When I first came to Minnesota twenty years ago, I had never taught a class larger than ten students—mostly I had conducted the one-to-one tutorials that are at the heart of the Oxford system. My first term here I was given a class on the Roman Republic that numbered some seventy souls. The learning curve … Read more
When you buy a farm, said the Roman agricultural writer Palladius, you need to look at the people who live in the area. If they seem a sturdy lot, you can invest with confidence, but if they are podgy and pasty faced (that is a free translation of the Latin), then keep away. The local … Read more
What, a student asked the other day, was the last place to be ruled by the Romans? Nowhere in Italy, that’s for certain; the last Roman emperor I know to have set foot on mainland Italy with the purpose of exercising political power was Constans II in 662. The Holy Roman Empire, begun by Charlemagne … Read more
When I was home in England over Christmas, I caught a liver specialist from (appropriately enough) Liverpool being interviewed on the wireless. He was talking about cirrhosis, that very nasty condition in which the liver turns into little yellowish granules, and eventually packs up completely. When he began in the liver business years ago, he … Read more
These winter mornings, the sunshine shows things as they are. I was recently in Devon, the corner of southwest England where I was brought up, which was covered with a fine coating of frost that imparts sharpness to every detail of the landscape. “Proper rimey,” said my neighbor there, a man who lives in the … Read more
Heaven, said the Regency wit Sydney Smith, is eating paté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. It sounds pretty piggy if you ask me, all too like the fellow who said that you should decide what to do in life by following your bliss. And rather odd doctrine for S. Smith, who made … Read more
Our century has been remarkably efficient in the manufacture of wastelands. In Uptown you can still experience the sort of passageways down which Mr. Eliot smelt steaks, but nowadays they seem to have almost a period charm. It is the same reading about the Algiers described by Albert Camus; the delicious colonial loucheness of the … Read more
The Orient, said Metternich, begins at the Ring. It is hardly surprising an Austrian statesman of the early nineteenth century should think the Near East was as close as the suburbs of Vienna. The Ottoman Turks besieged the Austrian capital at least twice and the favor was returned each time an Austrian army, arrayed boldly … Read more
What is it about Americans and guilt? Mr. Bush, it seems, may now be willing to admit that the world is warming up. But he would not have us think that the human race (let alone its industries and motorcars) is in any way responsible. Mustn’t feel bad about it, must we? This is strange … Read more
Every time I take the boat down Stranraer Sound, I think of Saint Brendan. A Celtic monk, Brendan set sail toward the setting sun with fourteen of his confreres in a whimsical endeavor to find the Island of the Promise of the Saints. Spoilsports (i.e., my academic colleagues) tell you his charming tale is an … Read more