The glory that was Greece
For me one of the stand-out exhibitions of last year was Troy: Myth and Reality, which I saw at the British Museum a couple of weeks ago. There are some stunning objects – the vases in particular – and it was wonderful to revisit the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey. I had a grammar school education which meant doing five years of Latin, but looking back I feel it would have been more useful and interesting to have studied Classics more broadly and to have read texts in translation. Through my degree in English Literature and History of Art I did become familiar with the Greek myths and legends, but it wasn’t many years later on holiday in Greece that I decided to read the Iliad from beginning to end and just experience it as the fantastic story that it is. A couple of years later on holiday in Crete I did the same thing with the Odyssey.
There is something very special about reading a story in the place where it originated. In my journal I transcribed this passage from the Odyssey: ‘Alcinous ordered Helias and Laodomas to dance by themselves since no one could compete with them. Polybus, a skilled craftsman, had made them a beautiful purple ball, which they took in their hands, and one of them, bending right back, would throw it towards the shadowy clouds, and the other, leaping up from the ground, would catch it skilfully, before his feet touched earth again.’ I noted that the next day on the beach I saw two bronzed young men in tiny swimming trunks doing the exact same thing as Homer had described it somewhere around three thousands years ago. My copy of the Penguin Classics edition with its creased spine and water-stained pages is a momento of a great holiday.
The exhibition at the British Museum runs until 8 March. It retells the stories through objects and paintings, examines the historical basis for the existence of Troy, and draws parallels with the present day realities of brutal warfare and its victims. I thought it was wonderful.
10 Comments
Margot Kinberg
January 1, 2020Oh, that must have been a wonderful exhibition, Christine! Lucky you to have had the chance to see it. And I love it that you reread those classics in such a very special place. I’m sure that added to the experience for you. Thanks for sharing.
Christine Poulson
January 1, 2020Yes, it really was such a good exhibition. I am lucky that I live near enough to London to go down for the day. It did add something special reading those classics in Greece. All my good wishes for 2020.
Moira Redmond
January 1, 2020Oh this makes me so sad I haven’t got to this exhibition. I found Latin and the corresponding culture a great bore at school, but in my 20s suddenly got very interested in Greek language and lit and particularly Homer. I learned some Ancient Greek (a mixture of teaching myself and attending a University summer school) and can always be beguiled by all things Greek/Troy/Homer related. I just checked and this is still on – I must try to get to it before it closes.
Christine Poulson
January 1, 2020Oh, you’ve got ages, Moira. I think it is on until the 8 March. I found it moving – the beauty of the vases – the wonderful stories that have meant so much in our culture.
Michael Guarino
January 3, 2020Hi Christine — Happy New Year. Allow me to begin by apologizing for being the first poster to initiate a sentence without the exclamation, “Oh!” I’m just as excited as everybody else that you enjoyed the exhibition. I’m wondering, though, how you feel about Odysseus replying to Eurymakhos’ kind offer to make amends for trying to steal Penelope by sending “an arrow that buried itself to the feathers in Eurymakhos’ breast”? I’ve always been 50/50 on whether that was worthy of Odysseus.
Christine Poulson
January 6, 2020Happy New Year to you, too! I have to say that there is an awful lot in both the Iliad and the Odyssey that is shocking – the hanging of the maids for one thing, Hector’s body being desecrated. Not much that was glorious about that. And the exhibition doesn’t gloss over that.
Michael Guarino
January 6, 2020I recall a professor at USC going on (and on) about the “appropriately high degree of sympathy” shown by Gustave Moreau toward the victims of Odysseus’ rampage in his famous painting, “The Suitors”. When asked by a female student if had similar feelings concerning the 12 murdered maidens, he mumbled something about them simply finding themselves “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I’m not sure he was trying to be funny.
All in all, I guess Aeneas’ manifesto (“mercy to fallen enemies”) represents a step up in the moral code…. even if poor Turnus didn’t reap the benefits.
Christine Poulson
January 8, 2020I haven’t actually read The Aeneid – yet. I resolved to do that as I went round the exhibition and if I am to read it in appropriate setting, a trip to Rome is called for. But yes, definitely a step up in the moral code.
Michael Guarino
January 8, 2020Happy reading in my native city, Christine. May I suggest the lawn outside Cinecitta Studios for Books 1-3 and the lawn outside Rome’s Zoo for Books 8-12?
Christine Poulson
January 9, 2020Thanks! It’s years since I’ve been to Rome. Definitely time for a return trip.