Ancient Greek Epitaphs and Their Betters

At The Paris Review Online.

Teaser quote:

If one were to construct a TOC just for Book 7, it would be even more of a mess than the TOC for the anthology as a whole. There would be sections on:

  • animals

  • insects

  • sailors swallowed by the sea

  • fools and unincorporated persons

  • children—’specially unmarried girls

  • long-dead celebrities

  • whole armies

  • persons who deserved what they got

—and so on. Only a very, very few of these came out of (or could dreamily produce) emotions. For the most part, whatever merit the individual specimens have is confined to the “recto” pages in the Loeb.

[originally posted Thursday 27 June 2019]