To faithful friends who read the first draft of the manuscript—Susan Cahill, John E. Becker, William J. Cassidy III, Michael D. Coogan, Gary B. Ostrower, Burton Visotzky, Jane G. White, and Robert J. White—I am most grateful, for I owe them much by way of corrections large and small, though what errors remain are mine alone. As the series has progressed, these stalwarts have come to form a kind of familiar repertory theater of critics: there is the one who demands clarity beyond my ability to provide it, the one who manages to cite historical exceptions that overturn my best generalizations, the one who provides punch lines I never thought of, the ones—all of them—whose learning is deeper and broader than I could ever hope to match. For this volume, Bob White, a friend of nearly fifty years, was especially invaluable. In addition to his editorial fine-tooth comb, he is responsible for the pages on the Greek alphabet, the Pronouncing Glossary, and the Chronology.
I am grateful as well to so many at Doubleday for their unflagging enthusiasm and support: Nan A. Talese above all, but also Katherine Trager, Stephen Rubin, Michael Palgon, Jacqueline Everly, John Pitts, Nicole Dewey, Lorna Owen, Judy Jacoby, Rex Bonomelli, Kim Cacho, Marysarah Quinn, Terry Karydes, Rebecca Holland, Sean Mills, Amy de Rouvray, and the entire, never-to-be-underestimated sales force (as well as freelancers Kathy Kikkert, Barbara Flanagan, Chris Carruth, Deborah Bull, and Jennifer Sanfilippo). The supportive team at Anchor—Martin Asher, Anne Messitte, LuAnn Walther, and Jennifer Marshall—is similarly deserving of praise. This time special thanks is owed to CEO Peter Olson, more bellicose than I—at least in his reading—without whose recommendation I might have missed the work of Victor Davis Hanson. Nor can I omit recalling my perennial gratitude to my literary agent, Lynn Nesbit, and her able colleagues Bennett Ashley and Cullen Stanley, to my assistant Diane Marcus, and to Andrea Ginsky, research librarian of the Selby Public Library in Sarasota, Florida.
Modern Greeks and Greek Americans join hands with their ancient ancestors in the immense value they assign to the pleasures of good conversation. For conversations full of intimate insight, I must thank Athenian friends—Makis Dedes, Despina Gabriel, Nikos Megapanos, Lykourgos V. Papayannopoulos, Takis Theodoropoulos, and Louisa Zaoussi—as well as Olympia Dukakis in New York, and Tedoro and Hera on the great isle of Lesbos.
The author has endeavored to credit all known persons holding copyright or reproduction rights for passages quoted and for illustrations reproduced in this book, especially:
Harcourt, Inc., for the passage from “Ithaca” in Before Time Could Change Them by C. P. Cavafy, English translation copyright © 2001 by Theoharis C. Theoharis; and for passages from The Metamorphoses of Ovid: A New Verse Translation, English translation copyright © 1993 by Allen Mandelbaum.
Harold Matson Co., Inc., for the passage from “The Hag of Beare” in The Book of Irish Verse, English translation copyright © 1974 by John Montague.
Nick Hern Books for the passage from Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish’s translation of Medea by Euripides, copyright © 1994 by Kenneth McLeish and Volatic Ltd.
Oxford University Press for the passages from Plato: Republic, copyright © 1993 by Robin Waterfield, and Plato: Symposium, English translation copyright © 1994 by Robin Waterfield.
Random House, Inc., for “The Wanderer” from Collected Poems by W. H. Auden, copyright © 1930 by W. H. Auden.
Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, for the passage from “Sailing to Byzantium” in The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume I: The Poems, Revised, edited by Richard J. Finneran; copyright © 1928 by The Macmillan Company; copyright renewed © 1956 by Georgie Yeats.
University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, for the passages from Hesiod’s Theogony, English translation copyright © 1959 by Richmond Lattimore.
Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., for the passages from The Iliad, by Homer English translation copyright © 1990 by Robert Fagles, and The Odyssey by Homer, English translation copyright © 1996 by Robert Fagles; for the passage from Agamemnon in Aeschylus: The Oresteia, English translation copyright © 1966, 1967, 1975 by Robert Fagles; and for the passages from Oedipus the King in Sophocles: The Three Theban Plays, English translation copyright © 1982 by Robert Fagles.