The news from Italy is both absurd and instructive. Archaeologists have restored a Roman mosaic depicting a pair of testicles, a piece from the city of Falerii Novi, and the British press is wringing its hands over our supposed standards in archaeology. Let me pause here for effect, dear reader, because this is where the madness truly begins.
The restoration follows guidelines set by the British Museum, a body that has become the arbiter of all things antique, as if the country that brought you the Elgin Marbles now polices the world's morality in ruins. The mosaic, a crude piece of phallic humour from a public latrine, was deemed too vulgar for proper display until British curators gave the nod. This is the essence of our age: we have turned archaeology into a branch of political correctness, where ancient graffiti must be vetted by committees before being shown to the public.
The Italians, of course, complied because they fear our cultural hegemony. But let us not be fooled: this is not a victory for 'standards' but a symptom of intellectual decadence, a sign that we have lost the ability to see history as it was. The Romans loved their bawdy jokes; they did not need our moralising.
And the British, who once plundered the world, now assume the role of its taste police. History, as I have often said, does not repeat itself but it does rhyme. This is the rhyme of the Fall of Rome, where the guardians of culture become the enforcers of a narrow, sterile orthodoxy.
The testicles will be restored, but our sense of historical perspective will remain, I fear, permanently fractured.
