Laudator Temporis Acti

[W]e shall align ourselves firmly with Professor Nilsson when he declares, "The name is one of the few that are etymologically transparent and means 'he of the stone-heap'."¹ Hermes then is an ancient god of the countryside, named by the Greeks from the ἕρμα, also called ἑρμαῖον which was a cairn or heap of stones. These cairns served as landmarks, and can already be seen as such in Homer, where Eumaios, describing to Telemachos how he has seen a ship, indicates his position by saying, "I had reached that point above the city where there is a ἑρμαῖος λόφος² "A hill of Hermes"? Yes, but also "a mound in the form of a cairn". The Etymologicum Magnum defines ἑρμαῖον as "heap of stones, and in general stones by the wayside", and the scholiast on the passage in the Odyssey explains the ἑρμαῖος λόφος in the same way, and adds that the same name was given to Roman milestones.³ To explain the connexion of Hermes with the cairns, the Greeks characteristically invented an aetiological myth. When Hermes killed Argos, he was brought to trial by the gods. They acquitted him, and in doing so each threw his voting-pebble (ψῆφος) at his feet. Thus a heap of stones grew up around him.³ In fact he must simply have been the daemon or spirit of the stone-heaps themselves, about which there were several more or less superstitious beliefs.

¹ Rose, Hbk. Gr. Myth. 146, Boisacq, Dict. Etym. de la Langue Grecque, 282, n. 3, Nilsson, Hist. Gr. Rel. 109. See also J. Chittenden in Hesperia, xvi (1947), 94, 95, to whom further reference will be made.

¹ Od. xvi, 471.

³ Text in Farnell, Cults, v, 67.

⁴ Etym. Magn. s.v. ἑρμαῖον.

What then of Hermes' Greek name? I have never been able to see any difficulty in the supposition that the Greeks, finding and paying homage to a friendly and helpful spirit of the country to which they had come, gave him their own title or nickname, which in this case Mrs. Chittenden translates as "Old Heapy".

A square-cut statue of Hermes had been placed by the side of a road, supported by a pile of stones at its base. A dog came up and said, "To begin with, Hermes, I salute you. But then I'd like to anoint you. I can't walk past a deity without doing so, and especially you, the god of wrestling." And the statue said, "I'll thank you not to come and lick off the oil with which I'm already coated, and not to piss on me either. That's all the honor I need from you."

Ἐν ὁδῷ τις ἑρμῆς τετράγωνος εἱστήκει,
λίθων δ' ὑπ' αὐτῷ σωρὸς ἦν. κύων τούτῳ
εἶπεν προσελθών "χαῖρε πρῶτον, Ἑρμεία·
ἔπειτ' ἀλεῖψαι βούλομαί σε, μηδ' οὕτω
θεὸν παρελθεῖν, καὶ θεὸν παλαιστρίτην."
ὁ δ' εἶπεν "ἤν μου τοῦτο μὴ 'πιλιχμήσῃς
τοὔλαιον ἐλθών, μηδέ μοι προσουρήσῃς,
χάριν εἴσομαί σοι· καὶ πλέον με μὴ τίμα.

May I never live a Muse-less life!

μὴ ζῴην μετ᾽ ἀμουσίας.

Never may I live among uneducated boors.

How you see tyranny and conspirators everywhere,
as soon as anyone voices a criticism large or small!

ὡς ἅπανθ᾽ ὑμῖν τυραννίς ἐστι καὶ ξυνωμόται,
ἤν τε μεῖζον ἤν τ᾽ ἔλαττον πρᾶγμά τις κατηγορῇ.

The twentieth-century English equivalents would hardly be 'tyranny' and 'conspirators', but rather 'dictatorship' and 'subversive'.

Abba Theodore of Pherme had acquired three good books. He came to Abba Macarius and said to him, Ί have three excellent books from which I derive profit; the brethren also make use of them and derive profit from them. Tell me what I ought to do: keep them for my use and that of the brethren, or sell them and give the money to the poor?' The old man answered him in this way, 'Your actions are good; but it is best of all to posses nothing.' Hearing that, he went and sold his books and gave the money for them to the poor.

Ὁ ἀββᾶς Θεόδωρος ὁ τῆς Φέρμης ἐκτήσατο τρία βιβλία καλά· καὶ παρέβαλε τῷ ἀββᾷ Μακαρίῳ͵ καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ͵ ὅτι Ἔχω τρία βιβλία καλὰ͵ καὶ ὠφελοῦμαι ἐξ αὐτῶν· καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ κιχρῶνται αὐτὰ͵ καὶ ὠφελοῦνται. Εἰπὲ οὖν μοι͵ τί ὤφειλον ποιῆσαι; κατάσχω αὐτὰ εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν καὶ τὴν τῶν ἀδελφῶν ὠφέλειαν͵ ἢ πωλήσω αὐτὰ καὶ δώσω πτωχοῖς; Καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ γέρων εἶπε· Καλαὶ μὲν αἱ πράξεις͵ ἀλλὰ μείζων πάντων ἡ ἀκτημοσύνη ἐστί. Καὶ τοῦτο ἀκούσας͵ ἀπελθὼν ἐπώλησεν αὐτὰ͵ καὶ διέδωκε πτωχοῖς.

A shepherd found some wolf cubs and brought them up with a great deal of care because he thought that when they were adult they would not only protect his own sheep but also steal other people's sheep and bring them to him. But as soon as they were grown up, the first thing they did was take advantage of the shepherd's carelessness and kill his sheep. And the shepherd groaned and said, "It serves me right! Why did I save their lives when they were little, since I've got to kill them now when they're big?"

Likewise, those who keep bad people safe are failing to realize that all they're doing is empowering them to do them harm.

Ποιμὴν εὑρὼν λυκίδια, ἔτρεφεν ἐπιμελῶς, οἰόμενος ὅτι μεγαλυνθέντα τηρήσουσι τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πρόβατα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔτι προσθήσουσιν ἁρπάζοντες ἕτερα καὶ εἰσάξουσιν ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ μάνδρᾳ. Οἱ δὲ, ὡς ηὐξήνθησαν, πρῶτον αὐτοῦ τὴν ποίμνην διέφθειραν. Καὶ ὃς ἀναστενάξας εἶπεν· Δίκαια πέπονθα· τί φὰρ μὴ νηπίους ἀπέκτεινον;

Ὁ μῦθος δηλοῖ ὅτι οἱ τοὺς πονηροὺς διασώζοντες λανθάνουσι καθ' ἑαυτῶν πρῶτον αὐτοὺς ῥωννύντες.

Her words.

ὣς εἰποῦσ᾽...

His words.

ὣς ἔφαθ᾽...

Now chronologically it is true that empty thrones came before sculptured gods, and that orgiastic rites like those of Dionysos or the Great Mother are older than the Olympian religion of Homer. If that is all that we mean, we may call them more primitive, but it does not follow that there was progress from one to the other. That depends on what our criterion of progress is. If it is the growth of spiritual insight, there is much to be said for the view that the man who carves a stone seat and leaves it for the god to occupy when he will, asking only to see him with the eye of the imagination, is at a higher stage of religious development than the man who demands to see the god in physical form, carved by the hand of a Pheidias. Similarly the Dionysiac idea of communion and identification with the god, or the belief of the worshipper of the Mother-goddess that he could be adopted into the family of his deity, together with the other mystical forms of religion practised from time immemorial in Aegean lands, contained, despite their crudeness, possibilities of spiritual development which were lacking to the religion of Homer.

A few years ago workmen digging in Peristéri, a northern suburb of Athens, found some ancient slabs of marble that had been used to construct an early Christian sarcophagus. These slabs dated from the fifth century B.C., and were covered with lists of names. As the Greek scholar Mastrokostas has conclusively shown, they were originally memorial plaques, and formed part of a cenotaph to the Athenian citizen-hoplites who died during the Sicilian Expedition.

We know too little of the anonymous, uncelebrated heroes of history, the men who passed through great events, whose sweat and blood helped to shape the world we inherit, yet who died and were forgotten as though they had never been, leaving no memorial to posterity. Throughout this story we have been concerned, inevitably, with the men who were not forgotten, the politicians and commanders who took the decisions that others carried out. But now, for one brief moment, the curtain is lifted. Here, passing in silent order, like the names on any war memorial in any age, are the heavy-armed infantrymen who toiled and fought and died on the heights of Epipolae or during the long agony of that final retreat. 2,950 Athenians of hoplite rank fought in Sicily. Between 700 and 1,200 of them died in action. Of these casualties, 169 names, from five tribal regiments, are preserved on the Peristéri stelae.

Youth I long for always.
But old age lies on my head,
a weight more heavy than Aetna's rocks;
darkness hides
the light from my eyes.
Had I the wealth of an Asian king,
or a palace crammed with gold,
both would I give for youth,
loveliest in wealth,
in poverty, loveliest.
But old age I loathe: ugly,
murderous. Let the waves take it
so it comes no more to the homes
and cities of men! Let the wind
whirl it away forever!

ἁ νεότας μοι φίλον αἰ-
εί· τὸ δὲ γῆρας ἄχθος
βαρύτερον Αἴτνας σκοπέλων
ἐπὶ κρατὶ κεῖται, βλεφάρων        640
σκοτεινὸν φάος ἐπικαλύψαν.
μή μοι μήτ᾽ Ἀσιήτιδος
τυραννίδος ὄλβος εἴη,
μὴ χρυσοῦ δώματα πλήρη        645
τᾶς ἥβας ἀντιλαβεῖν,
ἃ καλλίστα μὲν ἐν ὄλβῳ,
καλλίστα δ᾽ ἐν πενίᾳ.
τὸ δὲ λυγρὸν φόνιόν τε γῆ-
ρας μισῶ· κατὰ κυμάτων δ᾽        650
ἔρροι, μηδέ ποτ᾽ ὤφελεν
θνατῶν δώματα καὶ πόλεις
ἐλθεῖν, ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ αἰθέρ᾽ αἰ-
εὶ πτεροῖσι φορείσθω.

[4] For it is an excellent thing to be able to use the ignorant mistakes of others as warning examples for the correction of error, and, when we confront the varied vicissitudes of life, instead of having to investigate what is being done now, to be able to imitate the successes which have been achieved in the past. Certainly all men prefer in their counsels the oldest men to those who are younger, because of the experience which has accrued to the former through the lapse of time; but it is a fact that such experience is in so far surpassed by the understanding which is gained from history, as history excels, we know, in the multitude of facts at its disposal. For this reason one may hold that the acquisition of a knowledge of history is of the greatest utility for every conceivable circumstance of life.

[5] For it endows the young with the wisdom of the aged, while for the old it multiplies the experience which they already possess; citizens in private station it qualifies for leader­ship, and the leaders it incites, through the immortality of the glory which it confers, to undertake the noblest deeds; soldiers, again, it makes more ready to face dangers in defence of their country because of the public encomiums which they will receive after death, and wicked men it turns aside from their impulse towards evil through the everlasting opprobrium to which it will condemn them.

[4] καλὸν γὰρ τὸ δύνασθαι τοῖς τῶν ἄλλων ἀγνοήμασι πρὸς διόρθωσιν χρῆσθαι παραδείγμασι, καὶ πρὸς τὰ συγκυροῦντα ποικίλως κατὰ τὸν βίον ἔχειν μὴ ζήτησιν τῶν πραττομένων, ἀλλὰ μίμησιν τῶν ἐπιτετευγμένων. καὶ γὰρ τοὺς πρεσβυτάτους ταῖς ἡλικίαις ἅπαντες τῶν νεωτέρων προκρίνουσιν ἐν ταῖς συμβουλίαις διὰ τὴν ἐκ τοῦ χρόνου περιγεγενημένην αὐτοῖς ἐμπειρίαν: ἧς τοσοῦτον ὑπερέχειν συμβέβηκε τὴν ἐκ τῆς ἱστορίας μάθησιν ὅσον καὶ τῷ πλήθει τῶν πραγμάτων προτεροῦσαν αὐτὴν ἐπεγνώκαμεν. διὸ καὶ πρὸς ἁπάσας τὰς τοῦ βίου περιστάσεις χρησιμωτάτην ἄν τις εἶναι νομίσειε τὴν ταύτης ἀνάληψιν.

[5] οῖς μὲν γὰρ νεωτέροις τὴν τῶν γεγηρακότων περιποιεῖ σύνεσιν, τοῖς δὲ πρεσβυτέροις πολλαπλασιάζει τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν ἐμπειρίαν, καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἰδιώτας ἀξίους ἡγεμονίας κατασκευάζει, τοὺς δ’ ἡγεμόνας τῷ διὰ τῆς δόξης ἀθανατισμῷ προτρέπεται τοῖς καλλίστοις τῶν ἔργων ἐπιχειρεῖν, χωρὶς δὲ τούτων τοὺς μὲν στρατιώτας τοῖς μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν ἐπαίνοις ἑτοιμοτέρους κατασκευάζει πρὸς τοὺς ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος κινδύνους, τοὺς δὲ πονηροὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ταῖς αἰωνίοις βλασφημίαις ἀποτρέπει τῆς ἐπὶ τὴν κακίαν ὁρμῆς.

Nowadays a Greek or Latin work is to most people a rather strange object, whose structure and conventions and world of ideas are very far from being readily intelligible.

Up to this time, O Romans, I have regarded the misfortune to my eyes as an affliction, but it now distresses me that I am not deaf as well as blind, that I might not hear the shameful resolutions and decrees of yours which bring low the glory of Rome.

πρότερον μέν ... τὴν περὶ τὰ ὄμματα τύχην ἀνιαρῶς ἔφερον, ὦ Ῥωμαῖοι, νῦν δ’ ἄχθομαι πρὸς τῷ τυφλὸς εἶναι μὴ καὶ κωφὸς ὤν, ἀλλ’ ἀκούων αἰσχρὰ βουλεύματα καὶ δόγμαθ’ ὑμῶν, ἀνατρέποντα τῆς Ῥώμης τὸ κλέος.

The philologist is an interpreter, a translator, though not merely of words: he will not understand them fully unless he also understands the soul from which they spring. He has to be the interpreter of this soul, too. For that reason, because it proves its art in interpretation, biography is the true work of the philologist, raised to a higher level

Der Philologe ist nun einmal Interpret, Dolmetsch, aber nicht nur der Worte; die wird er nicht voll verstehen, wenn er nicht die Seele versteht, aus der sie kommen. Er muß auch der Interpret dieser Seele sein. Denn weil sie ihre ganze Kunst im Interpretieren bewährt, ist die Biographie recht eigentlich Philologenarbeit, nur in höherer Potenz.

For a city sick with dissension and evil counsels thinketh not aright; otherwise it would never have accepted thee as its master.

                                οὐ γὰρ εὖ φρονεῖ πόλις
στάσει νοσοῦσα καὶ κακοῖς βουλεύμασιν·
οὐ γάρ ποτ' ἂν σὲ δεσπότην ἐκτήσατο.

He is no true Theban, and rules most wrongfully over the citizens since he is an immigrant.

                                       οὐ Καδμεῖος ὢν
ἄρχει κάκιστα τῶν ἐτῶν ἔπηλυς ὤν.

257 κάκιστα Kovacs: κάκιστος L
ἐτῶν Kovacs: νέων L: ἐμῶν Dobree

The Ostia herm ... portrays a most striking personality, and one which exactly matches the impression conveyed by our other sources. An influential group of scholars and art-historians now maintains, rightly as I would hold, that this bust derives from an original portrait made towards the end of Themistocles' life, about 460 BC. Till recently it was taken as axiomatic that no true 'likenesses', in the modern sense, existed for almost another century. This view is now undergoing considerable revision and modification, for which the Themistocles bust itself is in no small part responsible. That big round head, simple planes recalling the early cubic conception, poised squarely above a thick, muscular, boxer's neck; the firm yet sensuous mouth, showing a faint ironic smile beneath those drooping moustaches; wiry crisp hair lying close against the skull — all tell an identical story. What we have here is the portrait of a born leader: as Gisela Richter wrote, 'a farseeing, fearless, but headstrong man, a saviour in time of stress, but perhaps difficult in time of peace'. There is, surely, nothing conventional or stylised about that broad forehead and bulldog jaw; they have an ineluctably Churchillian quality. Indeed, of all modern statesmen, Churchill is the one whose career parallels that of Themistocles in so many ways that coincidence will hardly suffice as an explanation. Both possessed the unpopular gift of being right when their more intellectual contemporaries were wrong. Both had a streak of that dazzling yet suspect histrionic genius which can transcend and transform a national emergency. Both were voted out of office with uncommon speed when the crisis they surmounted was over. Under Themistocles' leadership the Athenians, too, lived through their finest hour.

We will first discuss the question of justice and rectitude, especially as we are seeking an alliance, for we know that neither does friendship between men prove lasting, nor does a league between states come to aught, unless they comport themselves with transparent honesty of purpose towards one another and in general are of like character and way of thinking; for differences in men's actions arise from the diversity of their convictions.

περὶ γὰρ τοῦ δικαίου καὶ ἀρετῆς πρῶτον, ἄλλως τε καὶ ξυμμαχίας δεόμενοι, τοὺς λόγους ποιησόμεθα, εἰδότες οὔτε φιλίαν ἰδιώταις βέβαιον γιγνομένην οὔτε κοινωνίαν πόλεσιν ἐς οὐδέν, εἰ μὴ μετ ̓ ἀρετῆς δοκούσης ἐς ἀλλήλους γίγνοιντο καὶ τἆλλα ὁμοιότροποι εἶεν· ἐν γὰρ τῷ διαλλάσσοντι τῆς γνώμης καὶ αἱ διαφοραὶ τῶν ἔργων καθίστανται.

We don't cry enough now a days, that's one of the things that is wrong with us. Achilles cried, Roland cried, Lancelot cried. It's in Shakespeare that characters first start apologising for tears.

The truth is I'm v. unfair to contemporaries. When it comes to the point I always ask myself why I shd. go to a bookseller and get something wh. I may like when my shelves are full of what I certainly do like already.

Moreover, he bore splendid testimony to the wisdom of Plato¹ in urging the man who would be truly rich, not to make his possessions greater, but his inordinate desires fewer; since he who puts no end to his greed, this man is never rid of poverty and want.

¹The passage cannot be determined.

λαμπρὰν τῷ Πλάτωνι μαρτυρίαν διδοὺς διακελευομένῳ μὴ τὴν οὐσίαν πλείω, τὴν δὲ ἀπληστίαν ποιεῖν ἐλάσσω τόν γε βουλόμενον ὡς ἀληθῶς εἶναι πλούσιον, ὡς ὅ γε μὴ παύων φιλοπλουτίαν, οὗτος οὔτε πενίας οὔτε ἀπορίας ἀπήλλακται.

Suppose I want to find out the correct interpretation of Plato's teaching. What I am most confident in accepting is that interpretation wh. is common to all the Platonists down all the centuries: what Aristotle and the Renaissance scholars and Paul Elmer More agree on I take to be true Platonism. Any purely modern views wh. claim to have discovered for the first time what P. meant, and say that everyone from Aristotle down has misunderstood him, I reject out of hand.

But there is something else I wd. also reject. If there were an ancient Platonic Society still existing at Athens and claiming to be the exclusive trustees of P's meaning, I shd. approach them with great respect. But if I found that their teaching in many ways was curiously unlike his actual text and unlike what ancient interpreters said, and in some cases cd. not be traced back to within 1000 years of his time, I shd. reject these exclusive claims: while still ready, of course, to take any particular thing they taught on its merits.

I do the same with Xtianity. What is most certain is the vast mass of doctrine wh. I find agreed on by Scripture, the Fathers, the Middle Ages, modern R.C.'s, modern Protestants. That is true 'catholic' doctrine. Mere 'modernism' I reject at once.

Ismenias the Theban used to exhibit both good and bad players to his pupils on the flute and say, "you must play like this one," or again, "you must not play like this one"; and Antigenidas used to think that young men would listen with more pleasure to good flute-players if they were given an experience of bad ones also.

Ἰσμηνίας ὁ Θηβαῖος ἐπιδεικνύμενος τοῖς μαθηταῖς καὶ τοὺς εὖ καὶ τοὺς κακῶς αὐλοῦντας εἰώθει λέγειν, “Οὕτως αὐλεῖν δεῖ,” καὶ πάλιν, “Οὕτως αὐλεῖν οὐ δεῖ,” ὁ δ᾿ Ἀντιγενίδας καὶ ἥδιον ᾤετο τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἀκροᾶσθαι τοὺς νέους αὐλητῶν ἐὰν καὶ τῶν φαύλων πεῖραν λαμβάνωσιν.