12-28-2011, 06:52 AM
A major difference between those times and today is that the educated gentleman of the 18th century would have been fluent in Latin, and probably Greek as well, practically from the time he first learned to read. Educated people of the 17th-early 19th centuries were comfortable with Classical languages in a way that seems foreign now. The ancient authors were old friends to them. They actually had party and barroom games involving Latin quotes. For instance, there was a round-robin game where with every round of drinks, one person would pronounce a Latin quote. The next person had to find a quote that began with the last word in the previous quote. The first one who couldn't think of a suitable quote had to pay for the drinks. Can you imagine a bunch of businessmen or military officers playing such a game now? Yet then it was unremarkable.
In the 18th century a military man of almost any nation could quote you Caesar or Arrian or Vegetius by the hour. A poet would know Vergil and Catullus by heart. Livy was more widely read than Stephen King now. It was a different world and it was infused with Classical learning.
In the 18th century a military man of almost any nation could quote you Caesar or Arrian or Vegetius by the hour. A poet would know Vergil and Catullus by heart. Livy was more widely read than Stephen King now. It was a different world and it was infused with Classical learning.
