In the somewhat unusual situation of a mathematician invited to address a Classical Society, there is one question which I am forced to put to myself. Can anything of interest to present-day students of the Classics survive from a modest Classical course taken over forty years ago, and followed by a lifetime of activity in a very different academical groove? Any slight merit which the following remarks may possess will arise from their character as a personal testimony.

I begin by putting a question to you. What influences led you to take up a course in Classics at college? I can imagine many possible contributory causes: the accident of the particular school you attended, high success in your School Certificate Examination, a real pleasure in getting up the rudiments of Latin or Greek grammar; or a teacher who bound you with a spell and gave you glimpses of romance. Whatever the cause, you have made the choice, and, like all choices, it imposes a limitation. To some extent, and at least for a time, you are debarred from specializing in some other subject: Philosophy or Modern Languages, Physics or Biology. You are approaching the vast unity of human knowledge and achievement from a specific angle, and along a very definite path.

Pascal, the great literary, scientific, and religious genius of seventeenth-century France, has a fine saying: ‘The whole succession of men through the ages should be considered as one man, ever living and always learning.’ The unity of human knowledge and achievement cannot be broken up without serious loss.

This is no place, and to-day there should be no need, to attempt to justify the inclusion of a study of Roman Britain in the school curriculum, nor to stress its fundamental purpose of demonstrating the power, grandeur, and humanity of Roman civilization as expressed in one of the least and most remote—yet to us the most familiar—of the Imperial provinces. This article is concerned with ways and means of teaching the subject and is intended as a response from an archaeologist to the difficulties expressed by teachers in handling unfamiliar material.

As I see it, the problem of relating a study of Roman Britain to the study of Latin is part of the larger problem of devising methods of introducing the archaeological approach to the past into school teaching. And by the archaeological approach I mean getting in touch with the past through material things, the things that man has lost, or thrown away, the ruins of his home, his tomb, or his city for instance, the things that happen to survive to the present time; in short the things that are generally called ‘Roman Remains’. It is in this respect that Archaeology differs from History (even Ancient History), not in the aim, which they share—the recovery and interpretation of man's past—but in its methods and in the nature of its evidence. Of course it is not suggested for an instant that the textual and archaeological approach are conflicting, for it is generally recognized that they are complementary and must work together.

Primitive man defended his community from the ravages of his enemies by a thick thorn hedge or a wooden palisade. But a spear could penetrate these meagre defences, and the next stage in the race of better defences to ward off methods of attack, better methods of attack to penetrate the defences, and so on, was to build mounds of earth to ward off the enemy's spears. When the defenders realized that they needed defences which the enemy could not climb over, they made their mounds relatively higher by digging a ditch round the outside. Thus increased in height, the mound kept off the enemy for a time, but before long they in turn had learned to fill up the ditch with earth and faggots and thus to neutralize the depth of the ditch. So the wall had to be made higher, and as there is a limit beyond which one cannot pile up a mound of earth, the mound was strengthened with logs. The enemy had a counter-measure to this too, and made a breach in the defences by setting fire to the logs which formed the basis of the mound. This incendiarism was checked for a time by piling layers of earth and hides on the logs and so placing the logs that they could not be got at easily by the attackers. But this did not prove satisfactory, and we come at last to the wall of masonry or brick as the best means of defence. To this basic element many additions and improvements were made—the defenders learned, for instance, to make their perimeter curved as opposed to angular, because it was easier for the enemy to undermine a corner than a curved stretch of wall; and they learned to build towers out from the walls from which they could give flanking fire against the enemy who reached the bottom of the wall, at whom those on the main part of the wall could not fire with impunity.

About a year ago a group of Rugby School masters planned a short residential course for factory workers; and Shakespeare, History, Poetry, Religion, Music, and Geography seemed the obvious subjects to choose. In addition, a few lectures on Classics were proposed and provoked the inevitable reaction: ‘surely that's dead; why can't you bury it?’, ‘the world has passed through that phase’, and so on. But in spite of these protests six lectures, each lasting an hour, were allotted to the Civilization of Ancient Greece.

As general organizer I regarded these lectures as the most interesting feature of the course: it is perhaps relevant to add that I had read very little Greek since taking Matriculation thirty years before, and so I felt sufficiently detached to judge impartially. It was easy to guess that in prospect these lectures would be unpopular; and indeed, before the first, I heard students saying that no one expected to enjoy the Greek. So we decided to watch carefully; and if, after three lectures, there were little interest shown, then we were prepared to cancel the remainder. But it was soon abundantly clear that there was no risk of failure, and by the third lecture Greek was evidently one of the most successful features of a course that was enjoyed by all. Here are a few sentences from various letters sent by the students after the course: ‘I thought that the subjects were too “classic”, especially the last one (Ancient Greek civilization)…. Now I know that these subjects are vital for anyone who is to get the most out of life’; ‘Doors were opened to me into new worlds of delight’, meaning poetry and classics; ‘What a change from technical studies which unfortunately resume next week: I now feel that I want to give up engineering… gave me the incentive to go farther afield and delve deeper into the classics’; ‘Two weeks of exquisite delight’… with later special reference to the Greek class; ‘Greek culture and literature for instance seemed such dry subjects before, but now I realize how much we can learn from them and how very similar their problems were to those confronting us to-day.’

When Xerxes was marching through Asia to invade Greece, says Herodotus, he had to pass through the town of Kallatebos, not far from the crossing of the river Maeander. At this place (where, by the way, men make their living by preparing honey from tamarisk and wheatmeal) the king saw by the roadside a magnificent plane-tree, which on account of its beauty he presented with golden ornaments, and arranged that a man should stay there as its keeper or guardian for ever after. He then proceeded to Sardis.

The story became famous, and later centuries thought it rather silly. Aelian in particular declares that Xerxes, who ‘thought nothing of the works of God's hands, but must go and build himself newfangled roads and unusual ship-canals’—so he sneers at the eminent engineering feats of the Hellespont Bridge and the Athos Canal—made himself ridiculous (γɛλoīoς) by falling in love with a plane-tree, and decking it with golden necklets and bangles, and setting a guard over it, as he might set a slave to keep an eye on his harem. ‘What good did it all do the tree?’ Aelian rhetorically asks. ‘The apposititious ornament nothing suiting with it, hung there in vain… For to the beauty of a tree are requisite fair branches, leaves thick, a body strong, roots deep,… wideness of shadow, the successive seasons of the year, the nourishment of water by channels and rain.’ The criticism is rational. But Aelian, who though he wrote in Greek is recorded never to have left his native Italy, could hardly appreciate the feelings of admiration and delight, even of religious awe, shown by the dwellers on the arid plateaux of Asia for large and shady trees, feelings shared by the Greeks, and by any modern traveller in Greece who on a dusty summer's day has spied far-off a whitewashed chapel with trees at hand, and known that there he would also find a spring of cold dear water and rest from the road.

The modern miss will sometimes ask, ‘Did the ladies in ancient Greece and Rome use “make-up”?’ They most certainly did. It would, indeed, be true to say that nearly all modern artificial aids to beauty had their counterparts in classical antiquity: hair, eyebrows, eyelids, eyelashes, and cheeks all had their own ‘preparations’ guaranteed to enhance woman's natural charms.

In Homer, both sexes after washing anoint themselves with oil, but of cosmetics in the usual sense of the word there is no trace. Soon, however, the Greek ladies, finding, we are told, that the sedentary life imposed upon them by convention caused their complexions to fade, eagerly adopted those devices that the Eastern races had so long employed to add to their charms; and it is clear that the ladies of Rome became even more enthusiastic than their sisters in Athens in their endeavours to improve upon nature.

Frequently my lady did not bother to use cosmetics when at home—Quando videri vult formosa domi? Juvenal asks in disgust—but on special occasions, or when going to meet an admirer, she appeared in all her brilliance. The aid of white lead (Ψרμύθιοѵ, cerussa) was often called upon to produce a fair complexion, although its use cannot have been wholly free from risk; or a chalky powder (creta) was employed. Means of reddening the cheeks were obtained from the alkanet root (ἂγχoυνσα)—a dye which is still used to-day; from the crushed fruit of the mulberry (συκἁμινoν, morum) or the elderberry(acinus ebuli); from the poppy (papaver); and from a plant which we cannot identify (παιέρως) but which was guaranteed to give ‘that schoolgirl complexion’ a darker tint could be obtained from a composite preparation known as purpurissum.