Naumachia : a ship-fight held in the flooded Colosseum;
Ancient Rome's equivalent of demolition derby.
I almost had a job teaching Latin at a young ladies' school. However, given the option to learn Latin, only two girls expressed interest. Who can blame them?
Why Latin?
Latin is firstly a link to classical culture, which culture was intimately studied and known by the Founding Fathers of this country. Think of all the idiots in this country that write and babble about strict constructionism of constitutional law, seeking to understand what the Founding Fathers meant, but who have not the slightest connection to the classical pageant which formed the school for that superb generation.
Second, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic were the languages of the generations that established our religious way of life. To have no connection here is to be slaves to those who have to interpret religious writings to us. We have given up on understanding on our own. We out-source understanding and inspiration. And cable TV and the Internet are filled 24 hours a day with misfit preachers and baleful spreaders of hate and intolerance.
Third, the classical culture was a slave culture. Here we are, 150 years from the outbreak of the war that ended slavery in our own country. Our understanding of slavery and its ongoing consequences is not very profound. Now we might find ourselves wanting further to understand the Founding Fathers, whose vision was so influenced by a culture that rested on the labor of slaves. We may wish to study the effects of slavery from another perspective, from other eyes and other times.
Fourth, we are fond of comparing our times to the Roman Empire; we know next to nothing about the Roman Empire, except what C.B. DeMille has shown us in his films. We make judgments and create our stories for our futures based on celluloid fantasies that were not intentioned to be tools for learning. The politics and morals and the struggles of all times - not just Greece and Rome - are constant human themes of baseness and heroism which we come to again and again throughout history. Pick a time outside our own to hold up as a mirror to our follies...that we may no longer have vision as through a darkling glass.
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3 comments:
Where will any defenders of the classics as inherently valuable things for life, I say where will they be when our generation descends to Hades' realm? Gone, gone as the dodo is where they will be.
All of the above reasons are compelling enough in their own right. Bravo! But there's another argument for Latin: English vocabulary. Latin more than any other language that's been the victim of English's thievery opens doors to our own language. Many, many doors.
You are correct, of course. However, the vocabulary argument was probably the only one adduced to the girls to ponder over, and they were not thrilled.
Someone had described the unknown "modus operandi" and then linked it to "m.o." from crime tv shows. This elicited a general "ah-ha!"
But the young ladies decided that learning Latin was a bit much, when all one had to do was hit the remote button and watch something else, something they could understand.
Sigh . . .
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