Love locks

If you happen to be in Rome sometime soon, walk across the Ponte Milvio and stop at the middle lamp-post.


You are looking at eternal love. Make obeisance.

Couples take a padlock, write or scratch their initials on it, attach the padlock to the chain that was once used to close off the bridge and then throw the key into the Tiber. (See the Chesterton quote below.) There are now so many that members of the ruling Ulivo party demand that Mayor Veltroni have them removed. These dessicated creatures have been dubbed "The Lovers' Enemy" by the right-wing councillor Marco Clarke. "The Left is against lovers", who will "be offended" by this gross breaking of their vows.

The custom was born as a school-leaving ritual, using locker padlocks to mutely announce 'Escape!' to the world. But teenage couples adopted it after the publication of a book by Federico Moccia (Ho voglia di te - "I want you") in which the central couple seal their love with a padlock attached to the chain on the third lamp-post of the Ponte Milvio.

To assess the style that inspired the custom, sample this from Moccia's blog: A reader asks, "Does the chain exist?" Moccia responds

Does the chain exist? Maybe.
It exists for those who believe. Who dream. Who love the sea. Who love the wind, and as the motorbike leans into it, grip to the person in front...For you who dream, the lovers' chain is for you. Maybe one day, you'll go to Rome, to the Ponte Milvio, to the third lamp-post, the one that looks out over the Tiber and watches the Corso Francia bridge. And you'll find it. You'll find the chain.

There's a lot more, but the spirit wilts and the flesh dries up. If you want more, go to his website with its sky-blue banner (his last book was called 3 Metres under the Sky) and the word 'Fede' (Faith) and a bandana-swathed ...strawberry.

I borrowed the photo from Chiara at 06blog.

Myth can be good

And speaking of myth,

Archaeologists say they have unearthed Lupercale—the sacred cave where, according to legend, a she-wolf nursed the twin founders of Rome and where the city itself was born.

The long-lost underground chamber was found beneath the remains of Emperor Augustus' palace on the Palatine, a 230-foot-tall (70-meter-tall) hill in the center of the city.

It is obligatory to be sceptical about how Rome was founded and quite reasonable to be sceptical about whether this was the cave that the Romans venerated. But stories like this bring them into the public arena, and when the West rediscovers the narrative that made it great, this is the stuff that dreams are made of.

As an example of the kind of alternative myth-making against which we have to battle, here's a piece by John Pilger in The Guardian according to which Australia is a genocidal, imperialistic project which, if God were attentive, he would have swept away in the sweep of a hand. The foundation of Australia is especially heinous compared to ...

(Regarding the genocide, take your pick from any of the articles on this page.)

(via Dorothy King)

Romans - Goodies or Baddies?

Two good articles on the Romans and their language. The latter, by Mary Beard, wants Latin put back into comprehensive schools partly as a subject to stretch the academically able, but also because it is the language on which Europe was founded. Please let that be the last yawn. I know, you've heard it all before. I happen to believe it's true and it's important, but that's not what I want to write about here.

Among many interesting comments, there is this one that stands out by someone with the moniker of DeepSouth.

Latin is the language of a nasty rapacious bunch of vermin. They looted and destroyed wherever they went.

Now it's not just country hicks who say such things. The ex-Python, Terry Jones, speaks of "the Roman killing-machine that marched out to rob and ruin [the barbarians]". The historian, Neil Faulkner, likens the Roman influence on Britain as comparable to the worst effects of imperialism and capitalism.

They completely miss the point. Yes, the Romans invaded and colonised other groups, cultures and regions. Yes, they did a lot of killing, which they were very good at. Yes, they exploited the conquered territories. But then, who didn't? In this, they were like every other tribe in the known world. The only difference is that they were better at it. Much better. You may want to believe that the losing side were little close-to-nature bunnies, but there is no evidence for it and there never was. The Romans did what their competitors would have liked to have do (conquer), but did it better. The Romans were stronger; for a long time they won. That's it.

But that is not why we ought to remember and study them. It's the what-else they did that merits attention. They built and maintained the most complex social organism yet to exist on the Earth and raised the very questions that still occupy us today. As Will Hutton puts it

Rome's debates - and earlier debates by the Greeks - about the best form of political organisation, about ethics and morality, about love and human relationships made us what we are. Without republican Rome, there would have been no Magna Carta, no tradition of civil scrutiny of government, no Shakespeare, no Christianity, no liberalism and no republicanism.

And they did it in such a manner that it continued to inspire people for 2 millennia afterwards. A brief example. Most of the Thousand that followed Garibaldi in the defense of the Roman Republic in 1848 and to Sicily in 1860 were educated men. When they looked for models to inspire them in their quest for Italian liberty and the republic, they looked to Plutarch and to the stories of Cato the Elder, Cincinnatus and Brutus. These young men were imbued with an idea of 'virtue' that was rigorous and enabling. So, too, for the American 'revolutionaries' - it was the study of Rome that opened their eyes to the possibility of a republic. It was the study of Rome that showed them the fragility of republican liberty.

So whatever atrocities you can attribute to the Romans, as much (relatively) can be attributed to any other tribe, or group. What cannot be attributed to any other group is the immense gift that we have received from the Romans. The resurgence of the West began with an imaginary return to the Classical past. May we live up our masters.