Paul Cartledge
Corinth in Flames
Taken at the Flood: The Roman Conquest of Greece
By Robin Waterfield
Oxford University Press 287pp £20
‘There is a tide in the affairs of men/Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,’ Shakespeare’s Brutus remarks in Julius Caesar. The real Marcus Junius Brutus too had had good cause to note the vicissitudes of the fickle goddess Fortuna. He also knew something of Greece and the Greeks; indeed, according to his biographer, Plutarch, ‘there was practically no Greek philosopher with whom Brutus was unacquainted or unfamiliar’. But no amount of Greek philosophy could have saved him from going down to defeat and death in the civil war against the forces of Mark Antony at Philippi in Greece in 42 BC.
Brutus was the classic exemplar of Horace’s maxim that ‘captive Greece took its fierce conqueror captive, and introduced the arts to rustic Latium’. High-ranking Romans were adepts of Greek culture; indeed, it was they who reinvented the Greeks as their – and so our – cultural ancestors. Had not the
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm