Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Bellicosity
Tacitus, Germania 14.2 (tr. Herbert W. Benario):
If the state in which they were born should be drowsing in long peace and leisure, many noble young men of their own accord seek those tribes which are then waging some war, since quiet is displeasing to the race and they become famous more easily in the midst of dangers, and one would not maintain a large retinue except by violence and war.
si civitas, in qua orti sunt, longa pace et otio torpeat, plerique nobilium adulescentium petunt ultro eas nationes, quae tum bellum aliquod gerunt, quia et ingrata genti quies et facilius inter ancipitia clarescunt magnumque comitatum non nisi vi belloque tueare.
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Paying Taxes
Matthew 17.24-27 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):
[24] Then when they came to Capernaum, those who took up the two-drachma tax came up to Peter and said: Does not your teacher pay the two drachmas? [25] He said: Yes. And as he was going into the house, Jesus intercepted him and said: What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take their taxes and their assessment? From their sons or from strangers? [26] When he said: From strangers, Jesus said to him: Thus their sons go free. [27] But so that we may cause them no trouble, go to the sea and let down your hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and open its mouth and you will find a stater. Take it and give it to them, for you and me.Bibliography from Donald A. Hagner's commentary:
[24] Ἐλθόντων δὲ αὐτῶν εἰς Καφαρναοὺμ προσῆλθον οἱ τὰ δίδραχμα λαμβάνοντες τῷ Πέτρῳ καὶ εἶπαν· Ὁ διδάσκαλος ὑμῶν οὐ τελεῖ τὰ δίδραχμα; [25] λέγει· Ναί. καὶ ἐλθόντα εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν προέφθασεν αὐτὸν ὁ Ἰησοῦς λέγων· Τί σοι δοκεῖ, Σίμων; οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς ἀπὸ τίνων λαμβάνουσιν τέλη ἢ κῆνσον; ἀπὸ τῶν υἱῶν αὐτῶν ἢ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων; [26] εἰπόντος δέ· Ἀπὸ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων, ἔφη αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Ἄρα γε ἐλεύθεροί εἰσιν οἱ υἱοί. [27] ἵνα δὲ μὴ σκανδαλίσωμεν αὐτούς, πορευθεὶς εἰς θάλασσαν βάλε ἄγκιστρον καὶ τὸν ἀναβάντα πρῶτον ἰχθὺν ἆρον, καὶ ἀνοίξας τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ εὑρήσεις στατῆρα· ἐκεῖνον λαβὼν δὸς αὐτοῖς ἀντὶ ἐμοῦ καὶ σοῦ.
Monday, February 24, 2025
A Technique for Avoiding People
Diogenes Laertius 7.1.13 (on Zeno; tr. R.D. Hicks):
He disliked, they say, to be brought too near to people, so that he would take the end seat of a couch, thus saving himself at any rate from one half of such inconvenience.
ἐξέκλινε δέ, φησί, καὶ τὸ πολυδημῶδες, ὡς ἐπ᾿ ἄκρου καθίζεσθαι τοῦ βάθρου, κερδαίνοντα τὸ γοῦν ἕτερον μέρος τῆς ἐνοχλήσεως.
Degeneration
Vergil, Aeneid 4.13 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):
'Tis fear that proves souls base-born.Arthur Stanley Pease ad loc.:
degeneres animos timor arguit.
13. degeneres: for the thought cf. Pind. Ol. 1, 130-131: ὁ μέγας δὲ κίνδυνος ἄναλκιν / οὐ φῶτα λαμβάνει, but the word degener — a term of poetic and post-Augustan prose usage — has an added meaning of one who lapses from the traditions or standards of his race (Serv. Aen. 2, 549: degenerem non respondentem moribus patris), as seeds and fruits may revert (G. 1, 198; 2, 59), and here acquires especial force from the preceding genus ... deorum . The particular type of deterioration here noted (timor) appears in various passages, of which some were doubtless influenced by the present: Luc. 3, 149: degeneris ... metus; 6, 417: degeneres trepidant animi (cf. schol.); Tac. Ann. 1, 40 (of Agrippina): cum se divo Augusto ortam neque degenerem ad pericula testaretur; 4, 38 (of Tiberius): quidam ut degeneris animi interpretabantur; 12, 36: preces degeneres fuere ex metu; Val. Fl. 7, 430; Sil. 15, 76: degeneres tenebris animas damnavit Avernis; Inc. Paneg. Const. Aug. 14, 2 (Paneg. Lat., 2 ed., 300): degeneris, ut dictum est, animos arguebat; Ambros. De Off. 2, 62: degeneres animos vita arguit; Auson. Ep. 22, 26 (p. 262 Peiper): degeneres animos timor arguit; Firm. Mathes. 1, 7, 28: degeneris animi timore prostratus; Paul. Nol. Carm. 19, 195; degeneres animos (cf. 31, 52); Aug. C. D. 2, 29; Sidon. Ep. 1, 7, 7; Johannes de Altavilla, Architrenius, 4, 136 (p. 297 Wright; cf. p. 351); Alex. Nequam, Novus Avianus, 2, 23 (Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins, 3 (1894), 464): ocia degeneres animos languencia reddunt; Gualterus, Alexandreis, 1, 47: ut degener arguar absit; 5, 212: degeneres animi. And with this passage Boissier (La Fin du Paganisme, 5 ed., 2 (1907), 46) compares Juvenc. 2, 37: infidos animos timor inruit. Stephenson, however (ad loc.), somewhat less probably, thinks degeneres is here used of men without a divine pedigree, 'unheroic,' as contrasted with heroes. (The view of Dunbabin (in Cl. Rev. 39 (1925), 112) that Dido is here thinking of herself, rather than of Aeneas, and continuing the thought of line 9, seems impossible to accept.)
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Natural Affection
Augustine, Sermons 349.2 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 39, col. 1530; tr. Edmund Hill):
But you will observe that this sort of charity can be found also among the godless, that is, among pagans, Jews, heretics. Which of them, after all, does not naturally love wife, children, brothers, neighbors, relations, friends, etc.? So this kind of charity is human. So if anyone is affected by such hardness of heart that he loses even the human feeling of love, and doesn't love his children, doesn't love his wife, he isn't fit even to be counted among human beings. A man who loves his children is not thereby particularly praiseworthy; but one who does not love his children is certainly blameworthy, I mean, he should observe with whom he ought to have this kind of love in common; even wild beasts love their children; adders love their children; tigers love their children; lions love their children. There is no wild creature, surely, that doesn't gently coo or purr over its young. I mean, while it may terrify human beings, it cherishes its young. The lion roars in the forest, so that nobody dare walk through it; it goes into its den, where it has its young, it lays aside all its rabid ferocity. It puts it down outside, it doesn't step inside with it. So a man who doesn't love his children is worse than a lion.
Sed videtis istam caritatem esse posse et impiorum, id est, Paganorum, Iudaeorum, haereticorum. Quis enim eorum non amat uxorem, filios, fratres, vicinos, affines, amicos, etc.? Haec ergo humana est. Si ergo tali quisque crudelitate effertur, ut perdat etiam humanum dilectionis affectum, et non amet filios suos, et non amet coniugem suam; nec inter homines numerandus est. Non enim laudandus est qui amat filios suos; sed damnandus est qui non amat filios. Adhuc enim videat cum quibus debet ei esse dilectio ista communis. Amant filios et ferae: amant filios aspides, amant filios tigrides, amant filios leones. Nulla enim bestia est, quae non filiis suis blande immurmuret. Nam cum terreat homines, parvulos fovet. Fremit leo in silvis, ut nemo transeat: intrat in speluncam, ubi habet filios suos, omnem rabiem feritatis exponit. Foris eam ponit, cum ipsa non ingreditur. Ergo qui non amat filios suos etiam leone peior est.
Eyes and Nostrils
Homer, Iliad 16.502-503 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):
He spoke, and as he spoke death's end closed over his nostrilsRichard Janko ad loc.:
and eyes...
ὣς ἄρα μιν εἰπόντα τέλος θανάτοιο κάλυψεν
ὀφθαλμοὺς ῥῖνάς θ᾽....
The 'end that is death' covers Sarpedon's eyes and nose, i.e. he ceases to see and breathe.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Verona
Tenney Frank (1876-1939), Catullus and Horace: Two Poets in Their Environment (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1928), pp. 3-5:
Verona may recall to us Theodoric, Can Grande, Romeo and Juliet and colorful medieval romances, or the massive amphitheatre of the stolid commercial city of the Roman Empire. When Catullus was born there in 84 B.C. it was a small unkempt frontier town where barbarians of half a dozen diverse tongues gathered to barter and drink in the market place. The rustics of the neighborhood were tall husky blue-eyed Celts dressed in blankets and breeches. On market days the long-haired Raetic tribesmen, girded with dagger-belts, came down from the Alps, and the Venetic peasants plodded in with their donkey packs of wool and wheat and copper-ware. Here and there was a burly Teuton trader who had brought amber and fur and war captives all the way over the Brenner Pass to trade for wine, steel blades, glass beads and pretty scarfs, or a group of short stocky Etruscans from their mountain refuges above Lake Garda where the Celts three centuries before had driven their ancestors.
There are also a few Romans in flowing white togas moving about through the polyglot rabble with an air of self-assurance. These are the sons of Roman and Italian frontiersmen who a century before, when Rome had established peace, began to penetrate into this country. Backed by an all- powerful government that guaranteed law and order they had bought plantations, laid out villas, grown rich on the abundant native labor and had taken charge of the administration of the district. Five years before Catullus was born Verona had been given a town-charter by Rome and all the free-born natives there then were declared to be “Latins.” This meant that they could vote at the town-meeting, could legally intermarry with Romans and on election to a magistracy could become Roman citizens. They were expected of course not to disregard the Roman landlords when they voted. If the wild mountaineers should raid the country or the town a Roman magistrate was convenient to have in office, for his word met with a quicker response from the officers of the garrison. These Roman lords were not as yet very numerous, and before the charter was given they had lived quite apart from the rest of the population. Civis Romanus sum meant much in those days, and intermarriage with barbaric folk deprived the children of such a marriage of the use of the magic phrase. That legal barrier was removed in 89, but for the most exalted citizens a social barrier quite as effective still existed.
Slander
Lysias 19.5 (tr. W.R.M. Lamb):
I myself am told, and I think most of you know also, that slander is the most dangerous thing on earth.
ἀκούω γὰρ ἔγωγε, καὶ ὑμῶν δὲ τοὺς πολλοὺς οἶμαι εἰδέναι, ὅτι πάντων δεινότατόν ἐστι διαβολή.
More Than a Misprint
Horace, Epodes and Odes. A New Annotated Latin Edition by Daniel H. Garrison (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), p. 115 (Odes 3.15.8-10):
filia rectiusFor iuvenem (accusative singular) read iuvenum (genitive plural). One might dismiss this as a misprint were it not for Garrison's note on p. 317:
expugnat iuvenem domos,
pulso Thyias uti concita tympano.
9. expugnat iuvenem domos: storm his house and overcome his resistance.The incorrect reading (iuvenem) also appears in The Odes of Horace. Bilingual Edition. A Translation by David Ferry (1997; rpt. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998). Ferry nevertheless translates iuvenum:
Maybe it's perfectly all right for her
To lay siege to the young men's houses as if she were
A Bacchante whom the pulse of the drum had excited.
Labels: typographical and other errors
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Roger Bontemps
Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780-1857), "Roger Bontemps" (tr. William Young):
To show our hypochondriacs,
In days the most forlorn,
A pattern set before their eyes,
Roger Bontemps was born.
To live obscurely, at his will,
To keep aloof from strife—
Hurrah for fat Roger Bontemps;
This is his rule of life!
To sport, when holidays occur,
The hat his father wore;
With roses or with ivy leaves
To trim it, as of yore:
To wear a coarse old cloak, his friend
For twenty years—no less—
Hurrah for fat Roger Bontemps;
This is his style of dress!
To own a table in his hut,
A crazy bed beside it,
A pack of cards, a flute, a can
For wine—if Heaven provide it;
A beauty stuck against the wall,
A coffer—nought to hold—
Hurrah for fat Roger Bontemps;
Thus are his riches told!
To teach the children of the town
Their little games to play,
To make of smutty tales and jokes
New versions every day;
To talk of nought but balls, and take
From scraps of song his tone—
Hurrah for fat Roger Bontemps;
Thus is his learning shown!
To smack his lips at common wine,
The choicest not possessing;
To scorn your high-bred dames, and find
His Marguerite a blessing;
To give to tenderness and joy
Each moment as it flies—
Hurrah for fat Roger Bontemps;
'Tis thus he shows he's wise!
To say to Heaven, "I firmly trust
Thy goodness in my need;
Father, forgive, if mine has been
Perchance too gay a creed:
Grant that my latest season may
Still like the Spring be fair"—
Hurrah for fat Roger Bontemps;
Such is his humble prayer!
Ye envious poor, ye rich who deem
Wealth still your thoughts deserving;
Ye who in search of pleasant tracks
Yet find your car is swerving;
Ye who the titles that ye boast
May lose by some disaster—
Hurrah for fat Roger Bontemps;
Go, take him for your master!
Aux gens atrabilaires
Pour exemple donné,
En un temps de misères
Roger Bontemps est né.
Vivre obscur à sa guise,
Narguer les mécontents;
Eh gai! c'est la devise
Du gros Roger Bontemps.
Du chapeau de son père,
Coiffé dans les grands jours,
De roses ou de lierre
Le rajeunir toujours;
Mettre un manteau de bure,
Vieil ami de vingt ans;
Eh gai! c'est la parure
Du gros Roger Bontemps.
Posséder dans sa hutte
Une table, un vieux lit,
Des cartes, une flûte,
Un broc que Dieu remplit,
Un portrait de maîtresse,
Un coffre et rien dedans;
Eh gai! c'est la richesse
Du gros Roger Bontemps.
Aux enfants de la ville
Montrer de petits jeux;
Être un faiseur habile
De contes graveleux;
Ne parler que de danse
Et d’almanachs chantants;
Eh gai! c'est la science
Du gros Roger Bontemps.
Faute de vin d'élite,
Sabler ceux du canton;
Préférer Marguerite
Aux dames du grand ton;
De joie et de tendresse
Remplir tous ses instants;
Eh gai! c'est la sagesse
Du gros Roger Bontemps.
Dire au ciel: Je me fie,
Mon père, à ta bonté;
De ma philosophie
Pardonne la gaîté;
Que ma saison dernière
Soit encore un printemps;
Eh gai! c'est la prière
Du gros Roger Bontemps.
Vous, pauvres pleins d'envie,
Vous, riches désireux,
Vous, dont le char dévie
Après un cours heureux;
Vous, qui perdrez peut-être
Des titres éclatants,
Eh gai! prenez pour maître
Le gros Roger Bontemps.
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
The Postumus Ode
Horace, Odes 2.14 (tr. C.E. Bennett):
‹Older
Alas, O Postumus, Postumus, the years glide swiftly by, nor will righteousness give pause to wrinkles, to advancing age, or Death invincible—See Isaac Waisberg, Horace's Eheu Fugaces:A Collection of Translations.
no, not if with three hecatombs of bulls a day, my friend, thou strivest to appease relentless Pluto, who imprisons Geryon of triple frame and Tityos,
by the gloomy stream that surely must be crossed by all of us who feed upon Earth's bounty, be we princes or needy husbandmen.
In vain shall we escape from bloody Mars and from the breakers of the roaring Adriatic; in vain through autumn tide shall we fear the south-wind that brings our bodies harm.
At last we needs must gaze on black Cocytos winding with its sluggish flow, and Danaus' daughters infamous, and Sisyphus, the son of Aeolus, condemned to ceaseless toil.
Earth we must leave, and home and darling wife; nor of the trees thou tendest now, will any follow thee, its short-lived master, except the hated cypress.
A worthier heir shall drink thy Caecuban now guarded by a hundred keys, and drench the pavement with glorious wine choicer than that drunk at the pontiffs' feasts.
Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
labuntur anni, nec pietas moram
rugis et instanti senectae
adferet indomitaeque morti,
non si trecenis quotquot eunt dies, 5
amice, places illacrimabilem
Plutona tauris, qui ter amplum
Geryonen Tityonque tristi
compescit unda, scilicet omnibus
quicumque terrae munere vescimur 10
enaviganda, sive reges
sive inopes erimus coloni.
frustra cruento Marte carebimus
fractisque rauci fluctibus Hadriae,
frustra per autumnos nocentem 15
corporibus metuemus Austrum:
visendus ater flumine languido
Cocytos errans et Danai genus
infame damnatusque longi
Sisyphus Aeolides laboris. 20
linquenda tellus et domus et placens
uxor, neque harum quas colis arborum
te praeter invisas cupressos
ulla brevem dominum sequetur.
absumet heres Caecuba dignior 25
servata centum clavibus et mero
tinguet pavimentum superbo,
pontificum potiore cenis.
25 dignior codd.: degener Campbell
27 superbo codd.: superbum ς Lambinus: superbus Barth: superbis Lynford