A teacher wanting to teach Latin has enquired whether it is worth doing because the subject has ‘such a bad reputation’. As ever with such assertions, it is always wise to ask, ‘In whose eyes?’ The bizarre fact is that, both here and in the United States, the answer is in those of a certain type of academic, for a very specific reason. Dan-el Padilla Peralta, for example, a professor at Princeton University, wants classics to disappear because it has been used for 2,000 years as a justification for slavery, colonialism and fascism.
But what ‘authoritative’ human (Plato) or text (the Bible) has not been used to justify something that some nutter has dreamed up? Is the whole subject to be destroyed — for that is the inevitable consequence of Peralta’s claim — because of nutters? Let the Romans bring some sanity to the situation.
The philosopher-statesman Cicero said of historia that, as far as an orator was concerned, it ‘bears witness to the times, lights up the truth, brings memory to life, is the teacher of life and messenger of antiquity’ (historia vero testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis).
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