Classics Salon!

[cahn]

So yeah, anyone who has been around this DW for more than a very little while has known that we had a salon in which we discussed Frederick the Great in particular and 18th-century Enlightenment figures in general.

But nooooow we are going to have a Classics salon!

My Classics background is, er, well, I guess my Classics history is pretty much on par with or somewhat worse than my general non-US historical background (read: I know almost nothing, with some random pockets of slight layman knowledge), and my Classics literary background is signficantly worse than my general literary background (no real reason, it's not like I had a vendetta against it or anything, I think I just didn't happen to have a good entry point). I've read the Odyssey last year and the Aeneid reasonably recently, and the Iliad not so reasonably recently (perhaps this will be the impetus for me to check out the Wilson translation), and Ted Hughes' translation of selected Metamorphoses.

Please feel free to tell me what books I really ought to be looking at next! (I believe there has been some discussion of Plutarch?) Feel free to wax eloquent about your favorite translations, whether it's something I've already read or not! Also please free to tell me any of your favorite Classics history you want, because I probably don't know it :)

(This is not supposed to be just for mildred_of_midgard and selenak, although of course I expect them to be prime contributors. I know that many of you, probably all of you, know a lot about Classics that I don't know, so please inform me! Tell me your favorite things! :D )

Comments

[cenozoicsynapsid]

I'd be happy to be involved at least around the edges. I was a classics major (mostly Latin) as an undergraduate, in a period that increasingly seems as remote as the actual classical era, and I'd be interested to revisit some stuff. I've read most of the stuff you've read, plus a fair amount of Catullus and Cicero, some Martial, Juvenal and Horace, and a scattering of historians--- and Church Latin, which isn't classics. My memory of the translations is rusty though; I don't know any recent ones enough to recommend them.

With regard to dubious claims by historians, the debates over the historicity of various New Testament figures and events are a good place to look. I think the methods of the Jesus Seminar (now quite dated, but still) were utterly insufficient to answer the questions they were asking, for example.

[cahn]

Yay!! Oh cool, how did I not know you were a classics major? You'd mentioned your familiarity with linguistics but I had sort of had you in my head as a technical person (which maybe you are now, or in addition?)

Uhhhhh in my head Church Latin is classics too :P Close enough! (As I think I've told you, I've sung church Latin, does that count :P )

Oh I remember reading about the Jesus Seminar in Time magazine as a kid! Though I don't remember anything about it except that it was a Big Deal at the time. I read the Wikipedia article and wow, that was a wild ride. They voted on whether stuff was historically attested??

Since selenak reminded me of Josephus, I started wading into what people think of Josephus' mentions (or not) of Jesus, but I rapidly got in over my head, even just reading what people think about what people think about it. Maybe I will give it another go if/when we start reading Josephus :)

[cenozoicsynapsid]

I double-majored :) I'd be happy to give Josephus a try at some point, sounds interesting!

[cahn]

Oh excellent, it would be super fun to have a Josephus reading group :D