Fun facts about a classical writer 1. For over 2,000 years, Menander’s works were lost. Then, in the twentieth century, they were rediscovered. Menander (c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was praised by his contemporaries as a great comic playwright – some even said the greatest, beating even Aristophanes into […]
A short biography of one of ancient Rome’s lost poets 1. The poetry of Gallus inspired a whole raft of famous Roman poets, but none of his work survives. Author of the Metamorphoses, Ovid (pictured below right), praised Gallus alongside the Greek writers Homer and Sophocles (the author of the […]
Interesting facts about a classical playwright ‘Have all the nations of the world since his time created a dramatist worthy to hand him his slippers?’ Such was Goethe’s assessment of Euripides. Even Shakespeare, it would seem, wasn’t worthy of such a slipper-carrying honour where Euripides was concerned. Here are five […]