As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, my interest in the Roman classical authors caused me to collect about 2,000 of their quotations and arrange them under the following headings: life in the fast lane, the man of the world, the art of survival, self-improvement, the healthy life, love and friendship, the stages of life, the life of the mind, writing, law, war, right and wrong, fate, death, and the gods. In class, however, I presented them randomly for variety and interest.
Uppermost in my mind was underscoring the relevance of antiquity’s insights to modern-day problems, especially those of teenagers. Students realized at once that what Rome had to say was, far from being dead and irrelevant, something very much alive that spoke to their lives. These 16- and 17-year-olds began to understand that it was normal to have problems, which were the sum and substance of being human.
They took comfort in knowing that they weren’t alone, since the Romans had wrestled with the identical concerns that troubled their lives. They saw that the problems they were having were healthy in the life of any young person. Problems were simply invitations to grow and mature as part of an ongoing apprenticeship that was molding their character for the rest of their lives.
Every day these quotations were subliminally working their magic by quietly guiding them in becoming more self-aware persons. As one student put it at the end of the year, “Latin quotations let you look at yourself. Some can even change the way you see things and act, as well as making you stronger in coping with life.” Ovid was right, Abeunt studia in mores – Learning affects character.
In our fragmented and overspecialized age, students seemed to welcome the holistic perspective the Romans brought to their problems. Their unclouded vision in living their lives in the here-and-now world of ancient times was a bracing tonic for these students who seemed all too addicted to their virtual worlds.
As technology slowly tightened its grip on their lives spent increasingly online, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were finding it hard to know how to be human and even more difficult in remaining so. At least for fifteen minutes a day, they could take leave of the present and return to the past to consider life’s larger issues that might help bring them closer to their humanity.
This is not to argue for a blind worship of the past as some mythical Golden Age. Too much had happened during antiquity to regard it as the fount of Goodness and Truth. Many of its problems are fortunately no longer ours, while many of our dilemmas it could not have imagined. Yet there are many things that have not changed, perennially human things, dimensions of human experience which every generation must discover for itself if it would do more than merely sleep and feed.
What we owe the past is not idolatry but respect for what it endured, for the past was once also a present at odds with itself and walking in darkness while trying to lead an honorable life. Yet it continued to struggle because it realized that, in those haunting words of Virgil, sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt, (tears are at the essence of life and mortal things touch the heart).
Whether it was Horace distilling the wry wit of the man of the world, or Plautus depicting survival at the bottom of the heap; Tacitus and Suetonius eavesdropping along the corridors of power, or Juvenal pricking the bubble of folly; high-minded Seneca dissecting moral choice, or hard-headed Cato barking orders to his slaves while oblivious to their aggrieved humanity; Virgil rationalizing the jilting of Dido by the “pious” Aeneas pleading the excuse of Rome’s future destiny; Pliny presiding over the trials of Christians in the far-flung reaches of empire, or Petronius sending up Trimalchio’s phantasmagoric world of the rich and demented, life stands revealed in all its wondrous variety and delicious absurdity.
Cicero and Livy, Martial and Terence, Phaedrus and Lucretius, Quintilian and Publilius Syrus, Sallust and Lucan were also among those offering counsel on seizing the day, getting on in the world, interacting with others, coping with adversity, wrestling with guilt, overcoming oneself, attaining peace of soul, leading a decent life, adapting to the times, dealing with the powerful, motivating people, remembering one’s limitations, and on and on and on.
Here was a culture which offered a panoramic view of life’s eternal cycle: humble beginnings, the ascent to greatness, and final decline. At first, it was an agrarian world of tough yeoman farmers throwing off tyranny’s yoke to become a Republic. Then, as bizarre cults and unfamiliar ideas poured in from the East, Rome endured inundations of treasure plundered from the provinces, limitless wealth that slowly submerged the time-hallowed signposts of moral behavior. Gradually Rome acceded to the eminence of Empire, whose Pax Romana cradled the Mediterranean and beyond, where the rich preyed on the poor with crushing taxation. Then a turbulent era of cataclysmic upheaval when the foundations of Rome itself were crumbling, a time of disorientation when it proved all too easy to lose one’s bearings – an age, in short, much like our own.
We have arrived at a similar point in our history where we, too, are losing our connection to ourselves, one another, and our common values. We are afloat amidst the wreckage of a broken culture, conflicting beliefs, discordant ideals, with the center of things no longer holding.
The Romans, despite different conditions, mirror our plight in their struggles in coming to terms with their times. Their words and example show us how they held onto essentials. In a world coming apart, they affirmed their humanity as their one central truth.
Their troubles enable us to take the broader view by seeing ourselves and our times in perspective. We understand how the present can become a temporal dungeon with its myopic obsessions that limit our vision and imprison our spirit, with one crucial difference. Lacking instant communication, the Romans didn’t know what was happening and went unknowingly to their doom, but we can see what is coming and take steps to prevent it. Horace put it well, if he’ll allow me a small liberty: Mutato nomine de nobis fabula narratur (Change but the name and the story’s about us).
The ultimate purpose of studying Latin lies less in learning its grammar than in encountering its classical spirit. Learning which doesn’t change students’ view of themselves or the world only burdens the spirit. If the teaching of Latin is solely about vocabulary and syntax, it ultimately fail a student for, as essential as these things undoubtedly are, they are not the Holy of Holies, but only the forecourt to the temple of learning.
This is especially true in one- and two-year Latin programs, which some teachers in America are forced to endure owing to budget cuts or a community’s indifference to Latin. The purpose of these languishing programs cannot be the creation of classical philologists, but exposure to the classical spirit, the essence of the humanities.
Beyond teaching Latin grammar and vocabulary in context, developing memory, and familiarizing students with some of the more frequently encountered allusions, Latin quotations embody many of the beliefs, values and ideals which have kept the Western tradition alive for over twenty-five centuries and can also serve as the basis for discussions in other humanities classes.
With the exception of The Sayings of Cato, immensely popular with students down through the centuries, I’ve restricted these quotations to classical authors, with an eye toward those that are brief, memorable, timely, and timeless.
These quotations are naturally not meant as a substitute for reading the original works for oneself, not for credit, a grade, or a test, but only for oneself, for it is only then that these works will transmit their power, since only then will they have a receptive reader with an unquenchable desire to grow.
Discovering Greek or Latin antiquity is always a personal adventure. My choice of quotations reflects only one man’s odyssey among the classical authors; someone else would have chosen differently and presented a different view of the past. There is room for many such views.
Living with these authors for over sixty years has brought me immense delight and instruction. Should others find similar inspiration in making their acquaintance, my efforts in this series will have been more than amply rewarded.