For Hippokleides, no problem!
March in Durham after three months of Minnesota winter was a balm of Gilead. The air was moist and cool, the dogwoods and redbuds opening cream and pink around the Duke campus, cardinals chirping and robins caroling each morning. Home for a week of spring break before the spring term began at Carleton, I had a new course to prepare, half of which I’d never taught or been taught before. That half consisted of Herodotus’ Histories. There was reading to do. My brother was also visiting that week. He was accustomed to my having projects even during ostensible vacations, so he didn’t object to my proposal that after a morning game of tennis at the campus courts two blocks from our apartment that I read aloud from Herodotus before lunch. I explained how this was likely the way most readers encountered the text – declaimed by a servant if not performed by a singing poet. Peter reclined on the couch while I crossed my legs beneath me on an armchair. Our reading wasn’t unusual in a second sens