to set you on your way. It announces the them (Achilles’ rage), what it does (kill people) but with a twist (it kills Achaeans). All of this is framed as being part of Zeus’ plan. The cause of the rage, in this story, is a fall out between Achilles and Agamemnon, a “strife” (eris) that threatens to undermine the whole war effort.
The Wrath of Achilles (1847). Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France by François-Léon Benouville
When authors in antiquity talk about “The Rage of Achilles” as a narrative, I think we too often assume that their story is the same as ours. But even in the Iliad Achilles rages for different reasons: first at Agamemnon, then at Hektor for the death of Patroklos. We also know that in other traditions he raged over the death of Nestor’s son Antilochus and that multiforms of the beginning of our poem variously list as themes the rage of Apollo or the ‘rages’ of Apollo and Achilles. My point in bringing this up, is that we can’t assume that every story about Achilles’ rage was political in nature—our Iliad may very well be a particular variation on that theme, one that resonated with audiences for whom the political wrangling of the aristocracy was of particular interest. (Or, perhaps, political posturing among cities, etc.)
For me, the most influential account of Achilles’ rage is my Greek teacher’s book The Anger of Achilles: Menis in Greek Epic, which explains in part that Menis signals a rage reserved for divine figures over cosmic disorder. (For a complementary treatment of different words for Anger in the Homeric poems, see Thomas Walsh’s Fighting Words and Feuding Words: Anger and the Homeric Poems.) Two recent and important books should be read as supplements for this. Emily Austin’s Grief and the Hero explores how longing, absence, and grief are critical corollaries for rage, while Rachel Lesser’s Desire in the Iliad details how desire pervades the fabric of epic poetry and motivates its characters.
In my post on major themes for reading the Iliad, I offer five threads to follow in the epic: (1) Politics, (2) Heroism; (3) Gods and Humans; (4) Family & Friends; (5) Narrative Traditions. Book 1 gives us a start for each of these, but is entangled the most with the theme of politics. Everything about the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon in book 1 is embroiled in political questions: who is in charge, who gets to authorize an action, who runs the assembly, who cares for the people, and the risk posed to their collective health and mission by leaders who put their own interests ahead of others.’
Achilles fighting against Memnon Leiden Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden
Despite the clarity of these questions, there was a long time when scholars argued you couldn’t talk about politics in Homer. That has really changed over the past generation or so. (Full disclosure, I wrote my dissertation on Politics and rhetoric in the Iliad.) Walter Donlan and Dean Hammer really paved the way for later scholars like Elton Barker and David Elmer to argue that the Iliad functions in part as a way to establish political institutions (and make room for dissent) and also to show the importance of public assent and the appearance of shared decision making. My small addition to this is that the political themes of the Iliad are explored on three stages with contrasting uses of language and power: first, the Achaeans, then the gods, and finally the Trojans.
The poem starts with a plot convention that entangles the worlds of gods and men, a plague. But the plague, rather than being part of the cosmic plan, is set into motion by human activity to which the gods respond. Plagues themselves in the ancient world are contexts for political crises to be explored.
Below I have provided a bibliography for politics in the Iliad. I will return to it in critical books. For now, I have provided some guiding questions as you think or teach about Iliad 1. I find it useful not to have too many questions, just some basic frameworks for beginning a conversation. Don’t forget that I have a post with practical advice for reading and teaching Homer. If you have other questions or additional bibliography to add, don’t hesitate to reach out. I have selected questions I find effective in preparing students for subsequent books and following the specific thematic threads.
Some guiding questions
What is Zeus’ plan?
What’s the first mistake?
How do the Achaeans respond to the debate?
What are the political dynamics of the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles?
What does Achilles’ really ask Zeus for?
A short Bibliography on Politics in the Iliad
Barker E. T. E. 2004. “Achilles’ Last Stand: Institutionalising Dissent in Homer’s Iliad.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society: 92–120.
———. 2009. Entering the Agon: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography and Tragedy. Oxford.
Chaston, C. 2002. “Three Models of Authority in the Odyssey.” The Classical World 96: 3–19.
Christensen, Joel P. 2015. “Trojan Politics and the Assemblies of Iliad 7.”
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 55:25–51.
Cook, Erwin. 1999. “ ‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Heroics in the Odyssey.” Classical
World 93:149–67.
Donlan, W. 1979. “The Structure of Authority in the Iliad.” Arethusa 12:51–70.
———. 2002. “Achilles the Ally.” Arethusa 35:155–172.
Elmer, D. 2013. The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision-Making and the Iliad. Baltimore.
Hammer, D. 1997. “‘Who Shall Readily Obey?’ Authority and Politics in the Iliad.” Phoenix 51:1–24.
———. 2002. The Iliad as Politics: The Performance of Political Thought. Norman.
Haubold, J. 2000. Homer’s People: Epic Poetry and Social Formation. Cambridge.
Mackie, H. 1996. Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad. Lanham.
Postlethwaite, N. 1998. “Thersites in the Iliad.” In Homer: Greek and Roman Studies, ed. I. McAuslan and P. Walcot, 83–95. Oxford.
Roisman, H. 2005. “Nestor the Good Counsellor.” The Classical Quarterly 55: 17–38.
Rose, P.W. 1997. “Ideology in the Iliad: Polis, Basileus, Theoi.” Arethusa 30:151–199.
Thalmann, W. G. 1988. “Thersites: Comedy, Scapegoats and Heroic Ideology in the Iliad.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 118:1–28.
———. 2004. “The Most Divinely Approved and Political Discord.” Classical Antiquity 23:359–399.
Wilson, D. F. 2002a. Ransom, Revenge and Heroic Identity in the Iliad. Cambridge.
This site has been the quietest in its existence over the past few months. We have spent some time thinking about what to do with it and to what extent it is an artefact of a time that has passed. Antiquarians don’t give up the old easily.
But we do change the way we see them. I spent a good part of the past few years posting about the Iliad on Substack, exploring how to use social media more for good than stoking the fires of discontent. I enjoyed the rhythm of the posts, the opportunity to revisit old friends (those Homeric ones), and taking seriously the responsibility of discussing scholarship and sharing new work with an emphasis on enthusiasm and inclusion, rather than critique and disdain (both of which had taken over too much of my public work).
I enjoyed and and it seemed to enjoy some success as well. But then it became harder and harder to justify reconciling staying with Substack with my aims and values. My break conveniently coincided with a professional move that has arisen from and influenced in turn the way I view my work in the world.
As part of staying engaged and returning to the question of what this form is and what it can do, I am going to be resurrecting Painful Signs here, on the o.g. site. I will be tinkering with design at times, but primarily just recopying and updating posts on the Iliad starting from the beginning. I won’t promise any strict posting schedule, but I like to find a rhythm and inhabit it. So, let’s see what happens.
PS: I am giving a series of five Roundtable by the 92nd St Y talks on the Iliad called “The Homeric Iliad: Or, The Meaning of Life and Death” running once a week, starting Monday, October 27th, 12-1 PM. If you can’t catch the sessions live, recordings will be available.
With the exception of inevitable Odyssey posting thanks to the gravity of the upcoming Nolan movie, I plan on focusing almost exclusively on the Iliad. I am going to publish more than once a week (no promises) three or four basic kinds of posts: (1) essays meant for people teaching or learning about the Iliad in translation; (2) book-by-book reading questions; (3) revised essays, thoughts on epic from other sources; (4) random posts on scholia, certain passages, the the bric-a-brac that Homer geeks thrive on. (Also, no promises I will stick just to those four categories).
This is a post on why I am leaving my substack site. I am publishing it on Substack and here, for users who do not want to contribute to that site’s metrics.
Substack is a startup that relies on user content and promotion to generate (shared) revenue. Many writers have complained that the benefits are fleeting over time. Others have complained about the way the platform encourages different kinds of writing and an emphasis on metrics. I donated any funds generated to charity and have written at my own pace, promoting by half measures. I stayed as long as I did because I liked the format and regretted the idea of giving up a space because it was also promoting horrible ideas.
Open discourse and freedom of speech are wonderful ideals. But our world is far from ideal. What do we mean when we talk about free speech? Ancient Athens offers us parrhêsia, what a modern free speech advocate might call “frank and open debate”—for criticizing your friends in private and also for expressing unpopular opinions in public for the benefit of the state. In addition, “equal access to public speech” (Isêgoria) promises that each citizen be given that opportunity. Both kinds of speech should bring with them responsibility (to speak for the benefit of the people) and accountability (for what the speech does in the world). This ideal also requires that people have common starting grounds in relation to power.
Our recent spate of protests has led to the limiting phrase of “time, manner, and place” to allow University administrations to exert greater control over ideas expressed on their campuses. We should take a cue and apply this to hateful ideas as well: Nazism, white supremacy, and all of the other horrors allowed (or often espoused) by free speech absolutists belong in the past, treated as admonitory, and in controlled circumstances where people are given the option to engage with them.
As anyone who remembers the “cancel culture” panic of yesteryear can attest to, the people who cried most loudly about it, were those whose traditional power was being contested, almost entirely because other people were exercising their freedom. Now that we face an actual canceling of culture in the form of domestic concentration camps, a mafia state onslaught against higher ed, and an expansion of militarized police straight out of dystopian fantasy, those voices are coincidentally, if not suspiciously, silent.
But there is a connection between the attack on education and diversity and the platforming of hate: our power structures are aiming at undermining the thinking and reasoning skills that make it possible to be critical of the non-stop production of bad information. There’s an additional link between these efforts and the support for ‘AI’ and LLM generated pabulum: the intentional deadening of the human heart and mind.
I should have known better and earlier. In my recent book StorylifeI call near the end for a major shift in education to address how narrative shapes us
Our vulnerability to narrative is increased when we do not learn about its power, when we are not taught how to engage with it directly. We need to be taught to develop the tools to engage with story intentionally rather than passively allowing it to shape us. From primary school education on, we need to emphasize rich and complex engagement with narrative. This means focusing less on standardized testing and more on reading and discussing stories together. (And “story” here is inclusive of narrative in all its forms, visual, aural, moving, and static.) This means emphasizing media literacy alongside the history of ideas. This means teaching about cognition, psychology, and evolution much earlier in education and framing STEM fields as subject to discourse too, not just as instruments to make us better partners for computers or more effective gears in production machines
We need to be able to exercise the judgment that recognizes that some speech does demonstrable harm to our fellow people and our shared human enterprise. Leaving is an exercise of this freedom. My apologies for taking so long to make this decision. The cause is partly a naïve hope that things would change and a denial that they were as bad as they are. The posts from this site have been downloaded and will be re-released on my old website sententiaeantiquae.com book-by-book starting in September. I hope you’ll join me there.
“He also thought about destroying the poems of Homer, asking why what had been granted to Plato might not be granted to him, namely, banishing him from society. But he was also not far from removing the writings and busts of Vergil and Livy from all libraries, railing against the one for having no talent and almost no learning, and inveighing against the other for being tediously prolix and negligent in historical research.”
Cogitavit etiam de Homeri carminibus abolendis, cur enim sibi non licere, dicens, quod Platoni licuisset, qui eum e civitate quam constituebat eiecerit? Sed et Vergili ac Titi Livi scripta et imagines paulum afuit quin ex omnibus bibliothecis amoveret, quorum alterum ut nullius ingenii minimaeque doctrinae, alterum ut verbosum in historia neglegentemque carpebat.
When you hear the words “ancient Greek tragedy,” what comes to mind? Suicide, maybe. Some parricide every once in a while. If you’re feeling particularly despairing, maybe even all three: suicide, parricide, and gouging out one’s eyes. Skim through the pages of The Bacchae, Medea, Hippolytus, and others, and you will find that Greek tragedies do not involve a lot of positive emotion.
However, one tragedy defies the tradition of soul-crushing endings to soul-crushing plays: Euripides’ Alcestis. Yes, the play’s characters suffer—the titular protagonist Alcestis even dies. Nonetheless, the characters of Alcestis enjoy a traditionally happy ending.
Or do they?
First, we have to examine how we got to this point. Alcestis is not as popular a tragedy as, say, Oedipus Tyrannus, so it calls for some exposition. Here is a bare-bones summary: King Admetus of Pherae, due to his friendship with Apollo, is saved from an early death. However, someone must die in his place. Admetus’ parents refuse, but his wife Alcestis agrees to die for him. As she slowly withers, Admetus swears to never remarry. He insults his father Pheres for not choosing to die instead, and Pheres calls him a coward before storming off. Amongst this chaos, an oblivious Heracles stops by Pherae. Wanting to be hospitable, Admetus houses Heracles despite his wife’s death. Heracles initially drinks and celebrates, but once he learns of Alcestis’ death, he sets off to retrieve her from Thanatos. He later returns to Admetus with a veiled woman, whom he claims he won in a competition. Admetus initially refuses to take the woman in, but, pressured by Heracles, he agrees. Admetus lifts the veil to find Alcestis beneath it, and he rejoices. She cannot speak for three days, but Admetus, overcome by joy, declares a feast. With Admetus’ mistake reversed and everyone ostensibly alive and well, the play ends.
King Admetus of Thessaly Mourning the Death of Alcestis by Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder
If you know this play’s designation and know what the word tragedy means, one thing immediately stands out: what’s up with that ending? In a sea of grim, unsalvageable conclusions, Alcestis’ fairytale resolution sticks out like a rainbow-hued thumb.
But something more specific also stands out: what’s up with Alcestis?
If you take this play at face value, Alcestis has been rendered temporarily mute by death and will soon regain her voice. In Diane Arnson Svarlien’s translation of Alcestis, Heracles says, “[Alcestis is] consecrated to the gods below / and will not be released until the third / day’s light has come” (Euripides, lines 1207-1209). The reader can assume that Alcestis’ condition is temporary and all will be well in three days. Her muteness is only a small bump on the road to her and Admetus’ happily ever after. However, this face-value interpretation leaves quite a few questions unanswered. For example, why doesn’t Alcestis react to her revival? Why doesn’t she reach for Admetus? Why doesn’t she at least smile? She is mute, not immobile. Being rescued from death and reunited with one’s husband should provoke a reaction. As Admetus asks, “Why is she just standing there in silence?” (Euripides, line 1205).
Which brings this essay to its point: Alcestis didn’t want to be revived. Her lack of reaction says it all. She resents that Heracles has dragged her back to life, she resents that she will have to spend more time with Admetus, and she resents that her seemingly perfect escape plan was foiled. Alcestis’ choice to die for her husband was not motivated by love; it was motivated by desperation for freedom.
It is important to note that Alcestis didn’t die happily. However, the timing of her sadness reveals that she took issue with the circumstances surrounding her death, not death itself. Alcestis’ chorus initially says, “When she realized / the day had come, she bathed her pale skin / with water from the river. Then she took / her clothing and her lovely jewelry / from cedar chambers, and she dressed herself / as the occasion called for” (Euripides, lines 153-158). Here, Alcestis displays surprising diligence for someone about to go to her death. Instead of refusing to surrender herself or breaking down, she prepares for her day. This sense of acceptance continues as she prays to Hestia and walks through her house. The chorus continues, “[Alcestis’] eyes were dry; she did not moan. Her beautiful complexion / was unchanged by the imminent disaster” (Euripides, lines 171-173). These sentences add a layer of determination to Alcestis’ actions. She behaves as if she is completing an important task. She may not like it, but she knows it must be done. Alcestis’ outward stoicism only falters when she comes across her marriage bed and children. She says to the bed, “It’s you / alone who have destroyed me” (Euripides, lines 179-180), and embraces her children “like a woman who is dying” (line 193). Alcestis’ reluctance to die stems from her resentment at having been put in this situation and from having to leave her children behind; however, she doesn’t seem to resent death itself. She is upset that her husband would let her die in such a way and upset for her children, but she keeps her composure regarding the action of dying.
King Admetus Recognizes Alcestis, Who Is Being Led from the Underworld by Heracles by Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder
There are two reasons why Alcestis would be so okay with death: she either loves Admetus that much, or she quietly despises him and views death as an escape. Given her comments toward Admetus, evidence points toward the latter. As Alcestis dies, she says, “I am dying, / although I didn’t have to, for your sake. / I could have married well in Thessaly, / had any man I wanted, lived in wealth” (Euripides, lines 301-304). In her final moments, Alcestis expresses resentment toward her marriage. She seems bitter that she married Admetus and implies that she didn’t want to. Given that this play takes place in ancient Greece, one has to wonder if Alcestis even chose to marry Admetus. Alcestis mentions her youth quite a few times, so she is obviously young. The existence of her children indicates that she married Admetus when she was even younger. In contrast, Admetus is a well-established king with very old parents, which indicates that he is probably middle-aged. A young girl without much agency being married off to an older man? Said young girl growing resentful of her husband due to her lack of agency? Considering this play’s setting, that is par for the course (Beneker and Tsouvala).
And Alcestis’ grievances regarding her marriage don’t stop there. One of her last requests to Admetus is to never remarry. She says to him, “It’s not possible / to pay me back what I deserve (for nothing / is worth more than a life), but what I will ask / is fair, as you’ll agree… Don’t remarry” (Euripides, lines 318-324). However, just a few lines after this request, she implies to her children that Admetus will remarry anyway. She says, “But you, my daughter, how will you / grow up to womanhood? What kind of wife / will your father marry after me? Let’s hope / she doesn’t, in the blossom of your youth, / cast some disgraceful slander on your name / and ruin utterly your hopes of marriage” (Euripides, lines 332-334). Alcestis evidently does not have much faith in her husband. She believes him to be the kind of person who would disregard his wife’s dying wish, the kind of person who would force a malicious stepmother upon his children. And, unfortunately, Alcestis might be onto something.
Throughout this play, Admetus is selfish, cowardly, and ungrateful. After Alcestis dies, Admetus’ father Pheres calls him out on this behavior. He says, “So, you put up a fight, / got out of dying, shamelessly stayed alive, / avoided your due fate by killing [Alcestis]. / You’re calling me a coward? You’re the worst! […] You’ve found a smart alternative to death: / just persuade your current wife to die / on your behalf! And then you blame your loved ones / if they won’t do it, coward that you are!” (Euripides, lines 735-744). Per his own father, Admetus is a spineless duty-shirker. Step into Alcestis’ shoes again, and you will see why she might resent her marriage. She probably lacked a say in marrying Admetus, and his lack of character only made things worse. To add to her unfortunate situation, she had no way out of her marriage, and her freedom was extremely limited. Alcestis, bound to a man she quietly resented, must have felt exceedingly trapped. So when an escape route presented itself in the form of death, she took it. It was a perfect plan: Alcestis would escape her marriage, die as a revered figure, and indirectly inflict some pain upon her husband. It was freedom on a silver platter. Alcestis didn’t die for Admetus; she died for herself.
Evidently, though, Alcestis doesn’t stay dead. Heracles fights Thanatos to retrieve her, then he brings her back to Admetus. However, something is very wrong with this revived Alcestis. Along with not being able to speak, she is stiff and devoid of emotion. As far as the reader can tell, she does not react at all to the fantastical events occurring around her. She simply stands in silence. Think back to Alcestis’ possible reasons to die, and it becomes increasingly clear that her lack of reaction is not just due to her death. She is frustrated, despairing, demoralized, and more resentful than ever. By reviving her, Heracles has negated all that has occurred. After a brief moment of freedom in death, Alcestis is shackled once more.
For all of Alcestis’ life, men tell her what to do. A man tells her to marry Admetus, a man tells her to be a homemaker, a man tells her to die, and now, a man tells her—forces her, really—to return to Admetus. She tries to break free, but she is dragged right back to where she started. By the man, no less: Heracles, with his heroic deeds and bulging muscles, was considered the ideal man by many ancient Greeks, and many modern men still view him as such (Blanshard and Stafford). Alcestis’ reunion with Admetus is almost symbolic: veiled and finely dressed, she is guided to her husband by a guardian. Once she reaches her husband, he takes her hand and her freedom. She quite literally has no say in any of this. Her relationship with Admetus started with a marriage she did not want, and said relationship is revived with a reenactment of this forced marriage. Alcestis does not depict a noble act of self-sacrifice; it depicts a desperate suicide attempt by a trapped young woman. Admetus may receive a happy ending, but Alcestis does not. Her revival is the real tragedy of this play.
Bio
Lana Miao is a high school junior from Great Neck, New York. She discovered the world of Classics through the Percy Jackson series in second grade, and her sixth grade Latin class solidified her passion for the field. She hopes to major in the Classics with a concentration in the Latin language. She enjoys parsing Latin text, reading too deeply into the syntax of Latin poetry, and interrogating the depiction of female figures in Greco-Roman literature. In her free time, she produces music, sings, and clumsily translates English paragraphs into Latin. Her favorite authors are Catullus and Euripides!
Works Cited
Beneker, Jeffrey, and Georgia Tsouvala. The Discourse of Marriage in the Greco-Roman World. U of Wisconsin P, 2020. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv136c5bq. Accessed 25 May 2025.
Blanshard, Alastair J.L., and Emma Stafford, editors. The Modern Hercules. Brill, 2020. Vol. 21 of Metaforms.
This week we turn to the less often read Trachiniae by Sophocles (or, “The Women of Trachis“). This play focuses in particular on the last moments of Herakles’ life, when he is unintentionally poisoned by his wife Deineira. Involved in the mix: Herakles’ new ‘wife’, Iole, and his son with Deineira, Hyllus. The play contemplates what happiness is, how long it can last, and the choices we make based on bad information that change our lives.
441-445
“Whoever gets in the ring with Lust
Like a boxer with his hands up is stupid.
That one rules even the gods the way he wants.
And me too. How could he not rule a woman like me?”
“Chamaeleon claims in his book On Stesichorus that it wasn’t only Homer’s poetry that was accompanied by music but also Archilochus’ and Hesiod’s too. He adds the work of Mimnermus and Phocylides to this as well.”
“Then Mimnermos, who discovered the sweet sound
And breath of gentle pentameter, after he suffered terribly,
Was burning for Nanno. With his lips often on the grey lotus
Pipe, he partied with Examyes.
But he was hateful to serious Hermobios and Pherekles.”
“Mimnermos, the son of Ligurtuades, from Kolophon or Smurnos or Astupalaios. An elegiac poet. He lived during the 37th Olympiad [ c. 632-629 BCE) and so lived before the Seven Sages. Some people say that he lived at the same time they did. He used to be called Liguastades because of his harmony and clarity. He wrote…those many books.”
“….but dear youth is like a short dream
Then suddenly hard and ugly old age
Drapes down over your head.
It makes a man hateful and unloved, even unknown
As it weakens his eyes and clouds his mind.”
“In the same way, when some affair occludes the mind and impedes it from seeing the order of duties, it does no good in advising, “live this way with your father and this way with your spouse.” Examples like this are useless while error darkens the mind. When the mind is cleared, it will be obvious what should be done in each situation.
Otherwise, you are trying to teach someone what a healthy person should do, but you do not make them healthy! It is like you are showing a poor person how to act rich. How can this happen as long as poverty remains? You are trying to show a hungry person how to act then they are full. First, address the hunger in their stomach!”
Eodem modo ubi aliqua res occaecat animum et ad officiorum dispiciendum ordinem inpedit, nihil agit qui praecipit: sic vives cum patre, sic cum uxore. Nihil enim proficient praecepta, quamdiu menti error offusus est; si ille discutitur, apparebit, quid cuique debeatur officio. Alioqui doces illum, quid sano faciendum sit, non efficis sanum. Pauperi ut agat divitem monstras; hoc quomodo manente paupertate fieri potest? Ostendis esurienti quid tamquam satur faciat; fixam potius medullis famem detrahe.
A small Roman marble statue (54.1 cm with plinth) depicting Diogenes the Cynic, in the collection of the Met Museum
