MetaFilter posts tagged with ancientgreece

Lost in the desert for 2,500 years.

Lutoslawski — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:25:43 -0800

It appears that the Lost Army of Cambyses has been found. Cambyses II expanded the Persian empire into Egypt. Most accounts depict him as a lousy, drunken tyrant. According to Herodotus, he sent his army, 50,000 strong, into Egypt where the encountered a sand storm near the Siwa Oasis and were buried alive. The tomb of Cambyses himself was discovered in 2006.

Encyclopedia of Greece, from ancient times to the modern day, focusing on science and technology

Kattullus — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:21:23 -0800

Hellenica is an encyclopedia of Greek culture, from classical Hellas, through the Byzantine Empire until the modern day, though its focus is on antiquity and especially the science and technology of Ancient Greece. Featuring technical diagrams and explications, there's no better site if you seek information on gigantic galleys, now obscure great Greek mathematicians, the last still working Ancient lighthouse and gears and how they were used by Archimedes and other ancients. This is not to denigrate other sections of the site, such as the page on the Olympics (including a Google Map of the site of the games), biographies of ancient, Byzantine and modern Greeks, the warring and healing of the Byzantines or the overview of Greek literature, taking in antiquity, the medieval era and modern times. That said, Hellenica is at its finest when treating science and technology.

Elpenor - Home of the Greek Word

Kattullus — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:40:04 -0800

Elpenor - Home of the Greek Word is a site built around a bilingual anthology of all periods of Greek literature, but there's more, including ancient greek lessons, a collection of texts by non-Greeks about Greece, a gallery of Orthodox Christ icons and an online resource-guide on Byzantium. The site focuses mostly on the texts of antiquity but along with Archilochus, Orphica, Romanos Melodos and Sappho there are some modern writers, like the poets Cavafy and Papatsonis. There's a Greek nationalistic slant to the site but it seems fairly benign and easy to ignore.

The scholarship on whether Pythagoras wrote "Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit" remains inconclusive.

Kattullus — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:40:00 -0800

Everything you know about Pythagoras is wrong (except the bit about the beans). Less the golden-thighed Einstein of the Ancient World and more the L. Ron Hubbard of Magna Graecia. [Last link has some rude words]

masks

y2karl — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 21:03:18 -0800

I have been thinking about masks lately. Masks are ancient and universal, our ancestors put on masks to become an other, to become a god, even unto this day. Greek tragedy and comedy began in the worship of Dionysos, the god of wine, intoxication, and creative ecstasy, in rituals where worshipers often wore or worshipped masks. Indeed, the word for mask in Greek drama was persona, now commonly used to describe constructed online identities. And so we understand ourselves as wearing masks, whole series of masks--behind which we find only emptiness, for we can never see ourselves truly.

Classic Rhetoric and Persuasion

hama7 — Thu, 13 May 2004 06:43:10 -0800

Peitho's Web: Classic Rhetoric and Persuasion.

malphigian — Wed, 03 Jul 2002 21:35:42 -0800

Unchecked Greek aggression near Thebes in 1475AD has brought them to war, but Phoenatican democracy prevails. The, uh, fanatics over at civ fanatics have been playing Civilization 3 game as a democracy, with elected leaders, policy votes, a constitution, a census, the works. Their empire is impressive, as is the player cooperation to make a new kind of gameplay that Sid Meier probably never intended.

stbalbach — Sun, 11 Feb 2001 08:58:43 -0800

The Independent has a report that excavations at Herculaneum has brought forth some 850 papyri and "Among the works, which academics hope to read using the new equipment, are the lost works of Aristotle (his 30 dialogues, referred to by other authors, but lost in antiquity), scientific works by Archimedes, mathematical treatises by Euclid, philosophical work by Epicurus, masterpieces by the Greek poets Simonides and Alcaeus, erotic poems by Philodemus, lesbian erotic poetry by Sappho, the lost sections of Virgil's Juvenilia, comedies by Terence, tragedies by Seneca and works by the Roman poets Ennius, Accius, Catullus, Gallus, Macer and Varus."