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Home , Dignitas (Roman concept), Gravitas, Mos maiorum

Classica, Sao Paulo, 718: 339-346, 199411995

Having stated historical-differences in ANCIENT GREEK AND : the teaching of the two classical subjects, I A COMPARISON proceed to their content.

PETER WULFING Professor of Latin, 1. First, the Languages themselves. Greek Cologne University is rich in morphemes and, much more than Latin, in particles. So Greek to a greater extent expres- ses the semantic content of discourse on When the problems of our two subjects surface, whilst Latin keeps it in deep structure. are under consideration, we generally speak of I give just a few features: "ancient languages" or "classical philology" The definite article, absent from Latin. without paying much attention to the The ten participles of the Greek verb, differences between the two disciplines thus showing various relationship of time, aspect linked together. and voice; Latin has three. It is accordingly reasonable to seek The middle voice, which expresses so further facts and arguments in a study of their many shades of meaning. differences.' The considerations I am going to The optative mood in addition to the set out spring from common-place beginnings, subjunctive. but lead at least partially to useful educational The capacity to modify any word by reflexions, even concerning credentials. means of particles, whence This method would find favour with the The liberation of word-order in the structuralists, since it is they who have given a sentence. (The contrast with modern English new lease of life to that old instrument of is extreme, the latter language lacking thought, antithetical deliberation. The points syntactical signposts and so needing a rather of difference are numerous, and can easily be fixed word-order in the sentence; French and multiplied. Here I shall give a selection divided German in this regard occupy different into two sections. In the first I shall define nine intermediary positions.) points of difference between the Greek and Passing over many other details, Greek Roman worlds. In the second I shall very briefly can have recourse to a rich synchronistic ability examine these nine points from the educational to create compound words, which in Latin is angle. To conclude, I shall deal with a tenth restricted, thanks mainly to the classicism of matter. and . In contrast to the above, First, two small prelirninary remarks. Latin keeps much of its semantic content at the 1) In teaching, we are handing two implicit level; one may think of the participial subjects that are very different in terms of phrase, the ablative absolute, or the conjunction age. In Western Europe, Latin is a very long- cum, their wide variety of possible meanings. standing school subject, but Greek is much In order to demonstrate the repercus- more recent. It has only been taught for a sions of these differences on teaching, I shall couple of hundred years at the secondary offer an example of what I mean, even though I level. reserve my discussion of the educational 2) We only teach Greek after Latin. Until our principles until Part 2. When pupils translate own day there has been but little teaching of from Greek and Latin, they are not at all learning Greek independent of Latin. the same thing in each case: in translating from This is important when we try to defend Greek, they are learning to suppress certain both subjects: it is, at least in Germany, much linguistic elements, i.e. to convert a number of harder to defend Greek than Latin. The drop in them back into the deep structure of their own numbers taking Greek in my country is alarrning. language. But in translating from Latin, they 340 Comunicacoes e Notas

learn to make additions, and to render explicit late, for it was their "tribes" and localities which what in Latin is implicit. Both of these each brought its own individual cultural experiences are extremely valuable, but they heritage, gods, beliefs, ntes, customs, musical are different. traditions, dialects and poetry. They united only I should like to take my discussion of very slowly, under the growing influence of the two languages further: the difference epic which had a Mycenaean basis and was alluded to also affects the study of style. We strong enough to cross the frontiers of the in- feel how greatly the Greeks loved the spoken dividual "tribes". The Greeks were able to draw word, which led them to invent not only rhetoric upon the riches of each of their constituent but also dialectic, logic, grammar, and the whole "tribes", leading and borrowing all that was body of literary genres, viz all the artes best among them, Ionians receiving Aeolic lyric, sermocinales. The Romans, on the contrary, Dorians Ionic epic, Athenians Doric choruses were always cautious, reticent, and economical and Ionic prose, etc. and vice versa. What we with words. Their style was marked rather by cal1 literary genres were originally means of density of expression, conciseness, the heritage poetic expression proper to the individual of the lapidary style, the formula, the "tribes". Only later did they combine to create language of the law-code and of the solemn that unity which is Greek literature2. occasion. Even when they used it in much the Nothing of the kind occurred among the same way as the Greeks, whether in rhethoric Romans. Firstly, there was no problem of or poetry, they wanted it to serve certain quite dialects. Then, they inherited a bulk legacy of specific aims: a political platform, a practical all the Greek literary genres at once. It was on requirement, the preservation of power this heritage that they worked, translating, preferably, and above all its legitimation. imitating, sometimes excelling. This was done in the one city, , which proved a centre of 2. Among the Greeks, love of theory great attraction. speculation and abstraction have always been To this is added a complementary acknowledged, their ability to see through the problem which interests us classicists greatly. particular to the general has been much We see Greek literature come into being from admired; and their curiosity, the "history" of oral beginnings and we still sometimes the Ionians, is recognised as their supreme underestimate the oral character of this charcteristic. "literature", even in the so-called classical The Romans, on the other hand, rejected period of the fifth and fourth centuries. The theory, or at least gave it a more limited role. Romans adopted it just at the moment when it Their rationalism always remains under the had finally become a written literature for good. thumb of (an unthinkable They got to know it in its written form and they restriction for the Greeks). Greek philosophy worked on it in writing. only interested the Romans in its political and So we are teaching two subjects worlds ethical aspects. Then again, it is with the apart when we are explaining the Iliad and Romans that we feel a personal involvement in discussing the : the former a poem philosophy. Think of , of the whole transmitting the collective memory of a distant of his De Rerum Natura, and of the encomium heroic age, orally composed and received, with of philosophy which Cicero pronounces in the a foundation difficult to analyse consisting of Tusculanae, Book V. Would not a Greek parts of varied ongin, some already formulated philosopher have hidden such feelings? elsewhere in other contexts. These parts have been brought together to give the poem a unity 3. These two ancient peoples offer us undeniable even if not clearly distinguishable. choice exemples of the antithesis between The latter, the Aeneid, is the work of a known regionalism and centralism. The Greeks only author of historical date, who is putting a found a national unity which was fragil and mythical past at the service of contemporary Classica, Sao Paulo, 718: 339-346, 199411995 politics; from end to end it is subject to a preci- precise moments. se purpose, the proof that Roman history is meant to culminate in . 6. The competitive spirit among the Greeks The contrast between the oral and the is well known -the spirit of theagon. Glaukos written ought to be one of the main themes in in the Iliad expresses it once for a11 (11.6,208): the teaching of ancient literature, for it is there "My father charged me always to be the best that we meet with the first change of media (we and to excel a11 others" are now living through the third). Greek and aiiv &PLOTE~ELV ai U~E~POXOV Epp~vai Roman literature furnish us 'with both ahhwv. constrasting and complementary examples of It is a spirit which could be described this change. as typically European, but which, unless I am wrong, is nowhere more marked than among 4. Greek myth in a11 its richness is in our the Greeks, even today. Obviously it's a possession because it was put into written form phenomenon found among us all. The English while still in full flower. Its function was clear: have given it the name of "one-up-manship". to put the narration of significant situations It is characteristic of the English spirit to aim to and events at the disposal of those seeking neutralise an attitude which is socially dubious their historical, moral and religious identity. by giving it the form of a society game. It is mistaken, moreover, to see in The Romans never regarded individual mythology a pre-rational means of thinking; performance as acceptable. They harshly on the contrary, it allows of considerable power punished the soldier who went to the attack of abstraction: it is myth which tells of the ge- before the command was given. The exemple neral, deriving it from the particular. of Fabius Maximus Rullianus is famous. He was What about the Romans? With them, condemned to death after winning a victory the palace of myth is taken by the res gestae, over the Samnites without the order of the the collections of exploits of the current ( 8,30; cf. the legend of providing examples for the present and the the Manliana imperia in 8, 7)3. future. Whilst myths are no longer repeated in Against the Greek ideal of individual real life (they are a11 the more so in the self-sufficiency, of spontaneous action and imagination), the great deeds found in Roman taking one's own risks (of which Achilles and history can and must be accomplished anew. Ajax are typical incarnations), the Romans Whether this be possible does not admit of would have set their nobles, men who were doubt: the res gestae, true or otherwise, never held in check by the hierarchy of the gentes depart from the framework of reality. and by the authority of the Senate and magistrates; their deeds had to be done within 5. The Greek gods exist in flesh and blood, the framework of the cursus honorurn. we are tempted to say, so recognisable are they with their human faces and figures. Yet their 7. An almost necessary consequence is actions are merely secondary. that for the Greeks it was the youthful male The appearance of the Roman gods is who most nearly corresponed to the ideal. Man unimportant. They are identified with their at the peak of his strength and beauty, even power to act, their will, numen, which must be with his hybris, even in his brillant failure, discovered and once known followed in the personifies the acme of heroic existence. What minutest detail. The Greek gods remain outside was true for the heroic age still flickered in a history; the Romans gods are part of it. They thoroughly bourgeois period, that of the New direct Roman history according to a plan of Comedy, e.g. of Menander. There, the young their own conception as is clearly shown in the man, although his character is sometimes quite Aeneid: Jupiter, Juno, and later Mars and insignificant, nearly always gets the better of Quirinus intervene in Rome's development at his father's generation. Comunicacoes e Notas

For the Romans, the mature man in his Nowadays we might well translate the aetas firma et constans, full of , expression as "being a terrorist". and , would never be As I have said, for the Romans rational tempted to cross the frontiers of his society; in innovation could only be rightfully undertaken his case, the realities of power and of hierarchy, within the framework of the mores maiorum. as established in the mos maiorum, would be The contrast with the Greek institution of the respected. "lawgiver" may be observed in the Corpus luris, the greatest achievement of the Roman 8. Mos maiorum is the key phrase to mind. There, it is the very antiquity of the laws enable us to see their respective attitudes to and institutions which gives them their tradition. As my first exemple I should like to authority - not a god of justice (as in Hesiod) cite the freedom which the Greekpoets enjoyed, nor the idea of the "highest good" (as in Plato) in particular the tragedians, in their treatment nor the comparative study of the constitutional of the myths which had come down to them. theory of the Greek city-states (as in Aristotle) (The popular travesty of the myths was only a nor that of their lawcodes (undertaken by particular form of this - which had moreover Theophrast~s)~,but the simple adapting of its parallel in Roman satura.) Another exemple something very ancient to the circumstances might be still more suggestive: the institution of the day. of the mediator during an interna1 crisis (Aristotle, in Pol. 3,14, talks of the Aisymnetes) 9. To conclude the first part of this sometimes summoned from abroad, and that of discussion, I should like to examine the lawmaker (nomothetes) appointed for the attitudes of the two peoples to political founding of colonies. Both recived domination. For the Greek city-states and extraordinary full powers to make new laws, kingdoms it was obviously a temptation and a institutions and rules which were rightly fascinating enterprise to rule vast areas of the applauded for their originality, as they had world. The great power was certainly a topic never existed before, and for this end they made discussed among the Greeks. They realised the use of individual rational intelligence. risks and problems and debated the hybris of The Romans, however, could not follow power but considered it neither possible nor this procedure. When, in exceptional desirable to maintain an empire or hegemony circumstances, they thought it best to appoint over a long period of time. Thus the Delian a dictator, it was for well defined objectives League and Alexander's empire both engaged (the technical tem being rei gerundae causa the Greek mind and imagination, but scarcely "for the management of the political situation", survived a generation or two. Only the city- with the implication "until the crisis has been states, and kingdoms, such as Macedonia and resolved") and for a limited period of time, six Ptolemaic Egypt, with well defined frontiers, months at most. And when they had to dispen- experienced real continuity. se with the libera res publica and Augustus In contrast the Romans found a took supreme power, what steps did he not take practical, serious and continuous task in the to prove he was doing nothing new, but quite enlargement and maintenance of their empire the contrary was simply reviving the early (and how can we know if they enlarged it in republic's ancient institutions? It was because order to maintain it or if they kept it because a little while before had not taken they had already enlarged it?). With their the same precautions that he had failed. pragmatic arrangements, with the efficient For actions designed to change the solutions they discovered by perseverance and government and the political system the even obstinacy, the Romans created lasting Romans had a special expression, novis rebus institutions in the whole realm of military, studere. In the political context, they always political and judicial organisation, government regarded novum as having a pejorative slant4. not only at home but even as far as the most Classica, Sao Paulo, 718: 339-346, 199411995 343

distant provinces, the provisioning of large also useful to bring in Roman imperialism. In conurbations, the civil service, and the the same way the complaints of King centralised administration6. Thus the Romans Mithridates in 's , and those of kept up the everlasting, unwinnable struggle barbarian chiefs like Critognatus in Caesar, B. between the ideal of lawful power and the harsh G. 7,77 and Calgacus in , Agricola 30 ff, necessities of its daily exercise. They were well would be thrown into higher relief if they were prepared for it by their character made up of set against the Athenians' treatment of the the gravitas and dignitas and an Mytilenians (in Thuc. 3, 25-51) and of the austere peasant realism. This combination was Melians (Thuc. 5,84 ff). softened by the invincible spirit of satire, which enabled them to reduce the excesses of On 8. Reform or continuity, this is the great severitas (indeed, they could say "satura tota dilemma which is endlessly being inflicted on nostra est" simply because the Greeks did not us, in so many sectors of our life; it finds cultivate dignitas and gravitas in that way). important points of reference in our study of While the Greeks tended to give up the the means applied by each of the ancient task, too big and too heavy with contradictions, peoples both to preserve tradition and to attain of ruling vast political conglomerations, the freedom from it. Romans had the capacity to persist and accept a less than ideal pragmatic solution, even, when On 7. Individual freedom, spontaneity and the occasion demanded, a makeshift. They creativity are amongst the values we hold most found this much more acceptable than a loss dear. Yet we see them threatened by powerful of power or security (we are nowadays used to movements, by direct state intervention and this selfish concept of "security"). Uncon- control, by industries which will more and more quered nations weresuperbi, whom the Romans make use of electronic information devices, by must debellare, and couldn't parcere except indirect control otherwise called conformism, subiectis (cf. Aeneid 6,851 ff). nourished by the media, by the consumer society, and mass tourism. A11 these things Part 2 bring about a loss of individuality but at the same time spur us to distance ourselves. The ~hesepoints of difference, significant question is, which ideal to fight for? in themselves, will only gain their real interest The attitudes of the two ancient peoples if we can show their meaning for today and for furnish us with two complementary models. tt our own teaching. These two last mentioned is our task to find a position somewhere matters are, fortunately for us, more often between the youthful Greek hero-figure and the identical than different. Moreover, even in Part mature Roman patrician such as Cato and 1 I have not always been able to refrain from Scipio. alluding to them. So now I shall embark upon a The idealisation of the young is familiar quick survey to serve as a pedagogic summary, to us, moreover. The person who "aristeuei" taking the points in reverse order, and starting is today the young, dynamic person, bursting with the last. with health, always at the peak of fitness.

On9. We are quite familiar with the On6. A11 professional teachers are parti- phenomenon of political domination and culary alive to the repercurtions of the hegemony. We speak of superpowers, blocs, competitive spirit. How far should it be allowed and zones of influence. We can study two to go? How far should it be encouraged? At approaches with regard to this phenomenon what point should we preferably encourage as we contrast the Greeks with the Romans. cooperation? Hesiod already formed the More precisely, while reading Thucydides it is distinction between good and bad eris 344 Comunicacoes e Notas

"contention, rivalry", the latter being the kind trying to persuade his fellow-citizens that, for of stirf which destroys all sense of community exemple, rhetoric, for all it was a craft in the (Hesiod, Works and Days 11 ff., where he hands of the lawyers'(the patroni), needed corrects his own Theogony 225 ff.). For theories and philosophical doctrines, which in ourselves the problem is yet more complex, for his time meant Greek ones. even good eris can cause havoc. On 1. I have already spoken of the differen- On 5. As regards deities, I confine myself to ces in kind between the two languages and of the mention of the problem of Nature: is it an the consequences that arise from them. These object on which to exercise our will, or else a can be thrown into relief by means of a teaching force which constrains us to stay within certain method employing contrast or comparison limits? There is no way of returning to the between the languages. But a third partner Ancients on this score and no solution should immediately appears on the scene: our own be sought by so doing. Nevertheless, it is native language. Careful reflexion on the possible to study the positions they adopted, properties of the three languages will maximise and they left a variety of documents on their both linguistic and cultural awareness. religious beliefs. Conclusion On4. The myths have come to win our interest again. Today more than ever we are The form of a brief account only allows conscious that mythological thought exists me to skim over the points I have made, alongside the rational. Just to cite a single although there is plenty to be said about each example, Roland Barthes had given us the and still more working out to be undertaken in clearest evidence of the "mythological" in the order to put at teachers' disposal the material most modem products. And we shall benefit requisite for bringing to full development the from studying the Romans' double conception two subjects which have been contrasted. of history as (a) the prehistory of the present Finally I should like to rise one last point of and (b) a storehouse of exempla requiring the great importante. reader to follow them. 10. It is the fact that the Greek world and the Latin7world present themselves to us each On 3. Greek and Roman history offer plenty in quite a different way. It is only our own of material for studying the question of organised teaching which tends to obscure this regionalism versus centralism, a fundamental diversity somewhat, as I have suggested at the one for the German Federal Republic, which beginning of this account. also arouses as great an interest in Great Britain In fact there is a solid cultural continuity and many other European states, not least in between ourselves and . This is of course the "Latin" countries, Italy, France, Spain, only true, as far as Western Europe is Belgium. concemed. For the heirs of the Eastem half of the the problems must be put in On 2. The eterna1 conflict between theory and a different way9. But we feel ourselves still in practice has its specific forms today. A manifest contact with the Roman world, firstly technology which posits that "everything is linguistically, especially in the lands where a possible" exposes its own theoretical language of Latin origin is spoken, then through bankruptcy. Furthermore, political and institutions, especially ecclesiastical and judi- economic theories are belied so cruelly by cial ones, and through a11 the other remains actuality that they lose a11 credibility. As against found in our history. In particular there is the these contradictions, it seems to us to be a continuity in the world of leaming which until more limited problem which Cicero faced in the nineteenth century communicated in Latin Classica, Sao Paulo, 718: 339-346,1994/l,995- 345 and which still makes ample use of it for the each, and thus create a yet richer combination. needs of scientific, psychological, sociological, economic and technological terminology. It has Notes to be admitted of course that Greek is used 1-This research was undertaken by my even more than Latin in this respect. colleague and friend W. Heilmann, in an What, on the other hand, is our contact article in Handbuch fuer den Luteinunter- with the Greek world? Fmt of all, Greek influente richt - Sekundarstufe II (Latin Coursebook made itself felt on the Roman world and this is for Upper Secondary Classes), Frankfurt- the modest legacy which was transmitted to us on-Main, 1979. Diesterweg, pp. 58 to 69. To across the middle ages. For a long period of this article I owe most of the points I have time, the Greek language was as good as propounded here. A more direct response to Heilmann's article is forthcoming in forgotten in our part of the world. Our Latomos, 1985. See also the bibliographical relationship with Greek has been marked rather note. by repeated but momentaneous meetings, but 2 -Translator7snote: the word "tnbe" is here not by a continuity. Such were the Renaissence, used loosely for want of a better to refer to the humanists, the neohumanists (such as the broad divisions of the Greeks into Winckelmann, Herder, and Goethe, and also Ionians, Dorians, etc., and not to the tribes parallel movements in other countries). These in histoncal Greek cities. meetings were momentaneous, yet had 3 - Sallust, in a single sentence in Catiline 9,4, profound effects. They also took place at long already noted this attitude. distance, deprived of geographical and political 4 - In the political language of present-day contact, without the transmission of any legacy Germany the same thing happens with the other than a spiritual and artistic one, which word Systemveraenderer (lit. "one who makes their repercussions a11 the more wants to change the system"). In some remarkable, yet at the same time a11 the more people's mounths it has become a word fragile ! heavy with reproach. The list of contrasting points offer ma- 5 - This series of contrasts is developed in F. terial for many discussions and conclusions. I Wieacker, p. 52. shall confine myself to three simple points 6 -The Roman Church took over from the Empire which are directly relevant to our teaching. in founding itself on quite a lot of its 1. It is clear that there are excellent reasons structures. Thus it succeeded to a power to go on teaching both ancient languages and which has no theological basis. to cultivate them side by side. 7 - Latin, not just Roman! 2. In the deplorable situation where only one 8 -Not with standing that there has been a language can be taught, there is no sufficient growing number of interruptions in this reason automatically to prefer Latin to Greek. continuity during our own century. The widely found preference for Latin has an 9 -This article was first written for a lecture- historical explanation but has no basis in the tour to Greece, originally to elicit an content of the two subjects. exchange of views with Greek collegues. Jt 3. Whether the two languages are taught was published, in Greek, in the Espistemoniki under the same roof or whether only one Epetiris of the Philosophy Faculty, Salonika subsists, it is essential to include in the University. No. 21, 1983, pp. 491 to512. The teaching of each the aspects in which it problem still remains (among others) to contrasts with the other. discover how far contemporary Greeks can come to see that the Byzantine world This was precisely the point of this contained a strong Roman element and that essay: to rekindle awareness of some contrasts their line of descent does not go back purely inherent in the two ancient civilisations such and directly to Pericles, Sophocles, as are able to emphasise the individuality of Thucydides, and Plato. The object of this 346 Comunicacoes e Notas

note is not to relate a biographical detail, Franz Wieacker, Vom roemischen Rechr (2nd but is meant to revel the importance of ed. Stuttgart 1961); Richard Harder, Eigenart comparing, between nation and nation, our der Griechen, Freiburg 1962; and Otto Seel, understanding of the credentials of the Roemertum und Latinitaet, Stuttgart, 1964. subjects we teach. The case of modern The following works in English are also Greece is but the extreme case of the relevant. General: Antony Andrewes, Greek diversities which exist between a11 our countries. Society, Pelican (197 1). Donald Dudley, Roman Society, Pelican (1975). Oral Culture: E. A. 10 - Professor Alan Wardman supplied the English bibliography. Havelock, Preface to Plato, Harvard (1963) and (1982). Myth and Religion: C. S. Kirk, Myth, CUP (1970): Sather Classical Lectures. H. J. Bibliographical note Rose, Religion in Greece and Rome, Harper (1959). (A one volume edition ofAncient Greek Besides the article cited in note 1 it must Religion and Ancient Roman Religion). be stated how few sources exist on the subject History: Michael Grant, The Ancient of contrasting and comparing the Greeks and Historians, Weidenfeld (1970). Language: Romans. I have found scattered information in Jorma Kaimio, The Romans and the Greek a number of classic works e.g. Nietzsche, The Language, Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Birth of Tragedy, subtitled "Greekness and Helsinki (1970). Attitudes of Greeks and Pessimism", and Jakob Burckhardt, History of Romans: Arnaldo Momigliano,Alien Wisdom, Greek Civilisation; then, in more recent works, CUP (1975). Alan Wardman, Rome's Debt to not widely known even in Germany, such as Greece, Elek (1 976)