Written by Roxie, Year 12

On the 9th of December, Classics Society welcomed its first external speaker of the year. Professor Christos Kremmydas, Head of Classics at Royal Holloway, gave a fascinating talk on persuasion and deception in Ancient Athens with comparisons to the modern political landscape. Professor Kremmydas is an expert on Greek history, and has researched extensively and written on the social and political history of Athens.

During the talk, Professor Kremmydas explored the fundamentals of rhetoric and its regular reliance on deception and manipulation of the truth. He emphasised the importance of ethos, pathos and logos as the fundamentals of persuasion according to Aristotle. Through highlighting the similarity between the phrases used by Nixon, Trump and Hermes alike, Professor Kremmydas exposed the resemblance between the politics and rhetoric of the ancient world and the modern day. At the end of the lecture, Professor Kremmydas reminded us of our role in upholding honesty and morality in society, and warned of the threat that deception poses to democracy as we know it.

We really enjoyed the talk and came away with a lot to think about; we would like to thank Professor Kremmydas for giving such a thought-provoking talk and hope to invite him back to HBS soon.