A couple of years ago, my dad gave us some Teaching Company tapes — one set was Rufus Fears Famous Romans which Kevin (my husband) just loved. He is on his third listen-through of it, currently. Later on he went on to listen to Garrett Fagan’s History of Ancient Rome — not quite as lively as Fears’, but interesting.
When we went up to Oregon for a work trip, he went to the used bookstore and bought Caesar’s Commentaries which he has just finished reading.
Now he has just started playing Rome: Total War which he bought for Brendan a couple of years ago. Tonight he played part of the Rufus Fears tape for Brendan — who laughed out loud, it is so funny the way the professor summarizes encounters with the Belgii, the Helvetii, the Gauls and the Germans — and now is asking Brendan for advice on how to play the game.
He’s also “toured” Italy and especially Rome via GoogleEarth.
Meanwhile, Liam is trying to read the Commentaries in Latin after having studied Latin last year at college via Wheelock’s. Caesar was traditionally used as the schoolboy’s entry into reading Latin according to this site — which is borne out by the anecdotal evidence — Liam’s grandfather remembers being introduced to the Gallic Wars in his Catholic high school St Ignatius back in the late 40’s.
Dr Fears says that Cicero called Caesar’s style: Nudi sunt, recti et venusti “Spare, direct and engaging”. Quoting Plutarch, he said that Caesar was once found weeping and when asked by his friends why, replied, ‘I have not just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable?’ He remarks that Caesar can rightly be reckoned a genius when you think that, during his brilliant campaigns, he was learning as he went along — quite unlike Alexander who had been trained to be a campaigner from earliest boyhood.
Why am I writing this out? Because it’s interesting to see how learning connects across generations, over time and in different media.
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