If it's a welcome distraction, Ramayana (Nov. 2026) seems to be generating quite a lot of debate over 'authenticity' too (though this film at least has some actual Valmiki in the soundtrack)

RAMAYANA - Official Trailer

YouTube video by Sony Pictures Entertainment

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This old piece is getting renewed attention lately, for obvious reasons. The attempts to replicate the feat are just curiosities. But the last section ('Other interpretations') looks at how the iron axes are set up in Odyssey 21, and what comparative evidence suggests.

Mythbusters Jr. on Odysseus’ axes

How hard is it to shoot an arrow through twelve axes? What exactly is going on in the bow contest in the Odyssey?

kiwihellenist.blogspot.com

An exploration of the cave of the Nymphs in Odyssey 13. The cave isn't real, but it does have a little bit of real symbolism: to find it properly, you have to explain Homer from Homer.

The cave of the Nymphs: <i>Odyssey</i> 13.96–112

The cave of the Nymphs in Odyssey 13 isn't a real place, but it does have some real symbolism, shown by comparison with other Archaic Greek poetry.

kiwihellenist.blogspot.com

Speaking of modern composers setting classical texts to music ... is it at all well-known that Mendelssohn's setting of Antigone works just as well with the Greek text as with the German?

Several 16th century composers set pieces of classical Latin verse for choirs. They adopted one of two distinct methods: (1) Homophonic settings, in chords, imitating Latin verse rhythms strictly (including observing elision). Examples: the settings of Horace by Petrus Tritonius and Ludwig Senfl.

Maecenas atavis edite regibus

YouTube video by Les Menestrels - Topic

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Extremely excited about the IG/TikTok content the Odyssey is giving us! Also thank you a million times to @archaeadne.bsky.social for sending me tiktoks because I simply cannot do that platform

I'm a huge Emily Wilson fan She taught me ancient Greek. I've assigned her translations to my students. I interviewed her about translating the Odyssey a few weeks ago for my YouTube I'm not a fan of this review. And for what, I think, are good reasons (SPOILERS) /1

EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · last wk.

I wrote about the Nolan Odyssey for the LRB. I'll summarize some of my main points below, in case you don't feel like reading all that. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Odysseus' wanderings are set in an Otherworld ... and also kind of in the real world, both at the same time. A piece on the voyage of Odysseus, the stopovers, and their setting in the real (and not-so-real) world.

Odysseus’ wanderings

Many popular beliefs about ancient Greece and Rome are misconceptions. This blog digs into the evidence and looks for the reality behind the myth.

kiwihellenist.blogspot.com

I have a master's degree in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, I've studied the 'Odyssey' in Ancient Greek, and I've been writing about the ancient world for over a decade. This is my exhaustive review of Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey'. #Odyssey #classics talesoftimesforgotten.com/2026/07/23/a...

An Ancient Historian's Breakdown of Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' - Tales of Times Forgotten

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is perhaps the most highly anticipated new film of the 2020s. It has already received near-universal acclaim from film critics and earned more at the box office in its ...

talesoftimesforgotten.com

Rhea Receptions essay up, reviewing Nolan's "The Odyssey"! This thoughtful and insightful review considers the film as a product of our current times and places it within the historical lineup of other adaptations of the Odyssey over the past century.

Voyages in Time: The Odyssey (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2006)

Colin Whiting, Dumbarton Oaks, whitingc01@doaks.org Note: Spoilers ahead Let’s get the flotsam and jetsam of a film review out of the way first. Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is, as one…

rheaclassicalreviews.com

[SPOILERS FOR 'THE ODYSSEY' (2026) AND 'ULYSSES' (1954)] It just occurred to me that the recognition between Odysseus and Telemachos happens exactly the same way in The Odyssey (2026) as in Ulisse (1954): Telemachos deduces his father's identity from the recognition scene with the dog Argos.

I love transplantations of myths, anachronisms galore. I can cope if someone wants to pretend Odysseus' visits to the sites of 7th century Greek colonies and trading partners are set in a quasi-historical 12th century. But a line like 'Our bronze age is collapsing' ... oh that's painful writing.

I am once again begging Hollywood to stop using the Greek alphabet for an Ancient World movie, if they can't afford to even throw a couple of quid at anyone with an inkling of the language. Unless they really think audiences are dying to see THS THDPSSSSPS

The Odyssey on screen: a catalogue ranging from 1905 to 2026, from Georges Méliès to Christopher Nolan, from the metatheatrical Le mépris to the space-faring anime Ulysses 31.

The <i>Odyssey</I> on screen: a catalogue

A catalogue of the Odysey on screen: direct adaptations, parodies, parodies of parodies, etc.

kiwihellenist.blogspot.com

In honour of Sam Neil I’d like to see Australia change its flag to the Event Horizon flag that Neil designed for the film. www.buzzfeed.com/ishabassi/sa...

This news makes me sad. I normally don't pay much attention to celebrities but Sam felt a bit more like a neighbour. Requiescat in pace.

There have been 17 film adaptations of the Odyssey, or parts of it. No Greek actor has ever played Odysseus, Penelope, or Telemachos in any of them. Odysseus has been played by: - 5 American actors (Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Jason Patric, Matt Damon) ...

Homer's Odyssey has nothing to do with the Bronze Age. It's jam-packed with 8th-7th century BCE material; it has no Bronze Age material at all. This view is fairly standard among Homer scholars, but it's usually expressed cautiously. Sometimes it's a good idea to make it a bit more forceful.

History and the <i>Odyssey</i>

The Odyssey is not set in the Bronze Age. It is totally flooded with classical-era motifs, with a smattering of archaic touches.

kiwihellenist.blogspot.com

the study of the study of humanities and social sciences would reveal that they discovered what they set out to find, that social justice is what's wrong with the disciplines

Question: when did the Romans stop using regnal years as a year count? Regnal years were still the standard in the time of Theoderic, as far as I can tell: did they carry on into the Lombard period, or did other systems become prevalent?

Third person pronouns are less common in ancient Greek than in modern English. Greek can express gender via adjectives and participles. You might expect the same would be true for Latin - but it turns out Latin uses 'is' and 'ille' _more_ than the English pronouns. Surprise!

A note on the language of gender transition in Catullus 63. Three years back I wrote a blog post on gendered language in translations of ancient texts. A different interpretation of Catullus 63.4 'vagus animis' now occurs to me.

Oh it's possible I might be a bit of a sucker for this. New game from a Polish company. You play a mediaeval scribe who takes commissions to produce illuminated manuscripts and run a scriptorium.

Save 20% on Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts on Steam

Make and share the most beautiful and bizarre medieval art imaginable! Manage and grow your manuscript workshop by illustrating manuscripts, using friendly tools and a massive range of drag-and-drop a...

store.steampowered.com

I've been reading Phlegon's quotation from the Sibylline books. In 72 lines of hexameter (including the acrostics) there are 6 Attic correptions, and many metrical 'laws' violated: 16× Varro’s Bridge, 2× Hermann’s Bridge, 15× Meyer’s Laws (1× First, 7× Second, 7× Third), and 1× Tiedke-Meyer’s Law.

The following 17 words appear 56,819 times in the Iliad: δέ, ὁ, καί, τε, ἐγώ, εἰμί, ἐν, σύ, ὅς, μέν, ἄρα, ἄν, οὐ, ἐπί, γάρ, ἀλλά, and τις. They represent over half of the text of the Iliad (50.9% of all tokens), but only 0.3% of the vocabulary (5,448 types).

Well that's nice - episodes 1 and 3 of The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-66) have been recovered. 5 of the 12 episodes are now intact (episodes 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10). (I have a vested interest since one of the Doctor's companions in these episodes was an ancient Trojan)

A note on Abaris of Hyperborea. The Souda (α.18) gives his name with the declension Ἄβαρις, Ἀβάριδος, but with an accusative plural Ἀβάρις (i.e. Ἀβάρῑς) 'by apocope'. Ἀβάρῑς isn't apocope. It's a double declension in ‑ιδ‑ and ‑ι‑, like Δικαιόπολις > gen. sg. Δικαιοπόλιδος, acc. sg. Δικαιόπολιν.

Eric Hamp broke JSTOR lmao

Oh for fuck's sake. I'm sure the science is fine, but this is an answer in search of a question. There's nothing to explain. There are NO ancient reports of 'beatific visions' or life-changing ecstatic experiences in the course of Eleusinian initiation: Kerényi made it up out of thin air in 1960.

Where Did Homeric Book Divisions Come From? Thinking about the thematic Unity of book 14 sententiaeantiquae.com/2026/02/25/w...

Where Did Homeric Book Divisions Come From? Thinking about the thematic Unity of book 14

As I mention in the first post about Iliad 14, the book provides a structure that is built around three basic movements: the crisis of leadership among the Achaeans, resolved by Diomedes; a rallyin…

sententiaeantiquae.com