HumanitiesNATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES • VOLUME 8 NUMBER 1 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1987 The Classical Tradition in America Saving Endangered Books Lynne Cheney Answers Tough Questions Editor's Notes A Legacy of Value The pediments, pillars, and domes of official Washington are architectural symbols of the influence of classical Greece and Rome on American political institutions. In this issue of Humanities, classicists look behind the monu­ mental facades to examine what the ancient republics have contributed to American culture. Essays by Meyer Reinhold of Boston University and Susan Ford Wiltshire of Vanderbilt University demonstrate that the classical This elevation drawing showing a side civilizations inspired not only the mechanism and shape of American gov­ view of the marble memorial to Thomas ernment but also the values of statehood that continue to affect American Jefferson in Washington, D.C., was is­ political life. sued by the architectural firm of John In the same spirit that moved Charles Bulfinch to base his design for Russell Pope in January 1939. Inspired the dome of the U.S. Capitol on classical models, his son, Thomas Bulfinch, by the Pantheon in Rome and honoring brought classical mythology to a broad American audience. Marie Cleary, Jefferson's own classically influenced ar­ who is currently at work on a biography of the younger Bulfinch, describes chitecture, the monument is a symbol of the American heritage of republican gov­ in an essay on The Age of Fable how Bulfinch brought knowledge of the clas­ ernment and civic virtue. sical gods and heroes to generations of Americans. The NEH fosters goals similar to those achieved by Bulfinch by supporting projects that increase the awareness of the presence of the classical past in American politics and culture. In the interview in this issue, Chairman Lynne Cheney says that Humanities is a bimonthly review enabling Americans to learn more about their history and heritage is a pri­ published by the National Endowment ority for her administration. for the Humanities. One man who has accomplished a great deal toward this goal of making Chairman: Lynne V. Cheney Americans aware of their history died at his home in Charlottesville, Vir­ Director of Public Affairs: ginia, as this issue of Humanities was in production. Historian Dumas Marguerite Hoxie Sullivan Assistant Director for Publications: Malone created a monument to Thomas Jefferson in a six-volume biography Caroline Taylor that is as elegant and as welcoming as the public memorial depicted on our Editor: Linda Blanken cover. Professor Malone started work on Thomas Jefferson and His Time in Managing Editor: Mary T. Chunko 1943, while teaching history at the University of Virginia. In 1975 he was Editorial Board: John Agresto, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history for the first five volumes, and in 1981, John Andrews, Marjorie Berlincourt at the age of 89, he published the final volume, The Sage of Monticello. Pro­ James Blessing, Harold Cannon, Richard Ekman, Donald fessor Malone was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983. Gibson, Guinevere Griest Writing about his former teacher in the first issue of Humanities (January 1980), historian Eugene Genovese said "Mr. Malone, in the biography of Designed by Maria Josephy Schoolman Mr. Jefferson, in his other writings, in his teaching and in his personal ex­ The opinions and conclusions expressed in ample, has provided an unsurpassed model for those who would combine Humanities are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect Endowment policy. respect for the proper claims of objectivity with a firm commitment to meet Material appearing in this publication may be the moral responsibilities of a profession that must educate the young to freely reproduced with appropriate credit to Humanities. The editor would appreciate cop­ higher human values if it is to have any claims on their attention at all." Not ies for the Endowment's reference. The chair­ only the historical profession but all those who value, with Jefferson, "the man of the Endowment has determined that progress of the human mind," are richer for the legacy of Dumas Malone. the publication of this periodical is necessary in the transaction of the public business re­ —Linda Blanken quired by law of this agency. Use of funds for printing this periodical has been approved by the director of the Office of Management and Budget through September 1988. Send re­ quests for subscriptions and other communi­ cations to the editor, Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1100 Penn­ sylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506. Telephone 202/786-0435. Annual sub­ scription rate: $14.00. (USPS 521-090) ISSN 0018-7526. 2 Contents The Classical Tradition in America The American Interpretation of Classical Virtue by Meyer Reinhold. 4 "The myth of a virtuous nation, conjured up from the stately ghosts of the ancient republics, continues to haunt Americans." Aristotle in America by Susan Ford Wiltshire. One of the earliest 8 imports to American soil was the Nicomachean Ethics. Bulfinch's Mythology by Marie Cleary. For a century, Americans were 12 introduced to ancient gods and heroes through The Age of Fable. Robert Lowell's Classical Muse by Matthew Kiell. The laureate's 16 poetry is a lesson in the classics. Preservation Who Will Save the Books? The Case of the Classicists by Roger S. 21 Bagnall. What happens when scholars must choose what books will survive? Preserving Yesterday's News by George Clack. The U.S. 24 Newspaper Program is saving the raw materials of history. Features Twelve Tough Questions. After six months as NEH Chairman, Lynne 17 Cheney answers tough questions about politics and peer review. A History of Prophets and Kings by Meryl Dykstra. The first English 27 language edition of Tabari's masterwork of Muslim history. Forts on the Roman Frontier by Caroline Taylor. Excavations of forts in 30 Jordan explain why the Roman empire crumbled in the east. An Explorer of Everything Interesting by Mary T. Chunko. Hadrian, 32 Emperor of Rome, is to be the subject of a television biography. Art of the Machine Age by Cait Murphy. Between the two wars, the 34 shrine at which American artists worshipped was the machine. Opening Soon: The Motley Exhibition by Mary T. Chunko. The 37 importance of the "Motley crew" to British and American theater. The Humanities Guide When to Apply to a State Council. Mini-Endowments in every 39 state make grants for projects in the humanities. 3 Heroic statue of ohn Cheever once wrote, George Wash­ “This is a haunted nation, ington by Ameri­ haunted by a dream of excel­ can sculptor lence." When the first modern Horatio Green- ough (1805-1852). republic was being founded, Greenough based American intellectual leaders of the the torso on the JRevolutionary Age had high hopes famous statue of that a moral community could be Zeus by fifth-cen- created here with shared values, tury B.C. Athe­ similar to the citizen-farmer-soldiers nian sculptor of Rome in its pristine republican Phidias; the head glory. With profound aversion to the was modeled af­ perceived selfishness, inequalities, ter a bust by and corruption in the monarchies of Houdon. Europe, they turned for guidelines Although intended for the to the "perfect models of antiquity," rotunda of the and in the process ransacked the U.S. Capitol, the classics for a usable past. Hannah statue was relo­ Arendt, in her study of revolution, cated to the Cap­ said: "Without the classical example itol grounds ... none of the men of the revolu­ because of its ex­ tions on either side of the Atlantic cessive weight. It would have possessed the courage is now in the for what turned out to be un­ Smithsonian Mu­ precedented action." seum of American Once the revolutionaries had won History. the right to establish their own gov­ ernment, they tempered their ideal of a virtuous populace with a more severe assessment of human nature inspired by John Locke. In search for theoretical understanding of their revolutionary political actions, however, the Founders scoured an­ cient history and classical political theory and institutions as the "lamp of experience" (in Patrick Henry's words). For they associated liberty and republicanism with the ancient commonwealths, "those free Gov­ ernments of old, whose History we so much admire, and whose Ex­ ample we think it an Honour to imi­ tate," as William Livingston wrote in 1753. American leaders studied the clas­ sics directly (even if mostly in trans­ lation) but largely in mediated, filtered, and refracted form in the THE works of transatlantic political theor­ ists and libertarians. Required read­ ings were, for example, the works of AMERICAN Montesquieu and the tracts of the English radical Whigs, notably The INTERPRETATION Meyer Reinhold, Visiting University Professor of Classical Studies at Boston University, Professor of Classical Studies OF CLASSICAL Emeritus and Byler Distinguished Pro­ fessor of the University of Missouri at VIRTUE Columbia, is the author of Classica Americana: The Greek and Roman BY MEYER REINHOLD Heritage in the United States (Wayne State University Press, 1984). 4 Independent Whig and Cato's Letters Roman archetype, Cincinnatus, they dlin, in their recent study Liberty by John Trenchard and Thomas Gor­ possessed an inner-directed sense in America, volume I, Liberty and don, as well as the political dis­ of responsibility to the common­ Power 1600-1760 have demonstrated courses in Gordon's famous transla­ wealth, a readiness to sacrifice self­ that early Americans were "rude, tions of the Roman historians Sallust ish interests and self-aggran­ assertive, prone to risky innova­ and Tacitus. dizement for the good of the whole. tion." Here in this New World was In the eighteenth century, it was In addition to Rome, Carthage a new breed of humanity, autono­ a commonplace that a republic could and Sparta were idealized as models.