Why should it be shameful to study the Classics?
Mary Beard opens this book with a recollection of her first meaningful encounter with the ancient world. It was 1960, and she was five years old, visiting the British Museum with her mother. Peering into one of the glass cases, she spotted an unassuming, oddly triangular loaf of bread from ancient Egypt. Seeing her struggle to obtain a better view, a curator lifted the object out. ‘Never under-estimate how powerful the simple act of unlocking a museum case can be,’ Beard reflects 66 years on. She describes Talking Classics as ‘more a memoir than a thesis’, but it is also a thought-provoking meditation on wonder. It was thauma, she reflects, that Aristotle held responsible for sparking philosophical thought to begin with.
