Our Homerathon is underway!! Using Mendelsohn’s new Odyssey translation. If you’re on campus today @utah.edu feel free to stop by & listen or read for a bit. We will finish up on Wednesday.

also, Polygnotus was ahead of his time in painting "the enemies of Odysseus" (Ὀδυσσέως τοὺς ἐχθροὺς) together, playing dice. [According to Pausanias]

LIMC (Lexicon Iconographicum Myyhologiae Classicae) is a great, albeit idiosyncratic, resource that takes some effort to work with

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

An "urgent and exhaustive case that universities should be doing a lot more to dispel tech industry hype and keep commercial AI tools out of the academy" from actual cognitive scientists and AI researchers

deleted my account yesterday. Years too late.

“Thestorides, though mortals encounter many unexpected things, There is nothing more unknowable than the human mind.” Θεστορίδης θνητοῖσιν ἀνωΐστων πολέων περ, οὐδὲν ἀφραστότερον πέλεται νόου ἀνθρώποισιν. #Homer

“This fable has been written against those men Who oppress the innocent for trumped-up reasons.” Haec propter illos scripta est homines fabula qui fictis causis innocentes opprimunt. #Phaedrus

Do you remember?

A hat tip to the @texastribune.org for this excellent, balanced reporting of the events leading up to Texas A&M losing a professor, a department chair, a dean and then a university president. All because of disruptive stunts & secret recordings by a single student. The shape of things to come.

Fearful Americans Stockpiling Facts Before Federal Government Comes To Take Them Away — theonion.com/fearful-amer...

“This state has often run to ground like a failing ship Thanks to the wickedness of its leaders.” πολλάκις ἡ πόλις ἥδε δι᾿ ἡγεμόνων κακότητα ὥσπερ κεκλιμένη ναῦς παρὰ γῆν ἔδραμεν. #Theognis

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

“That which is believed overpowers the truth.” τό τοι νομισθὲν τῆς ἀληθείας κρατεῖ. #Sophocles

A BMCR review by me of a new open access book on corruption in Ancient Rome. “… “our” should not stand as a synonym for “European” or “western” simply because it is a book in English written about ancient Rome, if we hope to open up Classics to a global antiquity and future cultural comparison.” 📕

In six weeks or so (Oct. 27), I will be running a Roundtable at the 92nd Street Y course on The Homeric Iliad, Or: The Meaning of Life and Death roundtable.org/live-courses...

“You complain that there’s a lack of books where you are. It is not how many books, but how many good ones you have that makes a difference.” Librorum istic inopiam esse quereris. Non refert, quam multos, sed quam bonos habeas #Seneca

"Your books have turned your life upside down" ἀντέστροφέν σου τὸν βίον τὰ βιβλία #Theognetus

late to the game, but R. F. Kuang's "Katabasis" is very good (despite or maybe because the higher ed allegories sting at times)

Amplifying this opportunity. www.bsa.ac.uk/2025/09/16/v...

“You will live tomorrow, you say? Postumus, even living today is too late; he is the wise man, who lived yesterday.” Cras uiues? Hodie iam uiuere, Postume, serum est: ille sapit quisquis, Postume, uixit heri. #martial

“The Chians are bad; not just this one or that one – they’re all bad, except for Procles; and Procles is a Chian.” Χῖοι κακοί, οὐχ ὁ μέν, ὃς δ’ οὔ, πάντες, πλὴν Προκλέους· καὶ Προκλέης δὲ Χίος. #Demodocus

NYC AREA PEEPS. SAVE THE DATE. 29 Sept doors open 12.30 pm. A public lecture not to be missed.

“How many there are who degrade the Latin language!” Quam multi sunt, qui verba Latina depravant! #Piccolomini

“There was a time when all the animals spoke the same language.” ὅτε ἦν ὁμόφωνα τὰ ζῷα #Aesop

Nothing like the department of ed pulling grants because foreign languages and their instruction "are inconsistent with Administration priorities and do not advance American or values"

“There are three things that will guarantee votes in an election: favors, hope, and personal attachment. The trick is giving these incentives to the right people” #Cicero

Oath of the Oligarchs: “I will be an enemy to the people and contrive whatever harm I can against them” “καὶ τῷ δήμῳ κακόνους ἔσομαι καὶ βουλεύσω ὅ τι ἂν ἔχω κακόν” #Aristotle

A few new details have come to light, most of them noted in this essay by Judith Butler. My dismay has only deepened. It is a shocking violation of institutional trust—and I write as an undergraduate alumnus and 20-year faculty member of a place that has meant so much to me. Devastating.

When you’re the paper of record and have definitely understood the franchise up until this point

“Envy is stronger than pity” κρέσσον γὰρ οἰκτιρμοῦ φθόνος #Pindar

“It is difficult for an enemy to deceive But it is easy for a friend to fool a friend.” ᾿Εχθρὸν μὲν χαλεπὸν καὶ δυσμενεῖ ἐξαπατῆσαι, Κύρνε· φίλον δὲ φίλωι ῥάιδιον ἐξαπατᾶν #Theognis

Provost Joel P. Christensen talks to the “Thought Project” podcast about his path into higher education leadership and why the Graduate Center must stay a beacon for knowledge www.gc.cuny.edu/news/provost... @tanyadomi.bsky.social @

This week in the collapse of academic freedom: A&M, Texas State, and, now, UC Berkeley. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/u...

It’s my birthday tomorrow! One of my students gave me a birthday card with QR code & this is what it was!! 😃🤗 I feel so loved & blessed. If you want to make my day, please join my Patreon and help my studies in sharing ancient music & lectures about the ancient world! Patreon.com/BettinaJoyDeGuzman

Tanya Domi interviewed me for the Thought Project from @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social soundcloud.com/gc_cuny/prov...

There's a sixth century BCE Etruscan Krater with the blinding of Polphemos on it by a guy whose name jumps out at me as "The best Bastard" (Aristo-nothos) [that's it, that's the post]

Our style of political and mass violence lately all seems hypercharged by a massive yearning to express personal vengeance or wrathful power over communities who didn't respect them enough. I always think of this by @sentantiq.bsky.social when particulars echo. sententiaeantiquae.com/2019/09/11/a...

“The string does not always return the sound that the hand and mind desire”. neque chorda sonum reddit quem volt manus et mens #Horace

“The man who does evil against another harms himself.” οἷ αὐτῷ κακὰ τεύχει ἀνὴρ ἄλλῳ κακὰ τεύχων #Hesiod

“Shameful deeds teach shameful lessons.” αἰσχροῖς γὰρ αἰσχρὰ πράγματ᾽ ἐκδιδάσκεται #Sophocles

“Noble words cannot come from ignoble actions” οὐκ ἔστ’ ἀπ’ ἔργων μὴ καλῶν ἔπη καλά #Sophocles

This happens at the largest university in the U.S. but barely a peep from media outlets yelling at us for years about attacks on free speech on campuses.

“The men you used to call tyrants, now you uphold their power” quos tyrannos appellabas, eorum potentiae faves #PsSallust

“Tyranny is the mother of injustice” ῾Η γὰρ τυραννὶς ἀδικίας μήτηρ ἔφυ. #Stobaeus #DionysustheTyrant

"A city is destroyed by 'great' men and the people fall into the slavery of monarchy thanks to ignorance.” ἀνδρῶν δ’ ἐκ μεγάλων πόλις ὄλλυται, ἐς δὲ μονάρχου δῆμος ἀϊδρίηι δουλοσύνην ἔπεσεν #Solon

Additional observation: Walter Scheidel does not appear on this list.

Publishing this piece sort of makes an obvious hash of their complaint to me that they only published Katz *before* he was fired for cause over sexual misconduct with students, as opposed to now, several years since he was fired in disgrace for cause over sexual misconduct with students.

Completely obvious that neither are teaching undergraduates or have been recently. The survival of philology depends on the survival of the classics department, which, in many cases, depends on having a non-language option for the double majors.