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If the world knows about Antikythera, it’s because of the rich artifacts recovered from an ancient shipwreck in its waters, among them the Antikythera Ephebe, a striking bronze sculpture of a youth, and the Antikythera Mechanism, an intriguing contraption of interlocking gears which has been hailed at the first computer.

Since I also made plain that I had not actually read a whole book by Pratchett I brought down a vengeance not unlike the firestorm that engulfed the library of Ephebe after the Omnian attack on this philosophical city.

The fall of Ephebe is one of the most dramatic moments in Small Gods, the 13th Discworld novel, which furious fans suggested I should read.

Milton, in one of his translations, wrote about a "slender youth, bedewed with liquid odours"; in Eyres's version, the same ephebe is "drenched in Pour Homme", which is mere product placement.

But this phallic character does not explain other aspects of Hermes, as the messenger-god, the master-thief or the ideal Greek ephebe.