Schools: Classics

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, must be congratulated on introducing this debate. He failed to mention one of the most distinguished classicists in the Room, who was my former law tutor at Cambridge. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, not only carried away first-class honours in the first part of the tripos but won the ancient and much revered Sir William Browne gold medal in 1951, for, I think, an ode in the style of Sappho. That feat did not prevent him getting first-class honours with distinction in part two of the law tripos. I am afraid that I was a student of baser metal. Indeed, my director of studies, Professor Edward Kenney of Peterhouse, the professor of Latin in the university, advised me at the end of an undistinguished part one to read something else, which is how I came under the control of my noble and learned friend, Lord Lloyd.

It was asked then and still is: what is the point of a classical education? For me, it is the source of those generous liberal values which have from time to time leavened the culture and civilisation of Europe and the West. On common humanity across millennia, I have always been tickled by Homer’s tale that old men love to talk of their deeds of valour in past battles. Anyone who has ever played rugby will know that when two or three old rugby players get together over a pint of beer, they talk about their past battles. As to love, Hector’s farewell to Andromache and his son—to fight a battle that he did not desire but had, for the sake of honour, to endure—touches us to the heart. The fall of sacred Troy, the death of his father and his brothers and his own predicted end at the hands of Achilles meant nothing compared with the pain he felt that his wife would be sold into slavery and that those who saw her would weep and say:

“That woman is Hector’s wife”.

On fidelity, Argus, Odysseus’s dog, was cast out on to a heap of dung. He was covered with fleas and the only creature to recognise Odysseus as he returned to Ithaca from his travels. Argus lifted his ears and wagged his tail but was too weak to get up from the pile of dung. Homer tells us that as Odysseus departed:

“Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years”.

We touch people over that period of time—3,000 years—and common humanity is there.

Then there were the beginnings of democracy in Athens in the golden period with an assembly open to all citizens, regardless of wealth or class. It had an executive council chosen by lot, which, as your Lordships know, is a solution sometimes proposed for this House. There was justice by the verdict of one’s peers, the creation of the jury and courts composed of jurors drawn from the older citizens, who heard cases without the intervention of judges or lawyers—those who buzzed, as Aristophanes put it in “The Wasps”. There was the defiance of unjust law, told by Sophocles in the story of Antigone, whose loyalty to her brother led her to defy the edicts of the tyrant Creon. This is where drama was born; not just drama but comedy, poetry, Greek sculpture and architecture, which gave inspiration to the Renaissance and permeates the whole of our own civilisation. There were the philosophers, Socrates and Plato, who laid down the foundations of the philosophy that we share.

Romans were concerned with more mundane matters: belief in their right to rule over a lesser humanity; the exercise of power; law and order; dominion, with the spreading of boundaries “wider still and wider”—there was something of the Conservatives about them, one tends to feel. However, we learn much from the fate of the Roman empire when the Visigoths broke down the gates of Rome.

I heard at the weekend that my grandchild is taking up the study of Latin. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is right: it is all down to inspirational teachers. I was fortunate in having two inspirational teachers in my state school, Frederick Rowlands and Mr Noel Jones. They inspired me to appreciate my place in the world and the fact that humanity is the same now as it was then. These are values that I hope will continue to be maintained.