Dodds wrote this book just after the Second World War and I think one of the questions in his mind was, not just that nice encounter in the British Museum, but how could European society have gone so mad that it did what it did. What is interesting is that you can take one of the most formative intellectual cultures and show that just underneath that sparkling surface is a seething heart of irrationality that results in madness and murder. It mattered to me because in order to understand about us, we have to understand what was at stake in the past. Why should it matter to us if it is rational or not? But was Greek culture so fantastically rational? So Dodds wrote the book to explore that idea.

The boy told him: ‘I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but I don’t really like this stuff – it’s all so rational.’ Well, that got Dodds thinking about this common idea that the ancient Greeks were all very cerebral, gliding about in white gowns. Dodds was at an exhibition of the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum and he got talking to a schoolboy. It starts with this extraordinary anecdote which is very meaningful for many readers. This is one of the books that made me decide that classics was worth spending a lifetime on.

Foreign Policy & International RelationsĬan you describe what your first book, The Greeks and the Irrational, is about?.

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