There have been a handful of men who have made a deep and unforgettable impression on me: my father, first and always; Jock Campbell, Chairman of Bookers in the 1950s and 60s; Martin Carter, whose poetry time as it passes burnishes to a yet brighter gleam. And I have been reminded of another when, sorting through some old files, I found a letter in his handwriting thanking me for one I had sent him on his 90th birthday.
N.G.L Hammond was Professor Emeritus of Greek at Bristol University and an honorary fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University. He was the world’s foremost expert on ancient Macedonian history. His three-volume History of Macedonia is the definitive publication on the subject. The last book of his I received, published in 1997, was The Genius of Alexander the Great in which he judges Alexander as “the man who did more than any other individual to change the history of civilization.” A week before Professor Hammond died in his ninety fourth year he delivered the final proofs of his new book, on Aeschylus, to his publisher.
