Homer · the eighth century BC
Vergil, it is said, taught us to read, but Homer taught us to listen.
Dr. Dale Grote, from the Foreword to Wesley Callihan’s Iliad
The two poems at the beginning of Western literature. Read them in Wesley Callihan’s prose renderings, study them with him in Old Western Culture, and watch the first three lectures free.
His Iliad is based on the 1883 prose translation of Lang, Leaf and Myers, his Odyssey on Butcher and Lang’s of 1879, with the archaic diction taken out. In his words, he aimed for a reading “plain, rapid, and direct, but still noble.”
Prose rendering by Wesley Callihan · Foreword by Dr. Dale Grote
All twenty-four books in a plain, rapid prose rendering, with five maps, a drawing after Flaxman at the head of every book, and a long introduction for first-time readers.
Prose rendering by Wesley Callihan
All twenty-four books in a new prose rendering based on Butcher and Lang, with eight maps and plans, a drawing after Flaxman at the head of every book, and notes all through the text.
Prose rendering by Wesley Callihan · Foreword by Dr. Dale Grote
Six complete books of the Iliad, with short summaries of the other eighteen: the whole story, and Homer unabridged at its turning points. The recommended reading for the Essentials Schedule of Old Western Culture.
“They hear like Ocean on a western beach The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.”
PlayWes Callihan’s twelve lectures take the two poems in order: the backdrop of the Iliad, the anger of Achilleus, the turning points of the war, the deception of Zeus and the death of Hektor; then the Telemachy, the court of Alkinoös, Odysseus’s wanderings and his homecoming, and the legacy of Homer in Western civilization.
Twelve video lectures with Wesley Callihan, streaming in the Roman Roads app, with the Reader as an eBook, the workbook (PDF) and the exams.
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey in one volume, 820 pages, in Callihan’s prose. Paperback, or hardback $45.00.
Full color, 190 pages: the schedules, questions for every lesson, and Digressios on the art, music, maps and stories behind the poems.
The Epics with the dramatists and lyric poets, the historians and the philosophers: four units, 48 lectures.
Wesley Callihan has taught Homer since the early 1980s: first in evening classes for adults at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, then classics in translation at Logos School, then for twenty-five years online to high-school students through Schola Classical Tutorials. Since 2005 he has led tours to Greece and Turkey with Dr. Dale Grote, professor of classics at UNC Charlotte. He is the lecturer of Old Western Culture, Roman Roads’ great books curriculum.
