The Influence of The Classics.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18900, 26 October 1929, Page 19 (Supplement)

The Influence of The Classics.

(Written for the “Star" by

Professor RALPH MAGOFFIN.)

I T . seems to be generally acknowledged that Virgil’s “ ASneid ” is only second to Homer’s “ Iliad ” and “Odyssey” in the field of epic poetry. Perhaps the Greek scholar of a generation ago over-stressed the debt of Virgil to Homer, and the Latin scholar outdid himself to show that it was far from being a just appraisal. It is the task of the classical .scholar who knows his Greek, Latin, archaeology, philology, history and all the rest to cast up accounts that show all the debits and credits and give us a balance as correct as that of a certified accountant.

There is in Roman epic a world of little-known things which a proper relation and correlation can bring together in a way to interest and perhaps amaze the casual reader. One of the greatest love stories in the world is in the “ ASneid,” and there also is one of the most interesting attempts ever made to lead an erring and war-weary* people back into the moralities of the good old days. It has always been easier to remember the names of poets of philosophers than it is to appreciate poetry or understand philosophy. The Greeks set us the pattern for both, and, strange as it may seem, all the poets and philosophers in all lands ever since have not been able to get beyond the mark those ancients set. There must be some reason for it.

The Greeks and Romans were much simpler and more direct than are the peoples ©f this age. The directness of their ideas, coupled with the mobilities of their inflected languages, enabled them to invent types of metres and varieties of prose that fitted the subject matter so well that their models are still ours. , _ Much of what the Greeks and Romans thought and wrote has come to us as a priceless heritage, through their literatures; much of what they did in art, engineering, architecture, many of the games they played, the weapons- they used in war, the utensils of the kitchen, the furniture of the house, the jewellery of the women, have

come to us, lately through archaeological investigation either in exact pictorial representation or the very articles and monuments and statues paintings themselves. (Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.)