HeroesX | Hour 07 Episode 09: Sēma as Focus — Comparing the Two Hydriai

Gregory Nagy and Claudia Filos compare Images A1 and B1 directly, tracing how the same set of elements, the sēma of Patroklos, the psūkhē, the chariot, the female mourning figure, appear in both paintings but with the compositional focus shifted. In A1 the sēma sits at center stage; in B1 it moves to the side, and the hovering figure of Iris, the divine messenger descending from Olympus, takes the center. Nagy reads Iris' gesture and dance-step pose as a choreography of mourning expressing eleos, pity, directed at the old couple in the portico, who are identified as Priam and Hekuba. The episode then becomes a meditation on sēma itself: Filos observes that in both the verbal and visual arts, the sēma functions as an act of focusing, making you concentrate on what matters while shading over what doesn't, and Nagy extends this to note that the two paintings are not derivative from one another but simply different concentrations on the same heroic continuum. TIMESTAMPS 00:03 Comparing B1 and A1: same elements, different focus 01:06 Iris at center in B1: the goddess of mourning's message 01:25 Mourning, lament, and the Greek words akhos and penthos 02:29 Iris directing her gesture of pity toward the old couple in the portico 03:34 Achilles pivoting his head: a break in his hatred 04:47 Filos: what is the relationship between focus and sēma as sign and meaning? 05:05 Nestor's sēma in Text A revisited: signal, turning post, and tomb as one 05:51 Sēma as an act of focusing and concentrating 06:09 A1 concentrates on the sēma; B1 shifts the concentration elsewhere 06:43 The two paintings as different views of the same heroic continuum ABOUT THIS SERIES HeroesX, also known as The Ancient Greek Hero, is an open-access learning project created by Professor Gregory Nagy and first launched in 2013. It grew out of Harvard's longest-running course, "The Ancient Greek Hero," which Nagy has taught for over fifty years. Since the project's launch, more than 172,000 participants from over 170 countries have joined. It invites everyone, with or without prior experience, to read closely from some of the most beautiful works of ancient Greek literature in English translation: the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, songs of Sappho and Pindar, dialogues of Plato, and selections from On Heroes by Philostratus. Throughout the project, Nagy and his team model techniques for reading out of these works inductively, so that learners can begin to see this literature as an exquisite system of communication. It is not a graded course. It is content, community, and conversation that many participants describe as transformative. ABOUT THE NEW ALEXANDRIA FOUNDATION For more than a decade, HeroesX has welcomed learners from around the world, and it now finds a new home at the New Alexandria Foundation, which expands access to the comparative study of civilizations, ancient and modern. Through technology and community, we foster living humanistic dialogues, open to all and enduring across generations. The full HeroesX video library lives on this YouTube channel, and NAF shares the surrounding content, including primary readings, exercises, and resources, to support your reading. 🌐 https://newalexandriafoundation.org/ RESOURCES 🏛️ HeroesX home on Classical Continuum: https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/her... 📘 Read Gregory Nagy's book, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours, free online with illustrations: https://chs.harvard.edu/book/nagy-gre... 📚 Read or download the Sourcebook online (English translations of all the texts discussed in the book and in HeroesX): https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/the... ✉️ Be the first to hear about HeroesX developments and join an upcoming cohort: https://mailchi.mp/9a41aac39c45/6cnmu... ❤️ Love this work? Help keep HeroesX free and growing with a gift to the New Alexandria Foundation: https://newalexandriafoundation.org/d... #AncientGreek #HeroesX #GregoryNagy #Homer #Iliad #Odyssey #GreekMythology #ClassicalLiterature #Humanities #NewAlexandriaFoundation