Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way and The Roman Way, originally published in 1930 and 1932, are classics in their own right. Praised for their lucidity and accessibility, her books served as an introduction to classical antiquity for the general American public for much of the twentieth century. Although less well known in Europe, Hamilton achieved such popularity in the United States that, when I tell people that I study Classics, most people over the age of fifty who are familiar with the subject tell me that Hamilton was their entry point. The Greek Way was a favourite volume of Robert Kennedy, and – he claimed – a text that helped him process his grief after the assassination of his brother. Hamilton’s works underlie one traditional American approach to the Classics. Do they deserve re-publication?
Hamilton herself is a figure about whom much has been written lately (for example, the excellent chapter by Judith Hallett in the volume Women Classical Scholars, 2016). She had two distinguished careers, first as headmaster at Bryn Mawr, then as a writer about the ancient Mediterranean. It is tempting to compare Hamilton to her British contemporary Jane Ellen Harrison, but while Harrison’s work on Greek mythology became the foundation of scholarship on the subject, Hamilton’s work on mythology and classical civilization was unapologetically popularizing.
As with most classic works, Hamilton’s books present something of a conundrum to readers today: they are obviously products of a different time. Mary Beard, in her SPQR (2015), has compared studying ancient Rome to “walking on a tightrope, a very careful balancing act. If you look down on one side, everything seems reassuringly familiar . . . on the other side, it seems completely alien territory”. Reading Hamilton is a similar experience.
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