Delighted to have featured once more on Doing History in Public, an initiative run by the students at the University of Cambridge.
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Marian Mason: England’s Trailblazing Woman of Fitness
References to “P.H. Clias” leave me wondering how many educated people today would have any idea who his namesake “Phocion” or (more correctly “Phokion”) was or what he did. For the record, he was an Athenian statesman who favored a policy of accommodation (or “appeasement,” if you prefer) with rising power of Macedonia under its dynamic monarchs Philip and his son Alexander (“the Great”).
That’s a lovely point, and you’re right. “Phokion” is one of those classical references and you’re right. “Phokion” is one of those classical references that would once have carried more immediate that would once have carried more immediate meaning than it does now. In meaning than it does now. In Clias’s case it is especially interesting because the English Clias’s case it is especially interesting because the English editions tend to flatten him into “P.H.” or “Peter Heinrich C editions tend to flatten him into “P.H.” or “Peter Heinrich Clias,” which hides that classical resonance almostlias,” which hides that classical resonance almost entirely.