IRAN - THE WORLD'S FIRST SUPERPOWER
Notes & Queries
About the author of the website; a very brief biography, and information for teachers.
THE AUTHOR (& DESIGNER)
My name is Andrew Wilson. I studied at Cambridge University, and taught Classical subjects (Latin, Greek and Ancient History, Art and Philsosophy) at schools and universities in a career spanning over 40 years.
I designed my first website in 1994 under the pseudonym of "Loxias" (still extant as classicspage.com, though it's not been regularly updated in recent years). After leaving education I ran a web design company and acquired the basic skills, which I've tried to keep up to date. I was commissioned in 2006 by Antony Kamm to develop a website to accompany his best-selling book, The Romans: an extensive survey of Roman history and culture from the Kings to the Late Empire. This is also still extant, and recently given a face-lift: The Romans
In 2003, I was invited by Cambridge to become part of a small team formed to write and design a Sixth Form course, eventually titled Investigating Classical Civilisations. My task was to write the material on the ancient Persians; from this evolved a now 20-year-old programme of personal research. My study has led me to a deepening knowledge and understanding of Iran, expanding my interest from the ancient empires to include the medieval and modern Persianate World. I began building this website at around the same time, and it has kept pace with my research. During this period I have travelled to Iran, Yemen, Turkey and Palestine.
As I am not a professional historian, and have no qualifications in Iranology or Iranian Studies, there are doubtless numerous factual errors on the site. I'm always grateful to anyone prepared to point these out. There are opinions expressed, mostly my own - many known to be controversial. I am always ready to confront alternative views - and to adapt mine if necessary.
Photographs are either mine or purloined from Public Domain sources via Wikipedia. You are welcome to use any that are mine - as you are to use any material on the site for personal or educational purposes.
FOR TEACHERS
Following on from my work on Classical Civilisations for Cambridge University, I was asked by Hands Up Education (who inherited the project) to write a text-book on ancient Iran. Its aim was to provide teaching materials appropriate for 13 to 15-year-olds to introduce them to the history and culture of Iran/Persia. This was published in 2019 as Investigating Classical Civilisations, The Persians, The World's First Superpower. Further books in the series will follow. Full details of The Persians and how to order copies can be found on the Hands Up website.
The book has an accompanying Teachers' Guide, freely available online.
HARRY POTTER & TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Since retiring from full-time education I've also completed two further projects involving the translation of best-sellers in English into Classical languages.
Into Ancient Greek:
ΑΡΕΙΟΣ ΠΟΤΗΡ ΚΑΙ Η ΤΟΥ ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΟΥ ΛΙΘΟΣ - Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone
Into Latin:
AVEM OCCDERE MIMICAM - To Kill a Mockingbird
The Ancient Greek translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J K Rowling (Bloomsbury 2004, second edition 2011)
Latin translation of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Souvenir Press 2019)
TRANSLATIONS OF GREEK DRAMA
I am currently working on the tetralogies of Aeschylus, translating what survives and re-imagining the missing plays where necesssary: for example the Oedipus tetralogy has one tragedy extant, Seven Against Thebes - which was the third play. I have added the first two plays Laius, and Oedipus and the fourth, the satyr-play Sphinx. I have used all available information, sparse though it is.
You can access my work on aeschylus.co.uk - straight from here. My earlier translations of Euripides can be found on euripides.co.uk or here. Many of these plays have been performed - in England, Scotland and Germany.
