2019.07.12 | By Gregory Nagy §0. As I indicated in the previous posting, in Classical Inquiries 2019.07.06, the aim of the brief follow-up essay that I offer here in the present posting, 2019.07.12, is to connect a myth about the apotheosis of Hēraklēs on Mount Olympus with a myth that credits this same hero with the original founding of the Olympics. Read more
2019.07.06 | By Gregory Nagy §0. The question is, can we connect the name for Mount Olympus with the name for Olympia, the place where the festival of the Olympics was traditionally celebrated every four years? Aiming for a unified answer to this question, which seems simple only on the surface, I will collect here seven facts that may lead to a satisfactory formulation showing a genuine connectedness between the… Read more
2019.04.19 | By Gregory Nagy §0.This posting, written 2019.04.19, picks up from where I left off in Classical Inquiries 2019.03.22, rewritten 2019.04.17. In the last paragraph of that posting, I focused on a myth that told about a defeat of the Centaurs, beastly hominoids who were half horse, half man. Such a mythological event is pictured in the sculptures of the west pediment of the temple of Zeus in Olympia,… Read more
2019.03.22, rewritten 2019.04.17; further rewritten 2019.07.20 | By Gregory Nagy §0. I have by now lost count of how many times in my life I have visited the Museum at Olympia. And I cannot keep track of knowing what different things I remembered to view, or forgot to view, each time I was there. But there is one thing I know for sure as I look back on it all:… Read more
2018.03.22 | By Gregory Nagy This new reader, posted 2018.03.22, “decorates” an earlier reader posted 2018.03.07. As I once tried to explain by way of simile, the earlier reader was like a Christmas tree waiting to be decorated with ornaments. But now I adjust the simile by comparing the new reader to that famous plane tree so loved by Xerxes, mighty ruler of the Persian Empire, which he honored as… Read more
