I’m sitting on an Amtrak on my way home from Providence, Rhode Island. The guy sitting next to me, who works in marketing for a New York law firm, is reading the Greek text of Xenophon’s Anabasis “for fun.” I’m reading Flavius Josephus’s Jewish War, for leisure though not quite for fun. The woman to my right is reading Moby Dick; I hesitate to ask why, but she doesn’t look unhappy. Another woman just got on and sat next to us, reading Jenny Erpenbech’s Kairos. The two women are now having an animated literary conversation. It’s got to be one of the most literary rows on the train.
No STEM warriors in sight. No AI or ChatGPT, either. The demise of the humanities has been greatly exaggerated, at least on Amtrak train #149.
Policy of Truth 
As the kids say: Δαρείου καὶ Παρυσάτιδος γίγνονται παῖδες δύο, πρεσβύτερος μὲν Ἀρταξέρξης, νεώτερος δὲ Κῦρος.
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If someone had confronted me on the first day of Greek 101 with the first sentence of Josephus’s Bellum Judaica, I probably would have ditched Aristotle right there for Sartre or Unamuno.
By the time I translated that, war itself might have been abolished.
It’s funny that I originally wanted to be a diplomat. With language skills like mine, I could probably have averted World War I. By the time I translated all the threats and ultimatums, all of the principals would have died of old age. I mean, all of them besides Ferdinand. El camino no elegido!
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Josephus’s opening reminds me a bit of Thucydides’, in its insistence that the war he’s chosen to write about is the Biggest Deal Ever:
“Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it.”
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Josephus was heavily influenced by Thucydides. There’s a monologue between King Agrippa and the Jews that’s obviously influenced by the Melian dialogue. “Resistance is futile because might makes right.” It should be read by contemporary Israelis and their supporters. It should have the ring of familiarity.
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