记住or遗忘，别等到一千年以后。。。

Why are some people almost instantly forgotten when they have gone, while others cling on, embedding themselves so deeply into our culture that we’re still studying them, psychoanalysing them, writing about their life, death and achievements, even depicting them in films, millennia after they’re gone?

为什么有些人去世后几乎立马就被遗忘，而另外有些人则继续将他们的名字深埋入我们的文化里，他们死去一千年了，我们至今都还在研究他们，分析他们的心理，撰写他们的生平，死亡和成就甚至拍成电影呢？

Hopeful contenders for everlasting fame must run the gauntlet of numerous challenges, including the jealousy of rivals and possible extinction of their own civilisation and language.

想要永留青史的人们必须经过严酷的考验，包括对手的嫉妒或者他们自己的文明和语言的失落等等。

But there are some clues hidden in the life stories of those who succeeded and those who were lost along the way.

但关于那些成功者和半路失败者的生活故事，我们仍然可以找到线索。

Manage your image, but not too much

注意形象管理，也别过头

A fitting place to begin the search is Ancient Greece, where achieving everlasting glory was a national obsession.

适合开始这些 研究的一个地方就是古希腊，在这里成就永恒的光荣是全国人民的渴望。

“They were very, very focused on fame,” says Thomas Harrison, professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews.

“他们非常非常关注名气！”托马斯.哈里森说，他是圣安德鲁大学古代历史教授。

“In a funny way, it wasn’t embarrassing to say that you wanted deathless fame of different sorts, so people talked about it rather more explicitly.”

“当时很奇怪地，你说想要各种不死的美名一点也不会尴尬，所以人们会更直白地谈论它。”

At the centre of it all was the concept of kleos, which roughly translates as “what others hear about you”.

而它最中心的理念就是克雷奥斯，可以大致翻译成“人们对你的听闻”。

It was popularised by the poetry of Homer – which has itself endured for thousands of years – and earned by taking great risks and making great sacrifices, especially in battle.

它随着荷马史诗—它也流传千年了—而流传开来，通过冒险和做出伟大的牺牲而成就。Homer’s hero Achilles, who died after being shot in the heel, is the archetypal example.

荷马的英雄阿基里斯，死于脚后跟中的箭，就是一个典型的例子。

Choose your career wisely

明智选择你的职业

Those not lucky enough to be born into power still have a decent chance of being remembered, especially if they focus on changing the world through their ideas.

那些没有幸运出生在帝王家的人们仍然也有机会被人们记住，尤其是当他们关注如何用他们的思想来改变世界的时候。

Take philosophers.

比如说哲学家。

“They changed the way people thought and that’s why they have remained important,” says Lynette Mitchell.

“他们改变了人们思考的方式因此人们仍然认为它们很重要”，林奈特.米切尔说。

Back in 2013 a team of scientists went on the hunt for the world’s most influential academic.

2013年，一支科学家团队开始寻找世界上最具学术影响力的人。

They scoured the internet for those who were mentioned the most frequently and performed a complex analysis. The winner? Karl Marx.

他们在网上寻找被提到最频繁的人们，进行了复杂的分析。最后的冠军？是卡尔.马克思。

Be lucky

运气够好

When Tutankhamun took his last, feverish breath in 1323BC, probably in the city of Thebes after contracting malaria, he was just a boy king of 18.

当图坦卡蒙于公元前1323年在底比斯市因为疟疾而断气的时候，他还只是一个18岁的少年国王。He’s not known to have achieved anything particularly remarkable.

他还没有完成任何特别有意义的成就。

If you were placing bets, you probably wouldn’t bank on this pharaoh becoming a household name several thousand years later.

如果能够下注，你可能不会在这位几千年后家喻户晓的法老身上下注。

Then something extraordinary happened.

然后不可思议的事情发生了。

Constructing a pharaoh’s tomb was a massive undertaking, which required decades of work by plasterers, painters and rock carvers over the course of their reign.

建造法老的墓穴是个大工程，需要在他们统治期间那些泥水匠，画家和石头雕刻家们几十年的工作。

But Tutankhamun died suddenly and they ran out of time.

但图坦卡蒙死的太突然，他们没有时间了。

Instead he was hastily interred in a small tomb in a relatively obscure part of the Valley of the Kings.

他只能草草地被安葬在国王墓地谷一个比较隐蔽的小墓穴里面。

It was sealed before the paint even had a chance to dry.

油漆还没干就封墓了。

Over years it became buried in rubble and was eventually lost altogether.

几年后它就荒废而最后一起失落了。

When it was discovered by archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon in 1922, it was full of fabulous riches beyond their wildest imaginations.

当它于1922年被考古学家霍华德.卡特尔和他的同伴卡尔冯勋爵发现的时候，它丰富多彩的宝藏超出了他们最狂野的想象。

Its location and size had kept them safely hidden away, while all the tombs around it were being plundered by looters.

它的位置和大小让它们被隐藏得很好，而其他那些周围的大墓都被盗墓贼挖空了。

Die a famous death

因死因成名

Throughout much of history, dying young or dramatically – think Cleopatra clutching an asp to her breast – was a crucial tenet of being remembered.

纵观历史，英年早逝或死得离奇—想想克里奥佩特拉在胸前抓住一只毒蛇—是被记住的残酷准则。

Of all the most famous people through antiquity, very few of them made it to their 40th birthday.

在所有的古代名人中，很少有人活过四十岁生日的。

哲学家罗素

维特根斯坦跑去问罗素：“你看我是不是一个十足的白痴？”搞得罗素莫名其妙。他说：“如果我是，我就去开飞艇；如果我不是，我就去搞哲学。”

But will any well-known figures from recent times be remembered in 1,000 years?

那么现代的名人们谁能在 一千年以后还被人们记住呢？

Lynette Mitchell is placing her bets on Alan Turing, who invented the computer.

林奈特.米切尔把注押在阿兰.图灵身上，他发明了计算机。

“He has only just come back into memory in the last few years because good stories have been told about him,” she says.

“最近几年他刚刚重回人们的记忆，因为关于他的一些有趣的故事被讲出来了。”她说。

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