The Achilles’ Reel Team: London: Jeju: Candice Chen Cindy Kim Celine Markantonis June Hyun Kia Popat Jay Joh Shivanti Sugmar Yaejin Son Luxmi Thayaparan Sherry Yuan - Editor Raina Uppal - Editor The Story of Achilles’ Heel Luxmi Thayaparan Long, long ago, a beautiful young maiden lived amongst the streams and forests in the Greek mountains. She loved nothing more than to dance and sing. Her name was Thetis. One day, Thetis gave birth to a baby boy. His father was Peleus, King of the Myrmidons. Thetis called her son Achilles. Her love for the baby was so deep that she tried to make him immortal. Holding the child by his ankle she submerged him in the magical waters of the river Styx. The years passed and Achilles grew into a strong and passionate young man. He became a warrior and was involved in many bloody battles. The deaths of his closest friends and companions enraged Achilles and he fought his enemies so furiously that the river god Scamander complained. The waters of the river were choked with the bodies of all the men Achilles had slaughtered. Achilles himself seemed invincible in battle. One calm summer day Achilles fell in love with a beautiful princess called Polyxena. The couple had a secret weeding but Paris, a jealous enemy of Achilles, spied on them. Taking his bow, Paris shot Achilles. The arrow pierced the only vulnerable part of Achilles’ body, the only part which had not been protected by the magical waters of the river Styx: his heel. The arrow found his only weak spot. Achilles was mortally wounded. He was struck down and died. 2 Achilles’ Reel Contents The Story of Achilles’ Heel ………………………………………………………………………………………………………(2) The Classics Trip to Greece ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..(4) Cyclopes in Greek Mythology ………………………………………………………………………………………………….(5) The Foot Race of Atalanta and Her Previous Life …………………………………………………………………….(6) Gold and Silver Axe (Korean, English and Latin) ………………………………………………………………………(8) Daedalus and Icarus Comic ……………………………………………………………………………………………………(10) Latin Insults & Spells ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..(11) Why study Classics? Interviews with the Classics teachers ……………………………………………………(12) The Myth of Prometheus ………………………………………………………………………………………………………(14) The Cryptic Myth Anagram ……………………………………………………………………………………………………(15) 3 The Classics Trip to Celebrating Diwali on the beach in Tolon Greece Raina Uppal During the half-term, I went on the Classics trip to Greece with thirty other girls and Mr Linscott, Ms Sams, Dr Park and Mrs Hedges. It was a fantastic trip, both fun and educational. The main focus was visiting the famous archaeological sites, such as Delphi, where Parthenon Museum, but we did not see the the Oracle used to inhale volcanic fumes and real Parthenon marbles because they are in prophesise. To consult the oracle, people the British Museum. We had a heated would purify themselves in the spring debate about whether the British Museum outside the sanctuary, sacrifice a goat and should return the Parthenon Marbles to hand in a question on a lead tablet. The Greece. ( I think the Britain will make Greece answers were sometimes very confusing. ‘lose its marbles’…) Croesus of Lydia was told that by waging war on Persia he would destroy a great empire. Corinth was also really interesting and I was He did: his own! particularly intrigued by the gory clay sculptures of brains and swollen legs, which We also went to Olympia, where in 776 BC, the ancient Greeks used for diagnosis and the first Olympic Games were held. They surgery. What surprised me most about happened every four years in honour of Corinth is that none of the columns are Zeus. In the ancient times, the Olympic Corinthian – all of them are of the Doric sports were much more limited. Athletes order. In fact, Corinthian columns were only competed in running, boxing, discus designed three hundred years later. throwing, equestrian events or pankration, a very violent version of wrestling, that In addition to these very famous sites, we sometimes ended in death because there also went to Tolo, next to the sea. We went were no rules whatsoever. We were very down to the beach for paddling in the waves excited to be in this well-preserved ancient and for a Diwali celebration. We even visited city. Many of us even ran our own race down settlements more ancient than the ancient a quarter of the track. Greeks, for example Mycenae, which contains tablets written in Linear A and Another highlight was going to the Linear B. Parthenon in the Acropolis (‘high city’), dedicated to Athena. After seeing the I would recommend this trip to everyone breathtaking site, we went to the New who wants to discover the Classical world. 4 Cyclopes in Greek Mythology Celine Markantonis Acis. Polyphemus was angry and so killed Acis by throwing him off a rock. Acis’ blood, which flowed from his body as he died, made Cyclopes were single-eyed monster giants, a stream which still is called ‘Acis’ today. In lawless creatures who feared the Gods. The Homer’s poem, Odysseus arrived on the word Cyclopes actually means, ‘round eye,’ island in his voyage to return home to Ithaca as they had a single rounded eye. It was after the Trojan war. He found a cave and led thought that they were the sons of Gaea and his men in, not knowing that this was in fact Uranus and the workmen of Hephaestus, the cave of Polyphemus. The Cyclops, when working in the heart of the volcanic he returned, sealed the cave door and mountain Etna. However in Homer’s famous subsequently ate a few of the men. epic poetry, the Odyssey, the Cyclops, Odysseus managed to trick Polyphemus into Polyphemus, was a son of the God Poseidon drinking his wine and telling Polyphemus instead of Gaea. In his version, Homer that his name was ‘no-one’. describes the Cyclopes as shepherds living in Sicily who ate humans and lived in caves. Once the Cyclops was asleep, the men stabbed him in the eye with a giant wooden The most famous Cyclops, Polyphemus, was stake. When Polyphemus told the other a monster who ate men. The story goes that giants that he had been attacked, he he fell in love with a nymph called Galatea couldn’t say by who as he was only able to who rejected him for another, a man named say, “no one blinded me!” “Nobody, my friends, is trying to kill me by violence or treachery.” Candice Chen 5 The Foot Race of Atalanta and Her Previous Life June Hyun and when they instead found Atalanta alone in the cave while the she-bear was out, they kidnapped her and sent her back to the village. She learnt there how to speak and live humanely, but her nature still remained. Her stare could make any seasoned warrior step back, and by fourteen she could shoot an arrow and wield a knife better than anyone else in the village. At the age of sixteen, people started to try to make her marry. She ran away into the woods. Having murdered a man, she did not want to hurt anyone else. There, she lived in a cave halfway up a mountain, and nobody was her neighbour except for centaurs, who knew better than Atalanta was a Greek heroine and the anyone how to get close to her. However, princess of Arcadia. She was a fierce hunter, one day two young drunken centaurs named equal to any Greek hunters and heroes, and Rhoikos and Hylaios planned to kidnap surely must have had greater skills than Atalanta and force her to marry them. When them. This is why her name is Atalanta, they tried to, she shot an arrow through meaning in Greek ‘equal in weight’. Rhoikos’ forehead and Hylaios’ heart. That was when her reputation began to spread, Her father was Iasus, king of Arcadia. Like and over all Greece there was a rumour most Greek kings, he wanted a son to about a female hunter with blonde hair, who continue his dynasty, but his first child ran faster than the wind and shot with turned out to be a female. He was not happy, deadly accuracy. Some people thought she and took the procedure most Greek kings was the goddess Artemis in human form. As would take, of abandoning his child on a a result, one day, a man called Meleager mountain top. Baby Atalanta must have sought her help to kill a giant boar named cried and brawled for so long that finally a the Calydonian Boar. This had been sent by she-bear came to see what was happening, Artemis as a curse on the kingdom of and when the bear saw the girl in a pitiful Calydon, since the king there, named state she took her to her cave and acted as Oeneus, had not made a sacrifice to Artemis. Atalanta’s mother. Atalanta grew up there for few years and learnt the natural ways of Fierce Atalanta drew the first blood in the living and how to be fierce like a bear. She hunt for the boar. Even though she wanted feared nothing except human hunters. One to go back to the wilderness, as had day, two hunters came to hunt some bears, Meleager died from a quarrel in the family, 6 the boar incident made her more famous. she stopped to look at them. Hippomenes News of it eventually reached King Iasus, crossed the finish line first. causing him to decide to bring his daughter back home. They both knew that they were That night they married, and they were both from the same family, because they went to very happy. After a year together, they had a an oracle about the same time.