Friday, April 27, 2018
Moriturus Morituro
Christopher Allen, "Masterpieces from the shelf," The Australian (April 21, 2018):
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I have, for example, a copy of Enoch Powell's edition of Herodotus Book VIII, with a Latin dedication to his colleague Guy Manton written on September 4, 1939, three days after the invasion of Poland and one day after the declaration of war, implying that they might both expect to die in the imminent conflict: moriturus morituro.
Powell, a prodigiously brilliant student at Cambridge who had become at 25 the youngest professor of Greek to be appointed to the University of Sydney, had immediately resigned when war broke out to join the army. In the event, both survived, Powell to pursue a political career and Manton to become professor of Greek at the University of Otago and later dean of arts at Monash University.
