Classics: A Very Short Introduction

161 Pages·2000·2.85 MB·English

by  Mary Beard

Classics: A Very Short Introduction
‘This is no potted history of Greece and Rome, but a brilliant
demonstration that the continual re-excavation of our classical past is
vital if the modern world is to rise to the challenge inscribed on the
temple of Apollo at Delphi to “Know yourself”.’
Robin Osborne
‘the great old much-maligned subject of Classics wonderfully
re-invented for our times ... a splendid piece of work.’
Peter Wiseman
‘You could not find two better introducers to the Classics than Mary
Beard and John Henderson. They are questioning, funny, bold, and
widely read in many fields. They could not be dull if they tried.’
Philip Howard
Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating
and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have
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Very Short Introductions available from Oxford Paperbacks:
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY JUDAISM Norman Solomon
Julia Annas Jung Anthony Stevens
THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE THE KORAN Michael Cook
John Blair LITERARY THEORY
ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn Jonathan Culler
ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes LOGIC Graham Priest
Augustine Henry Chadwick MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner
THE BIBLE John Riches MARX Peter Singer
Buddha Michael Carrithers MEDIEVAL BRITAIN
BUDDHISM Damien Keown John Gillingham and
CLASSICS Mary Beard and Ralph A. Griffiths
John Henderson MUSIC Nicholas Cook
Continental Philosophy NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner
NINETEENTH-CENTURY
Simon Critchley
Darwin Jonathan Howard BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and
DESCARTES Tom Sorell H. C. G. Matthew
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY paul E. P. Sanders
BRITAIN Paul Langford POLITICS Kenneth Minogue
The European Union Psychology Gillian Butler and
Freda McManus
John Pinder
ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway
Freud Anthony Storr SOCIAL AND CULTURAL
Galileo Stillman Drake ANTHROPOLOGY
Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh John Monaghan and Peter Just
HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce
HINDUISM Kim Knott Socrates C. C. W. Taylor
HISTORY John H. Arnold STUART BRITAIN John Morrill
HUME A. J. Ayer THEOLOGY David F. Ford
Indian Philosophy THE TUDORS John Guy
Sue Hamilton TWENTIETH-CENTURY
Intelligence Ian Deary BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan
ISLAM Malise Ruthven Wittgenstein Anthony Grayling
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Mary Beard and John Henderson
Classics
A Very Short Introduction
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© Mary Beard and John Henderson 1995
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published as an Oxford University Press paperback 1995
Reissued 2000
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Beard, Mary.
A very short introduction to classics / Mary Beard and John
Henderson.
1. Classical literature – History and criticism. 2. Civilization,
Classical. I. Henderson, John, 1949– . II. Title.
PA3009.B4 1995 880′.09—dc20 95–18886
ISBN 0–19–285385–6
3579108642
Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed in Spain by Book Print S. L.
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
List of Maps x
1
The Visit 1
2
On Site 9
3
Being There 23
4
A Guide in Hand 36
5
Beneath the Surface 49
6
Grand Theories 60
7
The Art of Reconstruction 72
8
The Greatest Show on Earth 89
9
Imagine That 102
10
‘Et in Arcadia Ego’ 117
Outline of Bassae Frieze 128
Timelines 130
References 135
Further Reading 138
Index 143
List of Illustrations
1 Plan of the British Museum: 6 Excavation of the temple at
Classical Galleries and Bassae 14
Bassae Room 2 O. M. von Stackelberg, Der
Apollontempel zu Bassae in Arkadien
2 Interior of the temple at und die daselbst ausgegrabenen
Bassae after excavation 3 Bildwerke (Rome, 1826)
C. R. Cockerell, The Temples of Jupiter
7 The temple at Bassae,
Panhellenius at Aegina and of Apollo
before 1987 25
Epicurius at Bassae near Phigaleia in
Arcadia (London, 1860) Courtesy of the Museum of Classical
Archaeology, Cambridge
3 Portrait of Lord Byron by
8 The temple at Bassae, with
Thomas Philips, [1813] 10
its protective tent 27
Courtesy of the National Portrait
Gallery Courtesy of I. Jenkins
4 The house of the French 9 Edward Lear, The Temple of
consul (Fauvel) in Athens 11 Apollo at Bassae, 1854/5 35
L. Dupré, Voyage à Athènes et Courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Constantinople (Paris, 1825) Cambridge
5 Portrait of C. R. Cockerell by 10 Papyrus with verses by
J. A. D. Ingres, 1817 12 Cornelius Gallus 42
Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration
Society
11 Eleventh-century 18 Interior of the temple at
manuscript of Tacitus’ Bassae, reconstruction 78
Annals – beginning of C. R. Cockerell, The Temples of
Book XII 43 Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina and
of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae near
Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-
Phigaleia in Arcadia (London, 1860)
Laurenziana, MS Laur. 68.2, fol. 6v
19 Scheme of lyric metre 80
12 Masons’ and workmen’s
marks on the fabric of the
20 Bassae frieze, Apollo and
temple at Bassae 50
Artemis (BM 523) 81
Courtesy of the British Museum
13 Bronze slave-collar found
around the neck of a
21 Bassae frieze, Herakles and
skeleton in Rome 53
Amazon (BM 541) 82
Courtesy of the British Museum
14 Distribution map of cities
within the northern Roman 22 Poster for 1901 production
Empire 57 of the play Ben-Hur 110
From S. E. Alcock, Graecia Capta. Courtesy of the Wheeler Opera
The Landscapes of Roman Greece House
(Cambridge University Press, 1993)
after N. J. G. Pounds’s An Historical 23 Asterix the Gladiator 112
Geography of Europe, 450 BC–AD 1330
R. Goscinny and A. Uderzo, Asterix
(Cambridge University Press, 1973)
the Gladiator (Leicester, 1973). ©1995
by Les Éditions Albert René/
15 Critical apparatus 62
Goscinny-Uderzo
From D. L. Page, Aeschyli Tragoediae
(Oxford, 1972) 24 ‘And when I asked him the
supine stem of confiteor
16 Outline plan of temple at
the fool didn’t know’ 114
Bassae 73
G. Willans and R. Searle, Down with
Skool! (Pavillion Books, London,
17 Reconstruction of a
1958)
metope from the temple
of Bassae 75
25 ‘Kennedy and the 28 N. Poussin, The Arcadian
Gerund’ 115 Shepherds, 1638–40 120
G. Willans and R. Searle, How to be
Topp (Hodder and Stoughton, 29 Engraving of Reynolds’s
London, 1954) portrait of Mrs Bouverie
and Mrs Crewe 121
26 Memorial lines by
Courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Kennedy 115
Cambridge
B. H. Kennedy, The Revised Latin
Primer (Longman, London, 1962)
27 Quentin Blake, front cover
of E. Waugh, Brideshead
Revisited (Harmondsworth,
1951) 119
Courtesy of Mr Quentin Blake