‘Decline and Fall’ has been a favourite heading with historians ever since the modern world undertook to chronicle the history of the ancient. It is more than a heading; it is an attitude. Gibbon first popularized it, and the phrase enjoyed a steady prosperity until the archaeologists towards the end of the last century began to redress the balance by calling in more concrete evidence than the moralizings of philosophers. Here, as in other fields, ancient history owes a great debt to Mommsen. But the old attitude has been long in dying and is not yet dead. Gibbon in envisaging the whole history of the Roman Empire from the settlement of Augustus to the coming of the Ottomans was no doubt justified in using the title he did. But his manner left no doubt that even in the days of her first princeps Rome was declining and falling hard. And his attitude is followed consciously and unconsciously by many later historians who limited their surveys to the first two or three centuries of the Empire. In schools, though it may be the fault of curricular limitations and the setters of syllabuses, it is still hard for the pupil to avoid the impression that the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome ended abruptly at 323 and 31 b.c. respectively.

‘Decline and Fall’ has been a favourite heading with historians ever since the modern world undertook to chronicle the history of the ancient. It is more than a heading; it is an attitude. Gibbon first popularized it, and the phrase enjoyed a steady prosperity until the archaeologists towards the end of the last century began to redress the balance by calling in more concrete evidence than the moralizings of philosophers. Here, as in other fields, ancient history owes a great debt to Mommsen. But the old attitude has been long in dying and is not yet dead. Gibbon in envisaging the whole history of the Roman Empire from the settlement of Augustus to the coming of the Ottomans was no doubt justified in using the title he did. But his manner left no doubt that even in the days of her first princeps Rome was declining and falling hard. And his attitude is followed consciously and unconsciously by many later historians who limited their surveys to the first two or three centuries of the Empire. In schools, though it may be the fault of curricular limitations and the setters of syllabuses, it is still hard for the pupil to avoid the impression that the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome ended abruptly at 323 and 31 b.c. respectively.

It is often assumed that Roman culture, which spread over almost all Europe, came to an end in the north at the Limes, which, of course, followed the lower course of the Rhine and part of the Danube, thus excluding most of Germany. But there is evidence that the free Germans traded with the Empire, and in the museums of Scandinavia there are numerous Roman objects which were found in the surrounding country, and which prove that even in Denmark and the southern parts of Norway and Sweden the inhabitants were ready to acquire things made according to Roman fashions, and that as time went on the natives were deeply influenced by these artifacts, even in their own manufactures.

The claim that Alexander the Paphlagonian is greater than his Macedonian namesake is perhaps hardly to be taken seriously, yet an ingenious pro-Paphlagonian might argue with justice that his Alexander ‘conquered’ a large part of the Roman Empire; that this conquest was almost bloodless; and that the story of it appeals to the sense of humour, which is more than can be said for the history of Philip's filibustering son.

It is often assumed that Roman culture, which spread over almost all Europe, came to an end in the north at the Limes, which, of course, followed the lower course of the Rhine and part of the Danube, thus excluding most of Germany. But there is evidence that the free Germans traded with the Empire, and in the museums of Scandinavia there are numerous Roman objects which were found in the surrounding country, and which prove that even in Denmark and the southern parts of Norway and Sweden the inhabitants were ready to acquire things made according to Roman fashions, and that as time went on the natives were deeply influenced by these artifacts, even in their own manufactures.

The claim that Alexander the Paphlagonian is greater than his Macedonian namesake is perhaps hardly to be taken seriously, yet an ingenious pro-Paphlagonian might argue with justice that his Alexander ‘conquered’ a large part of the Roman Empire; that this conquest was almost bloodless; and that the story of it appeals to the sense of humour, which is more than can be said for the history of Philip's filibustering son.

Suppose a class set to put into Latin ‘I think I have said enough to show why this war is necessary’. How many teachers would accept esset in the subordinate clause? Not, I venture to affirm, one in a hundred. Yet that is what was written by Cicero, who had of course the advantage of not knowing the above ‘rule’, in the De Imperio Cn. Pompei, 10. 27: ‘satis mihi multa verba fecisse videor, quare esset hoc bellum … necessarium; … restat ut de imperatore … dicendum esse videatur.’ He uses the same construction later in the speech (19.57): ‘quo mihi etiam indignius videtur obtrectatum esse adhuc, Gabinio dicam anne Pompeio an utrique, id quod est verius, ne legaretur A. Gabinius Cn. Pompeio expetenti ac postulanti’ And a fairly careful reading of the speeches against Catiline gives eleven examples of historic sequence after a pure perfect against six of primary. I quote some of them: ii. 4. 6, ‘quod exspectavi, iam sum adsecutus, ut vos omnes factam esse aperte coniurationem contra rem publicam esse videretis’; 12. 26, ‘vos … vestra tecta … defendite; mihi ut urbi … satis esset praesidii consultum atque provisum est’; iii. 12. 27, ‘mentes hominum audacissimorum sceleratae … ne vobis nocere possent ego providi; ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere’; iv. 1. 1, ‘mihi si haec condicio consulatus data est ut omnes acerbitates … perferrem, feram non solum fortiter verum etiam lubenter’; 2, ‘si hunc exitum consulatus mei di immortales esse voluerunt ut vos … ex caede … eriperem, quaecunque mihi uni proponetur fortuna, subeatur’; 5. 9, ‘habemus a Caesare … sententiam.… intellectum est quid interesset inter levitatem contionatorum et animum vere popularem’; 7. 14, ‘causa est … haec inventa sola in qua omnes sentirent unum atque idem’; 9. 19, ‘atque haec non ut vos … excitarem locutus sum’.

Odysseus had heard long ago from the shade of Tiresias that in Ithaca he would find insolent men devouring his goods and wooing his wife, and from the shade of Agamemnon that he should arrive there in secret; and now Athene, when she found him on that April morning wandering by the shore that he had forgotten, told him that for three years past the suitors had been lording it in his house, and she at once changed him to an old man in whom no one would recognize Odysseus, sacker of cities. He knew then of his enemies and had been given the advantages of disguise and secrecy and the possibility of surprise that would go with them.

Suppose a class set to put into Latin ‘I think I have said enough to show why this war is necessary’. How many teachers would accept esset in the subordinate clause? Not, I venture to affirm, one in a hundred. Yet that is what was written by Cicero, who had of course the advantage of not knowing the above ‘rule’, in the De Imperio Cn. Pompei, 10. 27: ‘satis mihi multa verba fecisse videor, quare esset hoc bellum … necessarium; … restat ut de imperatore … dicendum esse videatur.’ He uses the same construction later in the speech (19.57): ‘quo mihi etiam indignius videtur obtrectatum esse adhuc, Gabinio dicam anne Pompeio an utrique, id quod est verius, ne legaretur A. Gabinius Cn. Pompeio expetenti ac postulanti’ And a fairly careful reading of the speeches against Catiline gives eleven examples of historic sequence after a pure perfect against six of primary. I quote some of them: ii. 4. 6, ‘quod exspectavi, iam sum adsecutus, ut vos omnes factam esse aperte coniurationem contra rem publicam esse videretis’; 12. 26, ‘vos … vestra tecta … defendite; mihi ut urbi … satis esset praesidii consultum atque provisum est’; iii. 12. 27, ‘mentes hominum audacissimorum sceleratae … ne vobis nocere possent ego providi; ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere’; iv. I. I, ‘mihi si haec condicio consulatus data est ut omnes acerbitates … perferrem, feram non solum fortiter verum etiam lubenter’; 2, ‘si hunc exitum consulatus mei di immortales esse voluerunt ut vos … ex caede … eriperem, quaecunque mihi uni proponetur fortuna, subeatur’; 5. 9, ‘habemus a Caesare … sententiam.… intellectum est quid interesset inter levitatem contionatorum et animum vere popularem’; 7. 14, ‘causa est … haec inventa sola in qua omnes sentirent unum atque idem’; 9. 19, ‘atque haec non ut vos … excitarem locutus sum’.

This epitaph is on a tombstone in the churchyard of Kenmore, Perthshire, a little village on the shores of Loch Tay, close to the point at which the river leaves the parent lake. In the early nineteenth century Kenmore had some importance as the market of a wide rural area and as containing the parish church and parish school. The epitaph is the work of the son, William Armstrong, who succeeded to his father's post and died in 1879. Purists might perhaps take exception to the post-classical authority of puritate, but it will be generally allowed that as the composition of the Headmaster of a rural parish school its Latinity is as remarkable as its pietas. It is to be regretted that the author left no pupil to pay him a fitting tribute in the same tongue. But among his alumni there were many who remembered his teaching with admiring gratitude. Of these was one of the principal farmers of the district who told me years ago that he held Latin in high esteem as the subject which, as he put it, ‘opened his head’. His precise meaning eluded me until in later years I reflected that Highland farmers have a gift of imagination and a command of terse and figurative expression. Clearly what he implied was that, just as, when Hephaestus split the skull of Zeus, Athene sprung out in full panoply, so the impact of the lene tormentum of Latin on his own brain let wisdom loose.

Odysseus had heard long ago from the shade of Tiresias that in Ithaca he would find insolent men devouring his goods and wooing his wife, and from the shade of Agamemnon that he should arrive there in secret; and now Athene, when she found him on that April morning wandering by the shore that he had forgotten, told him that for three years past the suitors had been lording it in his house, and she at once changed him to an old man in whom no one would recognize Odysseus, sacker of cities. He knew then of his enemies and had been given the advantages of disguise and secrecy and the possibility of surprise that would go with them.

This epitaph is on a tombstone in the churchyard of Kenmore, Perthshire, a little village on the shores of Loch Tay, close to the point at which the river leaves the parent lake. In the early nineteenth century Kenmore had some importance as the market of a wide rural area and as containing the parish church and parish school. The epitaph is the work of the son, William Armstrong, who succeeded to his father's post and died in 1879. Purists might perhaps take exception to the post-classical authority of puritate, but it will be generally allowed that as the composition of the Headmaster of a rural parish school its Latinity is as remarkable as its pietas. It is to be regretted that the author left no pupil to pay him a fitting tribute in the same tongue. But among his alumni there were many who remembered his teaching with admiring gratitude. Of these was one of the principal farmers of the district who told me years ago that he held Latin in high esteem as the subject which, as he put it, ‘opened his head’. His precise meaning eluded me until in later years I reflected that Highland farmers have a gift of imagination and a command of terse and figurative expression. Clearly what he implied was that, just as, when Hephaestus split the skull of Zeus, Athene sprung out in full panoply, so the impact of the lene tormentum of Latin on his own brain let wisdom loose.