Readings from Greek Tragedy

Professor Michael Scott from Warwick University has been reading selections from a number of Greek tragedies: Sophocles' Antigone, Euripides' Electra, Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Euripides' Bacchae. You can watch these on YouTube here.

Online Courses

Belfast Summer School in Latin and Classical Greek

Advanced Latin and Greek

The response to the call for registrations for the Belfast Summer School online courses in Greek and Latin has been extremely positive. 

Latin and Greek courses have been added at advanced level. These classes will read a text in the original language. 

The Latin group will read sections of Tacitus' Annals book 4. The text for the advanced Greek group will be confirmed asap. See below for dates and times.

There are two hours of online lessons daily, conducted on Zoom and work will be set for completion between lessons and for the next day.

All course material will be provided by email.

Email belfastsummerschool@gmail.com with questions or to register. The fee for the week is £70 and this may be paid by bank transfer or Paypal. Your place on the course is guaranteed once payment has been made.

Ancient Greek Literature

Bronze Age Objects in Homer's Iliad

It is claimed that the Iliad was created progressively by being handed down through many generations of oral poets. The poem therefore reflects events, objects, customs, beliefs and techniques within a range of several hundred years. 

Our knowledge of the Late Bronze Age comes almost entirely from archaeological evidence.  Comparisons can be made between excavated material and descriptions of objects in Homer. References contained in Homer in respect of weapons and armour are, in some cases, detailed enough for probable identification to be made. One such Mycenaean object found in the Homeric poems is the boar's tusk helmet (Homer, Iliad 10.261-265).  The example shown above is in the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion, Crete. 

This ivory warrior head was found in a chamber tomb at Mycenae and dates from the thirteenth century BC. The warrior is wearing a helmet which is reinforced on the outside with slivers of wild boar's tusks. The description of Odysseus' helmet in Iliad 10.261-265 is quite detailed and corresponds to the head-gear worn by this striking ivory head:

Μηριόνης δ᾿ Ὀδυσῆι δίδου βιὸν ἠδὲ φαρέτρην

καὶ ξίφος, ἀμφὶ δέ οἱ κυνέην κεφαλῆφιν ἔθηκε

ῥινοῦ ποιητήν· πολέσιν δ᾿ ἔντοσθεν ἱμᾶσιν

ἐντέτατο στερεῶς· ἔκτοσθε δὲ λευκοὶ ὀδόντες

ἀργιόδοντος ὑὸς θαμέες ἔχον ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα

εὖ καὶ ἐπισταμένως· μέσσῃ δ᾿ ἐνὶ πῖλος ἀρήρει. 

(Homer, Iliad 10.260-265)

And Meriones gave to Odysseus a bow and a quiver and a sword, and about his head he set a helmet made of hide, and with many a tight-stretched thong was it made stiff inside, while on the outside the white teeth of a boar of gleaming tusks were set thick this way and that, well and skilfully, and on the inside was fixed a lining of felt.  (Trans. A.T.Murray, Loeb Classical Library)

The head-piece consisted of material on the inside of the helmet and was held together by leather webbing to which small plates of boar's tusk were attached on the outside. In the eighth century BC when the Homeric poems are thought to have been written down, no-one could have seen this type of helmet and so the description of Odysseus' helmet was likely to have come from a memory, preserved in the poetic tradition.