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Dear all,

I notice that today is the anniversary of the birth, in 1907, of Nicholas Geoffrey Lempriere Hammond, British scholar of ancient Greece and operative for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in occupied Greece during World War II (for which he was awarded the order of the DSO and the Greek Order of the Phoenix).

I had the pleasure and honour of meeting Hammond while I was a student at Bristol University, when he came to give a talk on his early experiences of Greece (as a resistance fighter during the War). Terribly interesting, and a tremendously nice man!

ATB

I bet he did have some good stories! And I don't know how many times I've come across Hammond's name while shuffling through notes and books.

Aside from Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, Hammond's A History of Greece to 322 BC was the book that started the fascination. I recall borrowing it on extremely extended loan from the high school library - no scanners or such then. 'Twas the book that backgrounded my HSC exam work in Ancient History (the Greek half).

Looked for it at home a couple of years back to find it had gone missing. Poetic justice there. Solon to Socrates was still there though.

My father met him in Greece during WWII and I will always remember his stories about him. He said he was a true gentleman, honourable, brave and unassuming. I think Alexander would have liked him very much.

Paralus wrote:Looked for it at home a couple of years back to find it had gone missing. Poetic justice there. Solon to Socrates was still there though.

Is it terrible to admit that I've never read "Solon to Socrates"? Scullard's "Gracchi to Nero" was, however, required reading for my Roman History course, and I still have the second-hand copy I bought and underlined all those years ago.

ATB

Meg wrote:My father met him in Greece during WWII and I will always remember his stories about him. He said he was a true gentleman, honourable, brave and unassuming. I think Alexander would have liked him very much.

He was certainly a true gentleman, and unassuming - and the other two adjectives almost go without saying. He was a lovely man.

I think Alexander would have liked his unassumedness particularly - brave and honourable, but doing nothing to outshine his C-in-C!

ATB