Lessons from Rome?

I saw The Emperor's Club a few years ago and found it frustrating as all hell. But I couldn't quite place the source of my annoyance. After stumbling across a reference to it somewhere on the internet last week, I thought about it some more and figured out my problem with it.

William Hundert teaches Roman history at an elite boys private school. He wants to instill virtue and character in his pupils by teaching them about Rome. "When the boys read Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Julius Caesar even, they're put in direct contact with men, who in their own age, exemplified the highest standards of statesmanship, of civic virtue, character, conviction." A lofty and noble goal. Perhaps a bit misguided, but the character's believable.

What strains credulity is the movie's climax: a rather silly Roman history trivia contest that most closely resembles a spelling bee. After bloviating for the whole movie on the need to look to the figures of Caesar and Cicero for moral inspiration, Hundert oversees a contest where students wear togas, answer purely factual questions ("Who was Hamilcar Barca?"), and fight it out to become Mr. Julius Caesar.

Look, you can argue that studying the past provides valuable lessons for the present. You can even argue that we should seek to emulate the great men of the past. But you can't argue that and then bestow honor and prestige on those who memorize the most battles. Hundert ends up coming across like a pedantic blowhard who believes that history lies in the facts. As a result, his high-minded moralism comes across as an almost naive hypocrisy when faced with a real moral conflict.