A Return to the Classics

I think I may have mentioned before that I started out life as a classicist. Well, not really, but I did get an early start as a kid who loved classical mythology. Two of my earliest favorite books were Church's versions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. From there I discovered Edith Hamilton's Mythology and the rest was classical history. When finally I had to declare an undergraduate major and take a degree, I chose Latin, having earlier finished off history and English. Officially the degree came from the classics department, but my Greek was always weak; all that remains is a smattering of words and phrases like aristeia and gnothi seauton, although with a dictionary I can still dope out a short passage.

My Latin isn't all that great either, but I still meet with some colleagues once a week to read something from one of the classical authors during our lunch hour. Currently we're working our way through Livy's Ab urbe condita. Many years ago, in fact decades ago, we began rather modestly with a goal of re-reading Virgil's Aeneid. When that was eventually completed, we moved on to the Eclogues; and then to Ovid, the Heroides, the Amores, and the Metamorphoses, with diversions that included all of Catullus, and much of Propertius. Then we read Cicero's Pro Archia, De Amicitia, and De divinatione. I'm not sure how we settled on Livy, but our group has grown again to a respectable half dozen, and we've found much to contemplate in Livy's sometimes subtle retelling of the various brutalities that accompanied the founding of Rome.

Having retired now from teaching, and no longer enjoying my annual renewal of acquaintance with Homer and Virgil and other classical authors, I find I nevertheless continue to be drawn to these old books. Most recently I've returned to Statius' Thebaid, a poem I once studied with Fred Ahl in my only graduate seminar in classical literature. I realize now that I was too green to appreciate what Fred so admired in Statius, but more seasoned than I was then I've discovered an impressive resonance in that epic of civil war, not to mention poetic achievements and mastery of classical mythology. It's no wonder that medieval and Renaissance writers were impressed with Statius; he showed them the way to follow and compete with Homer and Virgil.

When I'm done with Statius, I intend returning to the Trojan cycle to read a book I've never read before, Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica, which has all the episodes of the fall of Troy that take place after the death of Hector. It was a late third century Greek epic that must have been influenced by texts now lost to us. There we can read about the Amazon Pentheselia, the death of Achilles, and the Trojan horse. Perhaps in my declining years I'll even return to my study of Greek. It will keep me occupied when I grow weary of trying to learn to play the classical guitar.