Friday, March 21, 2025
They Wanted to Turn the Clock Backward
Ramsay MacMullen (1928-2022), Enemies of the Roman Order (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 33:
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In their criticism, the opposition chose their standards from the past. They wanted to turn the clock backward. Their words of praise were "ancient" or "ancestral," in Sentius' mouth. They longed for a world that, as Sentius admitted, they had never seen, known to them only through books and busts. They cultivated the memory of men who had fought against the future—Brutus, Cassius, Cato.Sentius = Gnaeus Sentius Saturninus, consul in 41 A.D.
