Dec 19, 2010

Jacqueline de Romilly: 1913-2010


The woman who taught me my own heritage, Thucydides, was a Jewish French who applied for Greek citizenship in 1995. So she ultimately became Greek. Or perhaps she always had been.
To quote Isokrates:
“So far has Athens left the rest of mankind behind in thought and expression that her pupils have become the teachers of the world, and she has made the name of Hellas distinctive no longer of race but of intellect, and the title of Hellene a badge of education rather than of common descent.”
~Isocrates, Panergyricus, 50, circa 380 BC (J. A. Freese Translation)

Jacqueline de Romilly, who espoused the Classical spirit like few people have, is no more. And the world is assuredly poorer for it.

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