Letter from the Editor, Daisy Dunn

Welcome to issue 19 of ARGO and to a year of significant Greek anniversaries. In our next issue, we shall pay homage to the work of Lord Byron, who died in Messolonghi on 19 April 1824. In this issue, we mark the passage of 50 years since the fall of the military junta in Greece, the effects of which still reverberate today.

As Othon Anastasakis notes in our cover story (p. 32), most people who are old enough to remember could tell you precisely where they were when they first heard of the coup (significant breaking news tends to fix us in time and space). The events of the following years remain firmly imprinted on many people’s minds, though memory can be a slippery thing. That this was a dark time in Greece’s history hardly needs repeating, but the legacy of what happened and the risks that are still with us must certainly be acknowledged and properly discussed. (Continue reading)

Contents

ANCIENT

ROY GIBSON explores why collections of letters from the Greek world are so very different from those in Rome
JULIAN MORGAN puzzle master, tests our knowledge
BIJAN OMRANI pens an appreciation of Richard Seaford
GALA WESSON re-examines gender politics in the Lysistrata
ALICE DUNN on the pomegranate in antiquity
CAROLINE K. MACKENZIE meets Tom Harrison
ALI BAJWA KC AND POLLY DYER reflect on their triumph in defending Cicero in the modern Supreme Court

SOCIETY

FIONA HAARER delves into the making of The Journal of Hellenic Studies
HELLENIC SOCIETY NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

BYZANTINE

JONATHAN HARRIS on why the mystery of Basil II’s change of personality is a gift to novelists

MODERN

OTHON ANASTASAKIS revisits the Greek military regime half a century after it ended and warns that we might not have seen the end of its type
JANE DRAYCOTT provides a brief guide to the classical face of Glasgow
PAUL WATKINS studies one of Greece’s most delightful – and endangered – marine visitors

REVIEWS

JOHN DAVIE is full of praise for Emily Wilson’s modern yet sensitive translation of the Iliad
PAUL CARTLEDGE reviews a superlative examination of the legal case surrounding the status of the Parthenon Marbles
J. W. BONNER finds timeless lessons in an Irish-tinged take on the aftermath of the Sicilian Expedition
LEONIE BREEDS is fascinated by a tale for children of a Spartan princess facing the looming threat of war between Greece and Persia
A round-up of recent and forthcoming books