Among the Ancients

For the final episode in Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom look at Seneca, whose life is relatively well known to us. A child of the established Roman Empire, born around the same time as Jesus, Seneca had turbulent relationships with the emperors of his time: exiled by Caligula, he returned to tutor the young Nero, but was eventually forced to commit suicide after being accused of a treasonous plot. For a long time, Seneca the Philosopher was often assumed to be a different person from Seneca the Tragedian, as they seemed such different writers. As a philosopher, he is the main source of what we know about Roman Stoicism, which prioritises virtue and the dispelling of false beliefs. Seneca's dramas, however, are full of extreme emotions and violence. Emily and Tom focus on two of these tragedies, Thyestes and Trojan Women, and consider how the two sides of Seneca fit together.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

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Further reading in the LRB:

Shadi Bartsch:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n12/shadi-bartsch/fratricide-matricide-and-the-philosopher

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n04/shadi-bartsch/dire-fury

John Henderson:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n07/john-henderson/dead-eyes-and-blank-faces

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

Ovid was perhaps the most prolific poet of Ancient Rome, certainly in the amount of his poetry which has survived (around 30,000 lines). This episode focuses on his 15-book epic, the Metamorphoses, a patchwork of hundreds of stories of transformation, including numerous retellings of famous myths from Apollo and Daphne to the Trojan War.

In this episode from Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom consider the poem’s depictions of trauma, redemption and the transformation of gender roles, and the formal practices which shape the poetry, such as declamatio and suasoria. They also ask how Ovid’s writing in the time of Emperor Augustus affected his work, and the circumstances around his later exile from Rome.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Denis Feeney:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n16/denis-feeney/i-shall-be-read

Paul Muldoon:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n04/paul-muldoon/ovid-metamorphoses

A.D. Nuttall:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n16/a.d.-nuttall/a-kind-of-scandal

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

Emily and Tom follow Virgil with one of his contemporaries, Horace, whose poetry played an important political role in the early years of Augustan Rome and has had an enormous influence on subsequent European lyric verse. They consider the original meanings of some of Horace’s famous phrases – carpe diem, in medias res, nunc est bibendum – and look at the ways his often complex poetics interrogate the art and value of poetry itself.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Nicholas Horsfall:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n12/nicholas-horsfall/ach-so-herr-major

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.

In the ninth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom arrive at Virgil, focusing on his 12-book epic the Aeneid, which describes the wanderings of the Trojan prince Aeneas after the fall of Troy. They discuss the political background to Virgil’s life, which saw the fall of the Roman Republic, and the complex, ambiguous space his poetry inhabits, blending the mythical and historical, the geographical and imaginary, while interrogating the costs of empire and triumph in his own time.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Denis Feeney:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n01/denis-feeney/simile-world

Rebecca Armstrong

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n05/rebecca-armstrong/all-kinds-of-unlucky

Colin Burrow:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v22/n05/colin-burrow/imperiumsinefinism

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n08/colin-burrow/you-ve-listened-long-enough

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.

In their eighth episode Emily and Tom look at a contemporary of Catullus, Lucretius, and the only poem we have from him, De rerum natura (The Nature of Things), which sets out ideas about how to live one’s life based on the Epicurean philosophical tradition, embracing friends, gardens, materialism and moderation.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Richard Jenkyns: Coaxing and Seducing

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v20/n17/richard-jenkyns/coaxing-and-seducing

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books.

For the second half of their Among the Ancients series, Emily and Tom move to Ancient Rome, starting with the late Republican poet Catullus. Described by Tennyson, somewhat misleadingly, as ‘the tenderest of Roman poets’, Catullus combined a self-conscious technical virtuosity with a broad emotional range and a taste for paradox, often using obscene diction to skirt across the boundaries of gender and aesthetics.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further Reading in the LRB:

Elspeth Barker:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n19/elspeth-barker/o-filth-o-beastliness

William Fitzgerald:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n04/william-fitzgerald/badmouthing-city

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

In their sixth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom discuss the comedies of Aristophanes, in particular Clouds and Lysistrata. How did an Aristophanes comedy differ from a satyr play? Was he a conservative or a radical? And what happened to comedy after Aristophanes?

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Emily Wilson:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n20/emily-wilson/punishment-by-radish

Thomas Jones:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n19/thomas-jones/short-cuts

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

Euripides was the youngest of the fifth-century Athenian tragedians, and is often described as the most radical. But how daring was he? How far did he push the boundaries of dramatic form? Focusing on Medea and Hippolytus, Emily and Tom discuss the ways Euripides sought to shock his audiences, make them laugh, and explore their anxieties in a time of cultural change.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Robert Cioffi: Euripides Unbound

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n18/robert-cioffi/euripides-unbound

Anne Carson: Euripides to the Audience

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n17/anne-carson/euripides-to-the-audience

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

In the fourth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom ask: what was it like to go to the theatre in Athens in 468 BC? And how far do modern ideas about tragedy, derived from Aristotle, apply to Sophocles’ plays? They then look in more detail at Oedipus Tyrannos and Antigone and what the plays have to say about agency and knowledge, and consider issues particular to Sophocles’ time, including civic responsibility and the role of immigrants in Athenian society.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Hugh Lloyd Jones:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n24/hugh-lloyd-jones/gods-and-heroes

James Davidson:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n19/james-davidson/an-easy-lay

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

In the third episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom move from epic to lyric, with the poems of Sappho, or what remains of them. They consider what we know, and don’t know, about her life, and how her poetry challenges the heroic tradition, both in its subversion of Homeric ideas of war and nostos, and in its playful use of language.

Non-subscribers can only hear extracts from most of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq

In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings

Further reading in the LRB:

Emily Wilson:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n01/emily-wilson/tongue-breaks

Terry Castle:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n19/terry-castle/always-the-bridesmaid

Mary Beard:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n19/mary-beard/sappho-speaks

Peter Green:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n22/peter-green/what-we-know

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.