'My words should and can be brief lest by dwelling on your great deeds I treat them unworthily.'
Joined February 2014
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4,557 Photos and videos
Recreation of Helen of Troy's maquillage based on 13th BC Mycenaean plaster head, Nat Arch Mus Athens. #WorldGothDay
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Pythika retweeted
Jun 10
Robert Frost reads “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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Pythika retweeted
Friends in the #UK! I’ll be talking about the joys and challenges of #translation and #Homer’s #Odyssey at the @hayfestival on Wednesday 27 May, in conversation with the excellent @chris_power ! Ticket info below:
hayfestival.com/p-25290-dani…
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Nothing beats the novels we read as teenagers and return to throughout our lives: Middlemarch, War & Peace, all of Austen, Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, the Magic Mountain. What do you still love?
May 17
Am aboard the Pequod ( for the 4th time I think) Moby Dick the second greatest novel ever written and a whole universe of writing to live in .. As an antidote to the flat- footed prose of the media, trailing their stale opinions behind them and the fanatical drivel of the powerful plus the smug certainties of billionaires, rich only in money, nothing beats the great masters of writing. They are our life support, our thread of humanity in a mechanical world . AI will never produce a Melville for there is no data set that could have predicted him.
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Pythika retweeted
May 17
Really entrancing spatial-visual guide to the Iliad’s action
> Of the 360 named characters, 232 are warriors killed or wounded, yet the poet is remarkable in his ability to keep his characters on the battlefield straight (the instances of Homer's nodding are strikingly rare).
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Pythika retweeted
May 14
Another one of the Classicists who served
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May 14
Denis Healey, one of six formidable candidates in Labour's 1976 leadership election, was a grammar school boy from Yorkshire who achieved a double first in classics at Oxford, served in the second world war (including as beachmaster at the Battle of Anzio), was mentioned in dispatches, demobbed as a major, spoke several foreign languages, and was a gifted amateur painter and pianist and all-round aficionado of the arts. My piece examining the decline in calibre of British parliamentarians. paulembery.com/p/titans-and-…
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Night thoughts on “polytropos,” 1:
The syntax of the Greek suggests that the relative clause (“who greatly wandered…”) that follows this adjective is intended as a gloss on it. Hence the translation of p should be a word(s) that describes his route as well as his personality.
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Interesting interpretation of the Homeric vowel system and the (overly breathy?) aspirates; but this is the best demonstration of the pitch accent.
Apr 19
Homer's Iliad Book 1 Lines 1-27 in Restored Ancient Greek Meter, Pitch Accents & Pronunciation with English translation.
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Pythika retweeted
God, I love @HadleyFreeman - “laughter is the best pesticide” as Nabokov said, and by withering antiSemites with wit she is being both the best of Jewish and British columnists.
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Pythika retweeted
Last chance to secure a free ticket to our great event next week in #Liverpool - ticketsource.com/liverpool-c… - grateful for any shares @Classical_Assoc @BoltonHistory @Knox_Harrington @LiverpoolBCS @BlueToga @GrecianGirly @Pythika @for_fi @thereaderorg @chrissypartheni @wmarybeard
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Cow drinking with its reflection in the water and more mosaics of animals from Early Byzantine churches of Hadrianopolis in Paphlagonia, an archaeological site in
Karabük Province
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Pythika retweeted
Apr 16
This now lost figure of Christ from an inscribed stone at Llanglydwen, drawn in 1820, is done with your nonsense and is coming for you
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This will be brilliant - come along! #Liverpool Thursday 23rd April at 7pm.
Drink ! Eat ! Indulge your soul !: Food and Feasts in Ancient Greece - still time to reserve a free ticket for our next talk in #Liverpool @LiverpoolBCS on 23 April ticketsource.com/liverpool-c…
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Pythika retweeted
Mar 30
Good to learn from this that the Mycenaean name for Cambridge is ‘ka-mo-jo ke-pu2-ra3’
Mar 29
The astounding story of how that most fascinating of scripts, Linear B, was painstakingly decoded in the mid-20th century, revealing at last the life of the Mycenaeans in technicolour: antigonejournal.com/2024/01/…
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April is the cruelest month
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Applications are now open for our 2026–2028 OxLAT programme, which offers free tuition in Latin language and literature from scratch through to GCSE examination.
If you are in Year 8 or 9 at a nearby state school which does not teach Latin, but you are interested in learning the language of the Romans, apply to study it here with us!
Full details and applications forms are available at classics.ox.ac.uk/outreach
***APPLICATION DEADLINE: Friday 15th May 2026***
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Pythika retweeted
Took a long walk up the Oxford canal & utterly delighted to find my first butterbur of the year!🌸🩷
Tolkien used to walk here & Butterbur is the name of the Prancing Pony's innkeeper🌸🐎🌸
I like to think he in turn inspired the drink served in #HarryPotter - Butterbeer 🍻⚡️
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Pythika retweeted
Feb 24
THE PAPERBACK: God is an Englishman, just off the press - available 26th March...
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Pythika retweeted
Cam High Road is a historically significant well preserved Roman Road, ancient packhorse route and later, (1751) turnpike road. It connected the Roman fort at Bainbridge (Virosidum) with Ingleton. These days it is a high altitude and sometimes very 1/2
ALT The image shows the Cam High Road, which is a well-preserved ancient Roman road located in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It runs between Bainbridge, the site of a former Roman fort, and Ingleton. Today, this historic route is utilised by walkers, horse-riders, mountain bikers, and recreational vehicle users. The road is known for its rigidly straight alignment and is edged by traditional stone walls, offering scenic views over the surrounding fells and valleys. In 1751, this track became part of the turnpike road from Richmond to Lancaster before a new route was constructed in 1795.
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Pythika retweeted
Thrilled to announce the publication of my research on the Great Palace of Constantinople. We’re taking a fresh look at the heart of Byzantium. I hope you find it an engaging and insightful read.
Free for two weeks on Cambridge Core: cambridge.org/core/elements/…
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