Instead of the article title, which is "*ʢʷneHª- in Greek" JSTOR has (highlighted) "Math input error in Greek"
Eric Hamp broke JSTOR lmao
04.03.2026 23:21
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Instead of the article title, which is "*ʢʷneHª- in Greek" JSTOR has (highlighted) "Math input error in Greek"
Eric Hamp broke JSTOR lmao
Oh for fuck's sake.
I'm sure the science is fine, but this is an answer in search of a question. There's nothing to explain. There are NO ancient reports of 'beatific visions' or life-changing ecstatic experiences in the course of Eleusinian initiation: Kerényi made it up out of thin air in 1960.
...question of the alphabet used to transcribe Homer. As you point out, 24 books assumes Ionic letters. The 'metagrammatism' theory isn't popular - it upsets a LOT of ideas about language, metrical lengthening, etc - but it certainly happened sometimes (Aeschylus didn't use the Ionic alphabet!)
Very nice summary! I suggest adding to the biblio Berg and Haug (2000), 'Dividing Homer (continued). Innovation vs tradition in Homer', Symbolae Osloenses 75: 5-23 (not that I agree with everything they say).
One thing I'd like to see discussed more often in connection with book-division is the...
Where Did Homeric Book Divisions Come From? Thinking about the thematic Unity of book 14
sententiaeantiquae.com/2026/02/25/w...
"we have no evidence of Alphabetic book distinctions before the Hellenistic period (when earlier authors talk about Homeric passages, they focus on episodes); we don’t have any evidence for book divisions as performance units"
sententiaeantiquae.com/2026/02/25/w...
"If we imagine Homeric epic existing notionally between episodic performances and monumental events involving multiple singers, we can see these episodes coalescing around smaller performance units that could be stitched together in grander contexts."
sententiaeantiquae.com/2026/02/25/w...
...not a _good_ treatment, mind. Wyatt's position is basically: 'Can we call this short syllable at the start of the line "metrical lengthening"? I'm going to say yes. There, everything is explained!'
Never mind, there's a full treatment in Wyatt's Metrical Lengthening (1969)!
I've found 63 acephalous lines in Homer (lines that start with a short syllable). I doubt that's complete though.
Does anyone know where to find a complete list?
A rate of 0.23% acephaly suggests to me that it's more than an anomaly, even if specific explanations apply in some cases.
For those who don't know, Hermann's Bridge is the most fundamental known feature of the Homeric hexameter - even more universal than starting a line with a long syllable. 99.95% of Homeric and Hesiodic lines respect Hermann's Bridge. (The Hymns have a higher rate of violations.)
By the way, does anyone out there have a a digital copy of Fränkel's 'Der kallimachische und homerische Hexameter' (Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, phil.-hist. Klasse, 1926, vol. 3)? It isn't online anywhere as far as I can find.
Diagram of the main bridges in the Homeric hexameter, using modern musical notation
Diagram illustrating Hermann's Bridge, using metrical notation
In case it's of any use to anyone: a couple of metrical diagrams, showing (a) the main bridges (and caesuras) in Homeric hexameter, and (b) an explanation of two ways of envisaging Hermann's Bridge/Wernicke's Law.
Actually it's the lyrics in 'The Kitchen' that are really tantalising, because the choir is more audible, so you'd think it'd be easy. There's lots about feasting 'in the pit of Doom', but also many syllables I still can't discern.
Thank you! That track is especially difficult because the choir is quite in places. As far as I can tell the Latin isn't as dire as he says - 'Hail X, hail Y' is at straightforward, and those are some of the lines I can actually make out!
I've wasted too much time this morning trying to make out the Latin lyrics sung by the choir in Poledouris' soundtrack to Conan the Barbarian (1982). All the transcriptions I can find online are _wildly_ wrong.
Not easy when the sound is so muffled, and I can't be certain it's even grammatical!
There's this bizarre myth going around that historians agree there was a historical Trojan War. Here's a look at what scholars are actually saying.
(Not directly to do with the upcoming Odyssey film. But tangentially relevant if anyone thinks historical accuracy has anything to do with it!)
Sad that Epistory isn't part of this sale! It outclasses most of the games that are on sale by a long way. I mean, it's not every day you see a typing-action-fantasy-adventure-exploration-RPG game with such great design.
The lighting, making the house a silhouette, is also replicated. The new thing is the mist, and the huts below the big house. Oh, well, and the CGI of course.
I wonder if the mist is due to AI.
Still from the Odyssey, dir. Andrei Konchalovsky (1997)
Still from the Odyssey, dir. Christopher Nolan (2016)
Odyssey habits.
Left, a cut from Trojan War scenes to Odysseus' house from Andrei Konchalovsky's Odyssey (1997); right, from a trailer for Christopher Nolan's Odyssey (2026).
Both with the slow zoom-in on the hilltop. The idea of the house being on a hilltop is directorial - it isn't in Homer.
Acting Captain W. T. Riker of the Enterprise, facing Locutus of Borg, in the midst of commanding Tactical to ffff-
'Mr Worf, ffff-'
simpsons don't make me tap the sign meme saying "there's no such thing as historically accurate Homer"
as always
Stephan Blum emphasises that the city of Troy was characterised by millennia of peaceful occupation, trade, and continuity, generation after generation.
(The site was peacefully abandoned twice - first around 950 BCE, then resettled, then abandoned again in the mediaeval period.)
OK this is good. (from reddit.com/r/explainitpeter)
'...as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.
'And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety. Well, it won't.'
Carney and the Melian dialogue.
'It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry; that the rules-based order is fading; that "the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must." And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable...
i am begging you to click through and read the top comment
Cover of 1950 edition of R. May, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer; source: abebooks.com
History of Santa #15
Chicago, 1939: Robert L. May writes the story of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer
New York, 1949: Johnny Marks publishes the song 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer', and Gene Autry's recording becomes a Christmas No. 1
Image sources not recorded
History of Santa #14
New York, 1860s-1880s: Thomas Nast's famous sketches of 'Santa Claus' for Harper's Weekly: living at North Pole, and Santa holding a bundle of toys and a pipe
