Jack Mitchell

Today’s classicist is often asked, “How are the ancient Greeks relevant to me, to our society?” To which the awkward answer must be: “They’re not, which is why I like them.” It’s different with Rome. In law, for example, or in lyric poetry, or in the very idea of “the West,” half the Empire still…

So we may yet see another referendum in Quebec. On the campaign trail, the new Parti Québécois premier, Pauline Marois, deftly bowing to the 72 percent of Quebecers who are against secession, swore not to initiate a referendum herself, even as she bought off the hard-core sovereigntists with a promise to allow a citizen-initiated referendum, should 850,000 people sign a…

Alert students of the G.W. Bush era have long suspected that imperialist military adventurism and liberty-loving, rights-based, cream-puff republicanist rhetoric are not entirely incompatible. Actually, by now it is hard to imagine one without the other. But ’twas not ever thus. For decades, serious discussion of an “American empire” was restricted to Alfred Thayer Mahan, Gore Vidal and Denys Arcand:…

What vexes me most, however, is the reflection that Arthur Wellington will be as immortal as Napoleon Bonaparte. Has not the name of Pontius Pilate in a similar way become as unforgettable as that of Christ? Wellington and Napoleon! It is a wonderful phenomenon that the human mind can think of both at the same …

The troops with the worst reputation for acts of violence against prisoners were the Canadians (and later the Australians). With the Canadians motive was said to be revenge for a Canadian found crucified with bayonets through his hands and feet in a German trench; this atrocity was never substantiated, nor did we believe the story freely circulated that the Canadians crucified a German officer in revenge shortly …