“I gave way to fate and, bearing my father on my shoulders, made for the mountain.”
— Virgil, Aeneid
“Aeneid is like a well-ordered Garden, where it is impossible to find any Part unadorned or to cast our Eyes upon a single Spot that does not produce some beautiful Plant or Flower”
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
― Heraclitus
Imagine a Roman citizen, the paterfamilias of a given household, suddenly swept away through the river of time to early 1800s America.
This Roman citizen would undoubtedly be perplexed by his unexpected journey through space and time, nearly as bumfuzzled as the early Americans who discover him soaking wet on the riverbank. Neither Romans nor Americans would be able to understand one another at first. However, I suspect, with enough time and courage, they would eventually bridge the gap with or without someone fluent in Latin.
Indeed, as much as an ancient Roman sent forward in time to early America would be shocked by the immense societal changes that had taken place over millennia, he would eventually find much familiarity in daily life, especially the role of the paterfamilias in the early American republic.
Now, throw an early 19th-century American into the same river of time. Rather than some random citizen, throw President John Adams into the deep waters of 2024, and I’m willing to bet he would be much more perplexed than an ancient Roman flung into early America!
Even with an immediate grasp of the language, John Adams would barely recognize the country he founded. That said, what he would find most alien to his moral sensibilities would be the 21st–century American household — a household impressive in wealth and technological capacity but utterly impoverished in familial purpose and spirit.
Yet, I imagine Adams would most pity the growing distance between fathers and sons in modern America and their fast-growing distance from him and his Christian and Roman ideals.
“How can fathers prepare their sons for a world so different from the world their fathers, grandfathers and they themselves knew?” Adams might wonder. “How can tradition survive caught up in this ever-raging, always changing river of the new?”
The American household has changed drastically in the last 50 years. Recent census numbers show a marked decline in the number of family households, far fewer families with young children, and a record number of Americans living alone. Marriage rates also continue to decline, especially for men.
“For the median male worker (who experienced a decline in earnings of roughly 28 percent), only 64 percent are married today, down from 91 percent 40 years ago,” reports Brookings. “And at the bottom 25th percentile of earnings, where earnings have fallen by 60 percent, half of men are married, compared with 86 percent in 1970. While the share of men who have been divorced has increased across the earnings distribution, an increase in the share of men who have never been married is the largest contributor to lower marriage rates.”
Witnessing all this, I can’t help but imagine our time-traveling Adams would ask, "Where did the paterfamilias go?”
It’s a good question and difficult to answer, especially if one’s focus remains fixed on the fast-changing future.
To venture an answer, one must look back, back through the river of time to when the world didn’t seem to change so rapidly, back to when traditions and the customs of men seemed as fixed as the stars. Yet, look back far enough across the distance of time and you will see change was always at play, even then, and that men have never stepped foot in the same river twice.
Though modern society has undergone rapid technological and cultural changes, ancient societies felt transformations just as, if not more, profound. Consider that upon being thrown into early 19th-century America, our time-traveling Roman would have most likely found Christian love the strangest change of all!
Yes, the waves of technological and societal change over the last 200 years are remarkably deep and wide, but are they more consequential than the transfiguration of the cross from a symbol of Roman power and dominance to a symbol of love and salvation by the Father through the Son?
Yes, there may be a growing distance between fathers and sons in modern America born of economic anxieties and cultural revolutions – but how does that coldly creeping chasm compare to Prince Aeneas seeing catastrophe befall his beloved Troy, his family name and household on the brink of destruction?
Adams would be able to answer that question. The Aeneid is a tale he knew quite well, as did his son, John Quincy. Perhaps the courageous spirit of Virgil’s ancient poem may help modern America find the lost paterfamilias and the ideals of their forefathers.
In 2023, when asked to provide a message to young and old alike, alienated, isolated and deprived in a time of uncertain world crisis, Pope Francis gave this beautiful response:
What meaning does deprivation have for me, in the light of the Gospel? It means to enter into the world of the deprived, to understand that he who had, no longer has. What I ask of people is that they take the elderly and the young under their wing, that they take history under their wing, that they take the deprived under their wing.
What comes now to mind is another verse of Virgil’s, at the end of Book 2 of the Aeneid, when Aeneas, following defeat in Troy, has lost everything. Two paths lie before him: to remain there to weep and end his life, or to follow what was in his heart, to go up to the mountain and leave the war behind. It’s a beautiful verse. Cessi, et sublato montem genitore petivi (‘I gave way to fate and, bearing my father on my shoulders, made for the mountain’).
This is what we all have to do now, today: to take with us the roots of our traditions, and make for the mountain.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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