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Travelling with Ancient Guides
A tour of the Acropolis with Pausanias,
a 1800 year old guide
 Hello,
welcome to the Acropolis.
My name is Pausanias and
I come from Lydia in Asia Minor. I was born in the 2nd century AD and I am a traveler, a geographer and a writer. I have extensively traveled in Asia, Egypt, Greece and Italy, and described the marvels I have seen in those places.
I especially like to describe in detail places, monuments, buildings of all kinds, temples, walls and artworks and enrich them with customs, religious beliefs and rituals.
I was asked to guide you to the Acropolis, which is 700 years old and a vibrant part of the life of the
Athenians.
Plutarch, an important Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and a great traveler too, will be our companion.
So, follow us in our wandering.
Click here to follow Pausanias…
Gastronomy
Ancient Greeks… gourmet
Archestratus, was a Greek poet, born in Syracuse in the 4th century BC. In fact he invented the term Gastronomy, which in ancient Greek means the rules of the stomach. Archestratus, the first to approach cooking as an art, wrote the first cookbook called “Hedypatheia” (Life of Luxury).
Read more about Gastronomy and try a recipe from the Depths of time…
Read:
• The 5 Golden Rules of the Gastronomy Art
• The flavours of the Ancients Cook and Taste
A recipe from the depths of time: Staititae
‘the soft dough is poured upon a frying pan and on it are spread honey, sesame and cheese’. Athenaeus, Vol 6
Amazing News
Free Harvard
Course Online
The Ancient Greek Hero
A survey of ancient Greek literature focusing on classical concepts of the hero and how they can inform our understanding of the human condition.
Two of the top universities in the world, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have created the edx, a massive open online course (MOOC)
read more about the course…
Arts & Culture
Ancient Greek Love Poems
Sappho the Lesbian
At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet (πᾶς γοῦν ποιητής γίγνεται οὗ ἂν Ἔρως ἅψηται). Plato Symposium, para. 196e.
So love has always made people poets and ancient love poems have been discovered on every corner of the earth.
The most important poet of antiquity is considered to be Sappho of Lesbos, whose name has been connected with both lyric poetry and lesbian love… Yet, the close relationships of Sappho with her students gave rise to sexual dimensions, which remained in history as “lesbian love”, a term that would mark the love between women ever since… However, in later times, Attic comedy writers parodied Sappho as both overly promiscuous and lesbian and the zeal of the early Christians, who turned against her with range, managed to destroy her writings.
read more about Sappho…
A taste of Sappho’s poetry
Hymn to Aphrodite
read the poem…
FOCUS in Reading
Greek Lyric, Volume I: Sappho and Alcaeus
Edited and translated by David A. Campbell
Harvard University Press, 1982 – Poetry – 492 pages
This volume contains the poetic fragments of the two illustrious singers of early sixth-century Lesbos: Sappho, the most famous woman poet of antiquity, whose main theme was love; and Alcaeus, poet of wine, war, and politics, and composer of short hymns to the gods.
read more…
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