Word: romanse
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We reach for the classics, I think, when we are uncertain of our own bearings. We imagine that the Greeks and Romans knew what stars to steer by, that virtues such as honor and bravery, nobility and loyalty, guided their behavior. We think that the classical world was sharply defined...
In truth, life has always been a shades-of-gray thing; there's something dishonest about cherry-picking the past as if it was always nobler than the present. The Greeks were indeed cultured and eloquent. They were also the most frightful pederasts, but you don't hear much of...
There's nothing especially venal about the ancients in this regard; nobody's perfect or ever was. The classical world knew crosshatching as much as bands of white and black; the Greeks and Romans had their moments of doubt. Here's Virgil's Aeneas in the underworld, catching sight of...
It was the lawyers of ancient Rome who came up with the modern definition of fatherhood: Mater semper certa est; pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant (rough translation: The mother is obvious; the father is the one she was married to when the child was born). The Romans, however, didn't...
Saddam's more enduring legacies are also more mundane. By killing off anybody who might pose a threat to him, he prevented the natural emergence of new generations of leaders, so that the country is now run by political neophytes without experience or the skill to rule. The corruption that...