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The dialogue in question involves Telemachus, Odysseus’ son who is nearing manhood and dealing with the problem of the suitors dominating his household and relentlessly courting his mother. A significant portion of the epic is devoted to his character, following his growth and maturing with the guidance of Athena. In his interactions with the suitors he is emboldened by the patron goddess and begins to assert himself as the de facto man of the house in his father’s absence.

In the trailer we see Antinous (Robert Pattinson), the leader of the suitors, belittling Telemachus (Tom Holland) and trying to intimidate him. He says “you’re pining for a daddy you didn’t even know,” also reminding us that Telemachus was only newly born when his father left for Troy. While the use of ‘daddy’ and ‘bastard’ are a little striking in this exchange, they seem suitable to the tone of Antinous’ attack - demeaning Telemachus, denying him his authority and relegating him to the role of a child. This wasn’t a big issue to me.

However, it’s soon followed by another clip where Telemachus states “my dad is coming home,” where the use of ‘dad’ seems much more out of place. For a mature, confident Telemachus, it doesn’t seem appropriate to use the familiar term here - ‘father’ would suit the tone much better. It’s definitely made more striking by the American accent which Holland uses, but it’s more about the register being employed here. For better or for worse, we expect a certain type of vocabulary and formality when reading, listening to or watching works of this kind. This particular example breaks the spell a little bit and lifts you out of the world we’re supposed to be immersed in.

Some have offered the suggestion that it is a younger version of Telemachus, in which case it might be more suitable, but it’s hard to see from the footage if he looks any younger than usual. What was more disappointing, however, was the reaction to this relatively simple critique once more blew up into blind defence of the director from his fan boys, vitriol from those who don’t care enough to understand the point being made, and distortion of the point into an over-simplified one which led to an obvious dismissal.

The most common reply was along the lines of, “this is fantasy, they can do whatever they want” or “they shouldn’t be speaking English at all, it’s a Greek story.” Not only were these pointless and tiring responses, it pushed the entire point away from a discussion about the way in which we translate and consume ancient literature into the same tired arguments about whose accents sound worse in these films. I couldn’t care less if they speak with British, American, Australian or any other accents - so long as it is relatively consistent and not particularly jarring. I’m much more concerned that the dialogue at least go some of the way to match the elevated style and beauty of Homer’s original story, which so many translators have achieved over the years.

And that’s all I have to say about that!

In 2001, Wizards of the Coast released its 24th expansion set named Odyssey, which introduced a wealth of new cards, new characters, and a new setting into the game which had been steadily growing in popularity for eight years. Early the next year, I started a new school and met some friends who introduced me to the game and its most recent set, Odyssey. I was immediately transfixed by the cards, the artwork, and the storyline hinted at within them. It was also a great way to make friends for someone to whom it had never come easy.

One of the most fascinating parts of the game was the world-building that went on within what was functionally just a few bits of cardboard that you moved around a table. The art, names and flavour text of these cards all suggested that there was more to learn about the world they came from. In much the same way that reading ancient works like the Iliad and the Odyssey require deeper cultural knowledge and wider reading, this game also invited you to dive deeper into the world.

It was also a significant moment in the story of the game, as it had just concluded a multi-set, year-spanning story arc that devastated the entire world; Odyssey jumped forward 100 years to see what the aftermath of this cataclysm would be. As a result, even more elements of the game hinted at times gone by, people now lost and the rebuilding that had begun. In the same way that Homer’s Odyssey was concerned with what happened after the Trojan War, this story did the same.

To add to the mysterious vibes of the set, this symbol below was the icon used on all the cards in the set to distinguish that they were from this expansion.

This was no random icon however, but the Mirari, an artifact of mysterious power and great importance that all the characters were fighting to claim. It’s also neat that it comes from the Latin verb “to wonder at” or “to marvel at.” The lure and mystery of the item added another layer of intrigue to the game that I loved, and to this day the card that was made for it remains my favourite:

This card is a fantastic example of the world-building and interest that a single piece of cardboard can generate. The name alone is mysterious, but the artwork is sublime. Donato Giancola is one of my favourite artists of all time, and he really outdid himself here. The artifact in the foreground is smooth and perfect, while the stand that grasps it is fluid and unpredictable. The reflection in the almost too-shiny ball shows an unknown figure heading for it from our direction through a tunnel, while a second, ghost-like figure is in the middle ground coming towards us from the opposite direction. A third person is also seen entering in the background through a huge set of doors, slightly off-centre. The room is huge and palatial, hinting at the power and significance of the piece. Finally, we have a quote from another character (inviting you to learn more about them as well) which perfectly sums up the unnatural power of the mirari - and its danger.

So you can see why I was hooked! On top of all this, the game was fun, interactive and social. Most of my break times at school were spent playing with friends; I even petitioned the headmaster to open a room for us at lunch time when the librarians started kicking us out for taking up too much room in the library. We attended a few pre-releases for new sets as they came out, which are still great memories for me. It was truly a fantastic time in my childhood. But after two years, I moved schools, lost my friends and lost all contact with the game… but not for good.

At university in 2012 I had a brief resurgence, as a flatmate also got into the game and I rediscovered much of what I loved about it. I was lucky (in hindsight) to take part in the release of some of the great sets in Magic history - the Return to Ravnica and Innistrad blocks. But once again, life got in the way and I lost touch with the game again - to my great regret, just before the Theros block was released, a world modelled entirely on Greek mythology. But more on that another time!

In 2021, during one of many pandemic lockdowns in New Zealand, I fell victim to the targeted advertising of MTG Arena, an online platform that allowed you to play the game digitally. This served as an easy, free re-entry into the game which sparked all my enthusiasm and curiosity once more. Now as an adult with disposable income, I was able to buy the books to read up on the lore I had missed and I truly fell into the game. Once the world settled down a bit, I started playing in person and have steadily been building my collection and finding a great community among players.

While I could go on about this forever, and I will likely write more about this fascinating game, I will leave you with two cards that I now proudly own - very much for the particular niche they fill for me:

Yes, for some reason, in the early 2000s they printed two special promo cards in Latin and Ancient Greek. One day I hope to learn who was involved in their translation, and find out if anyone has attempted to translate any more cards into Latin. What’s more interesting is that the game actually developed a new language of its own, Phyrexian, and produced several cards and items using its own unique script and grammar. The project for developing that language, akin to Klingon from Star Trek or Dothraki from ASOIAF, is uniquely intriguing to a linguist like me.

I’d be keen to hear from any readers who might also be players - how did you get into the game? What part of it fascinates you the most? I’ll be sure to write some more about this in the future as it is beginning to take over my life!

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See you next time!

If you were a part of any discourse around the new Odyssey glimpses, you’ll know that it almost entirely centred around the look of the movie - for the most part, because that’s all we have. There’s been sparingly little other detail, so we have to analyse and quibble over what we can see. This, of course, led many to comment on the clothes worn by various characters, be they in armour or civilian attire. Below is a small gallery of some of the more comment-producing images that we were graced with:

For many, the bland style and colour palette of the clothes was striking, not to mention Telemachus wearing pants! Much of the colour can be put down to Nolan’s familiar style that relies heavily on muted blues, owing to his colour blindness. Others were quick to pounce on the armour worn by Odysseus and his men, and that’s where things started to heat up. There were plenty of discussions around what armour might have looked like in the Bronze Age or even the Archaic period following, and it seemed that Nolan’s team had quite deliberately avoided trying to accurately recreate any pieces and settled on a more generic look that blends into every other ancient movie Hollywood churns out these days. This was all well and good, until a new poster and trailer dropped giving us these new images:

With little context, these sent the internet into a frenzy. Half were praising how ‘cool’ and ‘sick’ the armour looked, while others were completely flummoxed by how out of place it looked for something from the ancient world. The smooth, machine-produced look and the gold vertebrae adorning the helmet would be more at home in an Alien or Predator movie than in ancient Greece. So you can imagine how it split people down the line of how much they cared about the feel of the setting being authentic. For educators and classicists like myself, this is a particularly touchy subject, as major movies and other media depicting the ancient world can massively affect general understanding and create generations of misconceptions that we have to fight extremely hard to break.

What was also interesting to observe was the many edits these images spawned and how these were received. For example, these cropped up on Twitter shortly after:

While these obviously satirise the look and feel of the costume in this scene, it’s actually harder to parse whether these were posted as criticisms of the style or actually a form of praise for how cool they look - Batman still being a widely enjoyed character that Nolan himself had a lot of impact on.

It’s also worth noting here how much AI is now playing a part in how we received media, and the speed at which these AI edits appeared was alarming. Not only that, but many of the images shared from the trailer were initially grainy video stills that were then upscaled by AI to give a result that actually distorted and smoothed out many of the features, so it became even harder to form a definite opinion. And when people started to push back towards the side of authenticity, unfortunately AI was just as frequently employed. Soon after, a video emerged that replaced scenes from the trailers with armour inspired by some of the more popular recreations of Bronze Age armour:

This is perhaps even more painful to watch than the blandness of the original trailer, as it pretends to come from a place of deep knowledge and understanding but very little of either of those went into it. Instead, they just slapped the one commonly used image of the Dendra Panoply armour onto every figure in the scenes and created an end result even uglier than the original. This only served to add fuel to the fire and strengthen the critics of so-called ‘historical accuracy’. I won’t go into too much detail over it, but suffice to say that this armour is just one type that we have found dating back to the Bronze Age, and was also found in a tomb, so it was extremely unlikely that every soldier would be wearing something like this.

So we come at last to the matter of ‘historical accuracy’ and as you can see from the get-go, this was a losing battle. The internet was strewn with generalisations, misinformation, AI inaccuracies, overzealous fanboys and very few people who actually knew very much about what they were talking about. And once the trailer came out on social media, it began to trend and get picked up by the algorithms - which for me is where the real problem began.

Social media is more and more driven by algorithmic functions these days. Rather than seeing content from people you like/friend/follow, you are now presented with content tailored to your viewing habits and engagement. This has had a massive effect, among other things, on follower counts - you don’t need to follow accounts any more to see their stuff, so people don’t even bother to do that much any more. Instead, to gain visibility you need to interact with what is trending and/or farm engagement bait, which is eye-gougingly painful to do. But what the algorithm also does is reduce a complex issue down into an over-simplified term, and thus ‘historical accuracy’ became the go-to term when discussing the Odyssey.

The term itself is laughably misused, of course, since on a broad scale the Odyssey is a work of fiction, and more specifically it was composed during one time period about characters from another time period and then set down during yet another time period, all of which had changing ideas, styles, armour and more. So to ask whether a character from the Odyssey wearing armour looks ‘historically accurate’ is an exercise in madness. Classicists were never, in fact, arguing that the film should be set in a perfect recreation of the Bronze Age - no one actually wants that. However, since detractors could use the term ‘historical accuracy’ to reduce their argument to that, it made it near impossible to fight. What really hit it home for me was when I posted my initial reaction to the ‘golden spine’ poster:

A pretty generic response really. I was baffled initially by the look, as it seemed so out of place. My response didn’t say anything particularly, certainly not that I was upset about ‘historical accuracy’ or anything else like that. I didn’t use any specific words to trigger that algorithm - but it got caught in it anyway, and exploded in views:

I tuned off replies with 24 hours, it was that crazy. People imported all sorts of things onto me, accusing me of being a ‘moron nerd’, a ‘ragebaiter’ and a blue check doing things for monetisation. I hadn’t even tried to make this post go viral, but it ended up with over 5 million impressions - without really saying anything! Once I locked it down, it simply vanished from people’s radars and they were presented with a new algorithm-driven post to rage at.

Whenever I got the chance to actually articulate my criticisms, I had to put it simply. I don’t want it to look like any one specific thing, I’m open to many interpretations of the setting and the characters. I just don’t want it to suck. I can overlook things like the pots in the palace of King Menelaus being worn and chipped like ones you’d see in a museum. I can understand the muted colour palette and simplified wardrobe. I just want the overall impression to be that I am watching a movie set in the ancient world and not have anything break that for me. Is that too much to ask?

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Thanks for sticking with me, I hope to be back to creating more content in the near future!

Facebook did offer me the opportunity to appeal the decision - which I obviously did straight away. It seemed arbitrary and likely based on an image-recognition bot rather than any actual consideration of the content. The problems began immediately; the appeal process was a nightmare at every stage. As my entire page had been erased, I had to complete the process through my own individual account, but the appeal form asked for specific information about the location of the post which I could no longer give. Nevertheless I explained all of this in detail, along with the merits of the claim and clicked submit. Of course, to submit, I then first had to confirm my email address - a step to stop bots from spamming them, I’m sure (and very ironic considering their response to the process). Facebook nicely indicated that I had 180 days left to submit an appeal, a number which remained even after I had submitted the appeal - not a great sign.

Having taken the time to write all this out, I waited for a reply. To my great annoyance, their email initially went to spam so it took a little while to find it. When I did, I was met with this generic, automated reply:

Much like applying for a job and having to write out all the information that is already on your resume, they asked for the substantive details of the appeal once again. the appeal. After this, crickets. Radio silence. No subsequent contact or acknowledgment of my reply. At this point I had been asked to submit an appeal, verify my email, confirm I’d received the reply and resubmit the grounds of the appeal, and at no point had I made contact with a human being. How can I be sure of this? Because this was not the last time I danced this dance.

After the lack of response, I returned to Facebook to find the appeal button still available and the timer ticking away. What’s the harm in trying again, I thought. So I applied again, confirmed my email again, got the same reply and replied in kind again. Nothing. I did this a few more times, varying my responses from full details to just ‘please let me speak to a human.’ The best reply I got was this:

Facebook also gave me the opportunity to ask NBC Universal directly to withdraw the complaint, something which I tried by email but never received any reply to. This felt a little like trying to push water uphill with a rake, so I didn’t invest much hope in it. Finally, one day I received a new reply from Facebook. Though it was good to receive a reply, this wasn’t the one I was after:

Again, having already reached out to NBC Universal and received not even a courtesy reply, I did not take this for an answer. I changed the nature of my reply to represent a more legal approach to the claim, based on the language they used on their own help page. I discussed copyright laws, fair use doctrine, and even uploaded screenshots. I copied this reply and sent it to every single previous email I’d had from them, each with its own case name and number. For a time I once more received no reply, but eventually this seemed to work - I woke up to a new, albeit automated, message:

As you can see, they certainly ramped up the seriousness of their response. This was a massive warning in bright red letters saying ‘BACK OFF’ or there will be legal consequences. Asking me to make a statement under ‘penalty of perjury’ accompanied by a signature and contact information suggests at the very least the chance of a massive bill for legal fees coming my way if I took this further. I feared this would be the end of the line for me, as I was not willing to risk financial jeopardy over the issue. But it was, at least, something new in the process and perhaps replying to this might get a human to actually look at it.

So instead of sticking my neck on the chopping block, I simply restated my main plea the whole time - I never wanted the content reinstated, I just wanted my page back. By this point, the whole trailer and images from the film were publicly available anyway. If I could just get a human being to read this, I thought I could get through. And so I waited. 21 days later, I received the following email:

And so, with no warning and seemingly no explanation, the whole case was resolved and my page was restored, pristine as Tutankhamun’s tomb upon discovery. I’ll never know if it was actually seen by a human and they resolved the matter, or the random system dealing with these finally spat out a favourable result.

The very first thing I did was find the reported video and delete it off the face of the planet. I did not want to run the risk it might get flagged again and I’d be back into purgatory. But there you have it, it seems the only way to beat this automated system built to prevent spam was to spam it as much as possible. Don’t send one or two reports, send twenty. Keep trying because eventually you might get through.

The icing on the cake came a day later, when I received this email:

Despite the whole situation being resolved, the case was still stuck in the system. What a perfect end to this farce.

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Thanks for all your support this year, I’m looking forward to more in 2026! Have a safe and happy holiday period.

You can also watch the video version of this episode here:

The proof, they say, is in the pudding and I have to say this is one mighty elaborate, layered and delicious pudding. The work is rich, complex and inviting. Never have I felt so invested in Homer’s story as when I stroll through the pages of You Are Odysseus. To take a familiar story, with familiar plot points, and turn it all on its head - every moment, every decision is now up for grabs again - is an exciting prospect. On some readings, it’s enjoyable to try and stick to the course Homer laid out for us; on others, it’s fun to try to use your foreknowledge of dangers and get home as fast as possible; and again it’s equally entertaining to try and see what happens when things go really wrong. Each option is well within your grasp!

No matter what course you take, however, you will be treated to a rich world full of complex and interesting characters whose lives and motivations are fleshed out in full. Many of the figures who don’t get their time in the sun in the original epics now have their chance, and we learn so much more about even familiar faces when they encounter new tangents and storylines. It’s no mean feat to provide more insight than Homer affords many of his characters, and the women in the story are especially well represented - taking into account how patriarchal the world of the original stories was.

There is also so much to learn from any read-through, especially about the ideas and values of these fascinating people. Interspersed throughout the work are Greek terms and concepts to help define how they see the world, and to allow you the chance to shape who you want to be as a person. Integrating these into the choices you take means each new path you venture down brings with it deeper understanding of motivations and consequences. Truly the work of a talented educator and author!

Now I don’t want to give too much away, nor have I even managed to wade through all the possible outcomes, but I do find myself coming back to it time and again for another adventure. Sometimes I’ll simply open to a random section and follow on from there - which is perfectly in line with how the ancient epics could be experienced! However you come into it, it’s truly fascinating and fun, so I highly recommend you give it a look.

The book has its official launch this week - you can see a preview of it here - and I’m very excited to attend the party celebrating its release. Please let me know if you get a copy and enjoy reading it too; I can’t wait to hear about how much people get out of it. A huge thank you to Laura for the sneak peek and for all the incredible effort she has put into this labour of love. I’ll see you all back home safely in Ithaca (I hope!)

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You can also watch the video version of this episode here:

Pausanias often makes note of various items exhibited by local towns and cities alike, claiming descent from mythic figures or even the gods themselves. He is naturally quite sceptical about these and often offers his own views on their authenticity, which is refreshing. In Chaeronea, he notes:1

Pausanias added his own thoughts on the story, suggesting that it would have been brought there by Agamemnon’s daughter Electra. While not housed in a temple, he noted that it moved around various residences every year and is greeted with daily sacrifices of meat and cakes. It’s intriguing to imagine how people at the time would have grappled with the idea of items hailing from mythical times still existing.

Pausanias believed that this sceptre was the only true work of Hephaestus going around, and lists several others that he believed were of dubious authenticity. The Lycians had a bowl they claim Hephaestus had crafted during the days of the Trojan War, but Pausanias rubbished this idea since the technique for making it was from a more recent time.2 This level of analysis is quite refreshing compared to Herodotus’ tendency to report anything he was told as fact!

In the Peloponnese, between Messene and Megalopolis was one of the most unusual tombs you could have seen in ancient times:3

Interestingly, this wasn’t the only finger given special treatment in the ancient world. The writer Photius reports that in a lost work of Ptolemaeus, he told the story of how Heracles lost a finger to the Nemean Lion and then gave it a proper burial, even marking the tomb with a lion statue.4 One can’t help but be reminded of the many religious relics that are spread across Europe, with each receiving pride of place in their local church, no matter how minor the body part or item.

In Sparta, Pausanias tells of a very special egg in the temple of Hilaeira and Phoebe, the daughters of Apollo. This egg, suspended from the ceiling by ribbons, was supposedly the one laid by Leda, from which the beautiful Helen hatched.5 Meanwhile at Delphi, there was apparently a stone that also featured in myth and had its own unique ritual:6

Likewise in Athens there was a hole in the ground that was claimed to be the spot where the water drained away after the flood that saw all but Deucalion and Pyrrha drowned.7 Apparently they would pour a mixture of wheat meal and honey every year to commemorate it - you can imagine how greedily the hole would have drunk it down to the crowd’s delight. These are great examples of things that cannot be particularly verified but do make a great story!

On the flipside of these potentially dubious stories comes this peculiarly honest one, where even the locals don’t know what they’re commemorating anymore:8

In the end, it seems that there are more things in common with modern tourism than elements that have changed. One of the most famous misconceptions about the Punic Wars, that Rome salted the earth when they defeated Carthage, can be traced back to a tour guide who essentially made the story up. Pausanias himself summed up the reality of tour guides, and really, has much changed? 9

So, I hope you’ve enjoyed a little glimpse into the tourist traps and dubious relics of the ancient world. I’ll keep an eye out for more examples, but for now I certainly recommend picking up a copy of Pausanias’ work. We are very lucky to have works like his that give us such a varied picture of life in these times. If you’ve read any similar stories, I’d love to hear about them!

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Until next time, take care!

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Note: This article will become available to free subscribers on 1/8/2025

What happened to the Aeneid?

So why has the Aeneid fallen out of favour? For one, its decline in popularity has followed the decline in interest and study of Latin amongst the general population. Learning Latin in school was the gateway to the story and added an additional layer of appreciation. While Homer was studied in Ancient Greek classes, the Odyssey especially has been included in a number of English literature courses, owing to its foundational impact on the genre. Not having such a pre-eminent claim, the Aeneid is rarely taught outside of a Classics context.

Why do some dismiss the Aeneid?

Some of the common criticisms you hear of the Aeneid are that the work is boring, derivative, or purely Roman propaganda. While on the surface these might seem like sound points to make, they belie a lack of understanding and engagement with the work that would challenge these beliefs. Firstly, the accusation that it is boring is one that has some merit if the work is compared alongside a modern novel. But just as with the Iliad and the Odyssey, the story preceded the concept of a novel by many centuries and can be consumed in many different ways. There are parts of each of these epics that are not as exciting as others, and honestly - you don’t have to read them! The beauty of the Aeneid is that you can pick a chapter and start reading and you don’t have to worry a huge amount about what came before.

The second point often made is that the work is derivative, a lowly copy or ‘fanfic’ of Homer’s own works. The latter term is often used jokingly of the story, as it generally follows the rough course of the Odyssey in the first half and the Iliad in the second. However, to dismiss the work as being a copy or a rip-off without value fails to properly appreciate how authors in the ancient world approached their existing canon. It’s fair to say there were a lot fewer stories back then than there are today, so models for literature were limited. Furthermore, it was seen as a sign of great respect to reference, mirror and improve a previous work. The Aeneid is an example of the Roman term aemulatio, where Virgil was deliberately choosing to draw upon many previous works, especially but not limited to Homer, and through his own practice create something even better. He did so knowing full well that future authors would attempt to do the same with his work, as Dante did in some ways in the 14th Century. When you sit down to read the work with this knowledge, you will start to see how lovingly crafted it is.

The final and most controversial criticism of the Aeneid is that it was a product of Roman propaganda during the early days of the Principate under Augustus. Readers will point to several key moments in the story where Virgil directly references Augustus and praises him in a way that modern writers would (mostly) never dare for politicians. While these passages certainly exist within the work, it’s worth noting that they are mostly self-contained and do not overly affect the narrative. Once again, understanding the context of the work helps explain these perhaps incongruous moments. Virgil was elevated to his high status in Rome by the patronage of Maecenas, who collected talented authors and funded their works. Maecenas in turn was Augustus’ client, and by extension so were all of Maecenas’ clients. This didn’t mean that they were contractually obliged or censored, but it did mean that they were expected to pay homage to their patrons in their works. If you read a collection of Horace’s Odes, you’ll find one praising Maecenas and another praising Augustus. It was just the done thing - and Roman audiences would see that for what it was.

Some contend that the larger themes of the work also represent a form of Roman propaganda, pushing a narrative of selfless subservience to the state and promoting the ‘Golden Age’ of Augustus. The Aeneid at its heart is a founding story for Rome, and Virgil did incorporate the mores of his time into the work, doubtless influenced again by his patron. But it’s also worth noting that Augustus wanted a contemporary work praising him and his accomplishments, and Virgil flat out refused to write this. Instead, he layered in some of the ideas that Augustus would have wanted to see to appease him, which seemed to meet his approval. More interestingly, however, is the idea that there exists a more subtle criticism of Augustus throughout the work, and that its ending especially leaves the audience perhaps questioning the glory and achievements of Rome and asking, what was the cost? So you see, it’s only through actually engaging with the work that we can begin to see its true value. Don’t write it off!

Why should you read the Aeneid?

Enough about reasons not to read the work, let’s get into all the reasons why you should! As the work is roughly the same length as each of Homer’s, there is equally a huge depth of great moments, characters and themes to explore. The one advantage that Virgil had over Homer (let’s treat him as though he were a single person) is that he had a lot of time to carefully craft his work and interweave all his references and ideas throughout. Whereas the Iliad and the Odyssey were the product of the oral tradition, the Aeneid is certainly a work of literature - it was written down from the beginning. But because the tropes and techniques of the oral tradition were so familiar by his time, Virgil was also able to include them in his work and improve upon them. Each reference, each simile, each allusion is carefully chosen and painstakingly polished - so much so that a few lines were still unfinished when he fell ill and he demanded that the work be destroyed! Luckily for us, Augustus made sure it was preserved and published. So let’s look at some of the main reasons I think you should give the work a go:

Complex Characters

Virgil is a master at creating three-dimensional characters who face difficult decisions and experience great highs and equal lows. From the outset, Aeneas is a character that many find hard to understand; he is the son of a Goddess and a prince of Troy, but he also makes some rather bad decisions. However, his struggle and development is ultimately extremely rich in the drama of the human condition. Aeneas is, at his core, a man and his reactions to experiences are more relatable. As Virgil tells us in his opening invocation, Aeneas is driven by fate, a prophecy that he will find Italy and found a race there that will go on to become the Romans. But Aeneas, who has just seen his home and his people destroyed, doesn’t know where Italy is or why he has to go there. He just wants to get his life back on track. Over the story he learns more about his destiny and is shaped by forces around him, but the final conclusion (no spoilers) to the tale cements the fact that he is so very human.

Alongside Aeneas, likely the most famous character is Queen Dido of Carthage, one of the great tragic figures in all of literature. Book 4 of the Aeneid stands alone as an immense work of tragedy, which is rarely featured in epic poetry, and she takes centre stage throughout. It’s not often when you upstage the guy the book is named after! Dido is another extremely human character, sabotaged by divine powers beyond her control, overpowered by base emotions and cruelly driven to a fiery, fatal climax. Virgil presents such an intense portrait of Dido, with such care and panache, that you start to wonder if Aeneas is really the bad guy! While her story is tragic, it is certainly an improvement on the somewhat unseen female characters of Homer’s work, with Penelope perhaps the only exception.

Alongside these mortals are the meddling gods, Juno and Venus in particular. Juno is the main, unseen antagonist of Aeneas’ quest, and her rage knows no bounds - except the designs of fate. And yet despite the unimpeachable word of Jupiter that she cannot change that course of fate, she is determined to make the journey to that settled end as bitter and painful for Aeneas as possible. She is certainly a step up from the antagonism of Poseidon in the Odyssey and is nicely balanced out by Venus. As his mother, Venus naturally tries to help and guide Aeneas, but she is just as fallible in doing this as any mortal. Much of her meddling turns out for the worst, and so we see again the human element in the gods.

Finally there is a whole host of other characters, from local Italian mythical figures written into lore, to bold adversaries to rival Aeneas’ prowess in battle. Virgil makes the most of a somewhat clean slate to craft his own unique cast while also drawing sympathetically on the familiar ones from other works.

Thrilling scenes and story arcs

The Iliad and the Odyssey have some incredible scenes, like the duel between Hector and Achilles, Odysseus and the Cyclops, and many more. The Aeneid has no shortage of memorable moments too, which make for a ripping read. One of the best parts about the story’s close link to the events of Homer’s stories is that it can fill in some of the gaps not included - particularly, the Wooden Horse and the fall of Troy. Through a flashback narrated by Aeneas, we get the whole tale of the horse, the sack and the escape in a nice narrative order, something many people find missing in Homer’s tales. Furthermore, Virgil gives us an incredibly unique perspective by telling these through the eyes of Aeneas, giving us the Trojan perspective on the massacre, which was otherwise underdeveloped up to this point. It makes all the great moments much more poignant, as Aeneas tells us how close they were to discovering the trap and saving themselves - but no, the gods once again stepped in to make sure of it.

Another breath-taking development is Aeneas’ katabasis, his descent into the Underworld. While Odysseus does visit some of the spirits in the underworld, Virgil goes one better and takes his hero on a full tour of the realm. He meets Cerberus, Charon, the spirits of friends and enemies, and most importantly his dearly departed father. It’s also one of those moments when Virgil slips in his ultra-patriotic, ‘wow isn’t Rome great’ bits, but even then he fills it with human emotion. Aeneas sees the ghosts of future Romans, souls yet to be born, and among them is Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus, who had died not long before the piece was written. Virgil gives a stirring tribute to the beloved young man, so moving that it is said his mother, Octavia, fainted from grief upon hearing it. The whole journey is quite compelling and played a part in inspiring Dante’s Inferno.

Some smaller stories are equally beautiful, such as the tragic story of Nisus and Euryalus, where both the incredible highs and lows of human emotion meet. There are great storms, formidable monsters, athletic contests, immense battles and more to be discovered in every corner of the tale. The ending, too, is one that leaves us desperate for more, which can’t be a bad thing!

Beauty of Language

One of the greatest things about learning Latin is it unlocks your appreciation of these stories on new levels, which cannot be replicated when reading in translation. The Aeneid, as with Homer’s works in the original Greek, is full of linguistic devices that don’t (easily) survive the effort to put them into language. Virgil paints scenes with sounds from consonants, vowels and the placement and arrangement of lines adds unique dimensions we cannot see. Most of all, the meter of the poetry gives a breath of fresh air to the narrative, where a fast line can signal the approach of cavalry or a slow one can threaten looming danger. Despite these losses, the language of the poetry is still beautifully rendered in many of the great translations we have. We can still admire his incredible extended similes, digressions and ekphrasis, and many English versions bring their own special tone in the prose. Some have even attempted it in rhyming verse (though in my opinion it sounds a bit dated now). All of which is to say, pick up the book, have a read and find out for yourself!

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So, have I convinced you yet? Let me know your thoughts, if you’ve read it or want to, or don’t really care! I’d love to hear from you. See you next time!

To add insult to injury, it put my personal account into Facebook jail, so I can’t even like or comment on anything, or even send messages to people. The ability to appeal or protest all of this is unsurprisingly limited, especially now that it acts as though the page never existed in the first place. Furthermore, they only really let you argue the merits of the copyright claim rather than the punishment. I’ve submitted multiple appeals now saying that I’m happy to remove the post (not that it exists now) and confirming that I would have done the same had any such request been made first. And yet, since then, crickets…

It’s disheartening to think that eight years’ worth of work building up a following, generating content and creating a safe space for Classics on the site could all be wiped off the face of the earth in a single moment by a big movie company flexing its muscles. I’m under no illusions that sites like Facebook and Twitter essentially own everything you put into them and can take it away as they please, but it does show how inhuman and heartless many of these companies have become. Only a week ago, large and influential groups on Facebook were vanishing as well over completely minor issues.

It hurts a little more because Facebook was where all of this actually began. Just over eight years ago I was bored in class teaching a bunch of teenagers and decided we could make a page to share all the memes I liked. Looking back on it, the memes were all pretty terrible, but the page and its quality have grown with time. I’d like to think that I’ve made a positive difference in the world through this, and it has certainly taken me places I never expected I would go. It’s also an interesting time to reflect on how much popular social media culture has now moved away from the Facebook image type of meme towards the TikTok video one - and I have to either adapt or die. That’s why you’ll see more video content from me - the huge irony of this being that it was a video that led to my page’s downfall…

I don’t have much more to say than watch this space. I’ll try to give any updates I can as they come to me. I’m hopeful that this might only be a temporary measure and it could just zip back into existence as quickly as it left. Until then however, I will be trying to get the word out on alternative places that I can be found. Substack is a really good one, as I’m much more in control of this platform. Otherwise, I’m still active on Twitter and Instagram, and trying to build more content for YouTube and TikTok - please give me a follow on these if you could:

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See you next time - I hope!

Note - this article will become available for free subscribers on 7/7/25

Non-Linear Structure

When I learned that Nolan would be directing this adaptation, I had high hopes - not just because he makes big expensive films, but rather that he has shown a talent for non-linear storytelling in many of his works. Memento, Interstellar, Tenet all play around with the concept of time in storytelling - and this is one of the more important aspects of the Odyssey.

Given the origins of epic poetry in oral storytelling, it’s a key element of the genre that the tale can pick up at any point and jump around, flashing back and going into detail over a small item or place. The Odyssey is a great example of this, as it begins near the chronological ending of the tale, but spends a large portion looking back on the preceding adventures. This structure lends a lot of the unique character to the story, but many adaptations have simply resorted to telling it in a straight-forward linear way, for ease of understanding. So if anyone could pull off a more genuine adaptation, it would be Nolan.

As a result, I had been eagerly awaiting some suggestion that this new Odyssey would follow the Homeric structure more closely, and there were several signs in the teaser trailer that this may yet be the case. From the outset, the focus is on the state of things in the final year of the story - Odysseus is long gone, believed dead, and Telemachus has gone to find out where he may be. In my view, this is a very clear indication that Nolan is once again employing his non-linear skills in assembling this story.

The Telemachy

A large part of the trailer focuses on Tom Holland’s Telemachus visiting Sparta to see Menelaus, played by Jon Bernthal. This is from the beginning of the Odyssey, a part referred to as the Telemachy since it focuses on his exploits rather than his father Odysseus’. It’s a good sign to see it included so prevalently, as it’s part of the story other directors could easily leave out - it doesn’t even feature the main character and doesn’t necessarily further the ‘main story’ in the eyes of many.

What we do see, however, is Nolan using this as an opportunity to delve into all these characters. Menelaus’ tone in responding to questions about Odysseus suggests a complex and difficult relationship that is anything but two-dimensional. Again, it could be easy to cast these off as cameos, but the mood of the conversation certainly suggests a deeper exploration of all involved.

Furthermore, it’s thrilling to catch a glimpse of Lupita Nyong’o in the background, which seems to suggest she will be playing Helen, Menelaus’ wife. I think she’s a fantastic choice for the part, as Helen in the Odyssey is a uniquely complex figure. No longer simply the object of desire, she is far more interesting in this tale - and no doubt Nolan is going to make the most of this with a supremely talented actor. I’m looking forward to seeing what she does with the role, though I’m much less excited to imagine the vitriol that will no doubt come from a person of colour being cast in the role. I couldn’t care less, to be honest, and I know she will do a fantastic job. Anyone who gets up in arms about it will be showing their true colours in truth.

Xenia

If you’ve ever read the Odyssey, you’ll know how prominently the theme of hospitality or guest-friendship is throughout the work. The Greeks called this xenia and it underpins all the interactions between the various characters we see. Homer uses these interactions to tell us how we should feel about characters. The suitors, for example, flaunt the rules of xenia and are justly punished for it; while the Phaeacians are generous hosts and are considered the good guys in the story. I will be discussing this in much greater detail in my upcoming analysis of Book 1, so keep an eye out for it.

Nolan is known for exploring complex themes even in his less serious works. The Dark Knight trilogy is a pertinent example, where he takes the substantial themes of the comics and explores these, with the fantastical world as more of a backdrop. In this way, I’d hoped that we would see a similar recognition of xenia in the movie and again, there are positive signs.

In the opening monologue, we hear an unseen character talking about a “kingdom without a king, since my master died” and “Zeus’ laws smashed to pieces.” This seems to place the speaker on Ithaca, as one of Odysseus’ loyal servants - perhaps the swineherd Eumaeus - commenting on the lack of respect for xenia by the suitors. We know that xenia was sacred to Zeus, as Odysseus himself goes to great lengths to explain (fruitlessly) to Polyphemus in Book 9. So if my suspicions are correct, there could well be a strong focus on the breaking of these laws and conventions when the attention turns to the suitors, and perhaps elsewhere too.

Final Impressions

The visuals of the teaser, though limited, are intriguing. Sweeping scenes of Odysseus’ raft upon the ocean, the Trojan horse abandoned on the beach and the soldiers marching through the torch light in Troy - they all suggest a visually stunning film, as we have come to expect from the IMAX-obsessed director. The things that will annoy some people - bland armour, odd ships and anachronous accents - are probably concessions we can live with in exchange for a film that captures the heart of Homer’s work. And I can honestly say I can’t wait to see it!

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Let me know if you’ve seen it and have thoughts, or if you have any questions or comments about the upcoming adventure. See you next time!

You can also watch the video version of this episode here:

Tune in soon for an audio reading of Book 1, before we get stuck into our analysis of the text. See you then!

The experience was one that gave me some insight into the madness surrounding such a polarising figure, how little his interactions must feel genuine, and just how deluded so many people out there really are. I’ll give you a little run down of what happened and how it unfolded for me, before getting into some of the crazier aspects.

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The Trojan War is a pivotal moment in Greek mythology, both within the lore and history of that mythology as well as for the culture that developed and maintained it. The story was the culmination of the lives of many of the great heroic figures in myth, a focus point for creativity and imagination, and the impetus for many of the most significant stories ever told.

While the story may have had humble origins in a historical conflict between rival Aegean civilisations, it quickly outgrew any foundation in fact to become the most complex and significant event in ancient fiction. The story expanded and swelled over time, as the events leading up to and following on from the war became sagas in their own rights, and every possible angle of the events was explored. These even crossed genres of literature, from epic poetry to tragedy and even philosophy; the Trojan War dominated Greek thought and art. Vases, statues, paintings and more would capture myriad moments from this conflict to immortalise them to this very day.

Since the story was so widely known, the Ancient Greeks would already be familiar with the characters and events when engaging with all these different works of art and literature. For modern audiences, however, there’s a lot to unpack that doesn’t come naturally to us - so for our purposes, we’re going to look at all the important things you need to know about the Trojan War, so you can read works like the Iliad and Odyssey, or the Trojan Women, with a handy grasp on the context. We’ll start at the beginning, of sorts, and trace it through to the aftermath - but keep in mind that at all times, we’re barely scraping the surface of a rich world populated with hundreds of characters and stories of their own, and that’s just based on those that still survive today!

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I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to seeing you next time! Feel free to leave a comment below, I appreciate your feedback.

You can also watch the video version of this episode here:

Delos - Birthplace of Apollo and Athenian Hegemony

Delos is an island in a group called the Cyclades, a whirlpool of rocks south-east of Athens that features the modern tourist delights of Santorini and Mykonos. Delos today is a rather windswept empty place now, a stark contrast to its incredible history in the Classical Era. It is luckily protected as a UNESCO world heritage site, due to the immense archaeological information that it holds.

In Greek myth and culture, Delos was most famous as the birthplace of the god Apollo, and in some versions, his twin sister Artemis too. As a result, from a very early time it gained a reputation as a holy and sacred place. In fact, this eventually came to be a detriment to its inhabitants; Athens in particular viewed the site as so sacred that in 422 BC they expelled the inhabitants and exhumed all the bodies buried there, so that it could be ‘purified’.

This was not, however, Athens’ most influential role in the island’s history. In 478 BC, shortly after the defeat of the Persian fleet at Salamis, Athens took a bold and radical step in the history of the region. Whereas previously the many city states of the Greek world were divided, relying on friendships or grievances to dictate their relations with other states, Athens proposed a grand ‘defensive’ alliance. This alliance would focus on building up Athens’ strength - their navy - to which its allies would contribute either money or ships, in return for the same navy’s protection from future threats.

This grand alliance was founded and met on Delos and thus became the Delian League. Since the island was sacred, it was the perfect place to store the vast funds they gathered from member states, knowing very few would be tempted to risk the wrath of the gods by stealing from it. This was a tremendous boon for Delos; construction even began on a grand new temple using some of these funds - but it would never be completed. Under Pericles, Athens decided that they deserved a little more of the funds for themselves, and diverted the treasury to be stored instead inside the grand new temple they had built in Athens with those very funds - the Parthenon. The once co-operative Delian League turned into a hegemony, a proto-Empire that would have seen Athens dominate the region, if they were not defeated by Sparta and its own Peloponnesian League in the drawn out conflict known as the Peloponnesian War.

Delos had a rough time after Athens’ betrayal, especially as continual conflicts engulfed the Greek world, with one major city state dominating before being replaced by another. However, when the Romans came along, they declared Delos a free port, which opened it up to its most prosperous period in history. Traders going east, west, north and south, all went through the island, bringing with it all the luxuries and fine goods that we are still finding today in dig sites. Surely this was too good to be true?

Yes. It was. Unfortunately that prosperity attracted the attention of pirates such as Mithridates, the scourge of the Mediterranean and one of Rome’s greatest enemies. Attacked twice in 88 and 69 BC, the island was devastated and never recovered. Trade routes shifted and that newfound prosperity vanished as quickly as it had arrived. It was completely abandoned by the 8th Century AD, and even today with its great archaeological significance, it only boasts a local population in the 20s.

Rhodes - The Colossal Trading City

About as far east as the Greek presence in the Aegean stretched lies the island of Rhodes, among a group known as the Dodecanese Islands. This island, settled by the Dorian colonists from the Peloponnese, was believed in mythology to be the product of a union between the sun god Helios and a nymph, aptly named Rhode, a daughter of Poseidon.

Owing to its extreme south-eastern placement, the island served as an important bridge between the Greek world and the Phoenicians, who inhabited the coastal areas south of Asia Minor, sometimes referred to as the levant. The Phoenicians were a distinctly naval people, famous traders and thus excellent allies for an island like Rhodes. It’s no surprise that much prosperity flowed from this connection, which saw the original six cities combine to form one major city, which they named Rhodes to match the island.

As is so often the case, however, Rhodes’ status and placement brought the attention of the major powers around the Aegean. It was initially conquered by the Persians during their supremacy, but they were soon repelled by the Athenians. After joining the Delian league, Rhodes remained mostly neutral during the Peloponnesian War and eventually left the alliance before their defeat.

Once Alexander the Great swept through this part of the world, he swiftly brought with him the Hellenistic age and the many wars of the successors that followed his death. Rhodes benefited now from a strong alliance with Egypt and the Ptolemies, becoming a new centre for art, philosophy, science and rhetoric. Many famous figures either came from or studied and taught in Rhodes, including the great historian Apollodorus. Later during the Roman period, young aristocratic Romans would visit for their higher education studies; it was on one such voyage that Julius Caesar was captured by pirates, though that’s a story for another time.

Perhaps the most famous thing associated with Rhodes, however, came about essentially by coincidence. In 305-4 BC, one of Alexander’s ‘successors’ Demetrius laid siege to the island, but failed to take it. When the inhabitants discovered that the besiegers had abandoned most of the equipment they had brought, they cannily sold it off for great profit and put the funds gained into building the great Colossus of Rhodes, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, to celebrate their victory.

Over 100 feet high by most reckonings, the colossus was a statue of the god Helios, built with an iron structure plated with bronze. It was no doubt an incredible feat of engineering and an equally incredible sight for all those who looked upon it. Construction began in 292 BC and was completed in 280 BC, after which it stood for 54 years until an earthquake damaged the city and saw the statue snap at the knees and collapse. Despite offers from the Ptolemies to rebuild it, the disaster was a seen as a bad omen and it was never again repaired. The remains, however, lasted much longer - 800 or more years by all accounts, and they themselves became a tourist destination of sorts.

Lesbos - Not One, But Two Words!

To the north-east of the Aegean lies one of the larger islands to grace the map, shaped like a triangle with a large chunk taken out of the middle: Lesbos. The island comes with quite the reputation to modern English speakers, as it gives us one of the more striking terms derived from Ancient Greece - lesbian, as it pertains to the love of one woman for another. And this is no coincidence; it is, rather, the direct influence of a singular woman from this very island, whose poetry was so revered that she was sometimes called the ‘Tenth Muse’.

Sappho, the famous lyric poet, is synonymous with the affection one woman has for another which she so beautifully encapsulated in her poetry - so much so that the term sapphic also derives from her name. We know so much about her and yet so little; her influence was so broad and yet very few of her poems survive as much more than fragments, although that lends its own beauty to the pieces we have left. It is undeniable that her love poetry moved countless generations, and the beauty of her words itself has given a voice to many women whose feelings might otherwise have been seen as anything other than beautiful.

Sappho was regarded as one of the 9 great lyric poets of Ancient Greece, yet her contemporary Alcaeus, also from Lesbos, was another of these but gets far less attention. Lesbos’ reputation as a home of artistic talent was surely justified, but it has seen much more in its long history, and not just the many humorous memes like the ‘Lesbian feta’ ones you see today. Settled by the Aeolian Greeks, Lesbos’ proximity to Asia Minor made it an obvious target for Persian expansion, coming under their control in 546 BC. As with many other islands, Lesbos was liberated from Persian control following Salamis and swiftly became a member of the Delian League.

However Mytilene, Lesbos’ largest city, attempted to break away from the league, which led to one of the more incredible stories from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. The Athenian assembly, intent on punishing Mytilene for its rebellion, were roused by Cleon to enact the harshest punishment - to kill all the men and enslave the women and children of the island. The message was sent from Athens by sea, but the very next day the assembly, with cooler heads prevailing, decided to reverse the order. Sending the fastest ship available, the message was just able to arrive as the decree was being read out and before it was put into action. The story speaks to the desperation of the time and the fine margins of history.

Samos - The Centre of the Triangle

Sitting about halfway between Lesbos to the north and Rhodes to the south was the island of Samos, a powerful state during the Classical period that served as a centre of trade and innovation for many centuries. Settled by Ionian Greeks, its proximity to Asia Minor allowed Samos to become a major trading hub that would then go on to found its own colonies around the Aegean - Samothrace being the most recognisable. It also developed a fierce rivalry with the mainland city of Miletus, which would spur their growth in the area.

As we have seen several times before, they could not withstand Persian expansion at the height of their influence; however Samos was one of the Ionian states that revolted in 499 BC, an event that would spark the Persian invasions that so fundamentally changed the history of the region. Samos also joined the Delian League and became one of Athens’ strongest allies during its decades long war with Sparta. In fact, during the later stages of the war, which centred on naval campaigns in the eastern Aegean, it became the de facto base of the Athenian navy. Alcibiades, that loveable Athenian rogue, orchestrated a coup in Athens while based on Samos, with the backing of the navy, which saw an oligarchy of 400 take control (for a little while at least.)

As with so many other states, Samos was caught in the horrible game of football that saw ownership of so many places trade hands multiple times within a short span. When Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, Samos came under Spartan control, but was quickly taken by Persia, only for Athens to then regain control. Then along came Alexander and the Macedonians took over, which splintered into the successors’ conflicts, before the Romans came along and settled the deal. The inevitable fate of these small states was to be the pawns of the larger powers, who cared so little about them.

But there’s one more thing that Samos can be proud of, and it all comes down to triangles. That’s right, Pythagoras the mathematician and philosopher sprouted from the soil of Samos and his name has become the bane of students the world over. Little is actually known about his life, and many scholars believe that the attribution of the triangle theory to Pythagoras is a myth. We do know that he had various ideas about numerology and music, but what he was most known for in ancient times was the belief that souls were immortal and escaped the body when you died. This in turn meant that animals had souls too, so could not be eaten. It is even believed that he forbade eating beans as they had a fleshy texture (or perhaps the gas they created was the souls escaping?) but this is likely more historical fiction. So the Pythagoreans were truly the forerunners of modern vegetarians, rather than triangle worshippers as many might think.

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Well, that’s about all we have time for on our whirlwind tour of the Aegean but do drop a comment if there are other states, islands or places you’d like to hear more about. See you next time!