This week Jeff and Dave - with the help of Prof. Deborah Roberts (Emerita, Haverford College) - begin their look at tragedian Aeschylus' magnum opus, Prometheus Bound. We get started with Prof. Roberts providing a lovely reading of the central passage of the play, in which Prometheus explains the many kindnesses he has wrought for the human race. Then we follow up by setting the table with the briefest of looks at the development of tragedy. Next, we dig into the main course with a bit of Greek from the play's opening, and the fascinating dialogue between smith god Hephaestus and the personifications Power (Κράτος) and Violence (Βία). In addition to examining the perennial central questions of how this telling differs from Hesiod, whether Zeus can be just while mistreating so severely one of his own – who fought for him in fact in his war against the other Titans – we also take a few glances at the vexed question of who really wrote the play. And if threnodic literature is not your cup of tea, don't worry, there are many wretched puns and inane surrealities along the way.
To Live and Let Dido: Aeneid Book IV, Part 1 (Ad Navseam, Episode 90)
Dirges for Dead Dido: St. Augustine and Vergil (Ad Navseam, Episode 89)
Memorizing Latin: The Why and Some What, Part 1 (Gvrgle 3)
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Troy, Troy, Again: Aeneid Book III, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 88)
Crouching Helen, Hidden Destiny: Vergil’s Aeneid Books II and III (Ad Navseam, Episode 87)
Oh for Goodness Snakes! Vergil’s Aeneid Book 2, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 86)
Never Look a Grift Horse in the Mouth: Vergil’s Aeneid Book II, Part I (Ad Navseam, Episode 85)
Mist Opportunities: Aeneid Book I, Part 2 (Ad Navseam, Episode 84)
Girl Juno it’s True: Aeneid I and the Causes of Juno’s Wrath (Ad Navseam, Episode 83)
The Alexamenos Graffito and Roman Persecution of Christians (Gvrgle 2)
A Refugee from Fate: Vergil’s Aeneid 1.1-7 (Gvrgle 1)
Whaddya Noah?: Deucalion, Pyrrha, and the Flood in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Ad Navseam, Episode 82)
No Meat, Please, We’re Pythagoreans!: Pythagoras in Book 15 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Ad Navseam, Episode 81)
What’s a Motto You, Two? University and College Mottoes (Ad Navseam, Episode 80)
Ides, Ides, Baby!: Caesar’s Assassination in the Roman Historians (Ad Navseam, Episode 79)
Clever Jokes for Clever Folks: Robert Mac and Aristotle’s Lost Treatise on Comedy (Ad Navseam, Episode 78)
Dr. Amphibolus, I Presume?: Erasmus as Translator of the Classics (Ad Navseam, Episode 77)
A Visit to the Roman Catacombs (Ad Navseam, Episode 76)
’Beware of Falling Turtles!’ and other Strange Tales: Death Stories of famous Greeks and Romans” (Ad Navseam, Episode 75)
Cad to the Bone: Alcibiades and Asebeia in 415 BC (Ad Navseam, Episode 74)
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