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"To read the Latin and Greek authors in their original
is a sublime luxury. [...] I thank on my knees him who directed
my early education for having in my possession this rich source
of delight." Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Joseph Priestly Some answers:
Why Study Classics?
January 27, 1800
• Because it is fun:
It is an amazing experience to be able to read and understand the
writings of people who have been dead for more than two-thousand years.
• Because it expands your horizon:
Studying ancient Greek, Latin, or Hebrew means encountering fascinating
cultures that seem both very exotic and very familiar since they are
at the root of our modern civilization.
• Because it provides you with a useful general
education:
The Classics are still very much alive, yet only the initiate
can truly appreciate their continuing influence. Our calendar, for
example, goes back to the ancient Romans; the 7-day-week was introduced
by the ancient Hebrews, and many of our modern sciences have Greek
names because ancient Greeks either invented them or made significant
contributions to them. Modern art and architecture abound with classical
references: The statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial
in Washington, D.C. (1922), for example, is inspired by the statue
of Olympian Zeus which the Greek sculptor Pheidias made for the temple
of Zeus in Olympia. The fasces on Lincoln's armrests are a Roman symbol
for justice and republican government. Classical antiquity pervades
even modern pop culture: The TV show "Xena, the Warrior Princess"
and Disney's recent animated movie "Hercules" are based
on Classical mythology.
• Because it gets you into grad school:
Even without any special preparation, Classics students score notably
better on the verbal part of exams like the GRE since they know the
Greek and Latin roots of most foreign words in English and have learned
to write well-structured arguments.
• Because it enables you to understand the Latin
quote on Angelina Jolie's belly:
A recent issue of "Cosmo" (8/2004) reports that the actress
Angelina Jolie has the Latin phrase "Quod me nutrit me destruit"
tattooed across her stomach (see picture). The sentence means "What
nourishes me destroys me."
According to the "Tattoo Raider" (Nigel Rees), the phrase
appears first "in capital letters at the top left-hand corner
of a portrait of a young man that was rescued from builders' rubbish
at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in the 1950s. On the basis that
lettering next to the motto describes him as being aged 21 in 1585,
the man is thought to be Christopher Marlowe, the future playwright,
who obtained his BA at the college in that year and at that age.
The Latin words have not been found in classical texts but bear a
resemblance to some lines by Shakespeare
(written a few years later): ‘Consum'd with that
which it was nourish'd by' (Sonnet 73) and ‘A burning torch that's
turned upside down; / The word, Qui me alit, me extinguit [Who feeds
me extinguishes me]' (Pericles, II.ii.33).
A.D. Wraight wrote in 1965 that, if the portrait is of Marlowe, then
the motto refers to his poetic muse ‘which both inspired and
nourished him, and yet consumed him with its fiery genius'."
(From: http://www.qunl.com/rees0010.html)
By the way, Angelina Jolie has another classical connection: In the
upcoming Oliver Stone movie "Alexander", she plays the evil
Olympias, Alexander's mother.
• Because you would probably have an experience
similar to Chris Hedges, war correspondent for the New York Times:
From an NPR
interview, broadcast on January 31, 2003:
Bob Abernethy: When you came back from Kosovo, you spent a
year reading the classics. What were you trying to understand?
Chris Hedges: I did that on the advice of James Freedman, the
former president of Dartmouth, and it was one of the smartest things
I did because, of course,
Thucydides, Cicero, Virgil -- all of these great writers
dealt with the same issues. Virgil and Cicero came out of a very bloody
civil war that ended with the reign of Augustus.
I was freed from the cant of my own society and allowed to grapple
with those issues in a way that brought them into clearer focus.
I saw, for instance, in writers such as Aristotle how great minds
in societies are limited. Even though Aristotle opposed slavery, he
believed that slavery would never be eradicated. It allowed me to
come back and look at our own society and my own life in a way that
I hadn't before.
And then,quite frankly, I found that a lot of the writing of Catullus,
this great lyric Roman poet, just spoke to me over hundreds of years
in a very powerful and moving way. I memorized a lot of Catullus's
poems. And when I went to visit Kurt Schork's grave in Sarajevo, I
stood over it and recited the poem that Catullus had written to his
own brother who died near Troy [Catull. c. 101]. It gave me a kind
of continuity, a clearer understanding of who I was and the age in
which I live.
Still not convinced? Here
are some more practical reasons.