People love being ‘persuaded to ancient virtue’ by a charming writer, particularly when they are told in the same breath that modern civilization has made such virtue impossible of attainment. But mere truthtellers—‘undertakers who lay out the corpse of history’ (to quote poor Catullus’s epigram on the noble Pollio)—people who record no more than actually occurred—such men can only hold an audience while they have a good cook and a cellar of Cyprian wine.”
