Grandeur that was Rome
Grandeur
that was Rome
In Brief
To introduce Professor MacHugh's words about the Roman
empire, whoever or whatever is generating newspaper headlines
for Aeolus reaches for a stirring phrase from a poem
by Edgar Allan Poe: "THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME." The
mismatch between this title and the content that follows is,
to put it mildly, extreme.
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Poe's exquisite short poem makes Helen's beauty emblematic of
the lost wonders of antiquity: "the glory that was Greece,"
"the grandeur that was Rome," "the regions which / Are Holy
Land." "Grandeur" evokes Rome's vast empire, its grand
engineering marvels, its triumphal processions, its
gladiatorial spectacles. But the professor pronounces these
things unworthy of esteem. Rome was "Vast, I allow: but vile."
