The Weekly · Issue No. 8 · Sunday, 27 September 2026
Issue No. 8
This week's five run from three disputed pages of Shakespeare to Sherwood Forest, by way of Lysias writing speeches to win Athenian juries, and two readings of the women the Greeks wrote about: the Amazons, and Herodotus' queens.
We also published our first interview this week. Emily Miles talks to our editor Alec Grinter about Herodotus, Euripides and reading with bias: theastyanax.com/interviews
Submissions for our first print issue, The Astyanax Quarterly, close on 31 October, a month from today.
Hector Hallett, Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Literature · Essay
Sir Ian McKellen and “The Strangers’ Case”A semi-forgotten Elizabethan speech on refugees, kept alive by Ian McKellen. But is it really Shakespeare's, and does it matter?
Edward Clark
Literature · Essay
Robin Hood, Dante and Saint Augustine: Theology, Poetry and Folklore in Sherwood ForestCorrupt kings, jaded children and boisterous friars. How an old legend keeps company with Dante's Commedia and Augustine's City of God.
Alex Boyd
Classics · Essay
The Art of Persuasion: Characterisation and Narrative in Lysias’ Forensic OratoryAn analysis of Lysias' use of literary devices and use of character in his forensic speeches.
Emily Miles
Classics · Essay
Neither Woman Nor Man: The Deliberate Illegibility of the AmazonsHow the Greeks used the Amazons to test the boundaries of gender, from Homer and Herodotus to the scholars who kept insisting they were men.
Yoana Nikolova
Classics · Essay
The Women of Herodotus’ HistoriesHow Herodotus, a non-Athenian, portrays the women of his Histories.
Vlada Kampane