Phil in Chainmail (aka The Lost Spartan)

This morning, I woke up to a message from my friend, Phil Terry.

I had a chance to visit the offices of ThinkGeek last week.

They put me in some chainmail, a helmet and gave me a sword and took some photos (with my long-sleeve shirt, watch and suit pants on!).

The helmet I wore was real metal and very heavy - and the chainmail was also real metal and hard to get on and off. But once it was on, it was very cool. I was ready to join the Spartans at Thermopylae. ;-)

I suppose most people nowadays know the Battle of Thermopylae from the recent movie 300 which was based on Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name. You educated types would know it from the Greek historian, Herodotus, and his book The Histories, widely considered to be the first work of history in Western Literature. It tells the story of the war between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. Book VII (Polymnia) details the story of Leonidas I and the Battle of Thermopylae.

For those of you who know Phil, you know he is a HUGE student of the classics and ancient history. He is also quite the persuasive fellow and a year or two ago, he got me to re-read The Odyssey, as well as The Histories. The first time I read the former, I was in school and translated it from Latin to English. On the one hand, I got to know some of the key passages very well. OTOH, I never really enjoyed the full story end-to-end. I had actually never read the latter until recently and I highly highly recommend Robert Strassler's version, The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories. It is perfect for the modern reader who is not a scholar with wonderful maps and simple, clear translation. We met Mr. Strassler at The Met when we read his Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian Wars--he is a very cool guy who is devoting his retirement to making the classics more accessible. (A pic of us at our Met dinner is here.)

If reading something a bit lighter is more your fare, try the Latin poet, Catullus. His work is short, often humorous, and quite shocking and explicit in its day, focusing mainly on matters of love, sex, and everyday life.

For more pictures of Phil Terry, The Lost Spartan, Phil in Chainmail pix are on Flickr. You are also welcome to join Phil in reading the classics. For more info, check out The Reading Odyssey.

And if you must have that chainmail shirt, get it on ThinkGeek.com (hint: check out the guy in the Action Shot!).