From jfgannon@cloud9.net Sun Mar 18 17:49:06 2001
Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8])
	by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW00.12) with ESMTP id RAA82006
	for <classics@lists.u.washington.edu>; Sun, 18 Mar 2001 17:49:05 -0800
Received: from russian-caravan.cloud9.net (russian-caravan.cloud9.net [168.100.1.4])
	by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id RAA20858
	for <classics@u.washington.edu>; Sun, 18 Mar 2001 17:49:04 -0800
Received: from jfgannon (203-180.dialup.cloud9.net [168.100.203.180])
	by russian-caravan.cloud9.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 614B42A17A
	for <classics@u.washington.edu>; Sun, 18 Mar 2001 20:49:01 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <000401c0b017$a2aa9ac0$b4cb64a8@jfgannon>
From: "J.F. Gannon" <jfgannon@cloud9.net>
To: <classics@u.washington.edu>
References: <5.0.0.25.2.20010316233021.0608fb00@pop.bol.ucla.edu> <01031711284600.03186@dhcp10>
Subject: Re: Procopius in the Wall Street Journal
Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 20:55:11 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400


----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Smith" <ms@gf.org>
To: <classics@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 11:14 AM
Subject: Re: Procopius in the Wall Street Journal


>
> > >1. It's interesting and surprising, and maybe even thrilling, to hear
of a
> > >non-classicist who has even heard of Procopius, and finds him relevant
to
> > >contempary concerns.
>
> Here's what probably happened:
>
> 1) Peggy Noonan had some dim memory from college days that there
> was a book called "the secret history." (Cf. her "points of light" speech
> for Bush pere, which some have thought reflects a vague memory of
> the Greek campfires in the Iliad.)
>
> 2) She did a Web search on this phrase and came up with Procopius.
>
> 3) Perhaps she's got Procopius mixed up with Belisarius? I bet she
> actually _has_ read Graves' book. Anyway her characterization clearly
depends
> entirely on secondary, not to say tertiary and quaternary sources.
>
> Noonan's an interesting character -- one of those vox-et-praeterea-nihil
> types who actually have a real literary gift and not a shred of
> intelligence.

It is fair to conclude from Noonan's remarks that she is not well versed in
the history of the Empire in the time of Justinian.  Your further inference
that she has "not a shred of intelligence" suggest that your own has its
limitations.

 In her milieu, a whhiff of classical learning is considered
> an adornment, and she's certainly clever enough to pass muster with those
> not-very-exigent folks.

Indeed.

J.F. Gannon
>


.