Sunday October 4, 2015
Partly Cloudy 77°F/25°C in Roma
Rain 61°F/16°C in
Rancho Santa Margarita
Buongiorno,
Back in the
1950s before Elvis and the Rock and Roll Revolution, pop singer Patti Page had
a hit song called Learning My Latin! I
had actually heard the song first as part of arranger-composer-
conductor Gordon
Jenkins’ classic Manhattan Tower, which
I stumbled across recently on ITunes. It
made me think about my very first trip to Rome in 2005, and my first visit to
The Forum, guided by my son, Michael. We walked from the Coliseum past the
Triumphal Arch into the very heart of the Roman Empire. The Senate was located here
along with other ruined marvels from Rome’s glory days. Then, Michael pointed
to a desolate patch of ground and told me, Right
on this spot is where Julius Caesar was assassinated. He smiled, Et tu, Brutae? Yikes! I
replied, Of course! The Ides of March 44
BC. March 15th.
 |
| My Latin Teacher, Morris Diamond |
As a
professional guide, my son loves to punch holes in historical myths. This was
the first time I had been treated to his particular talent. I thought it happened on the grand stairs of
the Senate, I said. No dad, he replied somewhat condescendingly. It was right here, behind the place they
used to execute the Vestal Virgins who strayed from the straight and narrow. In
spite of Shakespeare’s depiction and Hollywood’s numerous movies, this weed
patch amidst the ruins of the Forum marked the place of Julius Caesar’s demise. Ālea iacta est! I said, The die is cast! It was then that I
remembered my high school Latin class at good old Riverhead High School. Then I
said, Omnes Gallia divisa in partes tres!
What are you saying, dad? My son asked. All
of Gaul is divided into three parts. It’s the opening line of Julius Caesar’s
“Commentarii de Bello Gallico.” That is Caesar’s narrative of his military
campaigns in Ancient Gaul. Remember “Veni, Vidi, Vici?” It was Julius Caesar’s
after action report on his Gallic war, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” I still
remember some of my high school Latin. I sure wish we could show this to Mr.
Diamond. On that trip and the subsequent visits to Italy, I found myself
time and again seeing a place for the first time, with the definite feeling
that I had been there before. And I owe that to Morris Diamond.
 |
| The Mikes at the Roman Forum |
 |
| Mr. Diamond |
I was with Roosevelt BEFORE 1928! He
would announce as he got started on his frequent commentaries on politics. That
would usually herald his analysis of the day’s hot political story. FDR before ’28, was his way of saying
that his political loyalties predated FDR’s first term by four years. He
definitely was a New York product. Jewish, degree from New York’s City College,
married to an Irish Catholic lady and on a mission to make his favorite class,
Latin a well-rounded learning experience for all of us brave enough to darken his classroom’s threshold. You lucky kids! He would exclaim
frequently as he call our class to order. You
lucky kids! It was his way of saying it was time to settle down and learn,
because it didn’t take us long to find out that he was a very demanding teacher
and very strict about teenage classroom antics. Every once in a while when he
saw that one of us wasn’t paying the proper amount of attention, he would
launch a blackboard eraser in the miscreant’s direction. Invariably, the
missile found its mark. Well, I finally
got your attention, Blodgett! We’re on page 51. Your turn to read aloud! And
the target of Mr. Diamond’s eraser toss would start reading, first in Latin and
translate as he or she went along. To this day, I think of him as
Mister Diamond. Even his own daughter
Janice, who also took his class, addressed him formally as Mr. Diamond, never Dad or
Pop! Latin is supposed to be a dead language, he would often remark. It is your job as my students to keep
breathing some life into it! You lucky kids!
 |
| Daughter Janice Diamond |
We learned Roman
history, from the city’s founding in 753 BC by Romulus and Remus, through the
early republic, the building of the empire, the grandeur of Imperial Rome and
the division of the empire into east and west, and of course, Rome’s decline
and fall, and Europe’s descent into the Dark Ages. Time and time again Mr.
Diamond would lecture us on the accomplishments of ancient Rome in medicine,
the arts, law, political structure, military capability, the inner workings of conquest and
how the empire not only conquered but maintained the integrity of its political
structure. Everything that we students had come to believe had been developed
within the two hundred year life span of the United States, Mr. Diamond would
drum it into us that the Roman Empire did it first, and frequently did it
better. Our laws, our constitution, the structure of our congress and state
legislatures. Another favorite tirade of his: When your European ancestors were living in huts in the forest and
swinging by their tails through the trees, Roman citizens were living their
lives in a highly advanced civilization. Don’t you ever forget that.
 |
| Our Hero Julius Caesar |
We learned about
Roman expansion, the rivalry with Carthage and the Punic Wars. Hannibal
crossing the Alps in mid-winter. The slave uprisings, and the Roman dole
system-Pane e circo, bread and
circuses, the Coliseum and the games, the rise of Christianity, the sacking of
Rome by the Barbarians and the inevitable fall of the empire. And all through
our halting translations of Caesar’s Gallic Commentaries, Mr. Diamond carefully
drew the parallels between the ancient history of the Roman Empire with the contemporary
history of World War 2 and the rise of the American Empire. He was an ardent
critic of the influence on Americans by Hollywood and Madison Avenue. At a time
when television had not yet become the
force it is today, he was extremely wary of the impact on Americans’ minds
wielded by the Hollywood movie industry and Madison Avenue’s advertising
agencies. If the Russians ever decide to
drop the A-bomb on us, he would say, I
would hope that the first two bombs fall on Hollywood and Madison Avenue! That,
in my opinion, would solve a lot of our problems! Yes. For a teacher of a
long-dead language, used only in churches, our Latin teacher spread his wings
in an effort to open our young minds.
So now, after
four visits to the capital of the old Roman Empire, and in anticipation of
future visits, if not a permanent residence, I still think about Morris
Diamond, my old Latin teacher. And, to end this little creative effort, I’d
like to relate a story told me by one of my other classmates at our 50th
Class Reunion a few years back. It seems that one of our other classmates, Shepard Scheinberg, had
brought back a marble chunk from one of the ruins in the forum on his vacation
trip. When Shep got back, he visited Mr. Diamond, who was still teaching Latin up
until the 1970s, and presented him with the marble as a souvenir of his visit
to Rome and a memento from one of his former students. I was stunned by what I
heard next. Because Mr. Diamond told his ex-student, You know, I’ve never been to Rome and I always wanted to visit there
because the history means so much to me. But, I never got the opportunity to
travel there. I still find it hard to believe, because our teacher made it
all so vividly real for us. I’ve seen with my own eyes what he taught us about
and I’m still scratching my head over his admission. But, then, we all
considered him a great teacher, one of our most memorable, and, I guess that is
what makes a good teacher a great teacher. You
lucky kids! We sure were.
Ciao,
MikeBo
(Thanks to Tim Holls for the RHS class yearbook photos)
© By Mike Botula 2015
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