Found in Antiquity

  • Moving words: which languages have the closest word order to Ancient Greek?

    There’s an art to translation. It involves moving concepts from one language into another while trying to refit the same thought into a different set of grammar rules. In this study I’d like to look at one obvious part of the translation process: word order change. In studying this, I don’t mean to suggest that Read more

  • Textception

    You know what’s my pet peeve? Scholars who cite fragmentary sources by their fragment numbers only. Read more

  • The Melitan Miniature Dog: The most popular lapdog in antiquity

    There is something so disarming, so human, about reading that the ancient Greeks and Romans kept dogs as pets – not just as hunting hounds, but also as tiny companions. The Melitan, while it is not the only kind of miniature dog mentioned in surviving texts (a “Gallic miniature dog” was named once in Martial’s Read more

  • Changing site name, address, and domain purchase

    My dearest subscribers, Fished Up Classics will soon be known under a new name, Found in Antiquity. It was a difficult decision to make, but I believe the long term gain will be worth today’s hassle. It feels scary, in a way, like I might be starting all over again. Has it only really been Read more

  • Orpheus and the Can-can

    How on earth could the Can-can dance have anything to do with the myth of Orpheus? I’m sure you’ve heard and seen the Can-can before, but just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last 150 years, here’s a demonstration: The Can-can was a type of bawdy Parisian dance popular in the Read more

  • The Weasel in Antiquity: Pet or Pest?

    It’s a nice time for a light-hearted piece, and I’ve been dying to write this article for a while. It’s about pet weasels in antiquity. A surprising amount of respectable scholarship all the way from 1718 to 1997 has claimed that the Greeks and Romans kept tame weasels as household pets. At the very least, Read more