A Brush With Herodotus
Team,
I have to share this story with you. I was on a business trip this weekend that had me driving on the dark back roads in Maryland to get from Frederick to Dulles airport at 5am. The rental car I was driving had satellite radio so it had a lot of channels that I didn’t have time to fully explore. I just randomly tried a channel (#164) and it was the “Old Time Radio” channel. They started playing a spooky episode from Suspense Theater that was originally aired June 1, 1944. Vincent Price was one of the characters. The leading lady in the story started to describe a friend of her to Vincent Price and she described the gentleman that her friend was attracted to. Near the end of the description she said, “…and he’s as rich as Croesus.” She pronounced the name the same we did on our last call so I was wondering if this could be the same Croesus that Herodotus writes about. After arriving at the airport I quickly googled this phrase on my Blackberry and sure enough, it was once a common phrase used by the general population and it referred to the writings of Herodotus. It must have been a common phrase if it was being used on national radio in 1944. I guess the classics have faded a bit from our minds today. I wonder if people referred to the classics more frequently in the near past.
Jim
One Comment