This stamp depicts the famous Capitoline statue of Romulus and Remus and their wolf-mom. These twin baby boys were sons of Mars, the god of war, and Rhea Silvia. Â Rhea’s uncle, for complicated reasons, threw the babies into the Tiber River and imprisoned their mother.
Another version of the legend has Rhea Silvia thrown into the river with her boys and she becomes the wife of the river god. In any case, the boys bob around in the water for a while, get tossed ashore, and are found by a she-wolf. The lady wolf raises the twins until the proverbial shepherd comes along and takes over the task. The boys grow up and start to build their own city, but sibling rivalry rears its ugly head! Romulus has his own ideas about the way things should go, quarrels with Remus and kills him. Romulus names his city Rome.
One version of this foundation myth has Romulus and Remus as sons of Mars and Ilia, who was the daughter of our very own Aeneas and his newly-acquired ladylove, Lavinia. Does anyone besides me prefer Turnus to our Trojan prince?
Here’s Hollywood’s take on the story! Eeekkk! These ancient tales! Divine parentage, abandonment, exposure, feral children!
Today’s podcast is the final installment of The Aeneid. Enjoy!
Queen Dido of Carthage. Dead. Built her own funeral pyre and as the flames whipped around her, plunged a dagger into her heart. So thoroughly had she humiliated herself for love of Aeneas, that she could no longer bear to go on. She cursed Aeneas and all of his descendants as she lay dying. Legend has it that her curse was the seed of hatred between Rome and Carthage that lead to the Punic Wars (264-146 B.C.E). Children in Rome were taught from an early age to hate the powerful north African state and all Roman children knew the Latin phrase “Carthago delenda est” or “Carthage must be destroyed”. When Rome finally did destroy Carthage, Roman soldiers were instructed to sow the land with salt so that nothing could grow there. Carthage was abandoned. Later, however, she was rebuilt and became a glorious and influential Roman colony. Some of the best preserved Roman mosaics and ruins are found in Carthage. And to think it all began with a mighty and righteous queen who had her heart broken by a no-good two-timing transient!
Another amazing story of Carthage might is that of Hannibal (no, not the psychopath) and his war elephants, but you have to listen to the podcast to find out! Enjoy!
Today we begin The Aeneid byVirgil, who actually wrote it at the request of Augustus Caesar to link the citizens of Rome to the heroes of yore.  Enjoy the first of three installments of the epic, The Aeneid. Next week, you’ll learn all about this famous tale and why Queen Dido of Carthage is one of my favorite female warrior queens of all-time!
Spent 5 days in L.A. at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) convention, and can honestly say it was the most magical five days of my writing career. I met so many wonderful career writers it was amazing. I went to 8 workshops given by authors such as Jon Scieszka (of Stinky Cheese Man fame), M.T. Anderson, Gordon Korman, and Gennifer Choldenko (Al Capone Does My Shirts). I went to a booksigning with 44 kidlit authors. I attended a show for children’s book illustrators. I heard 13 keynote addresses. I listened with great interest to 4 panel discussions by industry insiders.
Gwen Minor with Author Paul Fleischman 2010
Seven years ago or so, I read aloud to my classes Paul Fleischman’s 1996 book Dateline: Troy. This remarkable book narrates scenes from The Iliad while including newspaper clippings of modern events that mirror the issues addressed in that most famous epic. If you’ve ever read aloud to anyone, you know how exhausting it can be. Multiply that by three classes for a week and a half and you see what I went through. I desperately wanted my students to know the story of the Trojan War, and they loved the story and Paul’s book, but it took so long to read it out loud! As I looked around at their tired faces, I knew I had to find a better way. So, that summer, I broke my leg roller-skating, and while I was laid up in bed for 3 weeks after surgery, I wrote a 40-minute play of The Iliad so that my students could act it out. I modeled it on some Shakespeare adaptations I had used from an old Scholastic book. Back to school that fall, I knew I had a hit on my hands as the kids showed their enthusiasm for all things Homeric and we started to collect plastic swords, shields, and helmets for the productions! If you look in my book, Read Aloud Plays: The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid, I dedicated the book to that first class who made my work come alive onstage and make a special note of thanks to the first boy who played my Achilles. I took my copy of Paul Fleischman’s book Dateline: Troy to L.A. with me this past weekend and had him sign it. I told him how his book inspired my book because I had to get the kids involved in the story. He was amazed to see his book and told me no publisher would take it and that he was rejected over and over again. He said the only reason he got it published was because he sent it to Candlewick Press, a new kid on the block in the publishing world, and they were willing to take a chance on it. I gave him a copy of my book and signed it with gratitude. You undoubtedly know Paul’s father—the famous children’s book author Sid Fleischman. Here is a treasured photograph of me with Paul. Thanks to Peter Linenthal for being there with his camera!
Special thanks to Mac McCool, graphic novelist extraordinaire for giving me a copy of Herakles, the graphic novel made by his college students. Mac has published a bunch of kids’s books and he teaches illustration and sequential art at a university in California. I am sending him a copy of my book in return for his generous gift.
I met so many amazing people. I’ve never been to a professional gathering that was so supportive. I met the children’s author June Sengpiehl and her husband Paul Sengpiehl. Over lunch one afternoon, Paul recounted his years learning Latin in high school with his Latin teacher Lois Fischer, who taught her students this mnemonic for remembering the stages of Roman history: K-R-E-2-5-4. That is: Rome was a kingdom for 200 years, a republic for 500 years, and an empire for 400 years! How exciting! Thank you to Paul for sharing that memory device. I will certainly pass it on to my students and our 6th grade ancient history teacher.
And the best part about the whole weekend, I let go of a project that had hit some serious walls and was keeping me from moving on to the many other exciting writing projects I am working on. This is a good life lesson: sometimes it is better to give a thing up than to hold on and get dragged down with it. Several years ago, my good friend Peter Linenthal asked me to write a children’s book for him and he would do the illustrations. We worked very hard over a long, long time, but publishers and agents prefer to choose their own collaborators. They typically pair a lesser-known illustrator with a better-known writer or vis versa, in the hopes of giving as much support as possible to the project. I hope Peter finds a home for Jaya in the coming months so that he can get to work on the final art work. And thank you, Peter, for the gift of that amazing convention!
Narrowly averted a serious computer issue this morning. Fortunately, my amazing husband knows all the tricks and promptly set it right.
This episode is a wee-bit early, as I am off to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators national convention. I am going with Peter Linenthal, who illustrated our storybook  The Golden Necklace: A Silk Road Tale. Check out his work by clicking on the “Ready-to-go-to-Press” tab at the top of this page. He does wonderful work and is one of the finest human beings I know. Fingers crossed that we locate a publisher this weekend for our beautiful book that needs a “home” (the topic of today’s podcast)!
So…last week we met up with some sirens. Just to give you some idea of how their kind have been interpreted throughout the ages, I’ve included several cool pics. Here you see an ancient vase with flying bird-like creatures holding musical instruments. Great design! See the way Odysseus is tacked up to the mast.
Now take a look at these 19th century visions of sirens. Of course, they are wind-blown and fish-tailed and seem a whole lot more interested in the guys on the boat! Those artsy British men-of-leisure had an awful lot of time on their hands….
Today is the Homecoming of Odysseus. Oh, did I ruin the story for you? He does make it home, incredible as it may
seem, and puts a serious damper on the efforts of the suitors! Check out N.C. Wyeth’s painting below for proof. Enjoy!
Next week: The Aeneid, the story of Prince Aeneas’s back-door escape from the burning flames of Troy! Virgil wrote the epic at the request of Augustus Caesar to link the history of the people of Italy with the legendary heroes of old! Talk about revisionist history!
Circe the Sorceress….another painting by J.W.Waterhouse.
It turns out that Jason & Medea (another famous sorceress) visited Circe on their way back from the Black Sea where Jason was looking for that dazzling piece of finery we call The Golden Fleece. Medea worked all kinds of magic for the man she loved. She started killing people for his benefit quite early in their relationship. They stopped off to see Circe who purified them after they killed her brother. They washed up & got on their way. Later, Jason left Medea for a rich (and much younger) princess—so, Medea killed her in a very fiery, burning-flesh kind of way, and then hung up her little ones to dry, so to speak! She knew this would destroy Jason’s spirit! But that is a whole other story that I’d love to get into here, but hope that you will do a little research on your own and find out why Medea is not just famous, but infamous!
And, as usual, I get away from myself. So here is the powerful Circe, who actually does no harm whatsoever to our hero and his companions. And indeed, makes them all taller and more handsome than before. Oh yes, and younger.
Extra credit and a post here on the website to anyone who can paint, draw, or locate a fabulous image of Calypso. I have looked far & wide, but only found this one that just doesn’t do it for me. What fun you could have doing all the details of her magical garden. Or maybe someone could Photoshop this one & put some clothes on her!
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Of course, the favorite scene of kids everywhere and throughout the ages, I am sure. Polyphemus the cyclops, one-eyed son of Poseidon, eater of random strays & those washed ashore. Sheep-herder, island-dweller, boulder-thrower, non-drinker but open to it—and lover of Galatea, who did not love him. : (
I have a fondness for this guy. He really was just minding his own business, taking care of his sheep, hanging out in his man-cave. I think it is his role as “shepherd” that always made me feel such affection. Â After getting him juiced up, clever Odysseus literally sticks it to him.
What happens to his animals? I’ve always wondered and worried about them….
Find out how the poor monster responds to our hero in today’s podcast. Enjoy!
Today you meet Nausicaa, “of the white-arms”. One of my favorites. Referred to as “discreet”, you can see why. This young princess is down by the seashore playing ball & washing clothes, when her handmaids find a naked man washed up on the shore! Yikes! Her ladies try to stop her from going down to see what all the ruckus was about, but she insists—because she is Nausicaa, who knows her own mind. She treats him like any other stranger they might meet along the road, is absolutely unruffled and unmoved, and gets him a tunic & some refreshments from their mule cart. What a queen she will be!
In fact, it is known that Sophocles wrote a play about her. But, alas, as so many things from the ancient world, it is lost…..
I love Homer’s passages about this girl. This one in particular, when Odysseus first sees her and cannot tell whether she is mortal or goddess:Â “I have never with these eyes seen anything like you, neither man nor woman. Wonder takes me as I look on you. Yet in Delos once I saw such a thing, by Apollo’s altar. I saw the stalk of a young palm shooting up…And as, when I looked upon that tree, my heart admired it long, since such a tree had never yet sprung from the earth, so now, lady, I admire you and wonder, and am terribly afraid to clasp you by the knees.” From Richmond Lattimore’s translation.
Aaahhh, Penelope….. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Odysseus’s wife is one of the most memorable female characters in all of ancient story. This was one patient lass—she waited twenty years for her husband to return to her! Now that is faith. Penelope was hounded by suitors for years. Everyone was quite sure that Odysseus had been killed in the battle at Troy and that his lovely wife should take a new husband. Lone women surely can’t take care of themselves—and of course, she had all that property—a kingdom! Let’s get her married off to someone new. To keep these rascals at bay, she said she’d take a new husband when she finished weaving this burial shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes (no relation to Ophelia’s bro). Clever lass that she was, she’d weave by day and when the drunken suitors would nod off, she’d unravel at night. Dumb guys! You can see why Odysseus would choose her for a mate.
Here is John William Waterhouse’s painting of Penelope. Â Waterhouse was at the tail-end of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting, which focused on themes from the classical and Arthurian world….and some Shakespeare stuff, too. Edwardian. Victorian. You may know his painting of Proserpina (Persephone to the Greeks) with the pomegranate. Lots of rich details, deep colors, and dolorous looks! Fabulous!
Diomedes was one of the most revered heroes of the ancient world. Though we don’t hear much about him nowadays, he had as many adventures as Achilles and Odysseus! He is quite overshadowed by those other characters. But a huge chunk of The Iliad is devoted to his “aristeia”, or glory day on the battlefield, during which, he wounds Aphrodite, goddess of love.
This dramatic painting is by Arthur Heinrich Wilhelm Fitger and shows the mad chaos of Aphrodite’s desperate move to save her wounded son, Aeneas. And if you are a good student of the ancient world, you know that, yes, of course she saves him. Virgil’s Aeneid is the tale of Aeneas’s trials and tribulations after the Trojan War. Stay with me and you will hear my version of The Aeneid, soon to come as a podcast.
Like most writers, I am a fiend for books and paper, and find it difficult to keep up with it all.  So today, I organized my work space for maximum efficiency and came across a slip of paper with this note written in my handwriting: “Epipole of Carystos, daughter of Trachion…wanted to go to Troy with the Greeks—was stoned to death.” Just something I ran across in my research that I wanted to know more about. There are so many tales related to The Iliad, that study of the cycle of stories could easily take over one’s life. In the editorial process, some great tales I’d written up never made it into the book I did for Scholastic. Here is one of them, a very sad tale of the young newlyweds, Laodamia and Protestilaus.
Laodamia was the new wife of Protestilaus, a Greek warrior sent to fight at Troy. It was prophesied that the first soldier to step foot on Trojan soil would be the first to die. Protestilaus, seeing great honor in being the first to die for the cause, leaped from ship to shore and was slain immediately by Hector. Laodamia had only been married to him for one day. She so mourned her loss that the gods took pity on her and allowed her to see him for three hours before he proceeded to the Underworld. When she saw him, she fell into his arms, plunged a dagger through her heart, and accompanied him to Hades.
Enjoy today’s podcast. We finish up The Iliad next Monday and then begin on The Odyssey!
Here’s Hollywood’s take on the story! Eeekkk! These ancient tales! Divine parentage, abandonment, exposure, feral children!
