Rape, insanity, incest, murder

My dear friend Emily Wilson (writing at Slate) praises the new translations for the Loeb Classical Library, with one reservation:

Yet I admit a churlish part of me feels a tiny pang. I still wonder whether we really should be welcoming these splendid new translations with open arms. I, for one, would be extremely wary of recommending a Loeb in an undergraduate class in which the students were expected to read the original Latin or Greek. The temptation to rely too heavily on the translation would be all the greater now that the translations are so much better than they used to be. That's perhaps why I enjoyed the 500th volume of the series, a splendid edition by D.R. Shackleton Bailey of Quintilian's Lesser Declamations, as much as I did. It is a reminder that the old Loeb style is not entirely dead, after all. Shackleton Bailey is a senior and rightly respected Latinist whose English shows little danger of keeping up with the times.

Never before been translated into English, this latest addition to the collection gives us a vivid picture of the sensational topics that young Roman students, at the equivalent of college or law school, would be made to debate in the classroom, cases involving divorce, theft, property rights, rape, insanity, incest, murder, the glory due to war heroes, and adultery. Even those with no prior interest or knowledge of Roman law, education, rhetoric and social history may be surprised to find themselves gripped by Quintilian's school exercises.

But they may also be surprised by some rather fusty expressions, certainly for the 21st century. Here are a few sample sentences taken at random, which could have come from a Loeb at any moment in the past hundred years: "Surely she complains of Fortune in that she wasted her boon." ... "Perhaps he belittles me, but I shall venture." ... "Upon my word, if some munificent, or rather excellently deserving, citizen had been struck by lightning in the Forum, I should say all the same that some exceptions should be made." It will be a shame when this lovely old schoolboy stiffness is eliminated from the series altogether, as one day, it surely will be. For the time being, the Loeb series—despite all its revisions and makeovers—is still offering a version of Greek and Roman antiquity that harks back, however faintly, to a fantasy of Edwardian England. Perhaps some Loeb editions are still meant for the gentleman or lady amateur, just as they always were. Let's enjoy it while we can.

Now I so want to read Quintilian's Lesser Declamations! How excellent.... (Thanks to Bookslut for the link.)