The young and lively Malta Classics Association used the launch of its publication, Greek Civilisation (and the same publication in a Maltese text) to pay tribute to the author of this small but beautifully written book, Fr Nicholas Debono Montebello, whose long career as a devoted priest was parallelled and matched by his many years of teaching Greek and Latin classical literature at the University of Malta.

Fr Debono Montebello (though he has a London Ph.D. he prefers to be styled Fr and not Dr) is a very erudite scholar, but chose to dedicate his career to teaching more than publish-ing. He fed his research into his teaching as he described in his elegantly delivered address during the occasion.

He was a well beloved teacher, and Maria Zammit, who now teaches classics at the University of Malta and was once Debono Montebello’s student, eloquently described the excellence of his lectures delivered in the fine voice he still has in his eighties, as well as the kindly and sensitive way in which he related to his students.

It would be a happy thing if other bodies were to follow this example

Speaking to other former students of his, I realised how widely beloved and admired he was by all of them who will surely continue to remember him more than some other teachers whose scores of publications are not enough to endear them to their students.

I was much struck by the short address delivered by Anthony Bonanno, archaeologist and classicist, first a student and subsequently a colleague of Fr Debono Montebello’s, who spoke sadly of the way in which devoted academics of many years’ standing are often allowed to retire without being given a merited farewell. A minority are commemorated with the publication of a Festchrift, but many are just allowed, in Prof. Bonanno’s words, “to fade away”.

Actors Carmel Serracino and Keith Borg performing a short play with classical connections.

The Malta Classics Association has come up with this tribute to Fr Debono Montebello, an evening of much felt speeches, a memorable address by Fr Debono Montebello himself about his life with the classics, and finally a couple of short and well-acted scenes with classical connections. The actors were Carmel Serracino, who lectures on classics but is also a keen man of the theatre and Keith Borg.

The first was a scene from Serracino’s excellent Maltese language dramatisation of Plato’s The Symposium in which Alcibiades (Keith Borg) speaks passionately of his love for the ugly but supremely wise Socrates (Serracino) whose silences are as eloquent as Alcibiades’ emotional speeches.

The second scene was from one of the greatest plays ever written, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex in which Oedipus (an irascible Serracino) refuses to accept the terrible truth his philosopher mentor Tiresias (Keith Borg) tells him. It is a great scene from a very gripping play, one that should be revived in its entirety in Oliver Friggieri’s stately version.

It would be a happy thing if other bodies were to follow this example. Young people drawn to a life of academic teaching and research would be encouraged to do so if more academics at the end of their career are shown to have been appreciated and admired by those who were enriched by their teaching and their research.