Armchair Classicist (Ryan Schaller)

He's adorable. 😍 Love that little paw

“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind

A brown tortoiseshell long hair cat lies on a book shelf asleep with her legs hanging off the edge.

Shelf kitty Zora once again living her best life. I need to reorganize my shelves to get some more impressive titles in the frame.

📚💙 🐈📷

"For every story, if it carries conviction, always has its audience enthralled."

As readers can attest.
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An Ancient Greek coin with the head of Heracles in the centre

An Ancient Greek coin with Zeus seated, holding an eagle in the centre.

This coin is from the reign of Alexander III of Macedon, more commonly known as Alexander the Great.

It features the head of Heracles on one side, and Zeus seated holding a sceptre and an eagle on the other.

Thinking about Property from Antiquity to the Age of Revolution by Peter Garnsey

New page turner just arrived
📚💙 #nonfiction #law

Statue of a lar holding a cornucopia from Axatiana (now Lora del Rio) in Roman Spain, early first century AD.

Lares were deities in Roman mythology that guarded specific places, such as a road, field, town, etc. A domestic lar protected a house. Its presence and blessing was required at all important family events; the lar’s statue was even placed at the table during family meals.
#MythologyMonday

Distant photo of cat sleeping on shelf

Zoomed in photo of cat sleeping on shelf.

No library is complete without a shelf kitty. 🐈‍⬛📷 📚💙

Napping cat on a lap

Morning cuddles with Zora
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Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
All this away, and me most wretched make.

Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:
But these particulars are not my measure,
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ costs,
Of more delight than hawks and horses be;
And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast:

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force, Some in their garments though new-fangled ill; Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse; And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, Wherein it finds a joy above the rest: But these particulars are not my measure, All these I better in one general best. Thy love is better than high birth to me, Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ costs, Of more delight than hawks and horses be; And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast: Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take All this away, and me most wretched make.

Shakespeare's 91st Sonnet:

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,
Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
#poetry 📚💙

Adorable flooflball 😍

Gray cat on a lap

More of Chaucer on this lazy #caturday

He’s been a bit of a Velcro kitty on this mostly dreary day.
🐈‍⬛📷

So flatter I the swart-complexion’d night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.

Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:

How can I then return in happy plight, That am debarre’d the benefit of rest? When day’s oppression is not eas’d by night, But day by night and night by day oppress’d, And each, though enemies to either’s reign, Do in consent shake hands to torture me, The one by toil, the other to complain How far I toil, still farther off from thee. I tell the day, to please him thou art bright, And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: So flatter I the swart-complexion’d night, When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even. But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.

Shakespeare's 28th Sonnet.
#poetry 📚💙

How can I then return in happy plight,
That am debarre’d the benefit of rest?
When day’s oppression is not eas’d by night,
But day by night and night by day oppress’d,
And each, though enemies to either’s reign,

A facebook post by Ryan Schaller dated March 7, 2021 with the text "No Chaucer, you're not in the way at all" with two photos. The first photo is a large gray cat sitting on a book looking peaceful. The second photo has the same cat either yawning or screaming.

From the archives. That's the Phaidon "30,000 Years of Art" book that he's standing on.

#CatsOfBlueSky #Cats
📚💙 🐈📷
#Caturday

Thanks!

10/10
“World Literature in Translation” series. Some of the other “novels” included are “An Ephesian Tale”, “Daphnis and Chloe”, “The Ass”, Lucian’s “A True Story”, “Apollonius, King of Tyre” and a couple others. I’ve been impressed with every volume I’ve picked up in this series so far.

9/10
record of Alexander’s Conquests as related by the texts of Plutarch and Arrian.

The version of the Romance that I read was included in “Collected Ancient Greek Novels,” edited by B.P. Reardon and published by the University of California Press as part of their

8/10
The people of the steppes—the people outside of the “civilized world” of the writer—are often depicted as exotically monstrous. We’ll look at several specific examples. As an amateur historian, I was also interested in the various ways that the Romance diverged from the accepted historical

7/10
I decided to read the Romance (and specifically the oldest version I could find) as part of my research for a series of posts about the Central Eurasian Steppe region and its people. In the Romance, once Alexander conquers Persia, the fantastical aspects appear more and more frequently.

6/10
for the Romance is the medieval versions, then the quotes and episodes I mention may not align entirely with your recollection of the text—which is perfectly understandable. We are probably looking at textual variants that are separated by a few hundred years and one or more translations.

5/10
The Romance was extremely popular in both he medieval Christian and Islamic worlds. It’s my impression that a lot of the people who seriously study the Romance are the Medievalists exploring its influence on the romances and lays of that later time period. If your primary frame of reference

4/10
from a separate Greek text “Recension A” to expand on Thiel’s version of the text.

I wanted to point out that textual history, because Dowden is trying to recreate the version of the text originally written in Greek before the tale was expanded by centuries of translators and copyists.

3/10
with many of the “translators” expanding the text to incorporate new or additional episodes. Dowden’s translation is based on a manuscript prepared by H. van Thiel which chiefly relied on an original Greek text identified as “Recension B”. Dowden has added elements

2/10
I read by Ken Dowden, Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Birmingham, the original Greek text was written prior to a known Latin translation dated to around year 340. From there, the Romance went on to be translated into over one hundred languages,

Cover of the book "Collected Ancient Greek Novels" edited by B.P. Reardon

Alexander Romance - 1st Post
1/10
The Alexander Romance (the “Romance”) is a fantastical and highly fictionalized account of the life and conquests of Alexander the Great. There is no single ‘authoritative’ version of the tale. Based on the introduction to the translation
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#myth #Alexander #Greek