CJ-ONLINE Archives

June 2008

CJ-ONLINE@LISTS.UMN.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Reply To:
Classical Journal On-Line <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:06:57 -0500
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (160 lines)
Greeks & Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding 
Fathers. By CARL J. RICHARD. Lanham, MD and Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield 
Publishers, 2008. Pp. 248. Cloth, $22.95. ISBN 978–0–7425–5623–2.

Order this text for $16.52 from Amazon.com using this link and 
benefit CAMWS and the Classical Journal:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/classjourn-20


A CJ Online Exclusive 2008.06.03


This book, intended for the general reader, gives a lively overview of 
Greek and Roman civilization as it was known and understood by the Founding 
Fathers of the United States, and highlights the ways in which the Greeks 
and Romans influenced the Founders’ views on political matters.

Richard (R.) argues that the classical education the Founders experienced 
as young students inspired them to undertake the American Revolution and 
influenced their approach to a host of constitutional and practical issues 
crucial to the shaping of the new American republic. R. explores how the 
Founders learned the importance of individual rights from the absence of 
such rights in Sparta, the superiority of the republican form of government 
to monarchy from the Greek victory over the Persians, the perils of 
democracy from the instability of Athens, the need for a strong central 
government from the fall of Greece to Macedon and Rome, the importance of 
virtue in the success of a republic from early Rome, the need for vigilance 
against ambitious individuals from the fall of the Roman Republic, and the 
value of liberty from its destruction by Roman emperors.

In Chapter One (“The Storytellers and the Founders”) R. acquaints the 
reader with the accomplishments and impact of the small, select group of 
classical historians and orators studied by the Founders in the 
18th-century educational system. These “storytellers” were Herodotus, 
Thucydides, Demosthenes, Polybius, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus 
and Suetonius. These authors tended to be—like the Founders 
themselves—learned, moralistic, aristocratic males who possessed some 
political and military experience. In his remaining seven chapters, R. 
summarizes what these storytellers said about the following topics: Sparta 
and individual rights, the Persian Wars and the superiority of republican 
government, Athens and the perils of democracy, the fall of Greece and the 
need for a strong central government, early Rome and republican virtue, the 
fall of the Roman Republic and the need for vigilance, and the Roman 
emperors and the preciousness of liberty.

In each chapter R. assumes no background in ancient history or classics on 
the part of the reader, but clearly and engagingly explains what the 
Founders were likely to have known as a result of their study of the 
classics in the educational system of the time. As R. presents this 
background, he suggests ways in which it influenced the Founders’ thinking 
in the shaping of the United States. For instance, in Chapter Two, on 
Sparta and Individual Rights, R. explains the legend of Sparta, e.g., the 
Helots, Spartan colonization, the Spartan political system, the rearing of 
Spartan children, and the advantages and disadvantages of the Spartan 
social system. He summarizes problems with the account of Sparta the 
Founders had, and which was largely drawn from Plutarch’s life of Lycurgus, 
whom most modern historians regard as a mythological figure. R. points to 
the difficulties and problems inherent in interpreting the ancient world 
solely from select and limited literary sources without the help of 
archaeology or written material not included in this canon of literary 
sources.

R. cites some of the lessons Founders derived from their story of Sparta. 
Samuel Adams, for instance, refers to Spartan frugality, selflessness, 
valor and patriotism. John Dickinson, author of Letters from a Pennsylvania 
Farmer, praised Spartan calm and courage and said that Americans ought to 
imitate this calm firmness in resisting unconstitutional taxation. In 1790 
John Wilson applauded Spartan “emphasis on the training of youth. Benjamin 
Rush admired Spartan frugality and in 1798 wrote, The black broth of Sparta 
and the barley broth of Scotland have alike been celebrated for their 
beneficial effects on the minds of young people.” In 1814 the economist 
John Taylor contrasted the virtues of the landed aristocracy of Sparta with 
the vices of the British commercial elite (p. 31). But the Founders’ 
admiration for many of the traits of Sparta’s intense military training was 
tempered by the realization that the Spartans suppressed individuality. 
Thomas Jefferson referred to the Spartans as “military monks.” Alexander 
Hamilton in the Federalist No. 6 noted that “Sparta was little better than 
a well regulated camp.” John Adams agreed and called Sparta’s communal 
ownership of goods “stark mad.” The Founders sought the Spartans’ numerous 
admirable qualities without the brutal system of socialization that 
produced them (p. 32). According to R., the Founders were less 
individualistic than most modern Americans but less collectivist than the 
ancients. The Spartan model was not adopted for the new American republic.

R.’s treatment of Sparta is typical of the remainder of the book. He tells 
us clearly what the Founders knew about various aspects of the classical 
past, and then shows us particular instances of the influence of this 
knowledge. Rather than assuming that the reader knows something about the 
classical past, he explains it, according to him because the reception his 
earlier book The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome and the American 
Enlightenment (1994) showed him the need to assume nothing by way of 
background in classics and ancient history.

It was not Sparta or Athens that the Founders considered the greatest 
ancient model for the United States, but the early Roman Republic. Athens 
was viewed as too democratic and unstable. Sparta was too collectivist and 
militaristic. The Roman Republic, by contrast, gave the masses enough 
power, in the Founders’ belief, to avoid a tyrannical oligarchy, without 
giving them so much control as to establish a chaotic ochlocracy. The 
Founders also admired the Romans not only as political models but as models 
of personal behavior, i.e., as heroes. R. argues that the Founder’s 
preference for the Romans over the Greeks mirrored the educational system’s 
traditional preference, reaching back to the Middle Ages, for Latin over 
Greek (p. 97).

R.’s book has many strengths. His clarity and sparkling style in providing 
background about the classical past will attract many readers. General 
reader and classicist alike will enjoy his accounts of such topics as the 
First and Second Triumvirates and the Roman Revolution among many others. 
The general reader will also get a good overview of classical antiquity, at 
least in so far as it can be gleaned from the literary sources known to the 
Founders.

R.’s account of how the Founders mined and used the ancients in their 
deliberations on the American republic will fascinate readers. He offers 
engrossing examples, telling us, for example, that Alexander Hamilton cited 
the failure of the Greeks to rally around a strong central government as 
the chief reason for the fall of Greece to Philip of Macedon. We learn that 
the Federalists, at the Constitutional Convention, at the state ratifying 
conventions and in published essays repeatedly cited ancient Greece as a 
civilization destroyed by decentralization (p. 92). R. also discusses the 
admiration of Jefferson for Tacitus, “the finest writer in the world 
without exception,” whom he fondly quotes as saying that the more corrupt 
the commonwealth the more numerous its laws (p. 19). R. informs us that one 
of the Founders’ greatest heroes was Cincinnatus. In 1776 John Adams 
expressed his desire to emulate the Roman hero by resigning his worldly 
powers and cares; George Washington took notice of the fact that people 
compared him with Cincinnatus and worked actively to promote the analogy; 
John Trumbull and Charles Wilson Peale painted Washington as Cincinnatus; 
even King George III grudgingly admired the Cincinnatan character of 
Washington’s Farewell Address and handing over of power, though the king 
did not, as Richard points out, comprehend the enormous emotional power 
that classical republican ideals wielded over American minds (p. 126).

Finally, a few quibbles. References to Sparta as a Greek republic (pp. xi 
and 179) may upset some readers, given that Sparta retained a monarchy. The 
reference to Parthia as “a new Persian Empire” (p. 141) may rankle others. 
The expression “local small change” (p. 169) referring to money may also be 
confusing, and there is a typographical error in the spelling of Suetonius’ 
name on p. 145.

I hope that Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts will be widely circulated and 
read. My impression, born of my own curriculum development on the classical 
heritage in America, is that colleagues in the field of American history 
and civilization and political science, as well as general readers, need 
and will appreciate the solid grounding in our classical tradition and its 
impact on the Founders that this book provides. America’s classical 
heritage and its Nachleben is a topic very much neglected in school and 
college curricula, and R’s book should help remedy that neglect.

DR. RUDOLPH MASCIANTONIO
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
[log in to unmask]


You may remove yourself from the CJ-Online list-serve by sending an email 
to: [log in to unmask] Leave the subject line blank, and in the first 
line of the message write: UNSUBSCRIBE

ATOM RSS1 RSS2