Review

"A brilliant digressive essay, full of asides and illustrations. . . . A delight to read." -- Peter Green, New York Review of Books

"Like all born teachers, [Vermeule] has the ability to convince you that her subject relates to your own life and culture. . . . A fabulous learning experience, the essays are both lively and totally accessible." -- Boston Globe

"No sonorous deductions here about eschatology; no maps of the Greek underworld, charting its circles, names its denizens. The Greek dead can appear as a midge or as an, apparently, full-fleshed man; he is removed from pain, yet can feel it and carries his old scars. . . . All this, and much more than this, is presented . . . by a consummate scholar with a lightness and wit which belie her scholarship. . . . This book could win many converts to the study of Greece and Greek." -- John Boardman, Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Emily Vermeule, Samuel E. Zemurray, Jr. and Doris Zemurray Stone-Radcliffe Professor Emerita at Harvard University, is the author of numerous books, including Mycenaean Pictorial Vase-Painting and Toumba Tou Skourou.