Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit. . .
– An Alternate View

Martha J. Payne (Ball State University, Indiana University)

With the words above, Horace (Epistles 2.1.156) remarked how Rome had become so entranced with Greek culture that it was as if Greece had captured Rome itself.  Certainly, the visual and verbal arts of Rome manifested the Greek influence.  One thinks of the Augusta of Prima Porta, modeled in part on the Doryphoros of Polykleitos, or the Aeneid of Vergil, modeled in part on the works of Homer.  With these points as a background, one ponders how ancient culture has faired having been 'captured' and interpreted by the popular culture of the modern United States.  While Roman students studied both the works of Vergil and those of Homer in their original languages, most modern students do not have that luxury.  As a result, they often assume that what they see of antiquity in movies and other media precisely reflects it.  Hence, one challenge for teachers of ancient culture, be it Latin, Greek, classical mythology, or ancient history, is to help students see how their own view of antiquity has been colored by popular culture.

In this talk, I will discuss aspects from Greek and Roman myth, and history, which many students may only understand from that modern popular cultural perspective.  These are myths and certain historical events interpreted in magazines and newspaper cartoons, as well as movies, the latter including selections from films such as Clash of the Titans and Disney Hercules among others.  I will also present methods I have used in a university-level classical mythology course to help students understand two points:  how the ancients presented these myths and events, and how the modern re-interpretations are not 'incorrect' versions but are rather re-workings in the tradition of the ancient mythmakers.