Polycrates

By Gregory Nagy

I am a scribe who writes letters, and my writing gives me power: variations on a theme in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East

2020.01.24 | By Gregory Nagy §0. There is a story about a scribe who succeeded in seizing political power, at least for a while, precisely because he was a scribe. And this scribe could not have had even such a limited degree of success if he had not been a scribe. His name was Maiandrios son of Maiandrios, and his story is told by Herodotus, so-called father of history. According… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Afterthoughts about Polycrates, Anacreon, and Ibycus

2017.09.14 | By Gregory Nagy Further reflections on a paper originally presented 2017.09.08 at the symposium “Culture and Society in ‘the Lyric age’ of Greece”: A Joint Conference with the European Network for the Study of Ancient Greek History and the Network for the Study of Archaic and Classical Greek Song, Princeton University, September 8–9, 2017. That earlier paper, with the title “Polycrates and his patronage of two lyric masters,… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

Polycrates and his patronage of two lyric masters, Anacreon and Ibycus

2017.09.08 | By Gregory Nagy Paper presented at the symposium “Culture and Society in ‘the Lyric age’ of Greece”: A Joint Conference with the European Network for the Study of Ancient Greek History and the Network for the Study of Archaic and Classical Greek Song, Princeton University, September 8–9, 2017. Read more