The Power of the Classical Past
CAROLINE DOWNING
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It is a great honor to be invited to contribute to this Festschrift celebrating the life and career of Dr. David Curry. Our joint interest in the ancient world, his in philosophy and mine in ancient art, have led to collaborations that I believe have enriched both of our lives. Together with other like-minded colleagues we have read ancient Greek, and we have taught in an interdisciplinary learning community including professors from English and Communication and from History, providing students with an immersive experience into the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans. We were even able to organize a trip to Greece, which I know provided a life-changing experience for our students; I still hear from them about that trip. Because our culture has recently seen a resurgence in interest in ancient Greece and Rome, this seemed like an ideal opportunity to explore the reasons behind this resurgence, and to ask what the ancient world can still contribute to contemporary life.
In general, I agree with Socrates that what democracies badly need is the examined life, and we need to think critically about ourselves.
– Martha Nussbaum
WHY ARE WE still so fascinated by ancient Greece and Rome? What explains the current resurgence of interest in the ancient world? One manifestation of this interest is the publication of many new works of fiction set in ancient Greece. Madeline Miller’s award-winning book Song of Achilles, published in 2012, seems to have unleashed a tsunami of works that similarly reimagine the ancient world. A visit to any bookstore or library today is likely to involve an encounter with a large display of works deriving from the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, and it seems that almost every week a new work is published; the tsunami is showing no signs of subsiding.
Social media has been involved as well, with the “Roman Empire meme” now having gone viral on TikTok. Apparently begun on Instagram by Swedish influencer Saskia Cort, the meme explores an apparent obsession by men with the Roman Empire. Cort asked her followers to ask their male partners how often they thought about the Roman Empire, and the answer seems to be that many men think about the Roman Empire “daily.” Dani Di Placido attempted to explain in Forbes in 2024 the appeal of the Roman Empire meme, writing that “it could be “the Roman Empire’s vast reach and longevity…or the narrative appeal of a dramatic fall, along with the legends of lust and hedonism” help to explain widespread appeal.
In 2007 Cullen Murphy published Are We Rome: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, in which he explored the ways in which historical and cultural developments in the United States mirror events in the Roman Empire as well as ways in which the trajectory of U.S. history differs from that of the Romans. It’s important to note that the comparison of the United States to ancient Rome is not a new one; visiting our nation’s capital, with its gleaming white Neoclassical buildings is proof enough of that. When George Washington stepped away from leading the armies of the Continental Army of the American Revolution, he proudly joined the Society of the Cincinnati, composed of former officers who returned to private life, just as the eponymous Roman Cincinnatus had centuries earlier. Like Cincinnatus, who returned happily to his farm, these officers were dedicated to the preservation of the new republic for which they had fought and had no interest in maintaining their wartime powers.
In my classroom teaching ancient Greek and Roman art and archaeology I am often told by students that they became interested in the subject through popular culture; they frequently mention specifically the Percy Jackson series of adventure stories (now also a television series) based on Greek mythology. One student even referred to the stories as the “gateway drug” for the study of the ancient world. Other students frequently cite the popular Assassin’s Creed video games set in the ancient world, Odyssey and Ancient Rome. These games feature many absorbing and complex depictions of ancient settings, full of realistic detail (if not always completely accurate and authentic).
What is the basis for the universal appeal of the Classical past? When I ask this question the answer I often receive is “the stories.” As noted above, many people have been introduced as children and adolescents to stories based on Greek and Roman mythology. In fact, the Greek word “mythos” means “story.” And what stories they are, many of them very ancient, with origins in the Bronze Age of ancient Greece and the early days of the founding of Rome. Their themes encompass every aspect of human existence. Now even in ancient times, many writers expressed skepticism about these stories. The Greek doctor Pausanias, who traveled through Greece in the second century C.E., faithfully recounted his observations of both the physical remains of cities and sanctuaries, and his opinions of the legends told to him by local guides. He frequently describes a local legend, often in great detail, then notes that he himself does not believe it. On his visit to Plato’s Academy in Athens, for example, Pausanias tells us that on the day before Socrates met Plato for the first time, he dreamed that a swan flew into his breast, which was interpreted as an omen foretelling that Plato would be a great philosopher. From there, Pausanias goes on to note the story of a musician named Swan who became a king, and then by the will of Apollo was turned into a bird. “I am ready to believe that a musician became a king … but I cannot believe that a bird grew out of a man.” Pausanias clearly held deep spiritual beliefs, however, as on several occasions he refuses to reveal information about his experiences in so-called “mystery cults” like those of Demeter and Kore; Peter Levi considers that there can be “no doubt that he was a true believer in the most sacred of these traditions.”
We are justly full of admiration for the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, which have passed down to us seminal works of art, literature, history, philosophy, and science; but we cannot fail to admit that these great works were created in societies that benefited from the labor of enslaved people, and afforded women few rights. A key difference between the treatment of enslaved populations in Greece and Rome is that emancipation was a more common path in Rome, as the numerous epitaphs of freedmen and freedwomen on tomb monuments record. An important inscription from Beroia, Macedonia, known as the gymnasiarchal law, records the rules of the city’s gymnasium, specifying who was not allowed to enter: enslaved men and freedmen and their sons, untrained men (apalaistros), prostitutes, tradesmen or their sons, drunken men or madmen.
One of the few ways in which women could play important roles in public life in Greece and Rome was through religion; women, usually from aristocratic families, served as priestesses in major cults at Delphi and Athens in Greece, and as attendants of Vesta in Rome. These women were entrusted with caring for major temples, and are often depicted in Greek grave reliefs holding the elaborate keys of their temples. It is clear from our ancient sources that the Greeks recognized that many early sanctuaries had originally been the locations of worship of earth goddesses, often attended by female priestesses. Pausanias records that this was the case at both Olympia and Delphi, where Gaia was once the oracle consulted. At Delphi, Aeschylus records that Apollo slew Gaia’s sacred serpent Python and took over the oracle. Apollo’s priestess at Delphi was given the name Pythia after the slain serpent.
While it is clear that the Classical past has a great deal to teach us, we must also recognize that there are bad actors today who are subverting the past for their own ends. The achievements of ancient Greece and Rome have been coopted by white supremacists to justify their attitudes and actions towards people of color. Dani Bostick writes about the work of Curtis Dozier, assistant professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College. Dozier directs the Pharos project, which documents how white supremacists misuse the Classical world in their online posts. Dozier is quoted in Bostick’s article: “The civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome have always been attractive to European nationalist and racist movements, and in more recent years have been adopted by other so-called alt-right groups.” The Pharos website states that its central purpose is “to document appropriations of Greco-Roman culture by hate groups.”
The need for organizations like Pharos was unfortunately reinforced by racist incidents that occurred at a joint meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and Society for Classical Studies in San Diego in 2019, which I attended. After these incidents, the AIA/SCS governing board felt the necessity of issuing a formal statement condemning the incidents. Mary Boatwright, President of the Board of Directors of the Society for Classical Studies wrote, in part, that the board “condemns the racist acts and speech that occurred at the 2019 SCS annual meeting.
We have moved from describing a resurgence of interest in and publications based on the Classical past to an acknowledgment of the dangers of misuse of this cultural heritage. How do we proceed from this point? We must recognize the inherent potential for harm and do our best to neutralize its negative effects; and we can build on preexisting interest in the Classical past on the part of students and society at large to emphasize the importance of continuing to study this field. In a time when colleges and universities are trying to find ways to justify draconian budget cuts, programs in Classics, like other humanities disciplines such as art history, languages, and philosophy, are being eliminated. This ruthless destruction of our cultural heritage will not, I predict, end well.
Perhaps you may be thinking that the recent resurgence in novels, games, and films about the ancient world represent merely an escape from a troubled present. I would argue that study of the ancient world can provide invaluable lessons from which we can all benefit; and I would further urge that we leverage this interest to save the vital cultural heritage of ancient Greece and Rome.