From sotiris@hermesnetwork.com Sat May 27 23:30:44 2000 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id XAA14826 for ; Sat, 27 May 2000 23:30:41 -0700 Received: from sungod.ccs.yorku.ca (IDENT:YcMxBNx8qvdEzwQHMtSkfwJtFLTCksM7@sungod.ccs.yorku.ca [130.63.236.104]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id XAA32557 for ; Sat, 27 May 2000 23:30:41 -0700 Received: from 5ptak (kramer03.slip.yorku.ca [130.63.219.159]) by sungod.ccs.yorku.ca (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id CAA13947 for ; Sun, 28 May 2000 02:30:37 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <004201bfc86d$d33ddae0$9fdb3f82@5ptak> From: "Sotiropoulos" To: References: <13.5c9e783.265fe92f@aol.com> Subject: Re: US President who could write Latin and Greek Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 02:27:39 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 I cannot confirm either claim, which is why I added "In any case, I'm not vouching for the veracity of these reported events but I had heard of them somewhere or other." to my original post. I would like to hear more specific confirmation myself. Sotiris Sotiropoulos ----- Original Message ----- From: David Lupher To: Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2000 1:02 AM Subject: Re: US President who could write Latin and Greek > Sotiris Sortiropoulos writes: > >I also heard that the Adoption of Ancient Greek in some capacity was > >discussed, and also that Washington (the city) was almost given another > >name -"New Athens" I believe it was. > > I would most appreciate hearing specific confirmation of either of > these claims. I'm sure Chris Robbins will correct me if I am wrong, > but it is my impression that the Founding Fathers tended to take a > decidedly dim view of Athens as a political model for the new American > Republic. Are not most references to Athens in the Federalist Papers > negative? Republican Rome, on the other hand, was admired as being > supposedly a model of a "mixed constitution." I should imagine that > they admired Sparta for similar reasons (not that Sparta *was* a > "mixed constitution" in the fullest sense of the term, but the > "Spartan mirage" did tend to shimmer in that shape before the eyes > of the Enlightenment, I believe). So if the FFs did toy with the > idea of adopting ancient Greek as the official language of the U.S., > perhaps it was the Doric dialect they had in mind! > > Rummaging around among the few plausible books I have within reach, > I have found a bit in Oliver Taplin's coffee table book and TV tie-in > "Greek Fire" (Athenaeum, 1990). Speaking of the Founding Fathers on > p. 200, he suggests a debt to Aristotle and Polybius for the idea of > a mixed constitution and cites John Corbin as saying, "The theory of > our constitution derives from Aristotle, and was put into successful > practice in Rome." Taplin concludes: > So the Founding Fathers thought of themselves as establishing > a Republic, as in Rome, not a Democracy as in fifth-century > Athens. Indeed, Athens was a negative model....The shift > to the positive model of Athens was a late nineteenth-century > phenomenon. Earlier in the century the great theorists > de Tocqueville and Mill thought that ever-increasing popular > participation in the United States would come closer and > closer to ancient Athens. The irony is that in our times, > when the paradigm of Athens is universally paid lip-service, > democracy has moved away from, rather than towards, real > participation by the many. The nearest that the demos of > our era gets to power is a television screen. > > I gather that Taplin is unaware of the mushrooming role of the initiative > process in American state and local government. Now if we could only > elect most of our magistrates by lot and impose liturgies on the rich... > > David Lupher > Classics Dept. > Univ. of Puget Sound > > > > > .