Bret Devereaux

I have a history degree. And I agree with the argument for the humanities. But on a practical level I often if almost never run into a situation where my lack of knowledge of the classics in depth really kills me Some theology sure but how far does that go time wise.

That's fair. To be honest, in the history space, I think ancient historians could be doing more to reach out to the rest of history, as a discipline to make the case that the reference pool (which is too often post 1450 or so) needs to extend deeper into the past.

I mean, there is always an iceberg problem - the average person might only need passing knowledge of something, the local teacher a lot more, the specialist who trains them far more and so on. Having that passing knowledge available requires the specialist at the far end.

The Classics field-to-public pipeline is much weaker and needs a lot more work (and I'd openly suggest that the structure of public history and history engagement might provide models for classics to emulate and innovate off of to *make* itself relevant).

Oh okay I get your point now and I agree with that for sure yeah. I don't know what counts as classics but I do know that I do try to get my students to at least read some like a little early church thinking since many of them come from that background.

I'd also say - I don't know what country you are in - but for the USA, the fact that Rome was a very successful big multi-ethnic, multi-religious state (with serious flaws) really suggests it as a historical model for us. What worked and what didn't, etc.

I hadn't thought of that before, but it's a definite useful tract. I'm US by the way. I teach in rural South Carolina.