2. Does the Letter Matter?

Abstract

Thanks to James K.O. Chong Gossard and John Rundell who supported the nomadic beginnings of this work during my doctoral studies at the University of Melbourne. Many thanks to Roger Scott and Penelope Buckley for their unwavering generosity in keeping me housed and fed at many crucial moments. Thanks also to Louis Ruprecht Jr. for feeding my enthusiasm and keeping it buoyant. A thousand thanks and more to Despoina Koi for looking after the boys and giving me the boon of uninterrupted time. Thanks too to the boys for interrupting me with such boisterous jollity. Maria Krystalidou and Elina Niarchou, ευχαριστώ πουλάκια μου, σας αγαπώ. The entire project would be inconceivable without my father's unswerving love and interest in things of the mind and things of the earth. I have never seen him refuse to engage in an argument no matter how unconventional, I have never seen him too tired to read another book or too busy to answer my questions about the composition of rocks or the identification of trees. I dedicate this book to him, because I know he will get more pleasure out of it than anyone, if only because it was his daughter who wrote it. Finally, many thanks to the whole team at Open Book Publishers!The research for this book was conducted thanks to the Jessie Webb scholarship (University of Melbourne), during my stay at the British School at Athens, the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens, and using the wonderful resources in the libraries of the American School of Classical Studies and French School at Athens. Photographic images from Archaeological sites in Athens are by myself and M. Goutzourela and are presented here by copyright permission from the Kerameikos Museum, Athenian Agora Museum and Epigraphic Museum © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Hellenic Organization of Cultural Resources Development (H.O.C.R.E.D.).All translations are by the author, unless otherwise indicated. 1 Blanqui (2003). 2 Roudinesco (1997) 336.xviii Horos with the world and one another. Perhaps in what has been lost there is a chance of rediscovering a ground from which to resist and destroy the forces that occupy and with increasing aggression seek to manipulate the archaic frontiers of life.