ARGO, A Hellenic Review
ARGO is a bi-annual magazine published by the Society. We hope it will appeal to a broad audience of Hellenophiles, with content that is authoritative yet accessible, topical, lively and well-illustrated.
As we celebrate 10 years - 20 issues - of ARGO, we have made a number of articles available online here. We hope you enjoy reading them!
Please select an option in the drop-down box above to buy a copy of the current issue or subscribe for 2 issues (1 year) or for 10 issues (5 years).
You can also purchase back issues for £5 each. Please let us know which issue/s you would like by email or in the payment form special instructions. (Issues 1, 3, 17 and 19 are no longer available.)
If you wish to pay by sterling cheque or bank transfer please download the ARGO subscription form.
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ARGO 21 (Spring Summer 2025)
Letter from the Editor, Daisy Dunn
It was wonderful to meet so many of you at our special celebration of ten years of ARGO at the Hellenic Centre in March. I relished the opportunity to put faces to so many names and to hear what you are enjoying and looking forward most to seeing in these pages in coming issues.
We toasted ARGO with drinks and Greek food and enjoyed a delicious birthday cake by esteemed Society President Margaret Mountford. We were thrilled to have Victoria Hislop, one of our many illustrious contributors, attend the party and give a speech. Margaret encouraged all guests to subscribe to the magazine, and I reminisced about the birth of ARGO and its happy weight-gain from the slimmest of publications to something quite robust. If you couldn't join us this time, I hope there will be other occasions for us to get together in the future.
We are still in a celebratory mood as we launch this issue - the first of a new decade of ARGO. Edith Hall has written our cover story on the environmental issues thrown up by the Homeric epics and their reception. Have you ever thought about how many trees were felled to build those ships, funeral pyres, why, the Trojan Horse? We certainly don't read of any soldiers replanting what they have taken. The legacy of that tradition has been felt across the real Mount Ida and other landscapes. (Continue reading)
Contents
ANCIENT
ARGO’S 10TH BIRTHDAY PARTY in pictures
LEONIE BREEDS investigates the ideograms used as part of the Linear A and Linear B scripts to search for evidence about the Minoan and Mycenaean ways of life
EDITH HALL explores how the Iliad might encourage environmentalism while documenting a long history of devastation and deforestation
EMMA HEAGNEY joint winner of this year’s Hellenic Society Undergraduate Essay Prize, finds mutual aims in two of the great monuments of the ancient world
JULIAN MORGAN makes an odyssey to Ithaca and finds far more than ‘a simple nurse of men’
MODERN
BRIAN LAVERY recounts the seminal adventures by a bold company of Classics teachers
DAVID WILLS examines English-language travel literature since the 1940s
JOSHUA BARLEY writes a memorial for Michalis Ganas
PAUL WATKINS explores a significant Greek tradition
ALICE DUNN looks at the Greek Culture Ministry’s declaration of 2025 as the Year of Mikis Theodorakis
DIANA BENTLEY feels the mysterious allure of the abandoned city of Kassope
CAROLINE DORITI is on the pulse of the latest trends in cuisine across Greece and the changing palates of its people
REVIEWS
A round-up of recent and forthcoming books
VIOLET MOLLER is impressed by a biography of the engineer-mathematician that recognises the singularity and endurance of his achievements
COSIMA CARNEGIE welcomes a well-rounded if tentative biography of a woman all too commonly dismissed as a striptease
J. W. BONNER enjoys a quirky travel guide to Syracuse, one of Sicily’s jewels
DIANA FARR LOUIS is deeply moved by an account of one woman’s ordeal but also
recovery, learning and reflection in Greece
SOCIETY
HELLENIC SOCIETY NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
FIONA HAARER delves into the difficult but ultimately fruitful working relationship of W. M. Ramsay and A. C Blunt
You can purchase a print copy of the current issue of ARGO at the top of this page. If you would like to get a taste of ARGO, you can read the digital version of issue 11 (Spring Summer 2020) by clicking the button below.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue of ARGO. You can see the contents of previous issues here. If you would like to purchase back issues please contact secretary@hellenicsociety.org.uk
Editorial Committee
Dr Daisy Dunn (Editor), Dr Fiona Haarer, Dr Lisa Hau, Mr George Lemos, Mr Peter Lennon, Ms Lesley Fitton, Professor Gonda Van Steen, Dr Daniel Anderson, Dr Margaret Mountford, Professor Paul Cartledge.
Contributions to ARGO should be emailed to the Editor Dr Daisy Dunn.
