Graham Zanker (born 16 December 1947) is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Canterbury and an affiliate at the University of Adelaide. [1]
He has published widely on Hellenistic poetry and art, Homeric ethics, and Virgilian epic. [2]
Zanker received his B.A. from the University of Adelaide before proceeding to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in Classical Philology. [3] [4]
He has undertaken research at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Tübingen, Heidelberg, and Cincinnati, [5] and been a resident scholar at the Fondation Hardt (Geneva), Center for Hellenic Studies, Institute of Classical Studies. He has also been an academic visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study. [6]
Zanker's first book, Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A Literature and Its Audience (1987), was a groundbreaking investigation of the interrelation of Hellenistic poetry and art. [7] [8] Zanker then moved to Homeric ethics in The Heart of Achilles: Characterization and Personal Ethics in the Iliad (1994), amending the schematic view of the psychological drives behind the behavior of the Homeric heroes by (e.g.) focusing on the reconciliation scene between Achilles and Priam in Iliad 24. [9] [10] He then returned to the interaction of Hellenistic art and literature in Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art (2004). [11] [12] He has recently written on Stoic fate in Virgil's Aeneid . [13]
He has also translated Thomas Szlezak's Platon Lesen (Reading Plato, 2005), [14] [15] [16] and authored an edition, translation, and commentary to Herodas’ Mimiambs (2009). [17] [18] [19]
Zanker is currently working on a collaboration on Ch. G. Heyne's De Genio Saeculi Ptolemaeorum (1763), establishing its place in modern concepts of Hellenistic civilization. [20]
Homer was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history.
In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides are sea nymphs, the 50 daughters of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris, sisters to their brother Nerites. They often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors.
Greek literature dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today.
In Greek mythology, Coeus, also called Polus, was one of the Titans, one of the three groups of children born to Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth).
In Greek mythology, Patroclus was a hero of the Trojan War and an important character in Homer's Iliad. He is widely known for being the childhood friend, lover, and close wartime companion of the hero Achilles. When the tide of the war turned against the Achaeans, Patroclus, disguised as Achilles and defying his orders to retreat in time, led the Myrmidons in battle against the Trojans and was eventually killed by the Trojan prince, Hector. Enraged by Patroclus' death, Achilles ended his refusal to fight, resulting in significant Greek victories.
In Greek mythology, Tethys was a Titan daughter of Uranus and Gaia, a sister and wife of the Titan Oceanus, and the mother of the river gods and the Oceanids. Although Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults, she was depicted in mosaics decorating baths, pools, and triclinia in the Greek East, particularly in Antioch and its suburbs, either alone or with Oceanus.
The Epic Cycle was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems, composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War, including the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the so-called Little Iliad, the Iliupersis, the Nostoi, and the Telegony. Scholars sometimes include the two Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the poems of the Epic Cycle, but the term is more often used to specify the non-Homeric poems as distinct from the Homeric ones.
An aristeia or aristia is a scene in the dramatic conventions of epic poetry as in the Iliad, where a hero in battle has his finest moments. Aristeia may result in the death of the hero, and therefore suggests a "battle in which he reaches his peak as a fighter and hero".
Christianity and Hellenistic philosophies experienced complex interactions during the first to the fourth centuries.
Herodas or Herondas, was a Greek poet and the author of short humorous dramatic scenes in verse, probably written in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC.
The Ambrosian Iliad or Ilias Picta is a 5th-century illuminated manuscript on vellum, which depicts the entirety of Homer's Iliad, including battle scenes and noble scenes. It is considered unique due to being the only set of ancient illustrations that depict scenes from the Iliad. The Ambrosian Iliad consists of 52 miniatures, each labeled numerically. It is thought to have been created in Alexandria, given the flattened and angular Hellenistic figures, which are considered typical of Alexandrian art in late antiquity, in approximately 500 AD, possibly by multiple artists. The author(s) first drew the figures nude and then painted the clothes on, much like in Greek vase painting. In the 11th century, the miniatures were cut out of the original manuscript and pasted into a Siculo-Calabrian codex of Homeric texts.
The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and their historicity. The subject has its roots in classical antiquity and the scholarship of the Hellenistic period, but has flourished among Homeric scholars of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in education.
The Argonautica is a Greek epic poem written by Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece from remote Colchis. Their heroic adventures and Jason's relationship with the dangerous Colchian princess/sorceress Medea were already well known to Hellenistic audiences, which enabled Apollonius to go beyond a simple narrative, giving it a scholarly emphasis suitable to the times. It was the age of the great Library of Alexandria, and his epic incorporates his research in geography, ethnography, comparative religion, and Homeric literature. However, his main contribution to the epic tradition lies in his development of the love between hero and heroine – he seems to have been the first narrative poet to study "the pathology of love". His Argonautica had a profound impact on Latin poetry: it was translated by Varro Atacinus and imitated by Valerius Flaccus, it influenced Catullus and Ovid, and it provided Virgil with a model for his Roman epic, the Aeneid.
The shield of Achilles is the shield that Achilles uses in his fight with Hector, famously described in a passage in Book 18, lines 478–608 of Homer's Iliad. The intricately detailed imagery on the shield has inspired many different interpretations of its significance.
The Iliad is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature.
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient Greek religion's view of the origin and nature of the world; the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself.
Gretchen Reydams-Schils is Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and holds concurrent appointments in Classics, Philosophy, and Theology. She is a specialist in Plato and the traditions of Platonism and Stoicism.
Angus Morton Bowie is a British academic, Emeritus Lobel fellow in Classics at The Queen's College, University of Oxford. His research interests include Homer, Herodotus, Greek lyric, tragedy and comedy, Virgil, Greek mythology, structuralism, narratology, and other theories of literature.
William Kendrick Pritchett was an American scholar of ancient Greek history. He authored over 30 books on the subjects of Greek warfare, topography, and time-keeping.
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