Love, Sex & Tragedy: How the ancient world shapes our lives by Simon Goldhill, John Murray, £18.99, ISBN 0719555493 Reviewed by Nick Saunders
WHY don’t you have a bell pull shaped like a phallus? When would it have seemed seemly to have one? And why aren’t the city squares of Rome, London and Athens scattered with priapic public statues? Simon Goldhill reminds us in Love, Sex & Tragedy of how Greek representations of the body beautiful, architecture, and ideas of philosophy and democracy still influence us today. But for how long? Greek, Latin, and archaeology are disappearing off the school radar at a dizzying rate.…
