Laudator Temporis Acti

Yet readers found plenty of bones to pick. Errors cropped up. The word "accuratissima", of all things, was misspelled on the title page of volume I, which suggested that Froben's proofreaders were anything but eagle-eyed.⁵

5 Jerome, Opera, I, title page: "apud inclytam Basileam ex acuratissima officina Frobeniana".

Labels: typographical and other errors

Our whole activity will consist of Amen and Alleluia. What do you say, brothers and sisters? I can see that you hear and are delighted. But don't let yourselves again be depressed by the flesh-bound thought that if any of you were to stand and say Amen and Alleluia all day long, you would droop with fatigue and boredom; and you will drop off to sleep in the middle of your words, and long to keep quiet; and for that reason you might suppose it is a life you can well do without, not at all desirable, and might say to yourselves, "Amen and Alleluia, we're going to say that forever and ever? Who will be able to endure it?"

Tota actio nostra, Amen et Alleluia erit. Quid dicitis, fratres? Video quod auditis et gavisi estis. Sed nolite iterum carnali cogitatione contristari, quia si forte aliquis vestrum steterit et dixerit quotidie: Amen et Alleluia, taedio marcescet, et in ipsis vocibus dormitabit, et tacere iam volet: et propterea putet sibi esse aspernabilem vitam, et non desiderabilem, dicentes vobismetipsis: Amen et Alleluia semper dicturi sumus, quis durabit?

• Heaven and Hell
• The Hereafter

Dammit, we're nothing but walking bags of wind. Flies rank higher; they do have a bit of spark, whereas we're no more than bubbles.

heu, eheu. utres inflati ambulamus. minoris quam muscae sumus, muscae tamen aliquam virtutem habent, nos non pluris sumus quam bullae.

And they follow the customs of their fathers, and receive no new custom.

πατρίοισι δὲ χρεώμενοι νόμοισι ἄλλον οὐδένα ἐπικτῶνται.

Ionians have always been enemies to the Dorians.

οἱ Ἴωνες αἰεί ποτε πολέμιοι τοῖς Δωριεῦσίν εἰσιν.

Dionysius, the Renegade, declared that pleasure was the end of action; this under the trying circumstance of an attack of ophthalmia. For so violent was his suffering that he could not bring himself to call pain a thing indifferent.

Διονύσιος δ' ὁ Μεταθέμενος τέλος εἶπε τὴν ἡδονὴν διὰ περίστασιν ὀφθαλμίας· ἀλγήσας γὰρ ἐπιπόνως ὤκνησεν εἰπεῖν τὸν πόνον ἀδιάφορον.

Any attempt to revise our estimate of a classic will inevitably seem an impertinence. A reasonable economy, it will be said, supports the notion that sixty or seventy generations cannot have been wholly mistaken about a classic. On the other hand the classics, simply because they are classics, are particularly susceptible to distortion and stultification. They constantly serve, after all, extraliterary purposes, and these other, "cultural" uses of the classic frequently interfere with critical judgment, preventing the reassessment, or even the assessment, of the work. Many classics—I think of Sophocles—are far more subversive of Christian culture than we suppose, and for this reason interpretations that reveal subversiveness are particularly resisted.

Over the first hundred years of the principate, people lumped together as the "opposition" shared the same kind of background in any one generation, though it was a slightly different one at different times. They were alert to the same ideas, under the same dark skies, a close group. On the periphery stood men of views and courage similar but not so extreme: Curiatius Maternus or Pliny; at the heart, someone like Thrasea Paetus. It was their receptions and banquets that emperors feared, where, after the slaves had left the room, voices got lower and zeal hotter for revolution, for "new things," in the usual phrase, novae res. Here too was where men praised old things: the Republic, Brutus, and the ancestral way of life, mos maiorum.

In like manner he persuaded the people of Patrae to attach their city to the sea by long walls. Thereupon some one said to the Patrensians: 'Athens will swallow you up!' 'Perhaps so,' said Alcibiades, 'but you will go slowly, and feet first; whereas Sparta will swallow you head first, and at one gulp.'

ἔπεισε δὲ καὶ Πατρεῖς ὁμοίως τείχεσι μακροῖς συνάψαι τῇ θαλάσσῃ τὴν πόλιν. εἰπόντος δέ τινος τοῖς Πατρεῦσιν ὅτι 'καταπιοῦνται ὑμᾶς Ἀθηναῖοι·' 'ἴσως,' εἶπεν ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης, 'κατὰ μικρὸν καὶ κατὰ τοὺς πόδας, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ κατὰ τὴν κεφαλὴν καὶ ἀθρόως.'

[2] When Gylippus thought the moment was right he began the assault. The armies engaged in hand-to-hand fighting in the area between the walls, where the Syracusan cavalry were of no use. [3] The Syracusans and their allies were defeated, and after they had collected their dead under truce and the Athenians had raised a trophy, Gylippus called the army together and addressed them. He said that the fault was his, not theirs: he had drawn them up too close to the walls and had thus deprived them of the benefit of their cavalry and javelin-throwers; and he would now lead them out again. [4] He told them to bear in mind that in terms of physical resources they were not outmatched, and in terms of spirit it was unthinkable that men who were Peloponnesians and Dorians should not expect as a right to overcome a group of Ionians, islanders and other assorted rabble and drive them from the land.

[2] ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἔδοξε τῷ Γυλίππῳ καιρὸς εἶναι, ἦρχε τῆς ἐφόδου: καὶ ἐν χερσὶ γενόμενοι ἐμάχοντο μεταξὺ τῶν τειχισμάτων, ᾗ τῆς ἵππου τῶν Συρακοσίων οὐδεμία χρῆσις ἦν. [3] καὶ νικηθέντων τῶν Συρακοσίων καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων καὶ νεκροὺς ὑποσπόνδους ἀνελομένων καὶ τῶν Ἀθηναίων τροπαῖον στησάντων, ὁ Γύλιππος ξυγκαλέσας τὸ στράτευμα οὐκ ἔφη τὸ ἁμάρτημα ἐκείνων, ἀλλ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ γενέσθαι: τῆς γὰρ ἵππου καὶ τῶν ἀκοντιστῶν τὴν ὠφελίαν τῇ τάξει ἐντὸς λίαν τῶν τειχῶν ποιήσας ἀφελέσθαι· νῦν οὖν αὖθις ἐπάξειν. [4] καὶ διανοεῖσθαι οὕτως ἐκέλευεν αὐτοὺς ὡς τῇ μὲν παρασκευῇ οὐκ ἔλασσον ἕξοντας, τῇ δὲ γνώμῃ οὐκ ἀνεκτὸν ἐσόμενον εἰ μὴ ἀξιώσουσι Πελοποννήσιοί τε ὄντες καὶ Δωριῆς Ἰώνων καὶ νησιωτῶν καὶ ξυγκλύδων ἀνθρώπων κρατήσαντες ἐξελάσασθαι ἐκ τῆς χώρας.