The Lion of Chaeronea

A blog dedicated to classical antiquity, poetry, and the visual arts. All translations of Greek and Latin are my own unless otherwise noted.

[lionofchaeronea]

I just wanted to say that I adore your poetry. The first time I read one of your ones about greek myth I thought it was an actual ancient poem, sometimes I still have to remind myself they aren't - I think you would have been very popular back then!

Thank you! That's really sweet of you. I appreciate it.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Alright tell me in the tags, what’s Your Poem? That poem you heard once and it has dwelt within you ever since?

[lionofchaeronea]

From "September 1, 1939" by W.H. Auden:

There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police: We must love one another or die.

[lionofchaeronea]

For the ask gane: 🎧, 🎬, 🚫

A song that's been driving you up the wall recently: not really a song, properly speaking, but the jingle for Safelite, a windshield repair company: "Safelite repair, Safelite replace!" It's lodged in my head and won't come loose.

Worst film you've seen lately: The Night the World Exploded (1957). I should say, in the interest of honesty, that I enjoyed it -- I'm a bad movie aficionado -- but it really was pretty awful, thanks largely to the tiny budget. Much of the movie is set in what purports to be Carlsbad Caverns, and whatever the fake stalactites were made of, they jiggle when the actors brush against them.

If you could eliminate one thing from the world--as if it never existed--what would it be? Racial bigotry. It's killing us all. And I'm not speaking metaphorically.

[lionofchaeronea]

👸?

A historical figure you have a personal beef with: I've mentioned Alexander the Great, so I'll name another, much more recent figure: Robert E. Lee. Why do I have a beef with him? Because so many (white) people in the American South -- including, I regret to say, certain members of my own extended family -- look up to him as some sort of great hero, fighting in a doomed but morally superior cause. The reality is that like every other prominent Confederate, the man committed treason against his country to fight on behalf of white supremacy and chattel slavery. I fail to see how that merits adulation.

[herpsandbirds]

Himalayan Monal (Lophophorus impejanus), male, family Phasianidae, order Galliformes, northern India

Photograph by Jayeeta Chowdhury 

[lionofchaeronea]

I posted this in a group as well, but if anyone wants to see the massive chaos that is my life, here are two of my three bookshelves. First picture = my Penguin Classics and some of my Loeb Classical Library volumes. Second picture = my Oxford World's Classics (top shelf) and the many, many poetry collections/anthologies I've acquired over the years (remaining shelves).

[lionofchaeronea]

I think I need to go do something else for a while. I really do.

[lionofchaeronea]

🗺️? You talk about traveling enough to have some place you’ve hated 👀

All of the places I've been to overseas I've either liked or loved (although Naples took some getting used to, seeing as I was there during a garbage strike), but there's one place within the United States that I will never visit again if I can help it: College Station, Texas, home to Texas A&M University (and nothing else). If you've ever wondered "What would it be like to set foot in 1936 Nuremberg?", that town will give you an answer.

[lionofchaeronea]

Eeeeeeeeh. Academia is obsessed with Genghis Khan and I doubt it's because they think Mongolia is the root of western civilization. There's even a sort of borderline admiration about how much you might be related to him due to all his rapes.

True enough.

[cyberxbattalion]

[lionofchaeronea]

it's so funny to me that you needed to clarify that Agamemnon is a horrible person as if that's not been the popular take since 800BCE

Quod scripsi, scripsi.

[please-be-nice-im-sensitivee]

im going to find out the #1 favorite character of Greek myth on this site

If you can please reblog with your favorite I’ll make a list and create a side blog to post the polls

[lionofchaeronea]

Clytemnestra. I've always found her fascinating. (Much more so than her husband, who, like so many leaders through the millennia, was a pompous blowhard undeserving of the status he claimed.)

[lionofchaeronea]

I feel validated with your "beef" with Alexander. I feel he's highly overstated in classical academia for his conquests. When others, especially in western Asia were doing the same centuries earlier.

Yes, he was certainly far from the first empire-builder in Eurasian history. I think part of the reason he's historically gotten so much focus is that Western academics assume (consciously or otherwise) they're the direct heirs of Hellenic civilization, and hence of Alexander. They don't feel the same connection to, say, Sargon of Akkad or Cyrus the Great.

[lionofchaeronea]

👸 Is there a historical figure you have personal beef with?

🧥 A clothing item, fashion trend or "aesthetic" you would rather die than put on your body.

Historical figure: I may lose my classicist card for this, but...Alexander the Great. I don't know whether I could say I have a "beef" with him, but I've never found him particularly interesting, and when you take into account the astronomical number of people he killed during his wars of conquest, he loses a lot of his luster as a "civilizing agent". (Likewise for Julius Caesar in his Gallic campaigns. Superb general. First-rate prose stylist. Mass murderer.)

Clothing item: Bell bottoms. I'm sorry, but I just find them really tacky.

[lionofchaeronea]

Gold solidus of the East Roman emperor Phocas (547-610 CE), minted at Carthage and dated to Year 10 of his reign = 606/7. Initially an army officer, Phocas led a mutiny, overthrew the reigning emperor Maurice, and established himself on the throne of Constantinople. His rule lasted until he was overthrown in turn and executed by Heraclius, son of the homonymous exarch of Africa.

Literary sources from the Heraclian dynasty portray Phocas as boorish, vindictive, and cruel, prone to use violence against his enemies. However, some revisionist historians prefer to see Phocas as a softer, gentler character, unfairly maligned by his successors. It remains to be seen whether this so-called "soft Phocas lens" will ultimately prevail.

Photo credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com | Wikimedia Commons | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic

[lionofchaeronea]

🤢,☔️ for the ask game :)

Tell us a few of your "icks": Any substance with a slimy texture, including (but not limited to) slimy foods, causes an instinctive revulsion in me. I don't know why, exactly, but it's been that way since I was a small child. I'm working on it, though.

The most irritating kind of weather for you: days when it's humid and overcast but doesn't actually rain. I love bright sunshine; I love cozy rain; but splitting the difference--not so much.

[lionofchaeronea]

🎭

Name an author/filmmaker/artist etc. you consider an overrated hack or just don't fuck with: J.K. Rowling. I hope I don't have to explain why. Also, going back a bit farther: Alexander Pope, possibly the least interesting "great poet" in the history of Anglophone literature.