The Classics for Everyone

The Weekly Standard, as if trying to redeem itself for its recent abysmal anti-soccer editorial, features an interesting review of the latest offering by the Loeb Classical Library, a collection of books which feature, on their left-hand pages Greek or Roman classics in the original language, translated into English on their right-hand pages.

(The mind reels at the prospect of Frank Cannon and Richard Lessner reviewing anything by Loeb. They'd doubtless complain about all the "pretentious Greek- and Latin-sounding words" littering "texts obviously intended for a snobbish elite" and then, if it was poetry, the lack of rhyme. No wonder the Roman Empire fell! I almost want to write a satirical review along these lines, but I am resisting the urge so far. Barely.)

This review, by Tracy Lee Simmons, who directs the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College, is valuable not just for its comments about the Loeb Classical Library Reader, which the famous collection has released in commemoration of its 500th bound translation, but for its discussion of the collection itself. My own last encounter with Loeb was during my freshman year of college, when, after learning Latin under the watchful eyes of a priest during high school, I breezed through a junior-level course on Cicero to satisfy my foreign language requirement. Three of our texts were Loebs, including the one pictured, Cicero III, De Oratore, Books I-II.

The diminutive books -- covered in red for Latin and green for Greek -- are very distinctive and, I am sure, stick out like a sore thumb (or is that a red or a green one?) to anyone who becomes familiar with them. As a matter of fact, while waiting for the shuttle bus from my work site recently, I spotted a woman reading a green Loeb. I don't know which, though. Being very introverted and very married, I chose not to strike up a conversation with the Loeb reader, who seemed engrossed anyway....

In any case, the review has lots of information on the history and origins of the collection, which in my youth -- the same youth that saw me fail to steep myself more in the classics when I had the chance -- I never gave a second thought.

Despite the sense many of us have that the Loeb Classical Library has always been there, it has in fact existed for only just under a hundred years. The series was founded in 1911 by James Loeb, a gentleman of parts who was both a classicist and a successful businessman, and his goal was straightforwardly democratic in spirit: To make the finest, most consequential literature of the classical Greeks and Romans accessible, if not to the huddled masses exactly, then certainly to the hundreds of thousands of an emerging educated class whose schooling had not embraced the old classical curriculum when they opted for the applied sciences or an earlier form of Humanities Lite.

Loeb and the founding editors, the formidable classical scholars and teachers T.E. Page and W.H.D. Rouse, believed that this group sported as much need as any for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful--and, in the new age dawning of mechanical wonders, perhaps more.

That this grand inheritance might be conferred without forbidding labor, the new requisite for the educated man and woman was to be not a classical education (with all its numbing rigors and extravagant demands) but a curious, reasonably informed mind aspiring to know much more. The Loeb Classical Library wasn't only for them, as scholars were also to benefit from clean texts tricky to come by; but it served the nonprofessional aspirants best.

Matthew Arnold once wrote that the "power of the Latin classic is in character, that of the Greek is in beauty," which makes a tall order for translators of either language. Yet the scholars commissioned by the Loeb's editors for almost a century have produced splendid renderings of the best from each language that all readers of English can understand. Which is not to say that the language used in all volumes matches our own. The translations are inevitably unequal, not only because translators differ in skill, but also because some texts have neither been retranslated nor the editions revised.

If this piques your interest at all, there is much more in the review, which is very enjoyable reading. And best of all, the review notes a detail that I'd missed back in college, when my book bill for the semester had been bloated by the accumulated costs of the textbooks for all my other courses: Loebs are cheap! Each volume is only about twenty bucks. (The downside is that many works we are accustomed to seeing in a single volume are spread out over several, making them more expensive. Homer's Odyssey, for example, is published in two volumes.)

Over the years, I have heard fellow Objectivists say -- enough times that it is almost a cliche -- words to the effect that they'd like to "read Aristotle in the original Greek". I think this is a laudable goal, but one that would require incredible dedication and an inordinate amount of time for someone with ordinary linguistic talent and the usual obligations of adulthood. Whether or not you really want to try to learn the Greek anyway, a Loeb would be a great way to become better acquainted with the classics.

Thanks to this review, Loeb will now be in the back of my mind the next time I'm looking for something to read. They would do well to publicize their new reader as much as possible. I'm a strange bird, but my recent sighting of a fellow fan of the classics demonstrates that there are probably a few more out there. They just need to be reminded of Loeb and made aware of what a good deal it is.

-- CAV

PS: This also reminds me of an excellent letter to the editor from Andrew Medworth that appeared in the last issue of The Objective Standard. Among other things, he asks:

My question for Miss VanDamme is therefore: Can you recommend at least the kernel of a reading list which might address the above concerns, particularly in the sciences, history, and literature? I am sure this would be helpful to many.

Lisa VanDamme's reply is excellent and one who follows her advice will, sooner or later, run into the ancient classics. If these prove particularly interesting, Loeb offers a very good place to explore.