Laudator Temporis Acti

Plutarch, Life of Solon 17.1-2 (tr. Ian Scott-Kilvert):

Under the Draconian code almost any kind of offence was liable to the death penalty, so that even those convicted of idleness were executed, and those who stole fruit or vegetables suffered the same punishment as those who committed sacrilege or murder. This is the reason why, in later times, Demades became famous for his remark that Draco’s code was written not in ink but in blood. Draco himself, when he was once asked why he had decreed the death penalty for the great majority of offences, replied that he considered the minor ones deserved it, and so for the major ones no heavier punishment was left.

μία γὰρ ὀλίγου δεῖν ἅπασιν ὥριστο τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσι ζημία θάνατος, ὥστε καὶ τοὺς ἀργίας ἁλόντας ἀποθνήσκειν, καὶ τοὺς λάχανα κλέψαντας ἢ ὀπώραν ὁμοίως κολάζεσθαι τοῖς ἱεροσύλοις καὶ ἀνδροφόνοις. διὸ Δημάδης ὕστερον εὐδοκίμησεν εἰπὼν ὅτι δι᾽ αἵματος, οὐ διὰ μέλανος, τοὺς νόμους ὁ Δράκων ἔγραψεν. αὐτὸς δ᾽ ἐκεῖνος, ὥς φασιν, ἐρωτώμενος διὰ τί τοῖς πλείστοις ἀδικήμασι ζημίαν ἔταξε θάνατον, ἀπεκρίνατο τὰ μὲν μικρὰ ταύτης ἄξια νομίζειν, τοῖς δὲ μεγάλοις οὐκ ἔχειν μείζονα.

My father taught me this rhyme:

Red sky at night,
sailors delight;
red sky in morning,
sailors take warning.

Cf. Jesus' response to the Pharisees and Sadducees, when they asked him for a sign from heaven (Matthew 16:2-3 KJV):

When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.

And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering.

ὀψίας γενομένης λέγετε· εὐδία, πυρράζει γὰρ ὁ οὐρανός·

καὶ πρωΐ· σήμερον χειμών, πυρράζει γὰρ στυγνάζων ὁ οὐρανός.

Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1975), p. 41:

Cicero, In Defence of Cluentius 2.6 (tr. H. Grose Hodge):

For this reason, then, before I begin to deal with the case proper, I have a request to make to you, gentlemen. First, that, as is only just, you bring to this court no preconceived judgements (for indeed men will cease, not only to respect us as judges, but even to call us judges, unless in this place we base our judgements on the facts of the case, instead of applying to the facts the ready-made judgements we have brought from home). Next—supposing you already to have formed some opinion—that, if it be dislodged by reason, shaken by argument, or finally uprooted by truth itself, you dismiss it without resistance from your minds, if not gladly, at least without reluctance. And lastly, as I proceed to a detailed refutation of the charge, do not on your part make a mental note of any point against me, but wait till the end and allow me to develop the defence in my own way: the conclusion of my speech will be time enough for you to ask yourselves the reason for any omissions I may have made.

Quam ob rem a vobis, iudices, ante quam de ipsa causa dicere incipio, haec postulo: primum id, quod aequissimum est, ut ne quid huc praeiudicati adferatis (etenim non modo auctoritatem, sed etiam nomen iudicum amittemus, nisi hic ex ipsis causis iudicabimus ac si ad causas iudicia iam facta domo deferemus); deinde si quam opinionem iam vestris mentibus comprehendistis, si eam ratio convellet, si oratio labefactabit, si denique veritas extorquebit, ne repugnetis eamque animis vestris aut libentibus aut aequis remittatis; tum autem, cum ego una quaque de re dicam et diluam, ne ipsi, quae contraria sint, taciti cogitationi vestrae subiciatis, sed ad extremum exspectetis meque meum dicendi ordinem servare patiamini: cum peroraro, tum, si quid erit praeteritum, animo requiratis.

animo codd.: omnino Fausset

Augustine, Sermons 335E.3 (C. Lambot, "Nouveaux sermons de S. Augustin. IV-VII. 'De Martyribus'," Revue Bénédictine 50 [1938] 3-25 [at 12-13]; tr. Edmund Hill):

So there are many chains binding the soul; love of wealth, love of power, love of the affection of wife, parents, children, brothers and sisters, love of country, love of one's land, love of this daylight, love of any sort of life simply because it's life.

Tenent ergo animam multa vincula: amor divitiarum, amor potestatum, amor affectus uxoris parentum filiorum fratrum, amor patriae, amor terrae suae, amor lucis huius, amor qualiscumque vitae tantum quia vitae.

C.M. Bowra (1898-1971), "The Odes of Horace," in his Inspiration and Poetry (London: Macmillan & Co Ltd, 1955), pp. 26-44 (at 44):

[T]he four books of the Odes, with their hundred and three short poems, cover a wider range of experience and present it in a more satisfying form than almost any comparable book written by man.

Aristophanes, Frogs 454-459 (sung by chorus of Eleusinian initiates in the underworld; tr. Jeffrey Henderson):

For us alone is there sun
and sacred daylight,
for we are initiated
and righteous was our behavior
toward strangers
and ordinary people.

μόνοις γὰρ ἡμῖν ἥλιος
καὶ φέγγος ἱερόν ἐστιν,        455
ὅσοι μεμυήμεθ᾿ εὐ-
σεβῆ τε διήγομεν
τρόπον περὶ τοὺς ξένους
καὶ τοὺς ἰδιώτας.

These lines appear (preceded by Aristophanes' name in the genitive) on a 1st century BC inscription from Rhodes published by G. Pugliese Carratelli, "Versi di un coro delle Rane in un'epigrafe rodia," Dioniso 8.4 (1940) 119-123 (non vidi). The inscription is now in the Archaeological Museum of Rhodes. I haven't been able to find a photograph of the stone on the World Wide Web.

See Nigel G. Wilson, "The Transmission of Aristophanes," in Michael Fontaine and Adele C. Scafuro, edd., The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 655–666 (at 656-657), and Ivan Matijašić, "Base di statua da Rodi con citazione di Aristofane," Axon 1.2 (December, 2017) 215-223.

Kenneth Dover, ed., Aristophanes, Frogs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 104:

In reading a Greek play one should always try to visualize the positions of the characters at any given moment, their movements and gestures, and hear their tone of voice in the mind's ear. For this purpose it is a good thing to know one's way around Denniston's Greek Particles and also to know the main constraints under which Greek drama operated: action out of doors, in daylight, and the concealment of facial expression by masks.

Augustine, Sermons 335D.3 (C. Lambot, "Nouveaux sermons de S. Augustin. IV-VII. 'De Martyribus'," Revue Bénédictine 50 [1938] 3-25 [at 4-5]; tr. Edmund Hill, with his notes):

People though who belong to "man,"⁶ who are not sons of man, only care about health or salvation here, and reckon there is no other sort to follow it when it's passed away; so when they find this health beginning to be endangered, even if they are called Christians, they seek out diviners, they send to the astrologers, they hang unlawful charms round their necks. They desire health and tie things round their necks; they bind the neck of the outer self, and stifle the throat of the inner self.⁷

But the one who says, "I won't do it"—when a friend suggests it, a neighbor mutters something about it, or a neighbor's maid, sometimes even his own old nurse⁸ —who says, "I won't do it; I'm a Christian. God prohibits this sort of thing. These are the sacraments of demons. Listen to the apostle: I do not wish you to become the associates of demons (1 Cor 10:20)"—well, he gets this answer from the one who is suggesting it: "Do it, and you'll get well. So-and-so and Such-and-such did it. What? Aren't they Christians? Aren't they believers? Don't they hurry off to church? And yet they did it and got well. So-and-so did it and was cured immediately. Don't you know Such-and-such, that he's a Christian, a believer? Look, he did it, and he got well."

6. An allusion to Ps 36:6, Men and cattle you will save, Lord.

7. The language, but not the thought, of 2 Cor 4:16.

8. Dematricula ejus; I am just guessing what this person could be; a wet nurse seems the most likely. She is unknown to Messrs Lewis & Short.

Homines autem pertinentes ad hominem, non filii hominis, quia non curant nisi istam salutem quam, cum transient, nullam existimant secuturam, quando eis coeperit salus ista periclitari, etiam si Christiani vocentur, sortilegos quaerunt, ad mathematicos mittunt, remedia illicita collo suo suspendunt. Salutem desiderant et collum sibi ligant, cervicem exterioris hominis ligant et guttur interioris suffocant.

Qui autem dicit: "Non facio" — suggerente amico, et mussitante vicino aut vicina ancilla, aliquando et dematricula eius — qui dicit: "Non facio: Christianus sum; Deus prohibet hoc; sacramenta sunt daemonum; audi Apostolum: Nolo vos socios fieri daemoniorum", respondetur illi ab illo qui suggerit: "Fac et sanus eris; ille et ille fecerunt. Quid? Non sunt Christiani? Non sunt fideles? Non ad ecclesiam currunt? Et tamen fecerunt et sani sunt. Ille fecit et continuo sanatus est. Illum non nosti quia Christianus est, fidelis? Ecce fecit et sanus est".

Lambot's note on dematricula (p. 5):

verbum penitus ignotum lexicographis; cum autem iterum occurrat infra l. 121, mutare illud non praesumpsi; idem significare videtur quod 'matercula'.

Id. 335D.5 (at 8):

So restrain yourselves from unlawful things, from amulets, from spells, from astrologers, from soothsayers. When you fall sick, don't go looking for such things, and don't withdraw from God, or you will perish. Instead, you will say with the apostle, For when I am weak, then it is I am powerful (2 Cor 12:10). You are lying on your sickbed, and are one of God's athletes. You can't move hand or foot, and you're fighting battles to the finish. The fever doesn't leave you, and your faith goes ahead to God. But to and behold, a neighbor at your bedside, and a friend and a maid, even perhaps, as I said, your old nurse, bringing wax and an egg in her hand and saying, "Do this and get better. Why prolong your illness? Tie on this amulet. I heard someone invoke the name of God and the angels over it, and you will get better. To whose care will you leave your widowed wife, to whose care your young children?"

Abstinete vos ergo ab illicitis rebus, a ligaturis, ab incantationibus, a mathematicis, a sortilegis. Cum aegrotatis, non talia requiratis et a Deo non recedatis, ne pereatis. Sed dices cum Apostolo: Cum enim infirmor, tunc potens sum. In lecto iaces et athleta Dei es. Non moves membra et peragis proelia. Febris non recedit et fides ad Deum praecedit. Sed ecce adstat vicinus et amicus et ancilla, etiam dixi, forte dematricula, ceram vel ovum manibus ferens et dicit: "Fac hoc et salvus eris. Quid prolongas tuam aegritudinem? Fac hanc ligaturam. Ego audivi qui nomen Dei et angelorum ibi invocat et eris sanus. Cui dimittis viduam coniugem tuam, cui teneros filios?

Alexander Souter, A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 94, s.v. dematricula, defines the word as "little mother." Cf. Georg Luck, Arcana Mundi, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), p. 510:

dematricula 'female purifier and healer'. Rather obscure figure, may be defined, e.g., as "friendly neighborhood witch."

See also Matthew W. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (London: Routledge, 2001; rpt. 2003), pp. 296-300.

Cicero, Pro Murena 25.51 (tr. C. MacDonald; he = Catiline):

For he then said that the State had two bodies, one frail with a weak head, the other strong but with no head at all; and provided that it showed itself worthy of his leadership this body would never go short of a head so long as he was alive.

tum enim dixit duo corpora esse rei publicae, unum debile infirmo capite, alterum firmum sine capite; huic, si ita de se meritum esset, caput se vivo non defuturum.

Plutarch, Life of Cicero 14.4 (tr. Bernadotte Perrin ; he = Catiline):

"What dreadful thing, pray," said he, "am I doing, if, when there are two bodies, one lean and wasted, but with a head, and the other headless, but strong and large, I myself become a head for this?"

"τί γὰρ," ἔφη, "πράττω δεινόν, εἰ, δυεῖν σωμάτων ὄντων, τοῦ μέν ἰσχνοῦ καὶ κατεφθινηκότος, ἔχοντος δὲ κεφαλήν, τοῦ δ᾽ ἀκεφάλου μέν, ἰσχυροῦ δὲ καὶ μεγάλου, τούτῳ κεφαλὴν αὐτὸς ἐπιτίθημι;"

Genoa, Museo di Archeologia Ligure, inventario RCGE 1049 (click once or twice to enlarge): Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

Livy 21.2.6 (on Hasdrubal; tr. B.O. Foster):

But peace brought him no security. A barbarian whose master he had put to death murdered him in broad daylight, and when seized by the bystanders he looked as happy as though he had escaped. Even when put to the torture, his delight at the success of his attempt mastered his pain and his face wore a smiling expression.

ceterum nihilo ei pax tutior fuit; barbarus eum quidam palam ob iram interfecti ab eo domini obtruncavit; comprensusque ab circumstantibus haud alio quam si evasisset vultu tormentis quoque cum laceraretur, eo fuit habitu oris ut superante laetitia dolores ridentis etiam speciem praebuerit.

Valerius Maximus 3.3 ext 7 (tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey):

A barbarian slave, angry with Hasdrubal because he had killed his master, suddenly attacked and slew him. Apprehended, he suffered all manner of torments, but resolutely maintained upon his face the joy his vengeance had given him.

servus barbarus Hasdrubalem, quod dominum suum occidisset graviter ferens, subito adgressus interemit, cumque comprehensus omni modo cruciaretur, laetitiam tamen, quam ex vindicta ceperat, in ore constantissime retinuit.

Livy 10.38.5-12 (293 BC; tr. B.O. Foster):

[5] There, at about the middle of the camp, they had enclosed an area, extending approximately two hundred feet in all directions, with wicker hurdles, and roofed it over with linen. [6] In this place they offered sacrifice in accordance with directions read from an old linen roll. The celebrant was one Ovius Paccius, an aged man, who claimed to derive this ceremony from an ancient ritual of the Samnites which the forefathers of those present had formerly employed when they had gone secretly about to get Capua away from the Etruscans. [7] On the conclusion of the sacrifice, the general by his apparitor commanded to be summoned all those of the highest degree in birth and deeds of arms; and one by one they were introduced. [8] Besides other ceremonial preparations, such as might avail to strike the mind with religious awe, there was a place all enclosed, with altars in the midst and slaughtered victims lying about, and round them a guard of centurions with drawn swords. [9] The man was brought up to the altar, more like a victim than a partaker in the rite, and was sworn not to divulge what he should there see or hear. [10] They then compelled him to take an oath in accordance with a certain dreadful form of words, whereby he invoked a curse upon his head, his household, and his family, if he went not into battle where his generals led the way, or if he either fled from the line himself or saw any other fleeing and did not instantly cut him down. [11] Some there were at first who refused to take this oath; these were beheaded before the altars, where they lay amongst the slaughtered victims — a warning to the rest not to refuse. [12] When the leading Samnites had been bound by this imprecation, the general named ten of them and bade them choose every man another, and so to proceed until they had brought their number up to sixteen thousand. These were named the "Linen Legion," from the roof of the enclosure wherein the nobles had been sworn, and were given splendid arms and crested helmets, to distinguish them from the rest.

[5] ibi mediis fere castris locus est consaeptus cratibus pluteisque et linteis contectus, patens ducentos maxime pedes in omnes pariter partes. [6] ibi ex libro vetere linteo lecto sacrificatum sacerdote Ovio Paccio quodam, homine magno natu, qui se id sacrum petere adfirmabat ex vetusta Samnitium religione, qua quondam usi maiores eorum fuissent cum adimendae Etruscis Capuae clandestinum cepissent consilium. [7] sacrificio perfecto per viatorem imperator acciri iubebat nobilissimum quemque genere factisque: [8] singuli introducebantur. erat cum alius apparatus sacri qui perfundere religione animum posset, tum in loco circa omni contecto arae in medio victimaeque circa caesae et circumstantes centuriones strictis gladiis. [9] admovebatur altaribus magis ut victima quam ut sacri particeps adigebaturque iure iurando quae visa auditaque in eo loco essent, non enuntiaturum. [10] dein iurare cogebant diro quodam carmine, in exsecrationem capitis familiaeque et stirpis composito, nisi isset in proelium quo imperatores duxissent et si aut ipse ex acie fugisset aut si quem fugientem vidisset non extemplo occidisset. [11] id primo quidam abnuentes iuraturos se obtruncati circa altaria sunt; iacentes deinde inter stragem victimarum documento ceteris fuere ne abnuerent. [12] primoribus Samnitium ea detestatione obstrictis, decem nominatis ab imperatore, eis dictum, ut vir virum legerent donec sedecim milium numerum confecissent. ea legio linteata ab integumento consaepti, in quo sacrata nobilitas erat, appellata est: his arma insignia data et cristatae galeae, ut inter ceteros eminerent.

I don't understand why Foster in section 7 translated viatorem by another Latin word (apparitor). I would translate it as agent — see Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. uiator, sense 2.

Update: Kevin Muse points out to me that apparitor appears in English dictionaries.