MUSSOLINI

Hokitika Guardian, 13 August 1927, Page 4

MUSSOLINI

COMPARED WITH EMPEROR | AUGISTU. Speaking to the mem her-, ol the Classical Association ol Xew .South Wales at the University on Thursday night. Professor F. A. Todd, in the introductory part of his address on “Mussolini and Archaeology'’ said that there were still a. few misguided people who persisted in regarding Benito .Mussolini as an exquisitely c mrie figure. These people were wrong. Mussolini was a great man—one of the greatest statesman in history. He could be compared with Augustus, the first Roman ,'Emperor. The conditions which had confronted tite two men were not. dissimilar. Both had the task of saving and ruling a country weakened and impoverished by war. rent by internal dissension, and people of a disheartened and demoralised populace. It their problems were .similar, so were their policies. Roth saw dearly that their Movements must he broad-based upon the patriotism of the people. Mussolini archaeological campaign was most ambitious. Tn 1924 be had undertaken the clearing of the Imperial Fora adjoining the old Forum Rotnantim. In the year between April, 1926, and April. 1927. nearly the whole of the great theatre of Marcellas, one of the most imposing edifices of Augustan Rome, was set tree front the old and ttnsavotirv houses that had hemmed it in.