A leader from The Times March 27, 2008

The past is in our present, in our theatre, philosophy, language - and obelisks

Whence the obelisk? Why do war memorials up and down the United Kingdom reproduce the alien architectural exclamation mark of the Egyptian Pharaohs? The answer will be given tonight by an eminent Italian professor.

The Classical Association assembles at Liverpool University for its annual meeting. Hundreds of classicists from Tokyo to Tasmania are arriving. There is a strong cohort from the United States. For the next four days they will hear hundreds of papers about our Classical roots - from the latest swords-and-sandals epic, to the pyramidal structure of Virgil's Eclogues, to the doctrine of the enclitic “De”. The Classical Association was formed more than a century ago after a passionate correspondence in The Times.

Neophiliacs assert that Latin is a dead language. They say that Greek has progressed since Homer sang as far as English has since Chaucer, but we are what our ancestors made us. There is a public interest in our roots. Videlicet (viz to you), the popularity of books, programmes and museums recording our past. Without knowledge of mythology the paintings in the National Gallery miss the point. Politicians deploy the Classical arts of rhetoric, with more hyperbole than meiosis. An English-speaker cannot but echo down the millennia the voices of Plato and Cicero. The W in “wine” signals that the Anglo-Saxons borrowed the word from Latin before they arrived as illegal immigrants. The roots of our language and culture are Classical as well as classic. Tonight the roots will be turned over by the students and scholars of our age. Apud Liverpudliensem Acta Diurna studiosos rerum antiquarum salutant.