Ancient Greek lives on in our culture in surprising ways. Sometimes funny - the word for an actor, hupokrites, gives us ‘hypocrite’; sometimes beautiful - an astronaut is literally a sailor of the skies. And that’s before we get to the myths which gave us our Achilles heel or our Midas Touch. And what about crocodile tears, which comes from the Greek’s belief that crocodiles cried while eating their victims!

This is a learned but always entertaining journey through the world of the Ancient Greeks, their extraordinary language and how it has shaped our own understanding of the world today. After all, what is language but the frame through which we understand the world? Davie aims to bring more than just humour, he seeks to trace the thread of ancient Greek thought that runs through our own civilization, always with the lightness of touch and fascinating etymology. We meet Eros and Aphrodite, Alexander the Great and Oscar Wilde, the stoics, Epicurus and Sparta.

While this is a book about language and the touching and illuminating presence of the ancient Greeks in our current words, it’s also about how Ancient Greece shapes our culture today.

John Davie was head of classics at St Paul’s School in London before becoming a lecturer at Trinity College, Oxford. He has published translations of Seneca, Horace, Cicero and Euripides. He is the co-author of Et Tu, Brute? (2022).