GREECE: Death in the Center

"My obituary," said Themistocles Sophoulis, "will be a history of Greece for the past century."

O Gheros (The Old Man), as Greeks affectionately called him, was born on the Aegean Island of Samos in 1860—according to most accounts; some people declare that he was born earlier than that, but that he liked to chop a few years off his age. As an archeologist, he spent years digging amid Greece's ancient ruins, published such learned works as Hades in Antique Art and The Maidens of the Acropolis. In 1900 he turned from archeology to...

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