Boris Johnson's Ten Greatest Ancient Greeks
Boris Johnson -- his full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson -- is the Lord Mayor of London. In addition to being something of a character, he also happens to be a classicist, and he's fluent in Latin and Greek. It's such a rare thing to have a successful politician who knows anything about history, let alone someone who's an expert, that I thought this might be interesting. He's written this article for the Daily Mail, in which he lists his Ten Greatest Ancient Greeks, complete with quotes in the original language. Kudos too to the Daily Mail, for printing an article on ancient literature; something that would probably be anathema to most newspapers these days.
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5 comments:
This was an interesting list--I'm glad to see Sappho hanging out amongst all those men.
I wonder what his rationale was for choosing both Plato and Aristotle, but not Socrates. Perhaps because Socrates didn't write anything down?
Remarkable man, Boris Johnson; witty, erudite and rides a bike. I was on a bus stuck in traffic in Trafalgar Square, and unmistakeable, walking on the pavement was BJ. A murmur of "Boris..." arose from the passengers. Ken Livingston, his Labour predecessor, went everywhere by chauffeur-driven car.
I seem to recall he also chased away teenagers who were hassling a woman in the street. The lady later described him as "my knight on a shining bicycle". Interesting character indeed.
Θεόφραστος was funnier than any of that lot.
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Hi Peter!
Do you mean Theophrastos the botanist? OK, I'm intrigued. Why?
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