Credits

  1. The needle. All hail our hero, Ganesh Srinivasson! He’s the magician who built this website. Ganesh adapts his motto from Hannibal’s saying when he took his elephants through the Alps: we will find a way or make one. And so Ganesh did; he surmounted all obstacles to the creation of what you see here. He had many great ideas and discouraged many bad ones, all with ingenuity, humility (this page was written over his objections), and a passion for being helpful to us and to you. He says that he’s content to be a needle in an embroidery: necessary to the process, invisible in the result. But let him be visible for at least this paragraph! If you appreciate his work and would like to show your gratitude, who could blame you? He welcomes donations to his favorite charities, such as Seva or Doctors Without Borders or the International Rescue Committee. Or drop him a note here.
  2. The embroiderer. Sarah van der Pas is a professional editor and translator of Latin, English, and French. She started as an editor of this project but became a partner in the drafting; her great abilities as a Latinist include a rare talent for writing the language as well as reading it (she’s translated Edgar Allan Poe’s stories into Latin, and has her own Latin exercise book —and answer key—as well as a book on verse). She also created the delightful audio recordings you’ll find on many parts of this site. (She still lets me handle some things myself, such as this part.) If you’d like her to be your editor or translator, as well you might, you can find her here.
  3. Further acknowledgements. The book and website benefited from helpful comments and/or research assistance from Caolán Mac An Aircinn, John Anderson, Shadi Bartsch, Alexandra Delp, Anne Farnsworth, Janet Farnsworth, Sam Farnsworth, William Farris, Karl Galinsky, Katherine Handloser, Hermine Hayes-Klein, Harry Hine, William Hughes, Brad Inwood, Becky Kahane, Robert Kaster, James Ker, Andrew Kull, Rick LaFleur, William Nethercut, Emma Perry, Jennifer Roberts, Vassilis Sazaklidis, Ashley Schneider, Jose Segovia, Madeleine Shepherd, William Wasta Werner, and Paul Woodruff. Special thanks to Markus Bindig for advising on the pronunciations behind the audio recordings.

Leofranc Holford-Strevens, one of the world’s great classicists, went over the full manuscript of The Latin Tamer and made many helpful suggestions and amendments. His talents are so vast that it would be presumptuous of me to praise them.

Mark Argetsinger designed the book. He’s a deep student of his art (take a look at his work A Grammar of Typography), and a classics aficionado in his own right whose talent and affection for the subject shows on every page of The Latin Tamer. David Allender, Virginia Downes, Susan Karcz, Will Thorndike, and the rest of the team at Godine provided invaluable support at all stages of this project’s life.

I’m grateful to the University of Chicago Press for permission to quote from the translations of Seneca it has published. The works and their translators: Consolation to Helvia (Gareth Williams); Consolation to Marcia (Harry Hine); Consolation to Polybius (Hine); Letters on Ethics (Margaret Graver & A. A. Long); Natural Questions (Hine); On Anger (Robert Kaster); On Clemency (Kaster); On the Happy Life (James Ker); On the Constancy of the Wise Person (Ker); On Leisure (Williams); On Providence (Ker); On the Shortness of Life (Williams); On Tranquility of Mind (Elaine Fantham); and The Pumpkinification of Claudius the God (Martha Nussbaum). These books are excellent resources for anyone seeking modern translations of Seneca’s works.

Finally, the late Patrick Flaherty provided much instruction and encouragement. He was my first Latin teacher—a wonderful man who, like so many teachers of classics, gave much of his professional life to students who didn’t appreciate him as much at the time as we would later. In this and other ways, he won in the end.

With thanks to all,

Ward Farnsworth