Acknowledgements

It is humbling to record the many debts I have accumulated in the course of writing this book. Simon Goldhill, who supervised the dissertation out of which it evolved, is due first fruits, both for his patience as my PhD topic took a detour onto an unexpected path and metastasized into this book, and for the valuable insights and support he has offered along the way. Both this book and I have benefited a great deal from the guidance of two learned and kind PhD examiners, Gábor Betegh and Johannes Haubold, and of the readers from the Cambridge Classical Studies series, especially James Clackson. I am grateful to Geoffrey Lloyd, who has been a stimulating and patient correspondent, and to Renaud Gagné, Mary-Louise Gill, Alessandro Launaro, and James Warren for input on the dissertation when it was in a more tender phase. Particular thanks are due to Henry Spelman and Sol Tor, who read part or all of this manuscript and improved specific portions of it considerably, and in Henry’s case for sharing unpublished work from which I have learned a great deal. The skill and professionalism of Michael Sharp, Katie Idle, Natasha Burton, and Alwyn Harrison at CUP have improved this book in subtle but important ways: my sincere thanks to each of them. I suspect that readers of this book will be able to discern, perhaps with embarrassing ease, which portions of the manuscript received the attention of three Greekless readers: for the time and brainpower they have devoted to poring over obscurities, I extend my warmest thanks to Boaz Munro and especially Jens van ’t Klooster and David Frisof. Naturally, the infelicities, obtuse language, or outright errors that remain are down to my own deficiencies of scholarship or judgement.

Perhaps a special prodigy could complete in solitude a project that transcends the petty confines of their discipline; the rest of us require clever, patient friends. I am much indebted to Naor Ben-Yehoyada and Jonas Tinius for help in grappling with questions of anthropology, Marco Meyer and Jens van ’t Klooster questions of analytic philosophy, Allegra Fryxell questions of historiography, Maya Feile Tomes questions of reception, and Will Bateman and Alexi Zervos the finer points of an argument; without these conversations, I would still be marooned on many a bibliographic island, cursing the inscrutable tides and windless days.

The extent to which serious scholarship requires strong institutions is not always fully appreciated; I am grateful to be able to acknowledge the generous support of several of them. The dissertation that stands behind this book is largely the product of Gonville & Caius College’s beneficence in the form of a Gonville Studentship; sincere thanks are also due to the Cambridge Faculty of Classics for further support. My debts to Caius are more than merely financial, however: along with many of the friends and elders listed elsewhere, David Abulafia, Ed Brambley, Melissa Calaresu, John Casey, Alessandro Launaro, David Motadel, and Ruth Scurr all helped me find my place in college and in Cambridge. It is thanks to the generous support of the Dahlem Research School at the Freie Universität Berlin, which funded a fellowship at Sonderforschungsbereich 980 Episteme in Bewegung, that I was able turn my dissertation into a book. As is true for so many of my peers, I owe a special debt of gratitude to the A. G. Leventis Foundation, patron saint of early career researchers; their outstanding support for junior researchers makes it fitting that the foundation’s eponym be given pride of place on the first page of this book. I am no less grateful to the Institute for Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition at the University of Bristol for its stalwart support. For their guidance and for making me feel welcome at the Freie Universität and in the larger academic environment of Berlin, I thank Gyburg Uhlmann, Christiane Hasselmann, Andrea Dunscheide, Philip Schmitz, Giulia Maria Chiesi, and especially Christian Vogel. At Bristol I am fortunate to be surrounded by uniformly kind and collegial colleagues; I am particularly grateful for the guidance and general good cheer of Lyndsay Coo, Esther Eidinow, Patrick Finglass, Tamar Hodos, Kurt Lampe, Genevieve Lively, Pantelis Michelakis, Nicoletta Momigliano, and especially Ellen O’Gorman, whose sharp intellect and personal warmth have been a great boon.

Mentorship takes many forms, some of them surprising. In addition to those listed elsewhere, Randall Dillard, Etelle Higonnet, Laura Killbride, Hallvard Lillehammer, James Laidlaw, Daniel Levine, John Mamoulakis, Alex Oliver, John Petropoulos, Martin Ruehl, Emily Tomlinson, Gonda van Steen, and Philip von Hardenberg all taught me something important that, one way or another, contributed to this book. I am especially grateful to James Fox and Naor Ben-Yehoyada for their remarkable personal virtues.

I have also learned much from my friends: in addition to those mentioned above, I owe heartfelt thanks first, always, to Corley Miller and also Zak Hoff and Brian Goldsmith; to David Frisof, Greg Mellen, Boaz Munro, and Dino Quin at Brown; and to Dan Costelloe, Maya Feile Tomes, Allegra Fryxell, Tom Geue, Lala Haris-Sheikh, Becca Kay, Anna Osnato, Valeria Pace, Ollie Passmore, Dan Peat, Tom Simpson, Clara Spera, Becca Sugden, Roeland Verhallen, and Naomi Woo at Cambridge. I have had the great good fortune to enjoy the company of Itxaso Araque, Will Bateman, Marco Meyer, Justus Schollmeyer, Jonas Tinius, and Jens van ’t Klooster in both Cambridge and Berlin. I will always be thankful to Sara Chaves. For their patience with me all these years, it is a pleasure to thank Michalis Karagiannis, Niko Nikitoglou, Malda Stalagriou, and Alexandra Mirialli. I am also grateful to Theodora Kalakidou for the photograph on the front cover of the book. The Athens Centre and the many wonderful people who work there have always made me feel that it is a home away from home, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge their extraordinary hospitality. Georgiana Dalaras and Mark Sargent deserve heartfelt thanks that are many years overdue. For their excellent companionship in Berlin, I am grateful to Joachim Helfer, Steffi Lenk, Steven Stoler, and the Hardenberg family. Laura von Hardenberg and the Mann family – Jindrich Mann, Hannah Mann, and Ludmila Korb-Mann – will always have a special place in my heart. I cherish my time and conversations with Georgia Horn. My time with the wonderful Folit-Katzen family always fills me with immense pride, and I can’t wait to see who Isaiah and Adira become.

Some debts are so large they are difficult to characterize. Few things give me as much comfort as an afternoon with John Psaropoulos, who has looked after me since before I could grow a beard; it has been a joy to grow up, albeit in different ways, alongside Atalanta and Jason Psaropoulos. For many years, Alexi and Anthea Zervos and Rosemary Donnelly have taken me in as one of their own; I can hardly imagine who I would have become without them, nor would this book exist were there no terrace in the halls behind which theses grow. No expression of thanks can capture my gratitude to you.

There is a reason that the hodos comes first from the mouths of the tragedians when they wish not only to relate action to consequence, but to discern some shape in the disarray of the past and the opacity of the present. From this vantage point, it is clear to me that five people have shaped my intellectual path most of all. Were it not for A. E. Stallings, I never would have had the courage to set out or the wisdom to carry on. Without the inexplicable kindness and support of Pura Nieto and David Konstan, I would have been smashed by my first encounter with the Planctae and sunk by Charybdis many times over – or, far worse, ended up in private equity. Duncan Kennedy, Tiresias-like, signed out the sēmata long before I knew what any of them meant. In this setting, however, it is Robin Osborne who stands as Master of the Roads. He found me travelling and tormented, dialectic and bizarre, and with unflagging energy and what has seemed an inexhaustible well of belief, steered me towards Atlantis under skies of all colours and conditions. My greatest hope for this book is that each of you faithful Mentors and Athenas can find something in these pages that makes you feel that your efforts were not wasted.

Finally, thank you to Lucia Mann for her steadfast support, patience for my many eccentricities, and unfailing kindness, sweetness, and good humour. With my deep gratitude for a lifetime’s worth of love and encouragement, I dedicate this book to the Folit-Weinberg family: my sister Sara, my mother Ruth, and the memory of my beloved father, Marc.