The Forum

A Model of Respect

At last there’s someone who brings out the best in our Editor (see Hershel Shanks’s open letter to Colin Renfrew, Editor’s Page, AO 05:04). While I normally agree with what Hershel Shanks writes, I am sometimes less enthusiastic about the vehemence and bitterness he sometimes expresses. I never know, when opening your magazines, whether I am to be entertained (by rancour and shallow thought) or educated (by something more productive and useful). Shanks’s letter to Professor Renfrew is a model of respect for both the person and his ideas and a model of thoughtful argument—characteristics we could well do with more of in the “academic” debate that often graces your pages.

See Professor Renfrew’s response to Shanks, in Looting Forum. It too is a model of respect and thoughtful ideas.—Ed.

Contagion in Ancient Times

Ancient Life, AO 05:04 (“A Stitch in Time”), featuring surgery in Roman culture, is a very nice piece—though you might have noted that surgeons in ancient Judea were happy to reconstruct prepuces for Jewish customers who wished to fade into crowds at local public baths.