Music was enormously important to the ancient world, just as in the modern. It conveyed emotions and told stories, and sometimes those stories undercut the narratives of the powerful. So, while Homer praised the battle prowess of Swift-footed Achilles, hero of the Iliad, he also poignantly detailed the lamentation of Briseis, Achilles’ war prize, and the other captive women (19.287-302). While ostensibly mourning Patroklos who’d been kind to them, the women are described as remembering their own sorrows. With these few words, Homer tells us it allowed them to cry for their dead: Lost husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. Bettina Joy de Guzman will show how Briseis’s lament from the Iliad, and Aeschylus's Suppliants gives a voice to those whom war enslaved and tried to leave voiceless.
 
The theme of war and loss, and the instinct to survive and thrive, are as relevant in Ancient Greek epics, tragedies, and hymns, as they are today.

This event is presented by the UNO Ancient Mediterranean Studies program and co-sponsored by the UNO Departments of Art History, English, History, Music, and Religious Studies.

Join Bettina Joy de Guzman for her concert the following evening (April 19 at 7pm): https://events.unomaha.edu/event/hearing_ancient_greece_bettina_joy_de_guzman_in_concert