The financial crisis facing modern Greece is grabbing daily headlines. At the same time, ancient Greece is also captivating our attention. Juliette Binoche is Antigone; Helen McCrory has been Medea.
The Almeida Theatre in London started its ancient Greece season with an event titled “Why Greeks Matter.” The Greeks are the stars of the current British Museum exhibition Defining Beauty. To top it all, the team behind the phenomenally successful “Hunger Games” franchise has announced the fast tracking of an epic film version of Homer’s “Odyssey.” What’s got stars, theater, TV, filmmakers, and the public so excited about ancient Greek drama and epic all of a sudden?
I’m an academic specializing in ancient Greece and Rome, so I’m fully supportive of this renewed interest in the extraordinary outpourings of this ancient Mediterranean culture. But I am, at the same time, intrigued by why ancient Greece is now on everyone’s lips. One simple answer might be that it is thanks to the financial dilemmas facing modern Greece, meaning that the country is all too obviously in the full glare of world interest. But I think our current turn toward ancient Greece touches on an even more fundamental nerve in modern society.
