Antiquity and Europe
Studying classical antiquity and its continuing
afterlife, I find that the theme of Europe constantly recurs in different
forms. The dominant conception of a common European culture and heritage looks
back to classical Greece; not just as the birthplace of ideas and institutions
like democracy, science and critical thought that are still vital to us today,
and the starting-point of a literary and artistic tradition that continues to
inspire, but even as the likely origin of the word itself, and certainly the
earliest conceptions of Europe as a distinct region. It was scarcely
coincidental that the draft of the ill-fated European Constitution began with a quotation from the ancient
Greek historian Thucydides, presenting the statement of the Athenian politician
Pericles that “our constitution is called a democracy” – and it was also not an
accident that this quotation, as well as the constitution in general, was greeted with hilarity by British parliamentarians.
Of course this idea of ‘common European culture
founded in antiquity’ is a myth – it was never continuous or uncontested, it is
largely a modern invention – and it has often been a dangerous myth, supporting
an idea of European superiority and exceptionalism that was then imposed
violently on much of the rest of the world. But the same can be said of petty
nationalism, and claims that Britain is separate from and superior to ‘Europe’.
The fact that such stories are partly fictional
and often ahistorical doesn’t lessen their power or importance as a source of
identity, and the idea of Europe as a trans-national culture, founded on a
continuing engagement and negotiation with the classical past, is a myth with
tremendous creative potential. The study of the reception of antiquity is not
just a historical exercise; it’s also a basis for thinking about who we are,
how we think of ourselves, and how such ideas can continue to inspire.
Even if we as scholars didn’t engage with such
themes and issues, they would be unavoidable in debates about and around
Europe. Rome is the go-to analogy for a united Europe, for better or worse: a single
political structure, unified legal and coinage systems, the assimilation of
different peoples into a common culture. This can equally well be presented in
positive terms as the establishment of peace, prosperity and civilisation
across the region – hence the claims of later regimes to be the legitimate
continuation of the Roman Empire – or negative, as the violent conquest and
colonial exploitation of native peoples by a rapacious elite – “they made a
desert and called it the single European market”, to paraphrase Tacitus.
