Parthenon

By Gregory Nagy, Pausanias commentary

A variation on the theme of Athena: The Palladium, as viewed by Pausanias on the Acropolis of Athens

2020.06.19 | By Gregory Nagy §0. This excursus is a commentary on a passage in Pausanias, 1.28.9, where our traveler, while visiting the Acropolis of Athens, refers to a statue of the goddess Athena there. He is referring in this case not to Athena Parthénos, that is, to Athena the ‘Virgin’, who was housed in the Parthenon. Nor is he referring here to Athena Poliás, that is, to Athena as… Read more

Guest Post

A Tale of Two Elgins

2020.02.12 | By Vivian Jin In the West, the name Elgin evokes the controversial removal of the eponymous Elgin Marbles, now housed in the British Museum; however, in China, cultural memory recalls a British general under whose supervision Anglo-French troops entered the Yuanming Yuan (“Garden of Perfect Brightness,” also known as the Old Summer Palace). Although the two acts cannot be attributed to the same individual—it was the seventh Lord… Read more

Guest Post

A piece of the Parthenon in Washington, DC

2019.10.04 | By Ted Widmer In 2013, I spent a happy week at the Center for Hellenic Studies, where I did research on the ways in which Americans read the Odyssey in the 19th century. In my research, I was attuned to the myriad ways in which Americans remembered ancient Greece, including their tendency to misremember it, or confuse it with other civilizations. The Washington Monument offers just one of… Read more

By Gregory Nagy, Pausanias reader

A reader for travel-study in Greece

2018.03.07 | By Gregory Nagy The essays in this reader are designed to supplement visits by travel-study groups to sites and museums in Greece. Each essay focuses on things to see-or at least to note if they cannot be seen-at sites to be visited. In cases where a museum adjoins a site, I offer a separate inventory of things to see. Wherever possible, I use as my primary ancient source… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Things noted during five days of travel-study in Greece, 2016.03.13–18

2016.03.24 | By Gregory Nagy During the five full days of contact time for myself and the participants of the 2016 Harvard Spring Break travel-study program, I tried each day to focus on three things to see at each ancient site we visited. Wherever it was possible, I used as my primary ancient source the reportage of the ancient traveler Pausanias, who flourished in the second century CE and whose… Read more