As I continue getting somewhat long in the tooth – a few of you may be like me in that regard – I can remember way back to my early school days when I was required to memorize some lengthy classic poems. It amazes me how the exercise implants that poetry into your marrow. I can’t tell you for sure what I had for dinner last Thursday, but I could put you to sleep reciting some Walter de la Mare – and don’t get me started on Shelley’s “My Name is Ozymandias, King of Kings.”

Along with the Three R’s, it was a given that by the time you clambered into high school you could identify and accurately recite at least some of the gems of English literature. And, because the mind of a kid is a sponge, the words that I soaked up then – even if I didn’t yet get their full import – remain with me almost three-quarters of a century later.

I can still tell you what Abu Ben Adam saw within the moonlight in his room; what it is like to wander lonely as a cloud and find a host of golden daffodils; why the “luv” of Robert Burns was like a red, red rose; and why Tennyson wanted no moaning at the bar when he put out to sea. I can get all the way to why April is the cruelest month and repeat what the raven quoth.

I don’t take any particular pride in or credit for this – my memory is about the usual, although the short-term memory is spotty – but the panic that ensued when I thought the teacher might call on me to recite focuses the mind wonderfully. Powerful motivation indeed.

I understand now why reading and memorizing poetry is as important as knowing what happened in 1789, in 1848, in 1933, in 1945, and in 2001. For me, the continuing study of history is like eating celery: I’d never order it, but if it’s there, I’ll chomp on it, and even derive some satisfaction from the cool crunch. As I continue to age – the alternative is unattractive – I am more and more inclined to look back, way back, to try to understand the absurd and preposterous twists and turns of the human journey.

We can draw a line from Pilate through Ptolemy, the Caesars, Louis the XIV, Rasputin, and Himmler, all the way to certain current politicians and legislators, and be overwhelmed with the prevalence of dishonesty, bribery, immorality, and impurity. But history as she is writ is not history as she is made. History is told by the winners and whatever goodness was inherent in the losers is blown in the wind and covered by the sands of time.

Mostly, but not always.

Like you, I watch my pennies carefully, but acting on an impulse I don’t fully understand, I recently purchased some very ancient history. As I began to browse through a tome titled The Etruscans (isn’t that where you’d start?) the tiny bit I thought I knew about these early Italians was shown to be dead wrong.

What I thought I knew I had learned from memorizing a poem in high school by Thomas Macaulay. It began “Lars Porsena of Clusium, by the Nine Gods he swore, that the great house of Tarquin would suffer wrong no more …” Or something like that.

Lars was king of Etruria, if you’ll cast your mind back to the sixth century B.C., and reportedly he was prevented from leading his expedition against Rome, turned back by the bravery of Horatius. Remember “Horatio at the Bridge”? Not! It didn’t happen that way at all. Macaulay had swallowed the Roman version, written much later by Tacitus, a classic case of cover up.

Actually, Porsena did not flee, but entered, conquered and occupied Rome and became its ruler. The later Roman historians found it unflattering that the upstart Etruscans had made hash of them. So they rewrote the story and reversed the outcome. Poor Lars.

Isn’t history fun? Next time, I’ll give you the real skinny on Marie Antoinette.

Hank Basayne is a San Franciscan who wonders what future historians will say about us. E-mail: [email protected]