[...] By contrast, it [o estudos das Clássicas] is thriving on the other side of the Atlantic. Eager young teachers offer Greek and Latin classes in a growing number of schools, public and private. The kids make cheery Latin videos, playing the parts of centurion, plebe, senator and slave. At weekend and summer camp meetings of the Junior Classical League they dress up in togas, re-enact Socrates’ colloquies in the agora, hold debates in Latin, run seminars on the Spartans’ battlefield tactics, cook tasty Roman treats, and relive the last days of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Americans have always been keen on the classics. George Washington modelled himself after one of the great Roman heroes, Cincinnatus, who was called from the plough when the republic was in danger, won a great victory over the Volscians, then returned to his farm. Washington was proudest of his own conduct in surrendering power, first when he gave up command of the Continental army at the end of the Revolutionary war and later, in 1796, when he gave up the presidency.
Washington also staged Addison’s Cato (1713) for his troops in their winter quarters at Valley Forge. Seeing themselves as liberty-loving republicans, fighting for their lives and freedoms against King George, they loved it. Cato follows the last hero of the Roman republic, incorruptible, facing certain defeat at the hands of the tyrant Julius Caesar. It also includes several lines made famous by other Americans, such as Patrick Henry’s ‘Give me liberty, or give me death’ and Nathan Hale’s ‘I regret that I have but one life to give for my country’.
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