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Daimons are Forever: Plato’s Apology, Part I (Ad Navseam, Episode 190)

At long last, Jeff and Dave get around to talking about the great granddaddy of all Western philosophy: Socrates. In this episode, the guys lay the groundwork for a look at Socrates' defense speech, the Apology. What were the social and political factors that contributed to putting the pug-nosed wonder on trial? How did the reign of the 30 tyrants, and Plato's aristocratic background, as well as Socrates'connections to great men like Pericles influence the content of the speech? This episode also examines the role of the elenchus, Socrates' system of question-and-answer refutation, in the development of ethical and moral teaching in the 5th century. Tune in for the instruction, the laughs, and a chance to win your copy of C.D.C. Reeve's A Plato Reader, from Hackett.

How the Greeks Built Cities, Part II (Ad Navseam, Episode 189)

This week the guys finish up their look at Wycherley’s How the Greeks Built Cities. We pick up the text with a consideration of the “agora,” a term (as Wycherley emphasizes) that encompasses much more than the translation “marketplace” gets at. Yes, it was a center of business, but also politics, athletics, entertainment, philosophy, and education, while also giving rise to particular architectural features like the stoa. From there we delve into other key features that nearly every Greek polis had—religious shrines, gymnasia, stadiums. Where did the Greeks tend to place these things in their cities?  We employ very similar structures and practices today, but do we use or understand them in the same way? After all that we cap it off with a look at residential life, and the form and function of a typical Greek house.

How the Greeks Built Cities, Part I (Ad Navseam, Episode 188)

Jeff and Dave are back at the classical goodness this week, with a two-parter from R.E. Wycherly's slim yet substantive volume, How the Greeks Built Cities (1962). Did you ever wonder why today's cities are laid out in a grid pattern? Why here in the U.S. you can count eight blocks per mile? Why most contemporary cities have NE, SE, NW, and SW quadrants? Could this, too, be credited to the Greeks? Or is it just another crazy, Toula Portokalos figment? Spoiler alert: the Greeks strike again. The whole thing was the ingenious innovation of Hippodamus of Miletus, apparently a long-haired rascal, (Hippie-Damus?), who single-handedly revolutionized the design of cities in Attica, Italy, and Rhodes. His ideas (let's keep it all perpindicular, folks) caught on like wildfire. In this episode, we tackle the Preface and Chs. I-III. Chapter I: Growth of the Greek City; Chapter II: Greek Town-planning; Chapter III: Fortifications. And, be sure to tune in for the Herculean opening!
 

What's the Best Textbook for Learning Ancient Greek? - Part III (Ad Navseam, Episode 187)

This week Jeff and Dave are wrapping up the Attic portion of their whirlwind tour through beginning Greek textbooks. On the menu today is the text of Donald Mastronarde, as well as Athenaze. After some introductory comments, i.e., a fine anecdote from Halik Kochanski's magisterial Resistance, the nit and the grit of Mastronarde's very thorough presentation is then duly engaged, with a discussion of the presentation of the verb εἰμί, types of the genitive and dative, and a close look at the exempla provided. Then, it's on to Athenaze, a handsome, readings-based text presented obviously with the neophyte student in mind, with engaging stories, clear presentations, excellent vocab. lists, and more. Finally, the guys wrap up with a tour through MossMethod, the 1893 public domain text that Dave has adapted (and tirelessly peddled) to a wordlwide audience.  Don't worry, Adnavserinos, we will later cover New Testament (Koine) textbooks (Mounce, Wallace, Decker, Machen, etc.) as promised. Tune in for more gooey, listening goodness.

The Golden Age of the Classics in America by Carl Richard, Part VII (Ad Navseam, Episode 186)

This one is a Thoreau-back! After a brief hiatus the boys are back in town following sojourns in Greece (Jeff) and South Africa (Dave). It’s also time for our annual “4th of July”(ish) episode—so we return to Carl Richard’s masterpiece, The Golden Age of Classics in America. This time the guys take a look at the era of Romanticism and the place the Classics held amongst America’s romantics and transcendentalists. Here we see a shift away from the empiricism of Aristotle toward the inner “mysticism” of Plato and a view that the ancients should not be models to be slavishly copied, but rather taken as representative of a spirit or nature to imitate, or by which to be inspired. So get down to the lake, get in that cabin, light that lantern and get your contemplation on.

What's the Best Textbook for Learning Ancient Greek? - Part II (Ad Navseam, Episode 185)

The guys are back at it this week, with round two of the deep dive into textbooks for Attic Greek. After some opening shenanigans, a corrigendum, a choice quote from Basil of Caesarea, and a trip to Burrito Chime®, Jeff and Dave review some salient differences between Attic and Koine dialects, courtesy of P.V. Nunn (1920). Six, six total! Then it's off to textbooks by Hansen and Quinn and Keller and Russell. How robust should one's grammar-translation method be? How many omega-verbs do you need, and what's the right quotient of exercise sentences in a given chapter? All this and more is in store, so don't miss the usual depth and dippy drollery!

What's the Best Textbook for Learning Ancient Greek? - Part I (Ad Navseam, Episode 184)

Attic? Koine? Both? Groten and Finn? Anne Groton's Alpha to Omega? Donald Mastronarde? Hansen and Quinn? This week Jeff and Dave start a short series on how to choose a Greek textbook. After a few moments strolling down memory lane (γε!), the guys get down to business with a brief discussion of the merits of studying the Attic vs. Koine dialects (more on that in the next episode). Then they walk through the first two books in the series, pointing out the standard structure for an introductory textbook and some strategies for getting your feet wet in the language. Episdoe 185 will go deeper into the standard college texts, before pivoting (everything's basketball) to the Koine books by Mounce, Wallace, and co. Oh, and MossMethod may come up at some point! If you've studied Greek, are teaching Greek, or are thinking about taking it up, then this episode could be a great entry point for your interests!

The Golden Age of the Classics in America by Carl Richard, Part VI (Ad Navseam, Episode 183)

This week we head back to Carl Richard's masterpiece from 2009, and the guys are taking a careful look at Chapter IV: Nationalism. We start out with a nice definition and perspective from one of Dave's long list of overrated authors (does he like anybody?): C.S. Lewis. Clive explains to us from The Four Loves that every country has a dreary past of some shameful and shabby doings, but it's natural and good to love her nonetheless, within reason. Then we dive into the antebellum adulation of one George Washington. Is he Demosthenes, Cicero, Hannibal, Severus, Cincinnatus, Camillus? Or is he actually all of them rolled into one? Tune in for insights from Edward Everett, Calhoun, Walt Whitman, Daniel Webster, Frederick Porcher, and more, on everything from neoclassical revival to the vast American superiority over those doddering ancients. Along the way, you'll enjoy reminiscences of the celery fields of Jenison and rural Ionia County, Michigan, as well as one of Jeff's all-time best puns. And in the end, Marathon is Always Great Again.

Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles, Part II (Ad Navseam, Episode 182)

So, is there a Homeric influence on the New Testament? Or, more specifically (per MacDonald), did Luke deliberately pattern and structure elements in Acts of the Apostles on episodes from Iliad 2? In this episode, the guys consider the case that MacDonald lays out, namely that Luke pairs the visions of Cornelius and Peter (in Acts 10 and 11) in a way that tags the Zeus-sent dream to Agamemnon and Odysseus’ recollection of the portent of the serpent and the sparrow. Does it hold up? Would a first century audience have recognized it as such? Are the linguistic parallels convincing? And perhaps the biggest question of all: why tag Homer in the first place?

Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles Part I (Ad Navseam, Episode 181)

In 2003, Dennis R. MacDonald published an important monograph with Yale University Press entitled: Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles. In the provocative opening salvo, MacDonald explains: ‘"'Who would claim that the writing of prose is not reliant on the Homeric poems?' This rhetorical question by a teacher of rhetoric requires a negative answer: no ancient intellectual would have doubted that the Iliad and the Odyssey informed the composition of prose, including potentially the stories of the New Testament." Come along this week as Jeff and Dave tackle the big questions about the form-criticism take on the New Testament vs. imitation (μίμησις). MacDonald lays out his six criteria, and we get into the nit and grit of some first century compositional realities. Is MacDonald's thesis ultimately persuaive? Did Luke in Acts imitate Vergil, Homer, neither, or something else altogether? It's a complicated topic, for sure, with a long and thus far intractable history.