Clio (Hendrik Goltzius) Clio (Hendrik Goltzius) Hendrik Goltzius' engraving of Clio is the fourth in his series on the nine Muses, and was executed in 1592. The engraving depicts the Greek muse of history seated, holding a pen in her right hand and a tablet and inkwell in her left, with two books at her feet. She is drawn, wrote historian Natalie Zemon Davis, "with a faint smile, perhaps ironic, certainly detached. From this picture, it is only a short step to some Renaissance representations of History as a winged woman writing, her white garb signifying that she bears witness to truth as
Ancient Greek Greek and in its latest form it approaches Medieval Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects. Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic,