Notebooks

Classical era, Mediterranean

07 Oct 2024 10:59

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.


Notebooks: