Introducing the Ancient Works Companion Series

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Hello everyone, and welcome to this announcement episode where I'm excited to discuss a large project that I've been working on for some time now, that will be added to the podcast as a standalone series.
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Over the years here on Castings for Ancient Greece, we have encountered a number of ancient writers whose works have helped guide us through the story of the Greek world.
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Names such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon have regularly appeared throughout the historical narrative, while figures such as Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, and Plato have also provided us with different windows into the world of the ancient Greeks.
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Much of what we understand about this world ultimately comes from works like these that have managed to survive from antiquity.
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We regularly draw upon these to help reconstruct events, explore the ideas circulating within Greek society, or simply to try and better understand how the Greeks themselves viewed the world around them.
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But there is a difference between hearing passages from these works within the context of an episode and actually sitting down and reading one of them for ourselves.
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And for many people, I think that can be a somewhat intimidating prospect.
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These are works composed thousands of years ago for audiences living within societies very different from our own.
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Their assumptions surrounding religion, politics, morality, social customs, and even how a story should be told are not always immediately obvious to us as modern readers.
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Sometimes we can understand perfectly well what is happening on the pages, while completely missing why it might have mattered to the people originally hearing or reading it.
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So how do we approach these ancient works today, while gaining a greater appreciation of what they're attempting to communicate?
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Well, this is the idea behind a new series I have been developing for the podcast, The Ancient Works Companion.
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So the idea behind The Ancient Works Companion isn't simply to produce another series where I tell you what these ancient texts say.
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We already spent a great deal of time doing that within castings for ancient Greece, particularly where the historical narrative brings us into contact with writers such as Herodotus or Thucydides.
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Instead, what I want to do with this new series is encourage you to engage with these works for yourself, while providing something that can accompany you as you make your way through them, because I think there are two potential barriers when approaching an ancient text.
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The first is simply understanding what is taking place.
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Depending on the work, we might encounter unfamiliar names, places, myths, or events that the original audience was expected to recognise immediately.
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Sometimes just keeping track of what is happening can become an obstacle to enjoying the work itself.
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But there is also another level to understand these texts.
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We might follow perfectly well what is happening while missing why a particular moment, argument, or action is significant.
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An ancient Greek audience brought with them assumptions about their society, religion, customs, and values that we simply don't possess today.
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And this is where I hope the companion can be most useful.
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Rather than expecting you to spend months studying the ancient Greek world before picking up Homer, Herodotus, or other ancient writers, we can explore that context as it becomes relevant to what we are reading.
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The intention then isn't for these episodes to replace the ancient works themselves.
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In fact, it's quite the opposite.
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I want them to give you another reason to pick these works up and explore them for yourself.
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So perhaps the simplest way of describing what I hope the ancient works companion will become is this.
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Read the ancient work and I'll accompany you through it.
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So how will this all actually work?
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The basic idea is to take each ancient work and break it down into manageable sections that we can explore together.
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Exactly what those sections look like will depend upon the work itself.
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It might mean working through a text one book at a time, looking at a chapter or group of chapters, or perhaps focusing on an act, or another natural division within the work.
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Each companion episode will then concentrate on one of these sections, with the aim of gradually building our understanding as we make our way through the complete text.
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We'll begin by establishing what has actually taken place.
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I'll provide a clear summary of the section we've just encountered, identifying the important events, arguments, or developments so that we're all on the same page before moving any deeper.
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This won't be a reading of the original text, nor is it intended to replace it.
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Instead, it will provide a foundation for everything that follows.
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From there, we'll begin looking more closely at what we have just read.
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There might be particular characters, decisions, arguments, or pieces of imagery that deserve our attention.
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Sometimes these may seem relatively insignificant when we first encounter them, only to take on a greater importance as the wider work develops.
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We'll turn towards some of these larger questions and themes when explored.
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These will obviously vary considerably depending upon the work, but this is where we can begin moving beyond simply asking what happened and instead consider what the author might have been encouraging their audiences to think about.
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Alongside this, we'll also explore the ancient world behind the text, whenever it can help deepen our understanding.
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This might involve religion and mythology, politics and warfare, social customs, philosophy, economics, or simply aspects of everyday life that an ancient audience would have understood without needing explanation.
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And finally, as we progress, we'll consider how each section fits within the work as a whole and how the ideas we've already encountered continue to develop.
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The exact balance of these elements will change depending upon what we're reading.
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Homer will naturally require a different approach from Herodotus, while a Greek tragedy will present different questions again.
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But the underlying aim will remain the same, to work through these ancient texts at a manageable pace, while giving us the context and tools to explore them more deeply for ourselves.
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Now, one thing I want to make clear from the very beginning is that you do not need to come into this series with any particular background in the ancient world.
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You don't need to know ancient Greek, you don't need a degree in ancient history or classical studies, and you certainly don't need to have worked your way through Greek mythology, philosophy, or literature before joining us.
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If we encounter something that requires some additional explanation, then that's precisely what the companion is there for.
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Part of the reason for creating this series is to remove some of those barriers that can make the ancient works seem more intimidating than they need to be.
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You shouldn't feel as though you need to understand the entire world surrounding the text before you're actually ready to begin reading it.
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We can build that understanding together as we make our way through the work.
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So if you've always looked at something like The Odyssey, Herodotus's Histories, or one of the surviving Greek tragedies, and thought that you would like to read it, but weren't quite sure where to begin, this series is very much intended for you.
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But I also don't want this to be a series aimed exclusively at first-time readers.
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If you've already encountered some of these works before, the companion will hopefully provide an opportunity to return to them with a different perspective.
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Perhaps we'll notice details that passed us by the first time, explore questions we hadn't previously considered, or better understand the world in which the work was originally created.
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Whether you're opening one of these texts for the first time or returning to an old favourite, the aim is ultimately the same, to help us get more out of the ancient works we're reading.
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Of course, not every ancient work presents us with the same challenges, and so I don't want to establish a format that forces every text we explore into exactly the same mould.
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Reading Homer is a very different experience from reading Herodotus or Thucydides.
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A surviving Greek tragedy presents us with questions that we wouldn't necessarily encounter in the historical work, while something like the philosophy of Plato would require us to approach the text differently again.
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So while the underlying philosophy of the ancient work's companion will remain consistent, the way we explore each work will adapt to what we're actually reading.
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When dealing with an ancient historian, for example, we might spend more time considering their sources, the evidence available to them, and how reliable their account might be.
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With a tragedy, understanding performance, religion, and the circumstances in which the play was originally presented may become far more important.
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An epic might instead lead us deeper into mythology, oral storytelling, social customs, and the expectations of its original audience.
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The intention isn't to create a rigid formula, but a framework flexible enough to let each work guide the discussion.
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And with all that said, there's still the question of where we should begin.
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There are obviously many surviving works that could have provided a starting point for the series, but ultimately I kept coming back to one of the most influential works to emerge from the ancient Greek world, Homer's Odyssey.
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In many ways, I think the Odyssey is an ideal place for us to begin, because it manages to be both incredibly familiar and surprisingly unfamiliar at the same time.
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Even if you've never actually read the poem, there's a good chance you've encountered parts of its story before.
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Odysseus and his long journey home from Troy, his encounter with the Cyclops, the Sorcerer Circe, the Sirens, and of course, Penelope waiting for him back on Ithaca, have all become parts of the wider cultural imagination.
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But knowing some of these famous episodes isn't necessarily the same thing as knowing the Odyssey.
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Behind the monsters and adventures is a work exploring ideas surrounding home and belonging, identity and family, hospitality and civilization, storytelling, justice, and revenge, and what it meant to be mortal in a world where the gods are very real.
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And many of these ideas begin developing long before we reach some of the famous adventures that have come to define the Odyssey in popular culture.
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So for our first ancient works Companion, we're going to slow things right down and work through Homer's poem one book at a time.
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We'll begin with an introductory episode, Before the Odyssey, How to Read Homer, where we'll establish some of the background that will help prepare us for the journey ahead.
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From there, we'll work through each of the Odyssey's 24 books individually, with one companion episode dedicated to each.
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Then once we finally reach the end of the poem, we'll have one final episode where we can step back from the individual books and consider the Odyssey is a complete work.
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So altogether, our first journey through the ancient works companion will take us across 26 episodes as we make our way through Homer's Odyssey from beginning to end.
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As for how you can take part in the series, I've tried to keep this as simple as possible.
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Ideally, before listening to each companion episode, you'll read the section of the ancient work that we're about to explore.
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Then once you've finished reading, you can come across to the episode where we'll work through what happened, look more closely at some of the important moments and ideas, and explore any additional context that might help us better understand what we've just encountered.
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From there you can move on to the next section of the work and we'll continue the process together.
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You also don't need to be reading from the exact same edition or translation that I happen to be using.
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With the Odyssey, for example, there are a huge number of English translations available, each approaching Homer's poetry in slightly different ways.
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While I may occasionally draw attention to some interesting differences between translations, you should be able to follow the companion with whichever version of the poem you prefer.
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And because we'll be working through these texts sequentially, I also want to be conscious of listeners who may be encountering them for the very first time.
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Where possible, I will avoid unnecessarily revealing developments that we haven't yet reached, allowing the work to unfold as we progress through it.
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So there's no need to race ahead or feel that you need to have finished the entire text before joining us.
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Read the next section, listen to the companion, and then when you're ready, continue the journey.
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Now, in terms of where you'll be able to follow the Ancient Works Companion, the series will be initially unfolding over on Patreon.
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For our journey through the Odyssey, I'm aiming to release around two companion episodes each month.
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This should give us enough time between episodes to read the next book, without feeling like we need to rush through the poem, while still allowing us to make our way through the complete Odyssey over roughly the next 12 months.
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So if you would like to experience the series as it develops, Patreon will be the place where we'll be reading and exploring these works together as each new episode is released.
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However, I don't intend for the completed companion series to remain permanently exclusive to Patreon.
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Once we have finished working our way through a particular ancient work, my intention is to begin releasing the completed companion series here on the main casting through ancient Greece series as well.
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So everyone will ultimately have an opportunity to follow these journeys.
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Patreon is simply where you'll be able to join me while they're actually taking place, reading each section and exploring it together as we gradually make our way through some of the great surviving works of the ancient world.
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So thousands of years now separate us from the people who originally composed, performed, read, and listened to the works that we'll be exploring through this series.
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The societies that produced them have long since disappeared, and the world in which the original audience encountered them was very different from our own.
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And yet, remarkably, the works themselves have survived.
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Throughout casting through ancient Greece, we have already encountered many of them through quotations, historical accounts, and the evidence they provide us, we have attempted to reconstruct different parts of the ancient Greek world.
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But the ancient works companion gives us an opportunity to approach them from a different direction.
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To slow down, spend some time with the works themselves, and explore what they might reveal when we engage with them as a complete text.
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Where this series ultimately takes us, I'm not entirely sure.
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There are many surviving works, authors, and genres that we could potentially explore together in the years ahead.
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But every journey needs somewhere to begin, and our first will take us back to the aftermath of the Trojan War, where the fighting has finally ended.
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The surviving Greeks have begun making their way home, and one man, after twenty years away, is still struggling to return to his family and kingdom.
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That man, of course, is Odysseus, and his journey home will become the beginning of our own.
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So over the next year, we're going to read the Odyssey together, and with it, begin our journey through the great works of the ancient world.
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So if this sounds like an exciting journey you would like to take part in, please consider heading over to Patreon and supporting the series, where you'll gain access to this companion series as well as other bonuses.
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But like I did say earlier, these companion series will eventually make their way to the Casting Through Ancient Greece feed.
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There just may be a 12 month delay as we're working our way through them on the Patreon channel.