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Back Of Gods and Men Save as PDF
Chapters (110)
  1. COVER
  2. TITLE PAGE
  3. COPYRIGHT
  4. DEDICATION
  5. CONTENTS
  6. INTRODUCTION
  7. THE BIRTH OF LOVE
  8. THE ORIGINS OF THE TROJAN WAR
  9. THE TRUCE
  10. HECTOR VERSUS ACHILLES
  11. THE DEATH OF ACHILLES
  12. THE CYCLOPS
  13. THE SONG OF DEMODOCUS
  14. AND SO TO BED
  15. PROMETHEUS AND PANDORA
  16. WHATEVER ONE LOVES
  17. PERSEPHONE AND THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS
  18. THE LIFE OF AESOP
  19. THE BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE
  20. THE VENGEANCE OF CLYTEMNESTRA
  21. EDUCATING CYRUS
  22. DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS
  23. XERXES’ CHOICE
  24. THE FALL OF THE BARBARIANS
  25. THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL
  26. A BEAST OF INDIA
  27. THE ECSTASY
  28. HIPPOLYTUS AND HIS HORSES
  29. EURIPIDES THE WOMAN-HATER
  30. OEDIPUS LEARNS THE TRUTH
  31. ONE GIRL VERSUS THE LAW
  32. THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS
  33. THE MURDER OF ERATOSTHENES
  34. THE POWER OF LOVE
  35. THE AGEING PROCESS
  36. THREE TYPES
  37. THE MISANTHROPE
  38. THE CONTEST OF TWO MOUNTAINS
  39. HERCULES AND THE TWELVE LABOURS
  40. ALEXANDER THE GREAT MEETS THE RAM GOD
  41. THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER
  42. THE CONSTELLATION OF THE MAIDEN
  43. THE MERCHANT
  44. EUROPA AND THE BULL
  45. TROUBLE COMES TO TOWN
  46. PHILOCTETES
  47. SLAUGHTER OF THE HUSBANDS
  48. THE GOLDEN FLEECE
  49. MEDEA’S REVENGE
  50. ARIADNE AND THESEUS
  51. ALCIBIADES
  52. IN THE BEGINNING
  53. SULPICIA’S BIRTHDAY
  54. THE TROJAN HORSE
  55. DIDO AND AENEAS
  56. ROMULUS AND REMUS
  57. THE GEESE ON THE CAPITOL
  58. THE RISE OF HANNIBAL
  59. ATTIS AND THE MOTHER GODDESS
  60. A COUNTRY VILLA
  61. SPARTACUS
  62. A WOMAN SCORNED?
  63. CICERO: FOR HIS DAUGHTER
  64. CAESAR VERSUS POMPEY
  65. DIVINE CAESAR
  66. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
  67. TO HEAL AN ASP BITE
  68. THE GNAT
  69. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
  70. NARCISSUS
  71. DIANA & ACTAEON
  72. PYGMALION
  73. OVID’S DEFENCE
  74. THE TOWN AND THE COUNTRY MOUSE
  75. THE EMPEROR’S SLAVE
  76. THE RICHES OF CALIGULA
  77. THE PUMPKINIFICATION OF EMPEROR CLAUDIUS
  78. THE STORY OF BRITAIN
  79. THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME
  80. DINNER AT TRIMALCHIO’S
  81. THE ERUPTION OF VESUVIUS
  82. ON LAMPSTANDS, THE DISCOVERY OF GLASS, ON THE DOLPHIN
  83. THE MADNESS OF HERCULES
  84. THE SIEGE OF JOTAPATA
  85. THE COLOSSAL TURBOT
  86. CANNIBALS IN EGYPT
  87. ACHILLES BECOMES A GIRL
  88. THE IMPORTANCE OF BREAST MILK
  89. DO IT YOURSELF
  90. ANDROCLES AND THE LION
  91. PERSEUS AND MEDUSA
  92. WAR ON THE GIANTS
  93. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF CERAMBUS
  94. FIRST LOVE
  95. A SHAM SACRIFICE
  96. THE DREAM OF LUCIAN
  97. PRAXITELES AND THE GODDESS
  98. CUPID AND PSYCHE
  99. A PICTURE OF PHAËTHON
  100. THE WEDDING FEAST
  101. CUPID CRUCIFIED
  102. A CLASSICS STUDENT
  103. THE PHOENIX
  104. THE TWICE-BORN GOD
  105. INTRIGUES AT THE PALACE
  106. A MEETING WITH LADY PHILOSOPHY
  107. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  108. EXTENDED COPYRIGHT
  109. About the Author
  110. An Invitation from the Publisher

I love not those who love in words alone.

ISMENE. My sister, do not scorn me, nor refuse

That I may die with you, honouring the dead.

ANTIGONE. You shall not die with me, nor claim as yours

What you rejected. My death will be enough.

ISMENE. What life is left to me if I lose you?

ANTIGONE. Ask Creon! It was Creon that you cared for.

ISMENE. O why taunt me, when it does not help you?

ANTIGONE. If I do taunt you, it is to my pain.

ISMENE. Can I not help you, even at this late hour?

ANTIGONE. Save your own life. I grudge not your escape.

ISMENE. Alas! Can I not join you in your fate?

ANTIGONE. You cannot: you chose life, and I chose death.

ISMENE. But not without the warning that I gave you!

ANTIGONE. Some thought you wise; the dead commended me.

ISMENE. But my offence has been as great as yours.

ANTIGONE. Be comforted; you live, but I have given

My life already, in service of the dead.

CREON. Of these two girls, one has been driven frantic,

The other has been frantic since her birth.

ISMENE. Not so, my lord; but when disaster comes

The reason that one has can not stand firm.

CREON. Yours did not, when you chose to partner crime!

ISMENE. But what is life to me, without my sister?

CREON. Say not ‘my sister’: sister you have none.

Antigone hangs herself. Creon’s son Haemon, who was engaged to her, kills himself. Haemon’s devastated mother kills herself. For his hubris, Creon has witnessed the devastating collapse of his household.

A version of this story by Jean Anouilh was performed in Paris in 1944. Its juxtaposition of rejection of authority (by Antigone) and acceptance of it (by Creon) offered parallels with life under the German Occupation of France.

THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS

The History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II

Thucydides

Translated by Paul Woodruff, 1993

The Greek historian Thucydides (c. 460–400 BC) wrote a riveting account of the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies from 431 to 404 BC. He was also an eyewitness to the devastating plague that hit Athens in the second year of the conflict. The timing could hardly have been worse, for the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside of Attica had poured into the city to seek protection from the Spartans (‘Lacedaemonians’) behind the walls, meaning that the plague could spread at terrifying speed. It has been estimated that a third of the population perished from the disease, which modern historians have interpreted variously as typhus, bubonic plague, smallpox or ebola. Some readers view Thucydides’ description of the wild behaviour that spread with the plague as needless moralising, but difficult times have often prompted the desperate to seize the day. The unfortunate Athenians went on to lose the Peloponnesian War.