|
SCOTT HORTON?Novus Ordo Seclorum |
|
Contributed by Scott Horton
|
It?s there on every dollar bill. Turn it over and read the legend under the pyramid??novus ordo seclorum???a New Order of the Ages.? Hollywood makes it the center of a treasure hunt. Religious nuts who populate the world of cable TV shows like the 700 Club, rail on about Masonic Lodges. But these words had a meaning that would be immediate to all of the Founding Fathers with an education in the classics (which was nearly all of them). Unlike most Americans today, they would have read Virgil?s Aeneid, in which these words play a powerful role (bk vii, 44), and they would know Virgil?s Fourth Eclogue, which is reproduced as today?s poem. . . .
Read more at: |
