
What makes you feel better when times are hard? In this series of interviews from the lockdowns of 2020-21, Classics enthusiasts share the sources from the Ancient World which comfort and inspire them.
Comfort Classics Interviews
- Steve Havelin: a fresco from Stabiae
- Lilah Grace Canevaro: Hesiod’s Works and Days
- Jack Lambert: the mosaic of Neptune and Amphitrite
- Joanna Paul: Cavafy’s ‘Ithaka’
- Gina May: Homer’s Odyssey
- Klara Hegedus: the Roman Forum
- Christine Plastow: Antiphon 6
- Mary Beard: Homer’s Odyssey
- Rob Cromarty: Ovid’s Amores
- Colin Gough: Homer’s Odyssey and a documentary
- Sarah Thomason: Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and George Thomson
- LJ Trafford: Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars
- Pam Herbert: a mosaic from Sicily
- Naoko Yamagata: the philosophy of Epicurus
- Tony Potter: Martial’s Epigrams
- Edith Hall: an epigram by Nossis
- Liz Gloyn: Petronius’ Satyricon
- Greg Woolf: Juvenal’s Satires
- Leigh David Cobley: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
- Valerie Hope: the Letters of Pliny the Younger
- Gideon Nisbet: the epigrams of the Greek Anthology
- Laura Jenkinson-Brown: Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths
- Neville Morley: Frontinus, De Aquis Urbis Romae
- Daisy Dunn: a terracotta sculpture
- Jan Haywood: Herodotus’ Histories
- David Meadows: a sarcophagus of the Sirens and the Muses
- Anactoria Clarke: Tryphiodorus’ The Taking of Ilios
- Jaap Wisse: Virgil’s Aeneid
- Emma Bridges: Aristophanes
- Michael Scott: The Philogelos
- Frederick Armour: Pindar’s Odes
- Susan Raikes: a child’s sock from Roman Egypt
- Armand D’Angour: a poem by Nicarchus
- Valeria Bosisio: the Terme Boxer
- Simon Pulleyn: Virgil’s Eclogues
- Mirko Canevaro: Aristophanes’ Wasps
- Tom Mason: Epicurus and Ovid’s Metamorphoses
- Katie Low: Tacitus
- Penny Whitworth: images of Corinth
- Flora Kirk: a statuette of Mercury
- James Robson: Aristophanes’ Lysistrata
- Lucia Nixon: icon stands in Sphakia
- Peta Greenfield: the Ara Pacis
- Hayley Merchant: Trajan’s Column
- Ian Tompkins: the ruins of Cyrrhus
- Fiona Radford: an aureus of Nero and Agrippina
- Claudio Sansone: Archilochus and Sanskrit poetry
- John O’Flaherty: Virgil’s Aeneid – lacrimae rerum
- Jennie Baillie: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne
- Phil Perkins: Etruria
- Caroline Lawrence: Martial’s Saturnalia Gifts
- Greg Gilles: ancient frescoes
- Flint Dibble: a kylix painting of a dog
- Steve Jenkin: the view from Delphi’s theatre
- Georgy Kantor: Tacitus’ Annals and Histories
- Madeleine Perridge: amphora of Achilles and Penthesilea
- Emma Pauly: Ovid, Metamorphoses III
- Llewelyn Morgan: Horace’s Odes
- Karis Williamson: Homer’s Iliad I
- Jessica Hughes: South Italian vases
- Jennifer Ingleheart: Housman and Sappho
- Andrew Fox: Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita
- E-J Graham: votive babies
- Verity Platt: Pliny the Elder’s Natural History
- Pippa Steele: an alphabet cockerel
- Stephanie Holton: the fragments of Heraclitus
- Ian Spoor: Ovid’s Metamorphoses
- Abi Buglass: Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura
- Frances Breen: a Pompeian swan fresco
- Matt Myers: Tacitus’ Histories
- Ben Tanner: Aristophanes’ Frogs
- Andrew Parkin: a bathing Venus relief from Northumberland
- Andrew Sillett: the letters of Cicero
- Liz Webb: Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War
- Alex Imrie: Cassius Dio’s Roman History
- Tony Keen: Carry On Cleo
- Jo Ball: Roman personal letters
- Matt Simonton: Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae
- Arlene Holmes-Henderson: Seneca’s Moral Letters
- Gavin McCormick: the Octavius of Minucius Felix
- Michael Loy: the Nikandre kore
- Lily Mac Mahon: the Fayum mummy portraits
- Carey Fleiner: the Capitoline Wolf
- Owen Rees: Xenophon’s Anabasis
- Julian Morgan: Thucydides I.22 and Horace Odes III.30
- Manu Dal Borgo: Lysias
- Victoria Austen: Livia’s Garden Room
- Andy Keen: Sophocles’s Oedipus the King.
- Jamie Heath: the view from the Via Monte Tarpeo, overlooking the Forum
- Ersin Hussein: the landscape of Cyprus
- Michael Beer: Virgil’s Aeneid
- Rebecca Futo Kennedy and Max Goldman: working together
- Danny Bate: a Gallo-Latin inscription from Alise-Sainte-Reine
- Emily Hauser: Seneca’s Letters
- George Cornelius: early archaeology
- Jennifer Gane: the Laudatio Turiae
- Joshua Kinlaw: Hesiod’s Works and Days
- Kerry Phelan: Sappho
- Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones: the tomb-inscription of Darius the Great
- Joel Christensen: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
- Eduardo García-Molina: a silver tetradrachm of the Seleukid Empire
- M.C. Williams: Edith Hamilton’s Mythology
- Rachel Stott: the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias
- Michael Wood: travelling with texts
- Derek McCann: Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus.
- Ellie Newman: the Historia Augusta
- Cressida Ryan: Sophocles and Lucretius
- Helen McVeigh: the Phaistos Disc
- Ben Cassell: Plutarch’s Life of Theseus
- Hannah Clements-Patrick: Martial’s epigram I.109
- Georgina Homer: Ovid’s Heroides 12, Medea to Jason
- Marika Strano: Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis
- Carolyn Perry: a portrait bust of Alexander
- Abigail Graham: Catullus
- Francesca Grilli: the Delphi Charioteer
- Lynn Gordon: a Latin textbook
- Connor Hickey: Sallust’s The War with Catiline
- Hardeep Dhindsa: an inscription from Pompeii
- Chiara Sulprizio: the Delphic maxims
- Jane Draycott: papyri and ostraca
- Angharad Derbyshire: Horace’s Satires I.5 and II.6
- Claire Millington: funerary monuments
- Anna P. Judson: a Linear B clay tablet from Pylos
- Barbara Roberts: Pompeian graffiti
- Sarah Cullinan Herring: Catullus 101
- Julie Levy: Sappho, Frogs and Senecan tragedy
- Anne Chafer: Book 6 of Homer’s Iliad
- Yentl Love: Sappho 31
- Ed Clarke: Catullus
- David Stuttard: Sappho 96
- Josh Nudell: an inscription from Athens
- Steve O’Sullivan: Catullus 51
- Christian Cameron: Plato’s Charmides
- Charlie Pemberton: the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai
- Megan Bowler: Virgil’s Georgics
- Tine Rassalle: the Horvat Kur stone
- Laura Aitken-Burt: the Athenian Acropolis
- Laura Frosdick: the Prima Porta statue
- Elizabeth Shepherd: the Lion Gate at Mycenae
- Chloë Griggs: Catullus
- Katrina Kelly: the Villa di Poppea
- A.E. Stallings: the Little Refugee
- Caroline K. Mackenzie: Lullingstone Roman Villa
- Peter Frankopan: the Alexiad
- Alexandra Sills: the Sondheim/Shevelove Frogs
- Shana Zaia: The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Carl Graves: the stela of Seped-Hor
- Karl Anthony Mercer: Agrippa and the Pantheon
- Jeremy J. Swist: Julian’s The Caesars
- Madeleine Chawner: ancient and modern mythologies
- Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele: Ammianus Marcellinus
- Liv Mariah Yarrow: image databases
- Tim Kenny: Apollonius’ Argonautica
- Ronnais Lloyd: Sophocles’ Philoctetes
- Lucy Angel: the Sea Creatures Mosaic in Pompeii
- Katrina Moore: the Portico of Octavia
- Amber Taylor: Ovid, Metamorphoses 3
- Carly Silver: the pig stele of Edessa
- Kenneth Cameron: Virgil’s rural poetry
- Campbell Price: an offering table of Queen Tiye
Comfort Classics: An Anniversary
Featured in:
Comforting Classics in Changing Times, The Royal Society of Arts
Comfort Classics – How the ancient world is providing solace for those in lockdown, Arts & Humanities in the time of COVID-19
Insights, Kallos Gallery Newsletter
Open Access Resources, Institute of Classical Studies
CAHA Recommends, University of Birmingham
Learning Resources, A Dynamic Reader
Greek epigram – and more – on Comfort Classics, Blogging Ancient Epigram
Multimedia, Flint Dibble
Find Comfort in the Classics, The University of Winnipeg
Although the ancient world itself was not a particularly comforting place we can still find wisdom, humour and a little perspective on our current challenges. Dr Cora Beth Knowles FRSA on her project which is helping students through this uncertain period.https://t.co/D8bmtH9ZAw
— The RSA (@theRSAorg) June 19, 2020