Ad Navseam Episode 231: Fog, Fountains, and the Arrow of Eros
Welcome, classical gourmands, to episode 231 of the Ad Navseam podcast! Prepare to get your fill with another delectable discussion of Greco-Roman civilization, stretching from the ancient Minoans and Mycenaeans through the Renaissance and right down to the present.
Broadcasting from the bunker on the grassy slopes of Mount Parnassus, Dr. David C. Noe welcomes his more-than-passable co-host, Dr. Jeffrey T. Winkle. This episode is a do-over: the first take was full of snaps, pops, buzzles, and cracklies, and sound engineer Mishka ruled it below Ad Navseam standards. (Sounding stupid with nothing important to say was never the problem; they have done that 230 times.) Only one other recording has ever been scrapped: their interview with Dr. Michael Fontaine on how to tell a joke, an episode that didn’t so much drop as shatter.
Plato’s Progress and a Death in Florence
Dave is reading Gilbert Ryle’s Plato’s Progress, which attacks the idea that Plato faithfully represents Socrates’ own thought. Past page 200, Dave is not yet persuaded. Jeff is reading Paul Strathern’s Death in Florence, on the clash between the Medici and Savonarola. While Savonarola tried to preach Florence back to a simple, pre-Constantinian Christianity, Ficino and Pico della Mirandola ran the other way, toward esoteric Platonism and even Kabbalah. Dave notes that Theodore Beza includes Savonarola near the start of his epigrams on those who contributed to reform, a stretch for a man who saw himself as a prophet. During the Bonfire of the Vanities, Botticelli may even have sacrificed one of his own paintings, though the master of the Neoplatonic Birth of Venus could console himself that his worst work beat most painters’ best.
The State of the Onion
Dave has been practicing Roman suasoriae and controversiae, arguing in utramque partem, on a suitably bland subject. Garlic’s standing in the polls will carry him through November, then yams, then a December survey of the carrot landscape. In January comes the grand set piece: the State of the Onion. Jeff asks whether the long runway was worth it, and Dave invokes the spirit of Norm Macdonald’s moth joke.
A Corrigendum from Tom Flynn
Listener Tom Flynn forswore pointless pedantry, then perjured himself (the hosts insist all pedantry is pointful). In the “Amycus Brief” episode, Jeff called Homer not very folktale-y, and Dave hastily agreed. Tom points out that Denys Page opens The Homeric Odyssey by calling its story a popular folktale, and argues that some of Odysseus’ adventures once belonged to a Jason poem. Jeff concedes, though he meant tone rather than Page’s strict literary definition. The hosts offer Tom a qualified, and grateful, thanks. As for the commenter who asked when the actual content begins: if you came for the humanities but won’t stay for the inanities, that’s on you.
Purple Prose for a Princess
Jeff reads from George W. Mooney’s commentary, which finds Apollonius weak on character except for one figure: Medea, on whom the poet “lavished all his colors.” When Mooney calls her passionate “with the passionateness of the East,” the hosts doubt anyone could publish that today, though it echoes an old Greek stereotype; Herodotus has the Persians fighting in their pajamas. Medea finally takes the stage in Book 3, and Dave wonders whether Apollonius’ audience knew she would steal the show; his friend Dr. Samuel J. Huskey of the University of Oklahoma, who wrote his dissertation on Apollonius, may know. Jeff thinks Apollonius takes his cue from Euripides. The Waterhouse painting on the cover of the Hackett translation captures her mix of passion, terror, and hesitation.
Hera’s Fog and the Palace of Aeëtes
Dave reads Book 3, lines 210 to 214, in Greek. Hera wraps Colchis in mist so the heroes reach the palace unseen. Inside are four fountains by Hephaestus, flowing with milk, wine, fragrant oil, and water that runs warm or ice-cold with the Pleiades. The hosts liken it to a $4,500 refrigerator dispenser, with a detour into the “dirty soda” craze.
The protective fog recalls Athena and Odysseus and Venus cloaking Aeneas in Aeneid 1.411–414, which Dave reads in Latin and Jeff in A. S. Klein’s translation. Every academic, the hosts agree, has wished for “cloak mode” in the hallway. Aeëtes’ palace echoes the Phaeacians’, though the hosts picture something closer to 1977: a disco ball, shag carpet, and a rumpus room with a built-in bar. Like the Shield of Achilles, the palace is an ekphrasis, a poet’s showpiece, and Jeff finds Apollonius at his best when he slows down to describe.
A Surprise Reunion in Colchis
We meet Apsyrtus, Aeëtes’ son by a nymph of the Caucasus (a region, the hosts clarify, not a complexion) and so only Medea’s half-brother. Medea, a priestess of Hecate, is wandering the palace in search of her sister Chalciope, whom Hera has kept indoors. When Medea sees the strangers, she screams. It sounds ominous, but for now it is surprise: Chalciope’s sons, the sons of Phrixus, have come home with the Argonauts after a shipwreck on the island of Ares. Soon Aeëtes and Queen Eidyia arrive, and the palace bustles like Carthage in Aeneid 1.
Love the Destroyer: Eros Takes His Shot
Eros slips in through the mist, compared to a gadfly stinging cattle, which is no good omen for love. This is no chubby Valentine’s Cupid but a primordial, destructive fire. Standing beside Jason, he shoots Medea, perhaps to implicate Jason, and leaves laughing as her soul dissolves into a pool of sweet pain.
Jeff wishes we had seen Medea before the arrow: was she headed to Stanford for physics and listening to Air Supply? Dave notes that in Roman love poetry the man usually suffers, as in Catullus’ odi et amo, so Apollonius turns the convention on its head. Jeff reads the simile of a poor wool-spinner whose small morning fire flares up and consumes the whole pile of twigs. Jeff sees an innocent girl transformed, but Dave doubts that a little love and sorcery explain the horrors to come.
Argus’ Ask
After baths and a banquet, Aeëtes questions his grandsons, with a not-so-humble brag about riding in Helios’ chariot. Argus then makes Jason’s case for the milquetoast hero: the finest heroes of Achaea have come for the fleece. Would Jeff hand over his own golden fleece, his Taylor guitar, to a stranger? Not likely: it’s the first thing he would save from a fire once the living creatures (houseplants excluded) were out. Neither will Aeëtes. But that’s for another episode.
Sponsors and Support
- Hackett Publishing: Not Jacket, not Crack-It, and certainly not Snackett Publishing. For 55 years, Hackett has offered affordable volumes in the classics, philosophy, religious studies, and more, plus Smyth-sewn Signature Editions. Visit hackettpublishing.com and use code AN2026 for 25% off your entire order.
- Ratio Coffee: The Ratio Four brews 5 to 20 ounces of pour-over in about four minutes, with a hand-blown glass carafe and a five-year warranty. Tom’s Guide names it the best coffee maker of 2026 for enthusiasts. Head to ratiocoffee.com/adnavseam and use code ANRATIO2026 for $20 off.
Win a Ratio Four! Go to adnavseam.com, click Giveaway, and enter your name, your email, and the secret code word announced in this episode. A runner-up will receive a QVAE NOCENT DOCENT tee. Entries close December 31, and the drawing is January 1, 2027 (extended from the original December 11 date).
To learn Latin or Greek, visit the newly redesigned latinperdiem.com and use code 10PLUS for 10% off, including MossMethod for Greek. Dr. Noe’s apps, Calvin’s Latin Bible and MossMethod, are on the Apple App Store and Google Play, and Loqvax, for speaking Latin, is on the way.
Credits & Gustatory Parting Shot
Thanks to sound engineer Mishka and to guitarist Jeff Scheetz (jeffscheetz.com) for Thrill Seeker and Rush Hour. Send ideas, complaints, and corrigenda to dave@adnavseam.com or jeff@adnavseam.com (remember the ‘V’!). Next week brings one more Jason episode before a short break from the Argonautica.
We leave you with Martial 1.56 and Dave’s original translation:
Continuis vexata madet vindemia nimbis:
non potes, ut cupias, vendere, copo, merum.
Your vineyard soaked with constant rain and clouds in every sky
Won’t let you sell the unmixed wine, shopkeeper, though you try.
Thanks for listening, and we will catch you next week for Episode 232!