Notebooks

Classical era, Mediterranean

23 Oct 2022 13:39

I couldn't have been more than nine or ten when I started reading books about Greek mythology. At about the same age I first read Mary Renault's The Lion in the Gateway; the agonies that followed on the realization that one set of my ancestors were the Bactrians in Xerxes's army may easily be imagined. Add to this a mother educated at a pukka lyceo classico and high-school and college Latin (begun because, as the principal told me at the time, "It was thought you would do better in a language you didn't have to speak") and you have the makings of a life-long interest in dead Mediterranean languages with lots of declensions and their speakers.

Cf.: Alexander the Great; Ancient metallurgy; Ancient trade; Democracy; Empires and Imperialism; Epicureanism; the Etruscans; Import of Eastern religions to Europe; Ionia; the Late Bronze Age Collapse; Lucian of Samosata; Lucretius; Myths; Phoenicians; Plato; Karl Popper; Proto-industrialism; Reception and Appropriations of Classical Culture; Republics; Rome. Probably others, too.


Notebooks: