The subject of Classics is having a resurgence. For those who don’t know, Classics is the study of Latin and Greek languages and literature. It also brings in ancient history, philosophy, art and archaeology. You’re looking at ancient civilisations - Greece, Rome, Persia - and uncovering a past that’s still beating in our present day. Its traces sparkle in the etymologies of our language. Great monuments stand across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. They beautify our landscapes either in scattered ruins or in preserved villas and temples. They stand a lonely guard upon hills and in valleys or stare out to sea on obscure headlands awaiting the return of heroes from myths of old. The English romantic poet, Lord Byron, wrote a poem about The Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, 70 kilometres to the south of Athens. It has the memorable last stanza:
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine—
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
In fact, if you go to the Temple of Poseidon today, you can still see Byron’s name engraved on a pillar from when he came in 1810 as part of his first Grand Tour of Europe. If you visit, try to head over before sunset on a clear, still day. As the light fades, the marble absorbs the orange of the setting sun. Beyond, the water of the Myrtoan Sea ripples gently around a small spiking of islands and the horizon burns red and orange with scattered purple rays painted onto the surface of the water.
There has always been a love for the Ancient World and it’s only grown stronger in the social media age, inspiring people of all political persuasions. On X, formerly Twitter, large right-wing accounts post photos of marble architecture in Rome, deploring modern standards and asking how we could forsake the aesthetic wisdom of our ancestors. Stoic philosophy has never been more popular. Figures on Youtube such as Ryan Holiday (@dailystoic) extol the teachings and virtues of ancients like Zeno, Cleathes, and Marcus Aurelius. In fact, in 2022, a trend erupted on Instagram and TikTok worldwide. Young women would go to their male partners and ask them how often they thought about the Roman Empire. Without fail, the men would earnestly, and assuredly reply with something ludicrous. Answers ranged from “multiple times a day”, to “three to four times a month”. The trend blew up with #romanempire having 1.3 billion views on TikTok in September 2023.
It makes sense to think that the rising tide of interest in the Classics brings with it only a flooding of masculinity, stoicism, and conservatism. But that’s not the case. Luckily indeed, this “Roman Empire” that seems to occupy the thoughts of men across the world, is just a slither of martial history sprinkled with philosophers and the lives and values of a couple of Roman emperors. For everyone else, the true glory of the ancient world still glistens, untarnished. There’s enough poetry to go around as well glorious, sentimental works of art and preserved buildings. All these things don’t teach us moral lessons, or encourage us to be stoic, toughen up or follow the example of the most elite, masculine figures from ancient times. Instead, they bring us to our shared human experience - emotions and sensation that transcend time and give life its true meaning. I’ll give you an example and I’d encourage you to check it out for yourself.
Book the flight over to Pompeii, or more precisely to Naples International Airport and then take the train to the famed town below Mt Vesuvius. One could argue that Pompeii is the most fascinating city in all of Europe. It was a thriving Mediterranean hub, a day’s march from Rome with a distinct culture and societal spirit. It’s warmer in Pompeii and much like all seaside towns, life was dictated by the salty air and the auspices delivered by the water. It was more hedonistic than the capital and wealthy citizens could enjoy the pleasures of large villas they could escape to whenever Rome became too crowded or politically tense. Pompeii was an interesting city in its own right even before the great eruption that made it so famous.
Yet the day that raised its name to the stars also happened to be its last. Everyone knows the story: Mount Vesuvius erupted and the whole city was destroyed by fire, engulfed in avalanches of pyroclastic flow and batterings of falling stone. Some people fled and survived but many perished in the disaster. Some famous names include Pliny the Elder, the polymath who wrote the Natural Histories and invented our concept of an encyclopaedia, and Caecilius, a wealthy merchant who is known to anyone who studied Latin in British schools. Others you can literally see in plaster casts, frozen in time: sleeping, with their loved ones, or even masturbating.
As you wander the streets, you’re transported back to a city on XXX date. It had no history after that and exists only in universes where the great volcano stayed dormant. For the interested visitor who is attuned to a more nuanced Ancient Rome than blazing wars and stoic emperors, there’s a stillness to Pompeii, a calm energy that lingers in a warm air heavy with the perfume of fig, laurel, and oleander trees. It’s the residue of emotion and the freshness of an existence that was suddenly snatched away and pulverised. You can feel this most clearly when you visit La Villa dei Misteri, one of the best-preserved houses in Pompeii. It’s famous for its great red frescoes depicting scenes of a bride being initiated into the Dionysian mystery cult. The red color on these paintings is so deep and enthralling that it was the primary inspiration for Mark Rothko’s famous Red Murals.
When you go to the villa and stand opposite the great paintings, you’re experiencing the world, for the briefest second, as Pompeiians did almost 2000 years ago. Your emotions, the wonder you feel at the images, the detail and richness, were likely felt by another human being, clad in a toga from a time greatly separated from our own. That’s what’s so fantastic.
Art, color, creation: these are all things that transcend time and space. It’s the reason why you hear stories of people abandoning lives of crime after a revelation they had after standing before a great painting. Marc Chagall’s, The Promenade, helped Gianluigi Buffon, Italy’s greatest ever goalkeeper, recover from a period of depression. In Proust’s novel A la recherche du temps perdu, a character called Bergotte collapses in front of Vermeer’s View of Delft, realising in ecstasy what it means to make great art. Add poetry to the mix and you’ll have Robin Williams’ famous speech from the film “The Dead Poet’s Society” - “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race And the human race is filled with passion.”
The resurgence of The Classics has been linked to the growth of the far right across the world: authoritarianism, isolationism, and a Eurocentric ethno-nationalism. The Roman Empire is looked to as an example to combat the evils of our modern age, which is not without its problems.
But we’re focusing on the wrong things. Instead of fixating on the lives of emperors, generals, and philosophers, we should also look to moments of communal triumph and the examples of human experience that we can empathise with. We must read Virgil’s Aeneid, with its complex, humane, and irrevocably flawed depiction of masculinity and leadership. We must visit Roman remains in Pompeii or look out over the Myrtoan Sea from Cape Sounion. It’s only by doing this that we can begin to see the world through the eyes of our Roman ancestors and to be united in empathy with those who have passed before us, thus strengthening the bonds of community in our present day.
