‘Even mortal hands break a stone’: electoral promises and the epigraphic habit
May 3, 2015
[disclosure: the writer is a member of the Labour party; but here at Argonauts and Emperors we think of ourselves as the BBC of classical bloggery: Scrupulously Fair And Balanced] One feature of recent UK politics might be called ‘promise inflation’. Once there were pledges; during the referendum campaign in Scotland the promise made by …
We have two blog entries today, both from doctoral students in Classics: in the first, Peter Davies, reflects on the legacy of the poet Simonides’ words in commemorating the fallen…
November 11, 2014
After the battle of Thermopylae – immortalised by Herodotus and, in our own time, given new fame by Snyder’s epic 300 – the Lyric poet Simonides wrote an encomium for the Greek dead. In 1838 John Sterling would translate some of his words thus: Of those who at Thermopylae were slain, Glorious the doom, and …
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