The Silver Stag Rhyton
For a novelist, a beautiful or mystifying object preserved from the past can trigger an entire scene. An ancient setting with so many exotic and intriguing elements is particularly fruitful this way. I thought when I started writing fiction that my training as a classicist and years of teaching humanities, with its interplay between cultural artifacts, history and literature, had taught me enough to portray a town near Troy on the eve of the Trojan War. Every time a character reaches for something, wears clothes, eats food, travels or sits down, I had to know what might actually have existed—a… Read More »The Silver Stag Rhyton