Classical Comedy, Cannibalism & Commentary on BBC Radio

Lucian's ship ascends to the Moon

I spent most of the last 8 days at Broadcasting House. First, live recording 2 episodes of Natalie Haynes’ Stands up for the Classics. This dazzling classicist and comedienne interviewed me on the topics of Sappho and Lucian, the second funniest ancient Greek author after Aristophanes. 

Matthew Sweet and I argued about the varieties of vegetable attached to the bodies of the extra-planetary beings whom Lucian met when he visited the moon in his ironically titled sci-fi novella True History—hominids with cabbages attached to their behinds and others with lettuce wings.

Thyestes, who eats his own sons unwittingly

The food theme continued with a bizarre invitation from the World Service’s award-winning Food Chain programme to discuss mythological cannibalism, or anthropophagy (human-flesh-eating). In 'revenge anthropophagy', an aggrieved individual makes his enemy unwittingly eat his own child: in Seneca’s Thyestes there is a disturbing ‘recipe’ for this, followed by Atreus, when he joints, roasts and casseroles his cuckolding brother Thyestes’ infants. You can download the programme here.

Erysichthon, Autophage

There are also battlefield threats to sink one’s teeth into the flesh of a combatant—Achilles makes this threat to Hector (Iliad 22.347).  One hero, Erysichthon, is punished for sacrilege by hunger so relentless that he consumes himself (autophagy).

Most foul is the devouring of babies at birth, as Cronos feasts on his newborn sons, through terror of being toppled by the upcoming younger generation. But psychoanalysts say this reflects the breastfeeding post-partum infant’s confusion of bodily orifices, parental flesh and alimentary processes.

'I usually prefer Fromage Frais'

Polyphemus, no baby but an outsize hominid, usually sticks to dairy products but happily devours several of Odysseus’ crew. Perhaps he constitutes a folk memory of Palaeolithic humans whose struggle for survival was so desperate that any old flesh, dinosaur or human, tasted as good as any other.

At New Broadcasting House with Daughter

Fresh from these gruesome tales, yesterday I took up my 6-monthly role as commentator on the World Service’s Weekend programme, presented by Julian Worricker. The (in my view) crass and illegal US airstrike on Syria dominated, but we got to discuss the Civil Rights activist James Baldwin, Gibraltar, sustainable food policy (to continue the week's main theme) and masochistic Scottish cyclists as well. I have talked myself out and am trying not to speak for the remaining Easter holiday. What are the odds on my succeeding?