
What makes you feel better when times are hard? In this series of interviews, Classics enthusiasts share the sources from the Ancient World which comfort and inspire them.
Contact me if you would like to join in! I’ll be continuing to add interviews until we’re no longer in need of happy thoughts.
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
- Louise O’Brien: Bes jars
- 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