Thespis
The world’s first professional actor. We call actors thespians in his honor. Many of the decisions that Thespis made about how to run a play remain with us to this day. Thespis lived right on the cusp between history and prehistory, which is a pity because he was obviously an amazing man, yet we know so little about him.
Tragedy
Goat Song. No, I’m not making this up. Tragos is goat, ode is song. Tragode is goat song: a song about goats, which totally gives away the farm life origins of our plays. This is the tradition that 2,000 years later would lead to Hamlet. It’s amazing what a few talented writers and actors can do with such an inauspicious beginning.
Trierarch
The commander of a naval vessel. Every year, wealthy men volunteered to pay the upkeep of a trireme. In return they got to call themselves trierarch for the year. Men like Kordax loved it so much that they made it their career. They and their opposite numbers among the Phoenicians were probably the first professional naval officers.
Trireme
The standard navy ship of the Greek world. Triremes are long, low, sleek, incredibly fast machines with a battering ram at the front. Triremes are the first ships in the world designed to sink other ships. In modern terms they would be classed as destroyers. Athens had overwhelmingly the largest fleet around, with 300 triremes. Naval technology has improved a lot in two 2,500 years, but it’s worth noting that Athens had as many ships of the line as the modern US Navy.
Tritagonist
The third actor in a play. The other two are the protagonist and the deuteragonist.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS OVERWHELMINGLY TO my family. My daughters, Megan and Catriona, were five and eight when I started writing these books. Now they’re thirteen and sixteen. They’ve grown up with Nico and Diotima. (And they know far more ancient history than your average teenager.)
My wife, Helen, is not only my first and best reader, but also your first line of defense against my errors. These books are as much hers as mine.
You’re reading this book because the lovely people at Soho Press made it. It’s incredibly hard to name names without doing injustice to some poor soul, but I want to thank my editor and Soho’s Associate Publisher Juliet Grames; Director of Marketing and beer guru Paul Oliver; publicist Abby Koski who does a terrific job; managing editor Rachel Kowal; art director Janine Agro; Meredith Barnes, who read the manuscript when she was working for my agent, and then read it again when she was working for my publisher; and Bronwen Hruska for leading such a great company.
Janet Reid is the world’s best literary agent. I suspected as much when I signed with her as a new writer, eight years ago, and now I know it for sure.