When I was a lad, the Jesuits in charge of my high school
education thought it good that I take four years of Latin. So I took four years
of Latin. I cannot say that I enjoyed it, nor that I was a great Latin scholar.
(I scored 100 on my very first Latin test; I recall that because it never
happened again on any subsequent Latin test.) But since I ended up becoming a writer,
and a historian with a strong interest in Ancient History—although that is not
my main field; I am not a Classical scholar—I am grateful to the Society of
Jesus for giving me a good foundation in Latin. Some knowledge of Latin is
indeed, as the reverend fathers told me, a very good thing for those who write,
and love, English.
In recent years, as a teacher, I had contact with the Latin
teachers at my school. I sometimes examined the books they used, and my! was I
struck with the differences between these new texts and what I and my
schoolmates were subjected to.
Today, Latin, when it is offered at all, is almost always an
elective, so it is thought necessary to try to make the subject interesting. We
now have texts and course materials designed to entice the nascent Latinist
with stories about Marcus (and, of course, Marcia—one could not these days leave
out the ladies) going to school, walking in the garden, playing games,
interacting with other young Romans, and generally behaving like human beings.
Classes play games using Latin and have Latin names for students (as is
normally done in other foreign-language courses). In short, there is an attempt
to make the Romans appear to be rather like us.
It was otherwise in a Jesuit high school in the 1960s. The
first year was grammar, the second was Caesar, the third was Cicero, the fourth
Virgil. (If there were others, I have forgotten them.) Marching through Gaul
with Caesar’s legions got pretty tedious after a while, even for someone —e.g.
me—interested in military history.
The English-to-Latin translations we were made to do were a
mixture of Roman military history and Catholic theology. We translated
sentences like “The centurion is leading the cohort into the forest,” “The
soldiers are fighting the Gauls,” “Mary, our mother, loves us, “Caesar is
sending the grain supply to the besieged city,” “We pray for the salvation of
souls.”
I remember that several pages of one text were devoted to a
playlet in which a military tribune is interrogating a captive Gaul. When the
Gaul is reluctant to spill the beans, he is tortured. That is how we learned
the Latin exclamation “Eheu!”, which means “Alas!” or “Woe!”—the poor Gaul
screams “eheu” as he is being tortured. When the agonized Gaul finally tells
the Romans what they want to know, he is released--but unfortunately he mutters
words to the effect that the Gauls will yet prevail. The Romans hear him, and
the tribune orders “Statim ad mortem!” (Kill him immediately)—which is
immediately done. (I am not making this up; obviously the little drama made an
impression, as I recall it over half a century later.)
Many of our vocabulary words are probably not included in
modern introductory Latin, such as occidere
(to kill), supplicium (capital
punishment), tormentum (torture), gladius (sword), scutum (shield), and especially frumentarium
(grain supply). How many times did we read of the frumentarium being brought to
the troops, being transported through the forest, being intercepted by the
Gauls!
The poor Gauls paid a heavy price in my high school Latin.
Translate: The Romans are killing the Gauls. The Gauls are being killed by the
Romans. The Gauls have been killed by the Romans. The Gauls shall have been
killed by the Romans. Will the Romans kill the Gauls? I think we killed more
Gauls than did Caesar (although that would be difficult, as he slaughtered many
tens of thousands).
I imagine that the reaction to this essay, at least among
those not versed in history, will be that modern Latin instruction, with Marcus
and Marcia cavorting on dad’s latifundium,
is far superior to that which was forced on those of my generation. But… but…
well… Roman history is something I taught, and have studied, for many years.
And, you know, I have to say that what I was given in high school was a more
accurate rendition of the Romans than any prettified contemporary stuff. The Romans did not build an empire by being
nice, and their customs were not ours. Maybe the new Latin programs should
feature Marcus killing some hostages or Marcia being told at age thirteen that
she is going to marry a man in his thirties.
