Panathenaia

By Gregory Nagy

Revisiting Plato’s Rhapsody: A contribution to a colloquium about Poetic (Mis)quotations in Plato

2020.06.26 | By Gregory Nagy §0. The text of this essay, as posted here in Classical Inquiries 2020.06.26, is a pre-edited version of my contribution to an online colloquium, Poetic (Mis)quotations in Plato, the collected essays for which will reside in a special issue of Classics@; the guest-editor of that issue is the organizer of the colloquium, Gwenda-lin Grewal. My essay here, presented for inclusion in that colloquium, is intended… Read more

By Gregory Nagy, Pausanias commentary

Questions while viewing Greek myths and rituals through the lens of Pausanias, I: Did Athena, goddess of Athens, belong only to the Athenians?

2020.04.17 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In conversations about the ancient world, my sorely-missed friend Emily Vermeule was fond of asking this rhetorical question: in Mycenaean times, was Athena a goddess who was worshipped only in Athens? And there can be variations on such a theme. For example, I have a related question, formulated from a diachronic point of view. That is to say, I have a question that is… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Homeric problems and bibliographical challenges, Part 2: More on the performances of rhapsodes at the festival of the Panathenaia

2018.11.30 | By Gregory Nagy §0. This post, dated 2018.11.30, picks up from where I left off in Classical Inquiries 2018.11.22. Here again I am dealing with problems I have encountered in figuring out the historical circumstances of Homeric performances by professional reciters called rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’ at the seasonally recurring festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. As before, my starting point centers on what I have already formulated in a… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Homeric problems and bibliographical challenges, Part 1: On the performances of rhapsodes at the festival of the Panathenaia

2018.11.22 | By Gregory Nagy §0. No one who claims expertise in the study of Homer will ever have the last word on Homer. But those who study Homer can still hope to come up with a cumulative formulation of their own understanding of Homeric poetry, and such a formulation, published at a given time, could be considered their own last word—or, more accurately, their latest word. In my case,… Read more