Classics-tober Day 16: Tablet

Unlock it. Open the lid. Take out the tablet of lapis lazuli. Read how Gilgamesh suffered all and accomplished all.

'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde (published in 1890)

Via: Belladonna of Saddness (1973)

Still my favorite piece of animation. Depicting the various stages of womanhood through a horrifying lense. From psychedelic orgy montages to a crucifixion, this is definitely not a film for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, it stands as a forgotten classic.

autumn is the studying season 🍂

Some behind-the-scenes pictures to start the day!

Dwarfs, dwarfs everywhere! 😆

Happy Sunday!  ⛏🍎❤️

the classics students

sculpted white marble, cool and smooth beneath your hands

the striking ruins of ancient greek architecture

seeing the ways that ancient civilizations influence the modern world

a love for stories, ancient tales that have persisted through the eons

memorizing names from greek mythology, whispering the unfamiliar syllables 

using roman numerals to organize your notes

heavy books stacked at your bedside 

statues of people long dead, but still remembered

reading lines from epic poems - the Iliad, Aeneid, Metamorphoses 

finding greek and latin roots in every sentence

studying the influence of the classical era on the european renaissance

the taste of grapes, warmed from the mediterranean sun

a fascination with ancient civilizations

wanting to understand how people lived thousands of years ago

seeing plays performed in the traditional greek style

reciting the greek alphabet

whispered invocations of the greek pantheon and their roman counterparts

latin texts painstakingly translated into your native tongue

analyzing the work of classical philosophers

taking classes in history, archeology, and anthropology

old maps showing the historical bounds of the roman empire

speaking the words of a dead language

Marble statue of a member of the Roman imperial family. Artist unknown; 27 BCE - 68 CE (Julio-Claudian). Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

reviewsium I woke up early this morning watching a 90s movie, took my meds and had a coffee. I lit a candle and I sit down writing down my last impressions on The Well of Loneliness, waiting for picking up Demons. I really enjoyed this fiction, some chapters were unnecessary detailed but I found it very enjoyable and I couldn't put it down, a real page-turner.

More fore edge painting! This time it's a 1947 collection of poems by the roman poet Horace (snagged it for 5 bucks at a used book store, felt very self satisfied)

the illustration on this is supposed to be like.. a generic Muse? i do not know enough about greek mythology

Burk Uzzle, Dressed in Pipe (Woodstock), 1969.

“Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.” - Sylvia Plath

Hermes: I'm drunk in a place called Lick-A-Chick. PS. It's not a lesbian hot spot, they sell chicken.

“Leonidas at Thermopylae”, Jacques-Louis David + “Dulce et Decorum Est”, Wilfred Owen

I imagine you've answered this question a thousand times over but I have to ask: Was Alexander in love with Hephaestian? And was he gay or bisexual?

Yes, indeed I have. 😊

Let me compile, for you and anyone else curious, some posts that address your questions. Also, for anybody looking for answers to previous asks (of which there are many), you can search my blog for ASKS, and then whatever keywords might help. I will warn that my posts range in length, but when it’s complex, they get long. Because it’s complex. 30-second soundbytes won’t do.

Here are the various blog replies that will answer your question. I’ve ordered them in the way probably easiest to read, building on information in prior posts:

“Was Hephaistion the love of Alexander’s Life?” — Relatively short (for me) post on what that might have meant in the ancient world.

“The Love Story at the Heart of Dancing with the Lion” — Written for my blog tour when the novels were released. It talks about the depth of their relationship. Not a long read.

“Alexander as LGBTQI Icon” / “Was Alexander the Great Gay?” — Another piece from my blog tour, a direct answer to one of your questions, and why it’s tough to talk about him in modern terms, and why I prefer “queer” to “gay” or “bisexual.”

“Greek Homoeroticism + Reading List” — Short for me with an brief bibliography at the end, for anybody who’d like to do more reading.

“Ancient Greek Sexuality for Dummies” — Written in response to a Tumblr ask, but now on my personal blog. I (and others) have used this as a primer for how the ancient Greeks thought about sex. It’s not about Alexander, per se, but explains the world view Alexander would have grown up with. (Contains some NSFW images from Greek pottery.) Also, not a short read, but it’s not a book, or even an article.

“Did the Closet exist in Antiquity” — Another look at how differently the ancient world understood sexual categories. Medium length read.

“Did Alexander and Hephaistion Continue Their Relationship throughout Their Lives?” — Some speculation from me on the question. Somewhat longish read.

Finally, my academic article, penned rather long ago now:

“An atypical affair? Alexander the Great, Hephaistion Amyntoros and the nature of their relationship,” Ancient History Bulletin 13.3 (1999) 81-96.

“And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.”

Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita

I’m constantly torn between “carpe deim” and “c’est la vie”

statues on campus :)

Two and half books left in the reread

i am doing an artefact analysis on the aphrodite statue featured and so far it’s going well! before even reading the information i recognized the statue as being roman based on the name :) “venus genetrix” - venus being the roman version of aphrodite and genetrix being a third declension feminine noun in Latin (genetrix, genetricis - mother, ancestress). how fun is it that we can already think of so much significance just based on the name!! also i got plants!! the spider plant is named rory about rory gilmore and my friend has one named lorelei:)

also, i’ve included a photo of my VERY annotated copy of the song of achilles. the red was the pen colour i used to specifically rant about how much i hate pyrrhus </3 (count how many times i tell him to go die lol - in my defence he is an asshole in the aeneid so i think my hatred is valid). tsoa is one of my favourite books of all time (i like the iliad a little bit, and patroclus has always been my fav) and madeline miller is my favourite author so it only makes sense that i’ve lovingly destroyed my book :)

Book 9 be like:

Odysseus: Request for you to not be a bitch.

Achilles: Request denied.