In January 2002 the international media announced the death of the world’s oldest currency: the drachma had been replaced by the euro. In this we see the power of national mythologies. There is no denying that the drachma had been the currency of the Greeks of antiquity, but the story implies that it had been continuously in use since then. It overlooks the succession of empires that had ruled over Greece and the various coins of these occupying powers, the Roman denarius, the Byzantine solidus, the Ottoman akye. The drachma had long been out of circulation when in 1832 the recently created Greek state decided to invoke its memory by naming their new currency after it. By asserting continuity with the classical past, the Greeks claimed that past for their new nation and effectively erased the intervening centuries.
The Greek and Roman past has played and continues to play an important part in modern national identity, not only in Greece and Italy, where it might seem to have a particular relevance, but also in other European countries such as Germany, France, and most controversially the former Yugoslavian republic of Macedon. It is not, however, limited to Europe and the Mediterranean, as the example of the United States of America with its senate and senators demonstrates. At various times the classical past has turned out to be a very real and potent presence in the formation and development of nations. In the 1990s it was a central feature in the often bitter diplomatic dispute between Greece and its neighbor the Republic of Macedonia, while earlier in the twentieth century ancient Rome was firmly worked into the ideology of Mussolini’s Fascist regime. This chapter explores some of the ways in which the ancient past has been appropriated by nations of modern times, and also considers why this should be so.
World History
