Classical scholarship
Michael D. Reeve
In 62 BC Cicero defended in court a Greek poet, Archias, whose citizenship had been challenged. The version of his speech that he later circulated expatiates on the service poets render to state by conferring immortality heroes and thereby encouraging public spirit. Even historians, says (Pro Archia 24), achieve less: Alexander Great took many campaign, yet, when came tomb Achilles near Troy, exclaimed: 'lucky young man, have your prowess advertised Homer!' - was right, because without Iliad would closed not only over body but name.
Cambridge University Press eBooks