Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology

Readers in ancient Greece didn’t curl up with only the weighty tomes of Homer, Plato, and Sophocles—they also enjoyed light entertainment such as novels, short stories, fantasies, jokes, and fortune-telling handbooks. In fact, some of this literature was so successful that it remained in circulation into the Middle Ages. Most of these selections are little known except to scholars, but all will prove an unexpected delight to readers everywhere.