<br>
Every now and then I come across an example of wilful ignorance about the Classics, or conduct likely to cause grievous harm to the cause of Classics. It struck me that there ought to be some recognition of these.
May I emphasise that this is a personal initiative, not part of ARLT policy.<br>
<br>
Every now and then I come across an example of wilful ignorance about
the Classics, or conduct likely to cause grievous harm to the cause of
Classics. It struck me that there ought to be some recognition of
these. Private Eye has its OBN - Order of the Brown Nose -
for lickspittle behaviour, so I have instituted my
own variation on the OBE, the OBI, Order of
Barbaric Ignorance. <br>
<br>
The first recipient, as seen on the home page of the ARLT site, was
suggested by hearing Robin Birley at Vindolanda. Apparently the Birley
family actually own the Vindolanda land, while English Heritage
administers the excavated site of the fort. Robin Birley has
shown himself an expert in making parts of Hadrian's Wall attractive to
visitors, with the reconstructions of a turret from the turf Wall and
one from the stone Wall, and the Roman Army Museum, and he suggested to
English Heritage that information plaques at various points in and
around the fort could well feature text in English, German, Spanish -
and Latin. Apparently the local English Heritage people were all in
favour of this, but some wonderful committee down in Londinium (sorry,
London) came up with the remarkable decision that for a Roman site,
Latin would not be appropriate.<br>
<br>
Fortunately for the visiting public, the Trust took on the expense of
producing the information plaques themselves, including the Latin
version, produced by Professor Anthony Birley - it must be useful to
have a Professor of Classics in the family. You can see photos of the
result in the Vindolanda folder of photos here.<br>
<br>
I wonder if the folk who thought this inappropriate had heard of
Newcastle's excellent scheme for interesting tourists in the Roman
heritage by putting public signs in Latin in the metro.<br>
<br>
So, to the London committee, the award of the OBI.<br>
<br>
I have at least one other award winner up my sleeve. If you want to suggest a worthy recipient, do let me know. <br>