Classical, Classics and Class

The word “class” has an interesting etymology, as I learnt recently from Edith Hall in an episode of Start the Week on BBC Radio 4 (on 25th May). The Latin word “classicum” meant, among other things, a war-trumpet or a military trumpet call - the word also had nautical associations - and it was used, so legend has it, by Servius Tullius. the sixth king of Rome, to announce roll-calls of Roman citizens in their separate groups according to their social status and wealth for voting and taxation purposes. So the word “class” became associated with Rome’s six taxation ‘classes’, especially with the highest class. Modern usage the word can mean a teaching group (as in ‘‘ top of the class’), a social stratum (as in ‘working class’), or a quality of distinction (as in ‘class act’); ‘class’ also has technical meanings in taxonomy and mathematics. While ‘classification’ retains just the division-into-categories meaning, the words ‘classical’ and ‘classic’ have overtones of something of quality with a gilded past, although when applied to music, ‘classical’ has a narrower meaning. Finally, the word “Classics’ has come to mean the study of the languages, literature and history of ancient Rome and Greece as well the wider culture of their associated civilizations, which flourished during the last six centuries BCE and beyond. In more recent British history the acquisition of a ‘classical education’, typically involving 8 years of swotting up Greek and Latin, was the unique passport to wealth and the power, and separated the ruling class from the hoi polloi. But more about that in my next post.