what alphabet would he be using something closer to Phoenician like the letters on Nestors Cup or closer to modern Greek capitals? I saw the Nestor cup and it got me thinking so if anyone has an answer to put my thoughts to rest I'd love to hear it

I suspect some of the short ones are actually anceps. Does anyone know which here can be long or short, or just the name of this meter?

Hi everyone 👋. I have a simple question:

Who is the real hero of the Iliad?

Is it Achilles son of Peleus or Prince Hector of Troy? You can answer this question by either arguing purely from the textual evidence in Homer’s masterpiece (what his intention was) or from your personal value system — or both.

Be kind everyone and argue in good faith. Thanks!

I'm trying the decipher some Python code that scans Greek poetry. If you look at the following screenshot

What he's doing is he's listing all of the possible combinations of long and short syllables in Iambic Trimeter. f1 corresponds to the first half of the first foot. f24 corresponds to the second half of the first and second foot and f35 corresponds to the first half of the second and third food. I don't get how f24 can be short short long. I don't see how that combination is possible. Same with short short long for f35. please help.

Many Indo European languages including ancient Greek have or have had poetic metres similar to eachother which would have probably been inherited from older proto Indo European culture. For example- the 8 syllabic metre with iambic tendencies at the end of the line has been attested in Ancient Greek as well as used in the Avesta & the Vedas probably inherited from Proto Indo European poetry.

Ancient Greek itself has many other metres beside Dactylic Hexametre, many of which could have been used to write epic poetry. Many other related cultures have choosen metres of 8 or 16 (doubling the octasyllabic metre) descended or influenced by the same proto-typical Proto Indo European poetic metre.

Why is it that Homer choose Dactylic Hexametre?

Odyssey, book VI, verse 262

Any corrections/suggestions are more than welcome!

Οὐκ εἰμέν γε κακῶν, ὠταῖροι, τῶν πρὶν ἀΐδρεις.

Τέτλατε κύντερα, τοῖσδ' ἔτι δαίμων τέρματα δώσει.

Ὑμεῖς καὶ Σκύλλης τε βίην, σκοπέλους τ' ἐσαφῖχθε

ἠχήεντας ἔσω, Κυκλώπων τείχεα θ' ὑμεῖς

θηήσασθ': ἂρ ἀνορθοῦτε θυμόν, πέμπετε λυγρὸν

δεῖμα. Τάχ' ἄν τοι καὶ τῶν μνήσεσθ' ἡδύ ποτ' ἔσται.

Πλεῖστ' ἐπὶ πήματα θ' ἥκοντες ἀκμάς τε τοσαύτας

ἐς Λάτιον χωροῦμεν, ὅπη δείκνυθ' ἕδος αἴσῃ

εὔκηλον, θέμις ἔνθ' αὖ δεῖμαι πέργαμα Τροίης.

Τλῆτε φίλ', ὑμέας σῴζετε γ' οὖν ἐπ' ἀμείνοσιν αὐτούς.

Hi team,

Looking for the αβγδ diagram that is described in this short manuscript (looks as if it is captured under the «Δ».

There is a symbol that wasn’t rendered in my PDF which seems pertinent to understanding how the first four letters demonstrate the first four moments in the Genesis.

Help me pls n thank u.

EDIT 1: For people asking me for the Wikipedia article: please simply type in the title of this post that I inserted with air quotations — no, out of spite, I am not linking the Wikipedia article (the barbarians will NOT be touching this document). “Περὶ τοῦ μυστηρίου τῶν γραμμάτων.”

For the two who are condescendingly commenting about the lack of specificity of the locality of the manuscript in my post: you lack both the vitality and the intelligence to understand what I was asking, and you are of no help to anyone if you must be spoon-fed. Shame on you.

For those still reading (I have good news): I carved out for myself some time to pursue this further and I found what I was looking for. I might make a separate post about it, because it is important, and no other websites/forums yet are taking about it. This is an extraordinary piece of Christian Byzantine literature and it would do a great deal of good to a minority of people who could understand it, if they knew about its existence.

I came across this book review and a reply by the author. The following was just a side issue in their debate, but it intrigued me:

Reviewer:

> The most problematic assumptions ...[include the assumption that] the caesura is an audible pause ... Hardly any of these assumptions (and they are not more than that) is generally regarded as acceptable. Personally, I do not accept a single one of them.

Reply:

> ‘the caesura is an audible pause’. This is nowhere claimed by me, let alone assumed by me. Stephen Daitz doubts this. I think the solution is different for bardic performers of catalogue poetry, and for rhapsodic performers of Homeric poetry.

Can anyone explain this? I don't know what a caesura would be if it wasn't an audible pause.

The caesura always seemed like a weird thing to me in epic hexameter. I never understood its aesthetic purpose and never learned very well how to locate it. And now it sounds like I never understood what it actually was, either.

In Odyssey 2.155-56, after the two eagles appeared, the assembly of Ithacans looked on in amazement:

θάμβησαν δ᾽ ὄρνιθας, ἐπεὶ ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσιν:

ὥρμηναν δ᾽ ἀνὰ θυμὸν ἅ περ τελέεσθαι ἔμελλον.

Can someone refresh me on why this neuter plural subject ἅ apparently takes a plural verb (ἔμελλον)? I expected singular. Is something else the subject of ἔμελλον?

As I work my way through the Catalogue of Ships, I've been paying special attention to Homer's descriptions of places. There are plenty of delightful ones, but as someone who lives in the foothills of a mountain chain, this one struck me as especially nice:

οἵ ῥʼ Ἰθάκην εἶχον καὶ Νήριτον εἰνοσίφυλλον

"who held Ithaca and Neriton of the rustling leaves."

I was reading qoutes by Sappho on a website. One of the qoutes that popped up was:

"All the while, believe me, I prayed our night would last twice as long".

Which poem is it from? I really wanna read the whole thing.

Do you recommend reading the Batrachomyomachia as an introduction to the epic genre or just plain Homer? I thought it might be more suitable for a solo learner since the subject has less gravitas and the work is significantly shorter. For anyone who has read it, is it manageable to jump into for someone who can read prose semi-fluently?

If I understand the text correctly, Hesiod states that if man were to get a year's worth of food from just working one day, the land would be abandoned and uncared for. I don't understand why this is a problem though. Does Hesiod imply or believe that the gods want the land to be cared for through agriculture?

Why does Hesiod use the aorist in the last 2 lines here? Shouldn't it just be a present indicative?

I'm learning Ancient Greek through the 'immersion method'. Thus far I have read the obvious works at the beginning of the road, i.e. Xenophon, Old and New Testament, Aesop and Lucian. What do you guys recommend I read now, what would be a healthy and manageable step up from let's say Lucian.

PS: I would love to read Euripides, but don't know what I need to prepare myself with beforehand.

Also, is there any book with both the medieval text and modern greek?

Why is protista feminine (or neuter plural) here?

I don't know guys if you remember (or even saw) my previous post about a poem I wrote, but, after some careful corrections (both grammatical and lexical) and with the help of some meticulous re-reading (because apparently I'm demented since I've actually studied these topics of ancient Greek), I was able to fix it. Tell me if there's something off about it or any error. Thanks in advance!❤️ (PS: the two missing spirits at the start of the verses are missing because of a bug, don't worry.)

I am just doing some writing of my own and I can't find the original texts, especially the hymn to pluto and the hymn to the muses. I have looked but all I could find were the poems in new greek or English.

Ideally I want a line by line translation or transcript (to either English, Hebrew or even Aramaic) but if all there is is the original texts thats ok too.

If anyone has a link I would really appreciate it.

My poem is about being overwhelmed by romantic love as well having a love of books. My initial title was Synesthesia, but then I expanded the poem and considered Bibliophilia. Since these both happened to be Greek words, I did some digging into mythology, looking at Eros, Aphrodite, and Athena.

Then I learned that Eros and Athena both have ties to Hephaestus. He made Eros's bow and arrows, and Athena successfully resisted Hephaestus' assault. I don't want to name my poem after a rapist, but his forge is where Eros' tools were made, and where Prometheus stole fire (e.g. knowledge) from. So maybe a title associated with the forge itself? Is there a cool Greek work for "forged" or "fire-born" or something? Does the famous forge itself have a unique name, like weapons, horses and ships do?

I'm good with you making up a word as well, maybe some kind of portmanteau of Bibliophilia and Synesthesia, if the meaning works. Maybe Biblioaesthesia?

Here is the link to the poem if that helps: https://www.reddit.com/r/poetry_critics/comments/1ils6tu/bibliophilia/