The idea for Eidolon came to me on January 20, 2015. It was the day when Nature published an article by Vito Mocella and his collaborators claiming that the Herculaneum papyri could be read by using X-ray phase-contrast tomography. I was thrilled by the discovery, but also pleasantly surprised to discover that most of the article was comprehensible to a non-scientist. It made me wonder: why are there no public-facing Classics journals?

In the days and weeks following, the vision for Eidolon evolved somewhat — but so did my reaction to the news about the Herculaneum papyri. I began to worry about that initial enthusiasm. What was it, really, that I was so excited about? Obviously, it remained incredibly impressive that the scientists had developed technology that could read carbonized papyrus scrolls — but where did our interest in the content of the papyri come from? Did we truly believe that we were likely to recover tremendously valuable lost works of ancient literature?

Different classicists would give different answers to the question “Why study Classics?” Some interesting answers have even appeared in the Eidolon’s articles. The most common answers across the discipline might have to do with the foundationality of ancient Greece and Rome to Western civilization. But even if we leave aside for a moment the question of whether Western civilization is over-studied relative to the rest of the world, one cannot escape the fact that these papyri don’t contain texts that influenced the development European culture. They contain lost texts that haven’t been read in millennia.

The fact is, the papyri were fascinating because they came from Herculaneum, and the history and literature of ancient Greece and Rome have tremendous cultural capital. If you choose to study Classics professionally — or even if you’re just interested in an amateur way — you must acknowledge that the topics we study hold an outsized, perhaps even undeserved, place in our society’s collective imagination. This recognition does not undermine the discipline or confirm its irrelevancy. Instead, it allows for new platforms like Eidolon that creatively and thoughtfully explore the fascinating and troubled place of classical literature and civilization in the 21st century.

Although I think the cultural capital held by the classics should always be questioned and interrogated, right now I’m glad for it. In June, Eidolon was able to publish several exciting articles by classicists dealing with some of the most important and challenging questions of the day, including the riots in Baltimore, gay marriage, and violence against transgender individuals.

Eidolon published nine articles this month:
Michael Fontaine examined the evidence for gay marriage in ancient Rome and concluded that it didn’t exist in a way that would make for a meaningful comparison with American gay marriage in Straight Talk About Gay Marriage in Ancient Rome
Jason Nethercut shared how ancient texts have shown his students that faith and science need not always be irreconcilable in Credo ut intelligam
Dan-el Padilla Peralta explored why the Sword of Damocles myth has proven so attractive and creatively inspiring to hip-hop artists in From Damocles to Socrates
Patrick Shutt argued that social media makes all the difference when it comes to limiting the elite bias of riot narratives in Cry ‘Havoc’
H. Christian Blood showed that, long before #CallMeCaitlyn, Apuleius depicted a community of ancient trans women and the violence against them in Apuleius’ Book of Trans Formations
Mali Skotheim shared her rewarding experience of teaching classical texts in prison in Classics Through Bars
Helen Morales decried the misappropriation of Hippocrates to support bad nutrition science that leads to discrimination against overweight people in Fat Classics
Zachary Herz looked into the Supreme Court’s puzzling and historically problematic references to homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome in various legal cases in Law v. History
Emily Rutherford gave an historian’s perspective on how elite 18th and 19th century British men appealed to the classical past for models of homosexual relationships in Hellenism and the History of Homosexuality

The very topical and current nature of these articles is part of what makes Eidolon unique as a Classics journal. But merely being timely isn’t enough. These pieces interrogate the ability of classical wisdom to understand the problems facing us today. They challenge us to be thoughtful in comparing the modern world to the ancient one. Most of all, they use the often-unquestioned cultural authority of the classics to explore meaningfully the challenges faced by oppressed groups: the opposite of the dead white men we spend most of our time studying.

The articles that are upcoming in July will comprise a similar mixture of the timely and evergreen topics, from a comparison of the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman with that of the Aeneid to a travel essay about visiting Romania to explore modern-day Tomis. Additionally, Eidolon will now be publishing book and movie reviews. Anybody interested in reviewing a book, play, or movie for Eidolon should send a pitch to eidolon@paideia-institute.org. As with all submissions, Eidolon pays for reviews.

Thank you for reading!

Donna Zuckerberg received her PhD in Classics from Princeton in 2014. She is the founding editor of Eidolon and teaches Greek drama at Stanford Continuing Studies and online for the Paideia Institute. Read more of her work here.