I was going to write a little essay for the new-start up Academy, and instead of writing a couple of thousand words, its developed into a whole dissertation-style paper.
The first thing which struck me was that there is just simply too much material to handle in one short essay, so I thought I'd trim it down by breaking the essay up into two roughly distinct time periods: archaic Greek/Greece and later Latin/Rome (specifically later imperial Rome). This has proved problematic, because many of the sources (such as Horapollo, Eusebius, Plutarch and Macrobius) are much later, but relate directly to the subject matter at hand. It's a pain in the backside, but I read other classicists' works, often, and many notable classicists tend to be selective in their sources, trying their best to draw only from sources which are from a similar point in time. My former tutor (the last one I studied under) emphasised this point, and it's an important point. Although it tends to constrain and shackle the classicist, it also makes good sense.
So, I've decided to revisit the great authors of ancient Athens during its heyday, the immortal three tragedians: Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus. There is a lot of good material here to dredge up for the essay. One lead leads to another lead. I no longer have access to the University's database, but, I do, however, have shed loads of primary sources, quite often commentaries and critical editions. In fact, I went out of my way to prioritise buying Oxford 'Reds', only because they are out of print. (I also like the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics - but they are still in print). So, I'm reading one play (Aeschylus, Choephori). I only have Aeschylus' Agamemnon in the Oxford 'Reds', but I did notice while reading Aeschylus that Orestes features prominently in Choephori, so I decided to read Euripides' Orestes. In it, I noticed a mention of the serpent I was researching, so I immediately reached across to read what it said in my Oxford 'Red' of Orestes, this led me to other Oxford 'Reds', all of which I own, and therein were some important observations, directly relevant to my little essay. It even mentioned a fragment of Sestichorus (which I happen to also own a copy of, albeit only in translation this time).
I was beginning to regret prioritising buying seemingly irrelevant books while still an undergraduate. Indeed, after later buying an Oxford 'Blue' (only a translation: Harrison, Hilton and Hunink, Apuleius' Rhetorical works) and deeply regretting not having read this edition before writing my final dissertation, I take comfort in the fact that I whipped these out of print Oxford Reds up. The M.A. was just two semesters, but these out of print critical editions are for life. In print books, yes yes yes, one can always buy and replace them, but not out of print university level commentaries for serious classicists, hard core. I have so many books now, that it is almost like Frank Langella's character in Roman Polanski's movie The Ninth Gate:
"You'll never see as many books on the subject anywhere else in the world. They're the rarest, the choicest editions in existence. It's taken me a lifetime to assemble them."
Several of the books mentioned above weigh in at a £100 starting price. Yes, there are many more rarer and more expensive books, antiques, and certainly I'm no hot-shot movie-star or lawyer, but £100-200 a book is a hefty price tag for a guy that sweeps up, does dishes and takes out the trash every night for minimum wage. Because, well, that's what you do with a master's degree in classical Latin and ancient Greek in Dark Age Britain. This is not Elizabethan England or the Italian Renaissance, evidently.
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