The last few posts have been a bit political. I’m not apologetic for that, I find the politics intriguing and thought I might have some interesting insight into stuff. At the same time though, it’s not my bread and butter lol. I’m an ancient historian by trade and training and that’s ultimately where my passion lies, so this week I’m going back to Classics!

A couple weeks back I took part in a Classics contest. It’s more interesting than it sounds, I promise. Long and short was that you had to write a manifesto for Classics. That was the only brief, you could be positive, you could be negative, you could talk about how it was being taught, how it was being received, whatever you wanted. Now, I’m a sucker for ranting about Classics, so this was well up my street. Plus there was cash money as a prize, and I’m a student so I’ll basically sell my soul for the right price.

Anyways, I wrote about Classics education from my perspective as both a PhD student, a university tutor and a more public facing historian. That last one is because of my work for Kings and Generals btw, not because of this blog which probably barely counts as public considering the readership is limited to basically me, my mum, and a few lovely unknown souls scattered around the world. But I digress. So, I wrote this manifesto which is kinda targeted towards other people teaching Classics, but I thought might be of interest to others. So, without further ado, I present my Classics Manfiesto.

Classics Education: A Manifesto for Today

To be an educator in Classics means being a curator of some of humanities greatest treasures. Our most powerful ideas, most awe-inspiring art, and most heart-wrenching stories,all are contained in the realm of a Classicist. It is a tragedy then that the Classics community has largely failed to share these treasures with the public, as should be our obligation. We have been pushed from the table of public discourse, and our places taken by people who would weaponize history as a tool to divide, by people who quote Marcus Aurelius in one breath and Andrew Tate in the next. Now we Classicists, we who are the custodians of giants like Sophocles, Aristotle, and Cicero beg for scraps from the table of discourse. For shame! It is high time that we regain our seat at that table where we are needed now more than ever.

How did it even come to this in the first place though? There are, to my eye, three main factors. The first is that we have created an astonishingly high barrier of entry for learning about Classics, even for those who attempt to study it at university level. For instance, many of the most important modern texts are prohibitively expensive for students with ‘Brill’s Companion’ series charging £185.00 for the Companion to Macedonia, £238.00 for Ovid and an astonishing £262.00 for Herodotus! A sufficiently stocked library can mitigate this, but these are rare and not available to all. Moreover, a web of abbreviations and shorthand built up over centuries from scholars around the world has resulted in a nigh impenetrable system. There will be references such as “Smith pp. 5ff” or “Pace Brown” which, though intelligible to those in the know, rely upon you being in the know. Is the reference for this or that treaty IG II²190, SEG 14:45 or EM7019? Wrong, it’s all the above! Any student of Greek history will also, no doubt, need to refer to the essential Inscriptiones Graecae which to this day, in 2024, is still written in Latin![1]  Inevitably, they will also require the use of Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum. This invaluable resource has been digitised, which is excellent, but only in ancient Greek and Latin. Let me be clear here: these last two points are particularly egregiousfailings. There is no justification at all for these texts to not be written in modern languages, save for the lame duck excuse of tradition. The study of ancient languages is, of course, important to any Classicist, but it is absurd to hide such vital texts behind such a high language barrier.  How on earth can we begin to engage the public with our subject when we already make it purposefully inaccessible to all but the most stubborn Classics students? What message do these decisions send to an interested and enthusiastic student with little linguistic knowledge but a snobbish sneer from days gone by? These obstacles result in less students studying the subject to a high university level, resulting in less educators of Classics and thus a less classically educated population overall.

This brings us to the second major failing, our inability to communicate ideas clearly for the public. In just under 200 years, the scientific community has successfully been able to explain such heady concepts as germs, climate change and evolution to all but the most dedicated anti-science fanatic. Yet, even with centuries worth of a head start, we have been unable to similarly provide the public with a solid grasp of source analysis, a chronology of the ancient word, or even the fact that Atlantis was just a metaphor! 57% of Americans believe that advanced ancient civilisations, such as Atlantis were real.[2] That’s roughly 191 million people. And it’s rising. We are losing this fight and, perhaps most depressing of all, we’re losing it to the likes of crackpots such as Giorgio Tsoukalos or charlatans like Graham Hancock. These figures and others like them, have utilised mediums that the public can easily access, such as YouTube and Netflix. Meanwhile, academics of Classics are trapped in system that forces them to publish or perish for niche journals that are utterly unknown to the public. The result is that that those who should be our best advocates are forced to justify their livelihoods every day while the spaces they ought to occupy are taken by people whose interest in historical truth is as deep as a flattened teaspoon.

But now our final and most grievous failing: we have not shown our subject to be the incredibly uniting force that it is. Instead, it is being used to divide and to hate. Just look at the bitter bickering of the Balkan states over which one can truly claim to the legacy of Alexander the Great.[3] Look at how the white nationalist and alt-right movement has weaponised pseudoarchaeology against people of colour.[4] Look at how the contorted and confused readings of the ancient world are used to justify homophobia.[5] How dare these people invoke our subject to justify their perverse hatreds! But this is, in part, of our own doing and stems from the previous two failures. The obstacles that have prevented people from learning about Classics, and the lack of more easily accessible and understandable information for the public has resulted in the subject being perverted by disingenuous actors into a weapon to divide. And there is no greater tragedy in Classics then that.

It is not too late to act though. Firstly, we must recognise that to have a public that is knowledgeable about Classics we need to do better at fostering a pool of people who can provide this. Too often, I think that the assumption is that people do not study Classics or ancient history because they are not interested in it, and that we must create that interest. This is incorrect. A brief dive into the history side of YouTube will show tens of millions of people watching two-hour long videos on ancient history, while Netflix has produced a myriad of shows in the last 10 years about the ancient world.[6] I can speak here from personal experience. I am now a PhD candidate and tutor, but when I had little more than a B.A. under my belt and was painfully naïve, I wrote and researched the scripts for Kings and Generals Gallic War series. It now has just under 10 million views.[7] A population the size of Austria has garnered much of their knowledge of Caesar and the Gallic Wars from a 22-year-old with an undergrad degree. To be clear, this is not a boast it is a warning. The interest in the subject is there but that interest is currently being curtailed to, mostly, not by Classicists or scholars, but by amateur historians whose reliability varies drastically. We must correct for this by removing some of the obstacles that make studying the subject such a complicated process. Resources that are integral to the subject need to be translated into modern languages, universities should equip students with the ability to parse citations by providing classes that explain the technical vocabulary and shorthand, and there must be a greater focus on making modern texts more readily and freely accessible. In doing so, we can hope to produce a larger body of Classicists to meet the already existing demand for our subject.

Secondly, we as educators must be better at communicating with the public. Part of the reason why Classicists are losing the fight against pseudo-historians and pseudo-archaeologists is that they have been far more effective in leveraging resources such as YouTube. When someone wishes to learn about the politics of the Late Roman Republic, they do not turn to Historia: Zeitschrift für Classics, they turn to YouTube. An article in the former may, if lucky, be read by a couple of hundred people, but a video on YouTube video can get millions of views within weeks. Rather than seeing an academics only worth as being able to produce academic scholarship, it should be equally valued to make something that is more accessible to the public. We happily give sabbatical to professors to publish books and articles, as we should, but a similar offer should be made for those who want to make a video series on YouTube or find some other means to communicate with the public. Sites such as YouTube are incredibly powerful resources, and are, more and more, where people are going to learn; we must involve ourselves more in this area and recognise it as a legitimate form of educating the public.

Lastly, and most important of all, in these times when it seems that we are being divided more than ever, we must show the incredible unifying power of our subject. In days gone by, people used to appeal to the Classics as a unifying idea whether that be the Germans with Arminius or the French with Vercingetorix. Usually, the motive behind these was little more than cynical nationalism, but they do show the uniting power that Classics can have. We must now it take it a step further with purer intent and proclaim that the triumphs and tragedies of people from the ancient world unite us all as part of our shared global history. Alexander does not belong to the Greeks or the Macedonians, he belongs to all of us from Japan to America; the wonder of the Pyramids should not be used as a tool of the Egyptian state,[8] they should serve as an inspiration to us all and the wonders that we as a species can create; the great political philosopher Chanakya is not a person to be weaponised by Indian Nationalists,[9] he is a figure whose life and lessons are to be shared with the world. These treasures of the past do belong to a group who, by random chance, happened to be born in the same geographical vicinity as that person or accomplishment, they are to be claimed by all humans. The thousands of years that have past and the myriad cultures that have intertwined over the years means that any purported ethnic or national ‘link’ to these things is meaningless. The only link of meaning is that they belong to humanity and we, as Classicists, need toshow the unifying power of that statement.

Classicists must reclaim their place at the table of public discourse. For too long, we have been the architects of our destruction, conjuring up needless obstacles and allowing charlatans and con-men to fill the voids in public discourse that we have left. Classics must adapt and modernise, removing the needless obstacles and making information more accessible and understandable. We must do this, not for power, financial gain, or recognition, but because it is our obligation to the public to do so. When, as we so often are, we are asked “What value is there in studying Classics?” we too often point meekly to soft skills, such as critical thinking. True as this is, it is a claim that any humanities subject can make. And if we’re honest with ourselves, is that why we first fell in love with Classic? I know it’s not why I did. I love this subject because it is the study of the human experience, because it is the foundations upon which our modern literature, politics, and history are built. What Classics provides as a subject is not just soft skills, it provides the first chapters in the book of humanity and if we ever hope to have any understanding of our current place in the narrative, we must look to what came before. In this toxic age of disinformation and division, this is needed more than ever. These poisons have antidotes, and they are embedded at the heart of Classics: source analysis, a love of knowledge for knowledges sake, and history that unites the world. As the custodians of the ancient world, it is our moral obligation to step up to that responsibility.

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[1] A copy of either of the main books the compose IG I³ will set you back approximately £800 or £900. Free shipping though!

[2] Wade, 2019: Beliefs in aliens, Atlantis are on the rise

[3] North Macedonia named Skopje’s main airport after Alexander the Great, among other forms of ‘antiquisation’ has led to tense relationships between North Macedonia and Greece: Ghosts of the Past Endanger Macedonia’s Future | Balkan Insight, including official complaints from Greece: Athens complains about Skopje arch | eKathimerini.com. The Ancient Macedonians have been claimed by a number of Balkan states, J. Engstrom ‘The Power of Perception: The Impact of the Macedonian Question on Inter-ethnic Relations in the Republic of Macedonia’ The Global Review of Ethnopolitics Vol. 1, no. 3, (2002), 3-17, including Albania, Lubonja, F. “Between the glory of a virtual world and the misery of a real world”. In Schwanders-Sievers, Stephanie; Fischer, Bernd J. (eds.). Albanian Identities: Myth and History, (2002) and Bulgaria and Serbia: Marinov, T. Famous Macedonia, ‘The Land of Alexander:
Macedonian identity at the crossroads of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian nationalism’ in Dontchev Daskalov, Roumen; Marinov Tchadar (eds.) Entangled Histories of the Balkans. Vol. 1

[4]Perhaps the most egregious example was the recently defunct “Identiy Evropa” whose rhetoric has permeated the white nationalist movement despite their disbandment, see: Denise Eileen McCoskey, Donna Zuckerberg, Curtis Dozier , “Classics and the Alt-Right Conundrum” , Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective July, 2018 https://origins.osu.edu/index.php/historytalk/classicists-and-white-supremacists%20alt-right%20trump%20western%20civilization%20culture , Classics and the Alt-Right: Historicizing Visual Rhetorics of White Supremacy – Learn Speak Act, Classicizing Identity: The Alt-Right, Art, and Archaeology. Steve Bannon also stands out as a notable example: Why the White House Is Reading Greek History – POLITICO Magazine

[5] Mike Johnson, the current U.S. House Speaker and a fervent supporter of conversion therapy for homosexuals (!) believes that the fall of the Roman Empire was a result, in part, because of homosexuality: Hear House speaker’s past comments blaming the fall of the Roman Empire on homosexuality | CNN Politics. This view was also shared by then Presidential candidate, and also  Ben Carson: Ben Carson Blamed Same-Sex Marriage For “Dramatic Fall Of The Roman Empire”. A litany of other examples can be found on the excellent site, Pharos: Pharos – Doing Justice to the Classics

[6] To give two examples, Historia Civilis on Youtube almost always has over a million, and often nearer 2 or 3 million, views on videos about ancient history. Kings and Generals long form videos on ancient history (a few written by yours truly) regularly also get millions of views. On Netflix, shows like Barbarians, Roman Empire, Troy: Fall of a City, Blood of Zeus, Alexander: The Making of a God and Queen Cleopatra spring to mind.

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRV185XaMIM

[8] There is a current trend by the modern Egyptian state under President Sisi to use ancient Egyptian monuments, like the Pyramids, to foster extreme nationalism, coined neo-Pharaonism: Egypt’s Racial Nationalism: Neo-Pharaonism as a Tool of the State – The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. This is part of a trend that has been in place for decades, see: Wood, M. ‘The Use of the Pharaonic Past in Modern Egyptian Nationalism,’ Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt , 1998, Vol. 35 (1998), pp. 179-196

[9] ‘Chanakya Dialogues’ is the current name of an Indian far-right media channel run by Gaurav Arya who recently called for the overthrow of Canada’s government, Well-Connected Pro-Modi Media Personality Calls On India to Support ‘Right-Wing Parties’ in Canada’s Next Election, and that the UK far right are the true patriots: Major Gaurav Arya Calls Far-Right Activists The True Patriot Of UK | Illegal Immigration. Alongside this, Amit Shah of the current nationalist BJP party has been dubbed ‘Chanakya’ bjp chanakya – Google Search. For more on the use of Chanakya and Indian nationalism in the 90s and before, see Chakravati, U.’ Saffroning the Past: Of Myths, Histories and Right-Wing Agendas’ Economic and Political Weekly , Jan. 31 – Feb. 6, 1998, Vol. 33, No. 5 (Jan. 31 – Feb. 6, 1998), pp. 225-232