Pietro Rotari, Girl With a Book (detail), c. 1750-62
Various French hats from 1774-1785
Illustrations by August Racinet from “The Complete Costume History”
To die, it’s easy. But you have to struggle for life.
(These are novels and source books for lovers of ancient history, excluding well known primary texts such as the Iliad, etc. of which most people are aware.)
Alexander, The Ambiguity of Greatness by Guy MacLean Rogers, A very interesting biography of Alexander the Great.
The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips, A novel about a man in the 1920s desperate to discover an Egyptian tomb.
Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, Women in Classical Antiquity by Sarah B. Pomeroy, an extremely fascinating study of the often overlooked lives of women in ancient Greece and Rome.
Women’s Life in Greece and Rome, a source book in translation, by Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant, An interesting collection of writings by women from the Classic era, including religious texts, poems, prayers and inscriptions.
Troy by Adele Geras, a novel of the last days of Troy told through the eyes of the women who were there including Helen and Andromache.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman, a dark novel full of plot twists and replete with the interaction of ancient gods in modern life.
The Greeks by H.D.F. Kitto, The book to read as an introduction to Ancient Greece.
Greek Lyrics by Richmond Lattimore, Beautiful ancient Greek poetry translated by one of the most well respected ancient Greek scholars.
Flesh and Stone, the body and the city in western civilization by Richard Sennett, From Daphne Spain “Big ideas that range into the realm of the sociology of culture as well as urban sociology, social change, and comparative historical analysis… How does one balance social order with personal disorder to create a humane public realm?” Highly recommend
Classical Mythology by Stephen L. Harris & Gloria Platzner, a complete source book on all things to do with classical mythology. Extremely informative and interesting.
Art cannot be modern, art is primordially eternal.
The Alexander Hall, detail of the fan vaults. Hermitage Museum (formerly the Winter Palace), St. Petersburg, Russia. From The Hermitage: The History of the Building and Halls.
We know, but our ancestors did not, that humans belong to a single species of African primate that developed agriculture, government, and writing late in its history. We know that our species is a tiny twig of a genealogical tree that embraces all living things and that emerged from prebiotic chemicals almost four billion years ago. We know that we live on a planet that revolves around one of a hundred billion stars in our galaxy, which is one of a hundred billion galaxies in a 13.8-billion-year-old universe, possibly one of a vast number of universes. We know that our intuitions about space, time, matter, and causation are incommensurable with the nature of reality on scales that are very large and very small. We know that the laws governing the physical world (including accidents, disease, and other misfortunes) have no goals that pertain to human well-being. There is no such thing as fate, providence, karma, spells, curses, augury, divine retribution, or answered prayers—though the discrepancy between the laws of probability and the workings of cognition may explain why people believe there are. And we know that we did not always know these things, that the beloved convictions of every time and culture may be decisively falsified, doubtless including some we hold today.
“These are the days that must happen to you.”
— Walt Whitman, from Leaves Of Grass (via billowy)
“I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest.”
— Walt Whitman, Selected Poems