The First Post

I always knew I wanted to study mythology. I had dinosaur toys as a child, so I got sidetracked for a while, but then I began to study Latin when I was 13 and was steered on the right path again. I have since enjoyed fifteen years in the ancient world, and I don't regret a minute of it (well, Greek linguistics wasn't fun, it was –at times – beat-yourself-in-the-head-with-a-hammer boring, but still).

For many years, my studies have been stubbornly unrelated to the real world – and by this, of course, I don't mean to imply that classical studies have nothing to do with reality, but, rather, the opposite, that reality sometimes pretends to take no interest in classical studies. Remember, these were dark days, before the Internet. If you liked Greek mythology in high school, you were pretty much on your own. In the 1990s, most people were into Beverly Hills 90210 (the original version, where girl didn't bleach their anus and weighed more than 70 pounds). Jason and the Argonauts, the 1963 movie with dancing skeletons, was pretty much all I had to go on. And I had to rent the VHS over and over, because no one sold it in my town.

But then, slowly, things started to change, and now we have Percy Jackson, and Brad Pitt as Achilles (thank you!), and two movies about Thor (ok, a Marvel hero, but still). So I have nothing but sympathy for anything that makes the ancient world, my world, more attractive to people, but I am frustrated by how poorly mythology seems to be understood. Most people, of course, have never heard about it all (unfortunately, the right to know about our own past remains a luxury for the privileged few) and those who have seem to be hostages to oversimplified explanations on the one side (the Spartans never lost a battle and the Persians looked like worm-sprouting Uruk-hai) and mystical nonsense on the other (Take A Test And Discover If You Are Zeus' Daughter!! =^.^=). This is why I decided to begin this blog: to help people who are interested in mythology to get their facts straight.

I don't pretend to be an überexpert, and, anyway, there are no absolute truths about this, but I've had the good fortune be taught by the very best, and I learned some pretty cool stuff. And I believe that education is a gift, so if you're lucky enough to get it, you should pass it on. 

So here I am, passing it on. :)

[A note on sources – If there's something I dislike about the web, is the lack of sources. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of pages on Greek mythology where people tell stories and make absurd claims without specifying where they found the information. If someone doesn't tell you his or her sources, beware. That's why I will try to give some evidence and indications for further reading in my posts. Most of the ancient texts are available online. Try the Perseus Project, the Gutenberg Project, or the archive at Sacred Texts for different translations.]