χαίρε

Pentheus torn apart by Bacchantes, 2nd century CE, Archaelogical Museum, Turin

Capitalism is the economic system where most of the means of production (i.e. everything people need to have to make the stuff that everyone wants) are owned by private individuals or corporations, who then hire people to provide the labor necessary to produce things, with the intent of selling the output at a profit. It’s the difference between “you’re a carpenter and you make a chair and you sell it” and “you’re Richard Q. Richington who owns a chair factory, and you pay people to sell the chairs you paid other people to make and then all the excess money goes back to you.” There have been Richard Q. Richingtons on and off throughout history, but that being the norm for every single industry is a pretty recent development.

J. Paul Getty Museum 85.AM.278

Two thousand year old Thracian chariot with horse skeletons - found in Karanovo, Bulgaria - 2008

— Sappho (Lobel-Page 160)

“uhh yes please the meal would be great”

summer book club

Obsessed with this red-figure art because from left to right, the figures are identified as Talthybius and Clytemnestra (on the back of the vase) and Chrysothemis, Orestes, and Aegisthus (on the front). It's dated about 500 BC, almost a century before Sophocles's Electra, the only known play to give Chrysothemis a speaking role, was written. And I for one would kill to know what the story behind it is, because it is so different from the way things played out in Electra. In the play, Chrysothemis is portrayed as going along with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, refusing to join Electra in plotting their deaths because she doesn't want to risk her own safety for vengeance. Contrast that with Chrysothemis literally standing in front of her brother, who is actively killing Aegisthus, while Clytemnestra charges at them with an axe. Red-figure Chrysothemis what is your story

Relief of Hades and Persephone with a table of pomegranates from Hierapolis Archaeological Museum.

Figurine of Aphrodite playing with baby Eros (Tanagra, late 4th BC, Hermitage.)

I was going to write about the meaning of the illustration and what I’ve expressed here, based on that episode, but I prefer to leave it to your understanding and imagination. And I’m sure you can also spot the little symbols I’ve included. I hope you like it ❤️

lol the ancient greeks really said we're leaving nothing to interpretation history will remember us

Getty Museum