| Sumario: | This article surveys the presence of classical antiquity in the writing of José Rizal (1861–1896), the national hero of the Philippines. It first discusses Rizal's Jesuit education and considers an example of his early fiction, The Council of the Gods (El consejo de los dioses, 1880), before outlining the employment of Latin and classical references in his two major novels, Noli me tángere and El filibusterismo. I argue that allusion to classical antiquity plays a range of roles in Rizal's work: it allows him to adopt a refined persona, deflate the prestige of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, satirize the pretensions of the educated classes and advance the cause of reason and enlightenment in the Philippines. While Latin is at times portrayed as a cudgel wielded by priests and cultural conservatives, it is also revealed to be a tool essential for radical critique of inherited religious dogma. In El filibusterismo, the stories of Antaeus and the Trojan War are put to incisive anticolonial use. As such, Rizal's writing represents an important moment in the globalized classical tradition at the end of the nineteenth century.
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