Laudator Temporis Acti

By mixed marriages they are getting to look like the Sarmatians in their coarse appearance.

conubiis mixtis nonnihil in Sarmatarum habitum foedantur.

To support this opinion they pile up words, as much as each of them can; whether shouting or just stammering, they never keep quiet. Yet even when we talk to them, even if they are beaten in argument, they don't admit it.

In hanc sententiam exaggerant verba, quanta quisque potest; lingua vel sonanti, vel titubanti, non tacent: tamen et quando eis loquimur, etsi vincantur, non consentiunt.

He had no regard for truth, and none for sanctity, no fear of the gods, no reverence for an oath, no religious scruple.

nihil veri nihil sancti, nullus deum metus nullum ius iurandum nulla religio.

As a result, our community's
filled with assistant secretaries
and clownish monkeys of politicians
forever lying to the people.

κᾆτ᾿ ἐκ τούτων ἡ πόλις ἡμῶν
ὑπογραμματέων ἀνεμεστώθη
καὶ βωμολόχων δημοπιθήκων        1085
ἐξαπατώντων τὸν δῆμον ἀεί.

Beginning at about the birth of Cicero, the tendency of the empire's socioeconomic development over five centuries can be compressed into three words: fewer have more. That story would make a good book—and a big one.

Tiridates, the king of that country, who met them and gave them battle, narrowly escaped being taken alive in the engagement; for a noose was thrown round him by a distant enemy who would have dragged him off, had he not instantly cut the rope with his sword and succeeded in escaping.

Τιριδάτης δ᾿ αὐτῆς ἐβασίλευεν, ὃς ὑπαντιάσας αὐτοῖς καὶ ποιησάμενος μάχην παρὰ μικρὸν ἦλθεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτῆς ζωὸς ἁλῶναι τῆς παρατάξεως· βρόχον γὰρ αὐτῷ περιβαλών τις πόρρωθεν ἔμελλεν ἐπισπάσειν, εἰ μὴ τῷ ξίφει θᾶττον ἐκεῖνος τὸν τόνον κόψας ἔφθη διαφυγεῖν.

Tell me, though, when you pardon someone from your heart, what are you losing? When you pardon the person who sins against you, what will you have less of in your heart? It's from there, you see, that you are forgiving, but you're not giving anything away. On the contrary, indeed, a kind of wave of charity was sweeping over your heart, and so to say welling up from an inner spring; you nurse hatred against your brother, you have blocked up the source. So not only do you lose nothing when you pardon, but you are watered more abundantly than ever. Charity is not limited at all; you place a stone of offense there, and you're limiting yourself. "I'll get my own back, I'll get my revenge, I'll show him, I'll do it." You're all steamed up, you're wearing yourself out, when by granting him pardon you could be without a care in the world, live without a care in the world, pray without a care in the world.

Dic mihi, cum ignoscis de corde, quid perdis? Cum ignoscis ei qui peccat in te, quid minus habebis in corde tuo? Inde enim dimittis, sed nihil amittis. Immo vero unda quaedam caritatis ibat in corde tuo, et tamquam de vena interiore manabat: tenes odium contra fratrem, obturasti fontem. Non solum ergo nihil perdis, cum ignoscis; sed abundantius irrigaris. Caritas non angustatur. Ponis ibi lapidem offensionis, et tu tibi facis angustias. Vindicabo me, ulciscar me, ego illi ostendam, ego faciam: aestuas, laboras, cui licet ignoscendo esse securum, securum vivere, securum orare.

• Loving or Hating Enemies
• Friends and Enemies
• Love and Hate

[T]he peasant too seldom speaks for himself. We would like to hear him say, "Here is where I fit in, these are my feelings toward my neighbors or toward outsiders, such-and-such are the groups in which I feel at home, or depend on, or compete against; my prospects, my condition, my social heritage, are thus-and-so." Instead, either he has left us only brief mentions of the externals of his life, or appears through the eyes of observers quite alien to him: the literate, or rather the literary, classes. They are not likely to have understood the peasant. Though he supported their own ease and cultivation, he was as silent, motionless, and far below them as the great tortoise on which, in Indian mythology, the whole world ultimately rests.

That returns us to the central characteristic of villages—their conservatism. They and their population hovered so barely above subsistence level that no one dared risk a change. Conservatism in its root sense, simply to hang on to what one had, was imposed by force of circumstances. People were too poor, they feared to pay too heavy a price, for experiment of any kind. So the tortoise never moved, it never changed its ways.

In the ravine which encloses the town on the north, there is a place called Baaras, which produces a root bearing the same name. Flame-coloured and towards evening emitting a brilliant light, it eludes the grasp of persons who approach with the intention of plucking it, as it shrinks up and can only be made to stand still by pouring upon it certain secretions of the human body.

τῆς φάραγγος δὲ τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἄρκτον περιεχούσης τὴν πόλιν Βαάρας ὀνομάζεταί τις τόπος, <ὃς> φύει ῥίζαν ὁμωνύμως λεγομένην αὐτῷ. αὕτη φλογὶ μὲν τὴν χροίαν ἔοικε, περὶ δὲ τὰς ἑσπέρας σέλας ἀπαστράπτουσα τοῖς ἐπιοῦσι καὶ βουλομένοις λαβεῖν αὐτὴν οὐκ ἔστιν εὐχείρωτος, ἀλλ᾿ ὑποφεύγει καὶ οὐ πρότερον ἵσταται, πρὶν ἄν τις οὖρον γυναικὸς ἢ τὸ ἔμμηνον αἷμα χέῃ κατ᾿ αὐτῆς.

I think people who drink old wine are wise,
and so are those who enjoy watching old plays.

qui utuntur vino vetere sapientis puto
et qui lubenter veteres spectant fabulas.

• Give Me the Old
• Proverbs on the Preference for Old Things

If you, young master, when your mother bore
You, were the only one of all mankind
Born on the understanding that you should
Do what you wanted all your life, always
Enjoying happiness, and one of the gods
Had granted this to you, then you'd be right
To be upset; for god has done you wrong,
Deceiving you. But if you breathe the air
That all men share, to quote a tragic phrase,
On the same terms as all of us, then you
Must bear these troubles better and be more
Alive to reason. This is the real point:
You are a man; no creature suffers change
From pride to humbleness quicker than him.
That's fair. By nature feeblest of all things,
He manages the greatest of affairs.
So when he fails, he shatters in his fall
Much that is good. But you, young master, have
Not lost outstanding goods; your present ills
Are only moderate. And so you must endure
What is, presumably, a middling pain.

εἰ γὰρ ἐγένου σύ, τρόφιμε, τῶν ἄλλων μόνος,
ὅτ' ἔτικτεν ἡ μήτηρ σ', ἐφ' ᾧ τε διατελεῖς
πράσσων ἃ βούλει καὶ διευτυχῶν ἀεί,
καὶ τοῦτο τῶν θεῶν τις ὡμολόγηκέ σοι,
ὀρθῶς ἀγανακτεῖς· ἔστι γάρ σ' ἐψευσμένος,        5
ἄτοπόν τε πεποίηκ'. εἰ δ' ἐπὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς νόμοις
ἐφ' οἷσπερ ἡμεῖς ἔσπασας τὸν ἀέρα
τὸν κοινόν, ἵνα σοι καὶ τραγικώτερον λαλῶ,
οἰστέον ἄμεινον ταῦτα, καὶ λογιστέον.
τὸ δὲ κεφάλαιον τῶν λόγων, ἄνθρωπος εἶ,        10
οὗ μεταβολὴν θᾶττον πρὸς ὄγκον καὶ πάλιν
ταπεινότητα ζῷον οὐθὲν λαμβάνει.
καὶ μάλα δικαίως· ἀσθενέστατον γὰρ ὂν
φύσει μεγίστοις οἰκονομεῖται πράγμασιν,
ὅταν πέσῃ δέ, πλεῖστα συντρίβει καλά.        15
σὺ δ' οὔθ' ὑπερβάλλοντα, τρόφιμ', ἀπώλεσας
ἀγαθά, τὰ νυνί τ' ἐστὶ μέτριά σοι κακά,
ὥστ' ἀνὰ μέσον που καὶ τὸ λυπηρὸν φέρε.

Nothing was wasted in the ancient world: not an abandoned baby, not the cloth that kept the ragpicker in business, not the empty fisherman's shack on the beach, not even the grains of barley in horse manure on the streets. There were always people poor enough to fight over another's leavings.⁵⁰

50 Sarcinator, Serv., Aen. 12.13; cf. Matt. 9.16; abandoned shack an object of litigation, Dig. 1.8.5 f.; barley grains salvaged from dung, Büchler, op. cit. (above, note 9) 22 and 30; on exposure of children to be made slaves, below, chapter 4 n. 8.

In Ma'on in the south of Judaea, several hours' distance from Hebron, R. Joḥanan b. Zakkai saw a Jewish girl picking up grains of barley from the dung of horses (Mekhil. on Ex. 19, 1, 61 a)...

One of the wealthiest men of Jerusalem before its destruction,¹ Nakdimon b. Gorjon, most probably perished during the siege of the capital. After the catastrophe his daughter is found by R. Joḥanan b. Zakkai and his disciples starving and picking grains of barley from horses' dung,² and, when questioned by the rabbi, explained that the money of her father and her father-in-law was all gone.

¹ His wealth and his position are described in ARN, XVII, 33 a, VI, 16a, b; 2 ARN, XIII, 16a; Kethub., 66 b, bottom.

² Sifrê Deut., 305, 130 a; Kethub., 66 b; ARN, XVII, 33 a; Bacher, Tannaiten, I, 42. R. Eleazar b. Ṣadok met her in Akko in abject poverty, Tos. Kethub., V, 10; jer., V, 30 b, 76 ff., b. 67 a.

So what then, my dearest friends, if these things are now crystal-clear? It wasn't to cheat us, but to give us some innocent fun that they were first locked up in obscurity. They wouldn't be grasped, you see, with such pleasure, if they were rendered cheap by being laid out in the open.

Quid ergo, carissimi, si patent haec? Non ad fraudem, sed ad iucunditatem clausa erant. Neque enim tam dulciter caperentur, si prompta vilescerent.

Anyone who sketches his mental picture of country life from Vergil's Eclogues must plainly re-do its outlines to match real truth. The shepherd was not his own man but hired to guard someone else's flocks, or a slave: and that someone else might be removed from him by an immense distance, physically, as an absentee landlord, socially, by a wealth that spread its possessions across whole ranges of hills, and administratively, by the interposition of bailiffs, overseers, and lessees. Rustic swains had indeed nothing to sing about. Their world was as poverty-stricken and ignored as it was dangerous. And while Vergil's Lycidas and Tityrus contended only for priority as poets, their living models had to confront each other, village or city officials, outraged farmers, or brigands, in struggles that knew no end.

nugas blatis.

nugas garris.

But there is no way for a mortal to overstep what the deity sees fit to send.

ἀλλ᾿ οὐδεὶς πόρος ἐστὶν ἀνθρώπῳ παραβῆναι τὸ καθῆκον ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ.

How many other sins there are, whether in talking about other people's affairs and business, which don't concern you; or in futile cackling and laughter, seeing that it is written, The fool raises his voice in laughter, while the wise man will scarcely laugh even silently (Sir 21:20). Or there's the greedy and unrestrained appetite for food, which is properly prepared out of the need to keep body and soul together, the proof of excess being the next day's indigestion. Or there are the wrong-headed maneuvers in commerce to buy things cheap and sell them dear. It would be tedious to list all the things that anyone can observe with more certainty and reprehend in himself, if he is not careless about looking into the mirror of the divine scriptures. Although none of them, taken singly, are felt to inflict a mortal wound, like murder and adultery and sins like that; still when they all pile up like a suppurating rash, the more they are, they can kill, or so disfigure our appearance, that they cut us off from the chaste embraces of that bridegroom who is the fairest in form among the sons of men (Ps 45:2), unless they are dried up by the medicine of daily repentance.

Quam multa sunt alia peccata, sive in loquendo de rebus et negotiis alienis, quae non ad te pertinent; sive in vanis cachinnationibus, cum scriptum sit: Stultus in risu exaltat vocem suam, sapiens autem vix tacite ridebit; sive in ipsis escis, quae ad necessitatem sustentandae huius vitae praeparantur, avidior atque immoderatior appetitus, saepe excessum modum postridiana cruditate contestans: sive in vendendis et emendis rebus caritatis et vilitatis vota perversa. Piget cuncta colligere, quae quisque in se ipso certius comprehendit atque reprehendit, si divinarum Scripturarum speculum non neglegenter attendat. Quae quamvis singula non lethali vulnere ferire sentiantur, sicuti homicidium et adulterium, vel cetera huiusmodi: tamen omnia simul congregata velut scabies, quo plura sunt necant, aut nostrum decus ita exterminant, ut ab illius sponsi speciosi forma prae filiis hominum castissimis amplexibus separent, nisi medicamento quotidianae paenitentiae desiccentur.

The people, however, were incited to desert; and selling for a trifling sum, some their whole property, others their most valuable treasures, they would swallow the gold coins to prevent discovery by the brigands, and then, escaping to the Romans, on discharging their bowels, have ample supplies for their needs.

ὁ δὲ δῆμος ἐκινήθη πρὸς αὐτομολίαν. καὶ οἱ μὲν τὰς κτήσεις ἐλαχίστου πωλοῦντες, οἱ δὲ τὰ πολυτελέστερα τῶν κειμηλίων, τοὺς μὲν χρυσοῦς, ὡς μὴ φωραθεῖεν ὑπὸ τῶν λῃστῶν, κατέπινον, ἔπειτα πρὸς τοὺς Ῥωμαίους διαδιδράσκοντες, ὁπότε ενέγκαιεν εὐπόρουν πρὸς ἃ δέοιντο.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

For in my opinion filial affection is the basis of all virtues.

nam meo iudicio pietas fundamentum est omnium virtutum.

For indeed, gentlemen, while I would fain have some tincture of all the virtues, there is no quality I would sooner have, and be thought to have, than gratitude. For gratitude not merely stands alone at the head of all the virtues, but is even mother of all the rest. What is filial affection, if not a benevolent gratitude to one’s parents? What is patriotism, what is service to one's country in war and peace, if it is not a recollection of benefits received from that country? What is piety and religion, save a due reverence and remembrance in paying to the immortal gods the thanks that we owe? Take friendship away, and what joy can life continue to hold? More, how can friendship exist at all between those who are devoid of gratitude?

Who is there of us that has received an enlightened upbringing who does not constantly ponder with grateful recollection upon those who had the care of him, upon his tutors and teachers, and even upon the inanimate scenes of his rearing and schooling?

etenim, iudices, cum omnibus virtutibus me affectum esse cupio, tum nihil est, quod malim quam me et gratum esse et videri. Haec est enim una virtus non solum maxima, sed etiam mater virtutum omnium reliquarum. quid est pietas nisi voluntas grata in parentes? qui sunt boni cives, qui belli, qui domi de patria bene merentes, nisi qui patriae beneficia meminerunt? qui sancti, qui religionum colentes, nisi qui meritam diis immortalibus gratiam iustis honoribus et memori mente persolvunt? quae potest esse iucunditas vitae sublatis amicitiis? quae porro amicitia potest esse inter ingratos?

quis est nostrum liberaliter educatus, cui non educatores, cui non magistri sui, atque doctores, cui non locus ipse mutus ille, ubi altus aut doctus est, cum grata recordatione in mente versetur?

Do you know any place to be preferred to the blissful country?

novistine locum potiorem rure beato?

A child was born into a praenomen, nomen, and cognomen, all parts of which committed him to the character of earlier namesakes — to whom, as he grew up, he offered sacrifices in his home, and for whose deeds he was ridiculed or respected by his friends as son (or grandson, or great-grandson) of the man who did thus-and-so. Career and marriage were in the gift of the family, and at his death his merits were recalled and his very few faults sunk to the bottom of a sea of rhetoric by cousins and adherents whose powers qualified them to deliver a eulogy. The embrace of the clan thus received him from the womb, shaped him, delivered him to his grave, and hallowed his memory thereafter. By a custom most extraordinary, it even brought him to life again at his funeral; for at this moment an actor who looked and talked most like him, or perhaps some relative who resembled him, put on his death mask of wax, exactly painted, and walked ahead of his bier accompanied by dozens or (for a great man of a great family) by hundreds of his ancestors represented in turn by their masks, and by the robes and rites of the highest office they had attained, so that the whole procession brought together praetors and consuls, generals and party leaders reaching back through generations.

Growing up in a house filled with one's own forebears, reading their stories and seeing them come to life and walk beside some relative's bier—all this must surely have had an effect on the stupidest boy. He would know what was expected of him with a vividness at times overwhelming. At the least he could continue the line with a carven correctness. He could be "a walking bust." But it was hard to stop there. The faces on the walls exercised a more powerful spell over the imagination. They made pride and obligation visible.

To a stripling who was talking nonsense his words were, "The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less."

πρὸς τὸ φλυαροῦν μειράκιον, "διὰ τοῦτο," εἶπε, "δύο ὦτα ἔχομεν, στόμα δὲ ἕν, ἵνα πλείονα μὲν ἀκούωμεν, ἥττονα δὲ λέγωμεν."

So listen to me, Mr. Rich Man, and let my advice win your approval. Redeem your sins with almsgiving. Don't sit on your gold like a hen on eggs. Naked you came from your mother's womb, naked you are going to return into the earth! And if you are going to return naked into the earth, for whom are you amassing all these things upon the earth? I imagine, if you could carry anything with you, you would have devoured people alive. Look, you came forth naked, why not be bountiful with your money, whether you've made your pile by fair means or foul? Send ahead what makes you such an admired figure, make balloons of your much admired goods,⁴ in order to reach the kingdom of heaven.

4. Fac inflationes rerum permirarum; literally, make inflations of your much admired goods. But I doubt if they talked about inflation in the monetary sense in those days, though they certainly experienced it. They called it adulterating the coinage. So I am treating inflationes as if it means inflated objects, that is, balloons. Did they have balloons in those days? I don't know; perhaps this text is evidence that they did. Anyway, it is a pleasant image: send your wealth up to heaven by balloon.

Audi ergo me, o dives, et consilium meum placeat tibi. Peccata eleemosinis redime. Noli incubare auro; nudus existi de utero matris tuae, nudus es rediturus in terram. Et si nudus rediturus es in terram, cui congregas supra terram? Credo, si aliquid tecum portare possis, vivos homines devorasses. Ecce, nudus egredieris, cur non pecuniam vel bone vel male congregatam largiris? Promitte, quo mirus es, fac inflationes rerum permirarum, ut pervenias ad regnum caelorum.

Once when, in a crowd of people among whom was Diogenes, a certain youth made an unseemly noise, Diogenes struck him with his staff and said "And so, vile wretch, though you have done nothing that would give you the right to take such liberties in public, you are beginning here and before us to show your scorn of opinion?"

ἐπειδὴ γάρ τις τῶν νέων ἐν ὄχλῳ, παρόντος καὶ τοῦ Διογένους, ἀπέπαρδεν, ἐπάταξεν ἐκεῖνος τῇ βακτηρίᾳ φάς· εἶτα, ὦ κάθαρμα, μηδὲν ἄξιον τοῦ δημοσίᾳ τὰ τοιαῦτα θαρσεῖν πράξας ἐντεῦθεν ἡμῖν ἄρχῃ δόξης καταφρονεῖν;

On the other hand when Diogenes made unseemly noises or obeyed the call of nature or did anything else of that sort in the market-place, as they say he did, he did so because he was trying to trample on the conceit of the men I have just mentioned, and to teach them that their practices were far more sordid and insupportable than his own. For what he did was in accordance with the nature of all of us, but theirs accorded with no man's real nature, one may say, but were all due to moral depravity.

ἐπεὶ καὶ Διογένης εἴτε ἀπέπαρδεν εἴτε ἀπεπάτησεν εἴτε ἄλλο τι τοιοῦτον ἔπραξεν, ὥσπερ οὖν λέγουσιν, ἐν ἀγορᾷ, τὸν ἐκείνων πατῶν τῦφον ἐποίει, διδάσκων αὐτούς, ὅτι πολλῷ φαυλότερα καὶ χαλεπώτερα τούτων ἐπιτηδεύουσι. τὰ μὲν γάρ ἐστιν ἡμῖν πᾶσι κατὰ φύσιν, τὰ δὲ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδενί, πάντα δὲ ἐκ διαστροφῆς ἐπιτηδεύεται.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

                                                 Who'd claim high nobility
for one who falls short of his breeding, whose only distinction
is a famous name?

         quis enim generosum dixerit hunc qui
indignus genere et praeclaro nomine tantum
insignis?

Now one could no more discover where myth was originally invented and who was the first to compose fiction in a plausible manner for the benefit or entertainment of his hearers, than if one were to try to find out who was the first man that sneezed or the first horse that neighed.

ὁ πρῶτος ἐπιχειρήσας τὸ ψεῦδος πιθανῶς συνθεῖναι πρὸς ὠφέλειαν ἢ ψυχαγωγίαν τῶν ἀκροωμένων, οὐ μᾶλλον εὔροι τις ἂν ἢ εἴ τις ἐπιχειρήσεις τὸν πρῶτον πταρόντα ἢ χρεμψάμενον ἀναζητεῖν.

PHAE What if I approach the door and sing it a song?
PAL If you want to, I neither forbid you nor tell you to do so, master, since I can see that your habits and character have changed.

PHAE quid si adeam ad fores atque occentem?
PAL                                                  si lubet, nec voto nec iubeo,
quando ego te video immutatis moribus esse, ere, atque ingenio.

...Phaedromus non ha mutato né costumi né disposizione d’animo, ma continua a comportarsi in maniera irrazionale...

[T]here is a third, even worse, category of books and papers: the category of the books that inspired wars and were themselves causes of wars. No international enterprise as yet has taken the initiative in collecting the hundred most dangerous books ever written. No doubt some time this collection will be made. When it is done, I suggest that Homer's Iliad and Tacitus' Germania should be given high priority among these hundred dangerous books. This is no reflection on Homer and Tacitus. Tacitus was a gentleman and, for all that I know, Homer was a gentleman too. But who will deny that the Iliad and the Germania raise most unholy passions in the human mind?

And you should bear in mind this likewise, that it is meet both for individuals and for states to acquire a goodly store in the days when they are strongest, in order that, if some day they become powerless, they may draw upon their previous labours for succour.

ἐνθυμεῖσθαι δὲ καὶ τάδε χρή, ὅτι κτᾶσθαι μέν τι ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἰδιώταις καὶ πόλεσι προσήκει, ὅταν ἐρρωμενέστατοι ὦσιν, ἵνα ἔχωσιν, ἐάν ποτ᾽ ἀδύνατοι γένωνται, ἐπικουρίαν τῶν προπεπονημένων.

Young man, I think you do not understand
That everything is rotted by its own
Peculiar vice and that which does the harm
Lies all within. For instance, if you look,
Iron is destroyed by rust and clothes by moths
And wood by worms. And as for you, it's envy,
Worst of all vices, that's made you waste away,
And does so now and will do so again,
The godless failing of an evil soul.

μειράκιον, οὔ μοι κατανοεῖν δοκεῖς, ὅτι
ὑπὸ τῆς ἰδίας ἕκαστα κακίας σήπεται,
καὶ πᾶν τὸ λυμαινόμενόν ἐστιν ἔνδοθεν.
οἷον ὁ μὲν ἰός τὸν σίδηρον, ἂν σκοπῇς,
τὸ δ' ἱμάτιον οἱ σῆτες, ὁ δὲ θρὶψ τὸ ξύλον.        5
ὃ δὲ τὸ κάκιστον τῶν κακῶν πάντων, φθόνος
φθισικὸν πεποίηκε καὶ ποιήσει καὶ ποιεῖ,
ψυχῆς πονηρᾶς δυσσεβὴς παράστασις.

You and I are going to war. Surely you don't think that the need for carefully weighing up the situation and arriving at a quick decision when the hour strikes allows scope for every intelligence report to be read in public and every plan to be studied before the whole army? Sometimes it is just as crucial for the ordinary soldiers to remain in the dark as to know things. The nature of a general's authority and the strict observance of discipline requires that even centurions and tribunes should often obey orders without question. If every single man is to have the right to ask why orders are being given, then the habit of obedience is sapped, and with it the whole principle of command.

imus ad bellum. num omnis nuntios palam audiri, omnia consilia cunctis praesentibus tractari ratio rerum aut occasionum velocitas patitur? tam nescire quaedam milites quam scire oportet: ita se ducum auctoritas, sic rigor disciplinae habet, ut multa etiam centuriones tribunosque tantum iuberi expediat. si cur iubeantur quaerere singulis liceat, pereunte obsequio etiam imperium intercidit.

Successful fighting, fellow-soldiers, depends on obedience, not on questioning the generals' orders, and the bravest army in the hour of danger is the one that is best behaved before that hour strikes. Arms and courage should be your business: leave to me the job of planning policy and guiding your bravery.

parendo potius, commilitones, quam imperia ducum sciscitando res militares continentur, et fortissimus in ipso discrimine exercitus est qui ante discrimen quietissimus. vobis arma et animus sit: mihi consilium et virtutis vestrae regimen relinquite.

Amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things, when every voice is raised for a new road or another statute, or a subscription of stock, for an improvement in dress, or in dentistry, for a new house or a larger business, for a political party, or the division of an estate—will you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable?

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.

[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.

[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.

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.

'Tis fear that proves souls base-born.

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.)

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.

He spoke, and as he spoke death's end closed over his nostrils
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.

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.

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.

                          filia rectius

expugnat iuvenem domos,
   pulso Thyias uti concita tympano.

9. expugnat iuvenem domos: storm his house and overcome his resistance.

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

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.

Alas, O Postumus, Postumus, the years glide swiftly by, nor will righteousness give pause to wrinkles, to advancing age, or Death invincible—

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

Those who seek a lot lack a lot. All is well for the man to whom God with a frugal hand has given enough.

                                   multa petentibus
desunt multa: bene est, cui deus obtulit
      parca quod satis est manu.

42–3. multa petentibus / desunt multa: the chiastic repetition gives epigrammatic form to the Stoic commonplace; cf. 25 n., Cic. paradox. 44 ‘qui . . . innumerabiles cupiditates habet . . . hunc quando appellabo divitem, cum ipse egere se sentiat?’, Sen. epist. 90.38, 108.9 quoting Publil. 1.7 (= Min. Lat. Poets, Loeb edn. 275) ‘desunt inopiae multa, avaritiae omnia’.

43–4. bene est cui deus obtulit / parca quod satis est manu: bene est is an expression of contentment; cf. serm. 2. 6. 4 ‘bene est; nil amplius oro’, OLD 8 b. The omission of ei suits a somewhat archaic aphorism; cf. 2.16.13 ‘vivitur parvo bene cui etc.’, K–S 2. 281 ff.; the singular cui, in contrast to the plural petentibus, allows the sententia to point to H himself. parca manu would normally suggest a lack of generosity, but here paradoxically is a blessing. After bene est the word satis expresses positive satisfaction; cf. 2.18.14 ‘satis beatus unicis Sabinis’, epod. 1.31 f. ‘satis superque me benignitas tua / ditavit’.

But you must experience joy and sorrow alike, mortal as you are. Even though you like it not, this is what the gods decree.

                           δεῖ δέ σε χαίρειν
καὶ λυπεῖσθαι· θνητὸς γὰρ ἔφυς.
κἂν μὴ σὺ θέλῃς, τὰ θεῶν οὕτω
βουλόμεν᾽ ἔσται.

Beginning in the home this party rivalry first attacked those who had long been bosom friends; then the nearest relations severed their connexions and joining those who shared their respective views ranged themselves henceforth in opposite camps.

καὶ πρῶτον μὲν ἐν οἰκίαις ἥπτετο τῶν ὁμονοούντων πάλαι τὸ φιλόνεικον, ἔπειτα ἀφηνιάζοντες ἀλλήλων οἱ φίλτατοι καὶ συνιών ἕκαστος πρὸς τοὺς τὰ αὐτὰ προαιρουμένους ἤδη κατὰ ἤδη κατὰ πλῆθος ἀντετάσσοντο.

Remember, when life's path is steep, to keep an even mind, and likewise, in prosperity, a spirit restrained from over-weening joy, Dellius, seeing thou art doomed to die,

whether thou live always sad, or reclining in grassy nook take delight on holidays in some choice vintage of Falernian wine.

Why do the tall pine and poplar white love to interlace their branches in inviting shade? Why does the hurrying water strive to press onward in the winding stream?

Hither bid slaves bring wines and perfumes and the too brief blossoms of the lovely rose, while Fortune and youth allow, and the dark threads of the Sisters three.

Thou shalt leave thy purchased pastures, thy house, and thy estate that yellow Tiber washes; yea, thou shalt leave them, and an heir shall become master of the wealth thou hast heaped up high.

Whether thou be rich and sprung from ancient Inachus, or dwell beneath the canopy of heaven poor and of lowly birth, it makes no difference: thou art pitiless Orcus' victim.

We are all being gathered to one and the same fold. The lot of every one of us is tossing about in the urn, destined sooner, later, to come forth and place us in Charon's skiff for everlasting exile.

---

Aequam memento rebus in arduis
servare mentem, non secus in bonis
    ab insolenti temperatam
    laetitia, moriture Delli,

seu maestus omni tempore vixeris        5
seu te in remoto gramine per dies
    festos reclinatum bearis
    interiore nota Falerni.

quo pinus ingens albaque populus
umbram hospitalem consociare amant        10
    ramis? quid obliquo laborat
    lympha fugax trepidare rivo?

huc vina et unguenta et nimium brevis
flores amoenae ferre iube rosae,
    dum res et aetas et sororum        15
    fila trium patiuntur atra.

cedes coemptis saltibus et domo
villaque flavus quam Tiberis lavit;
    cedes, et exstructis in altum
    divitiis potietur heres.        20

divesne prisco natus ab Inacho
nil interest an pauper et infima
    de gente sub divo moreris,
    victima nil miserantis Orci.

omnes eodem cogimur, omnium        25
versatur urna serius ocius
    sors exitura et nos in aeternum
    exilium impositura cumbae.

2 in codd.: ut Housman
14 amoenae codd.: amoenos Cunningham

• To the Grim Ferry All Must Go
• Remember

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.

La bêtise insiste toujours, on s'en apercevrait si l'on ne pensait pas toujours à soi.

But if it is indeed ordered of the gods that wars should come among men, then we ought to begin war as tardily as we can, and, when it has come, to bring it to an end as speedily as possible.

εἰ δὲ ἄρα ἐκ θεῶν πεπρωμένον ἐστὶ πολέμους ἐν ἀνθρώποις γίγνεσθαι, ἡμᾶς δὲ χρὴ ἄρχεσθαι μὲν αὐτοῦ ὡς σχολαίτατα, ὅταν δὲ γένηται, καταλύεσθαι ᾗ δυνατὸν τάχιστα.

So when were things ever going well for the human race? When was there ever no fear, no grief, when was there ever assured happiness, ever not real unhappiness? If you haven't got something, you're in a sweat to get hold of it. Have you got it? You're shaking with fear of losing it. And what's much worse, both in that sweat and this fear you fondly imagine you are in good health of mind and body. Are you to marry a wife? If she's a bad one, it will be your punishment; if she's a good one, oh dear, oh dear, suppose she were to die! Children not born torment you with disappointment, children born torment you with all sorts of fears. What joy a newborn child brings to people, and immediately they are all fearful they may be mourning it as they carry it out for burial! When or where will life ever be secure? Isn't this whole earth like a great ship carrying its crew and passengers over the tossing waves, in great danger, subject to so many squalls and storms? They are afraid of shipwreck, they are longing to reach port, but at least they already realize they are travelers on a journey.

Quando ergo bene fuit generi humano? quando non timor, quando non dolor, quando certa felicitas, quando non vera infelicitas? Si non habes, ardes ut acquiras: habes? tremis ne perdas; et quod est miserius, et in illo ardore et in isto timore sanum te putas. Ducenda est uxor? si mala, erit poena tua; si bona, vae ne forte moriatur. Filii non nati torquent doloribus, nati timoribus; quam gaudentes facit natus, qui continuo timetur ne plangatur elatus! Ubi erit vita secura? Nonne omnis ista terra quasi navis magna est, portans fluctuantes, periclitantes, tot procellis et tempestatibus subiacentes? Timent naufragium, suspirant in portum, qui iam se intellegunt peregrinari.

Watchmen were accordingly posted by them on the towers, who gave warning whenever the engine was fired and the stone in transit, by shouting in their native tongue, "Sonny's^g coming"; whereupon those in the line of fire promptly made way and lay down, owing to which precautions the stone passed harmlessly through and fell in their rear.

^g Probably, as Reland suggests, ha-eben ("the stone") was corrupted to habben ("the son"); compare similar jocose terms, such as "Black Maria," "Jack Johnson," used in the Great War.

σκοποὶ οὖν αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ τῶν πύργων καθεζόμενοι προεμήνυον, ὁπότε σχασθείη τὸ ὄργανον καὶ ἡ πέτρα φέροιτο, τῇ πατρίῳ γλώσσῃ βοῶντες "ὁ υἱὸς ἔρχεται." διίσταντο δὲ καθ' οὓς ᾔει καὶ προκατεκλίνοντο, καὶ συνέβαινε φυλαττομένων ἄπρακτον διεκπίπτειν τὴν πέτραν.

But holy compassion and terrible pity
Flood through my heart
Now when I see you up there,
Forsaken godheads,
Dead night-wandering shadows,
Feeble as mist that flees from the wind,
And when I consider how craven and hollow
The gods are that conquered you,
The new, sad gods that rule in your places,
That gloat over woe, in sheep's clothing of meekness —
Oh, then black rancor seizes my soul,
And then I would smash the new-raised temples
And fight for you, you gods of old,
For you and your good old ambrosial cause,
And before your high-built altars
Raised from the ashes and steamy with offerings,
I even I would kneel there and worship
And lift up my hands in prayer . . .

Doch heil'ges Erbarmen und schauriges Mitleid
Durchströmt mein Herz,
Wenn ich Euch jetzt da droben schaue,
Verlassene Götter,        70
Todte, nachtwandelnde Schatten,
Nebelschwache, die der Wind verscheucht —
Und wenn ich bedenke, wie feig und windig
Die Götter sind, die Euch besiegten,
Die neuen, herrschenden, tristen Götter,        75
Die schadenfrohen im Schafspelz der Demuth —
O, da faßt mich ein düsterer Groll,
Und brechen möcht' ich die neuen Tempel,
Und kämpfen für Euch, Ihr alten Götter,
Für Euch und Eu'r gutes, ambrosisches Recht,        80
Und vor Euren hohen Altären,
Den wiedergebauten, den opferdampfenden,
Möcht' ich selber knieen und beten,
Und flehend die Arme erheben...

• To Believe as They Believed
• The Gods of Ancient Greece

He used to affirm that training was of two kinds, mental and bodily: the latter being that whereby, with constant exercise, perceptions are formed such as secure freedom of movement for virtuous deeds; and the one half of this training is incomplete without the other, good health and strength being just as much included among the essential things, whether for body or soul. And he would adduce indisputable evidence to show how easily from gymnastic training we arrive at virtue. For in the manual crafts and other arts it can be seen that the craftsmen develop extraordinary manual skill through practice. Again, take the case of flute-players and of athletes: what surpassing skill they acquire by their own incessant toil; and, if they had transferred their efforts to the training of the mind, how certainly their labours would not have been unprofitable or ineffective.

διττὴν δ’ ἔλεγε εἶναι τὴν ἄσκησιν, τὴν μὲν ψυχικήν, τὴν δὲ σωματικήν· ταύτην καθ’ ἣν ἐν γυμνασίᾳ συνεχεῖς γινόμεναι φαντασίαι εὐλυσίαν πρὸς τὰ τῆς ἀρετῆς ἔργα παρέχονται. εἶναι δ’ ἀτελῆ τὴν ἑτέραν χωρὶς τῆς ἑτέρας, οὐδὲν ἧττον εὐεξίας καὶ ἰσχύος ἐν τοῖς προσήκουσι γενομένης, ὡς περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ περὶ τὸ σῶμα. παρετίθετο δὲ τεκμήρια τοῦ ῥᾳδίως ἀπὸ τῆς γυμνασίας ἐν τῇ ἀρετῇ καταγίνεσθαι· ὁρᾶν τε γὰρ ἔν τε ταῖς τέχναις βαναύσοις καὶ ταῖς ἄλλαις οὐ τὴν τυχοῦσαν ὀξυχειρίαν τοὺς τεχνίτας ἀπὸ τῆς μελέτης πεποιημένους τούς τ’ αὐλητὰς καὶ τοὺς ἀθλητὰς ὅσον ὑπερφέρουσιν ἑκάτεροι τῇ ἰδίᾳ πονήσει τῇ συνεχεῖ, καὶ ὡς οὗτοι εἰ μετήνεγκαν τὴν ἄσκησιν καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν ψυχήν, οὐκ ἂν ἀνωφελῶς καὶ ἀτελῶς ἐμόχθουν.

It is almost impossible for the rich man to be rich without robbing the poor.¹¹

11 Cf. Commentary on Michea PL 25.1213 (509); on Isaia 33.13. PL 24.366 (436); Letter 120.1, PL 22.982 (820).

Quicumque enim diues est, nisi pauperem expoliauerit, diues esse non potest.

Moreover, we all know that wars are forever breaking out and being concluded, and that we — if not now, still at some future time — shall desire peace again. Why, then, should we wait for the time when we shall have become exhausted by a multitude of ills, and not rather conclude peace as quickly as possible before anything irremediable happens?

Again, I for my part do not commend those men who, when they have become competitors in the games and have already been victorious many times and enjoy fame, are so fond of contest that they do not stop until they are defeated and so end their athletic training; nor on the other hand do I commend those dicers who, if they win one success, throw for double stakes, for I see that the majority of such people become utterly impoverished.

We, then, seeing these things, ought never to engage in a contest of such a sort that we shall either win all or lose all, but ought rather to become friends of one another while we are still strong and successful. For thus we through you, and you through us, could play even a greater part in Greece than in times gone by.

ἀλλὰ μέντοι ὅτι μὲν πόλεμοι ἀεί ποτε γίγνονται καὶ ὅτι καταλύονται πάντες ἐπιστάμεθα, καὶ ὅτι ἡμεῖς, ἂν μὴ νῦν, ἀλλ᾽ αὖθίς ποτε εἰρήνης ἐπιθυμήσομεν. τί οὖν δεῖ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ἀναμένειν, ἕως ἂν ὑπὸ πλήθους κακῶν ἀπείπωμεν, μᾶλλον ἢ οὐχ ὡς τάχιστα πρίν τι ἀνήκεστον γενέσθαι τὴν εἰρήνην ποιήσασθαι;

ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδ᾽ ἐκείνους ἔγωγε ἐπαινῶ οἵτινες ἀγωνισταὶ γενόμενοι καὶ νενικηκότες ἤδη πολλάκις καὶ δόξαν ἔχοντες οὕτω φιλονεικοῦσιν ὥστε οὐ πρότερον παύονται, πρὶν ἂν ἡττηθέντες τὴν ἄσκησιν καταλύσωσιν, οὐδέ γε τῶν κυβευτῶν οἵτινες αὖ ἐὰν ἕν τι ἐπιτύχωσι, περὶ διπλασίων κυβεύουσιν· ὁρῶ γὰρ καὶ τῶν τοιούτων τοὺς πλείους ἀπόρους παντάπασι γιγνομένους.

ἃ χρὴ καὶ ἡμᾶς ὁρῶντας εἰς μὲν τοιοῦτον ἀγῶνα μηδέποτε καταστῆναι, ὥστ᾽ ἢ πάντα λαβεῖν ἢ πάντ᾽ ἀποβαλεῖν, ἕως δὲ καὶ ἐρρώμεθα καὶ εὐτυχοῦμεν, φίλους ἀλλήλοις γενέσθαι. οὕτω γὰρ ἡμεῖς τ᾽ ἂν δι᾽ ὑμᾶς καὶ ὑμεῖς δι᾽ ἡμᾶς ἔτι μείζους ἢ τὸν παρελθόντα χρόνον ἐν τῇ Ἑλλάδι ἀναστρεφοίμεθα.

Fellow-citizens, we must now show what we can do and so be able to look people in the face. Let us leave to those who come after us the Sparta which we received from our fathers. Let there now be an end to our feeling ashamed of ourselves before our wives and our children and the older men and the foreigners — we who were once the admiration of the whole of Greece!

Ἄνδρες πολῖται, νῦν ἀγαθοὶ γενόμενοι ἀναβλέψωμεν ὀρθοῖς ὄμμασιν· ἀποδῶμεν τοῖς ἐπιγιγνομένοις τὴν πατρίδα οἵανπερ παρὰ τῶν πατέρων παρελάβομεν· παυσώμεθα αἰσχυνόμενοι καὶ παῖδας καὶ γυναῖκας καὶ πρεσβυτέρους καὶ ξένους, ἐν οἷς πρόσθεν γε πάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων περιβλεπτότατοι ἦμεν.

Latin prose rhythm sometimes looks like a species of philological witchcraft, albeit one without the seductive power of most black magic.

Dignified, indeed, was the figure he presented when, in the Circus of Flaminius, he was first introduced as consul to a meeting of the people, not by a tribune of the plebs, but by a past master in piracy and brigandage; when, heavy with wine, somnolence, and debauchery, with hair well-oiled and neatly braided, with drooping eyes and slobbering mouth, he announced with tipsy mutterings, and an air of sage sententiousness, that he was gravely displeased at the punishment of uncondemned citizens. Under what bushel has this mouthpiece of wisdom so long been hiding his light? Why has this curled dancer suffered his sublime virtues to lie for so long eclipsed by a life of junketings and brothelry? The other, Caesoninus Calventius, has been engaged from his youth in public affairs, though he has had nothing, save an hypocritical assumption of austerity, to recommend him, neither mental vigour, nor eloquence, nor military skill, nor an interest in the study of mankind, nor liberal culture. Had you chanced to see in passing that unkempt, boorish, sullen figure, you might have judged him to be uncouth and churlish, but scarcely a libertine or a renegade.

To hold converse with such a man as this, or with a post in the forum, would be all one in your eyes; you would call him stockish, insipid, tongue-tied, a dull and brutish clod, a Cappadocian plucked from some slave-dealer's stock-in-trade. But now see our friend at home! see him profligate, filthy, and intemperate! the ministers to his lust not admitted by the front door, but skulking in by a secret postern! But when he developed an enthusiasm for the humanities, when this monster of animalism turned philosopher by the aid of miserable Greeks, then he became an Epicurean; not that he became a whole-hearted votary of that rule of life, whatever it is; no, the one word pleasure was quite enough to convert him. He chooses for his mentors not those dull dotards who devote entire days to discussions upon duty or virtue, who preach industry and toil and the glory of risking life for one's country; he chooses rather those who argue that no hour should be devoid of its pleasure, and that every physical member should ever be partaking of some delightful form of indulgence.

Cum vero in circo Flaminio, non a tribuno plebis consul in contionem, sed a latrone archipirata productus esset, primum processit qua auctoritate vir! vini, somni, stupri plenus, madenti coma, composito capillo, gravibus oculis, fluentibus buccis, pressa voce et temulenta: quod in cives indemnatos esset animadversum, id sibi dixit gravis auctor vehementissime displicere. Ubi nobis haec auctoritas tam diu tanta latuit? cur in lustris et helluationibus huius calamistrati saltatoris tam eximia virtus tam diu cessavit? Nam ille alter Caesoninus Calventius ab adolescentia versatus est in foro, cum eum praeter simulatam versutamque! tristitiam nulla res commendaret, non consilium, non dicendi facultas, non rei militaris, non cognoscendorum hominum studium, non liberalitas: quem praeteriens cum incultum, horridum maestumque vidisses, etiam si agrestem et inhumanum existimares, tamen libidinosum et perditum non putares.

Cum hoc homine an cum stipite in foro constitisses, nihil crederes interesse: sine sensu, sine sapore, elinguem, tardum, inhumanum negotium, Cappadocem modo abreptum de grege venalium diceres. Idem domi quam libidinosus, quam impurus, quam intemperans non ianua receptis, sed pseudothyro intromissis voluptatibus! Cum vero etiam litteris studere incipit et belua immanis cum Graeculis philosophari, tum est Epicureus, non penitus illi disciplinae quaecumque est deditus, sed captus uno verbo voluptatis. Habet autem magistros non ex istis ineptis, qui dies totos de officio ac de virtute disserunt, qui ad laborem, ad industriam, ad pericula pro patria subeunda adhortantur, sed eos, qui disputent horam nulam vacuam voluptate esse debere: in omni parte corporis semper oportere aliquod gaudium delectationemque versari.

What unusual horror, brothers and sisters, is the human race enduring now, that our ancestors didn't have to endure? Or when do we have to endure such things as we know they endured? And you'll find people grumbling about their times, and saying that the times of our parents were good. Suppose, though, they could be whisked back to the times of their parents, they would still grumble even then. You see, the times in the past you think were good, were only good for the simple reason that they weren't your times.

Quid tale modo, fratres, genus humanum patitur insolitum, quod non patres passi sunt? aut quando talia patimur, qualia illos passos fuisse cognovimus? Et invenis homines murmurare de temporibus suis, et quod illa tempora bona fuerint parentum nostrorum. Quid, si possent revocari ad tempora parentum suorum, et ibi murmurarent. Quae enim putas tempora bona fuisse praeterita, quia iam non tua sunt, ideo bona sunt.

Why, if my calumniator had been Aeacus, or Rhadamanthus, or Minos, instead of a mere scandalmonger, a market-place loafer, a poor devil of a clerk, he could hardly have used such language, or equipped himself with such offensive expressions. Hark to his melodramatic bombast: "Oh, Earth! Oh, Sun! Oh, Virtue," and all that vaporing; his appeals to "intelligence and education, whereby we discriminate between things of good and evil report"—for that was the sort of rubbish you heard him spouting.

Virtue! you runagate; what have you or your family to do with virtue? How do you distinguish between good and evil report? Where and how did you qualify as a moralist? Where did you get your right to talk about education? No really educated man would use such language about himself, but would rather blush to hear it from others; but people like you, who make stupid pretensions to the culture of which they are utterly destitute, succeed in disgusting everybody whenever they open their lips, but never in making the impression they desire.

εἰ γὰρ Αἰακὸς ἢ Ῥαδάμανθυς ἢ Μίνως ἦν ὁ κατηγορῶν, ἀλλὰ μὴ σπερμολόγος, περίτριμμ᾽ ἀγορᾶς, ὄλεθρος γραμματεύς, οὐκ ἂν αὐτὸν οἶμαι ταῦτ᾽ εἰπεῖν οὐδ᾽ ἂν οὕτως ἐπαχθεῖς λόγους πορίσασθαι, ὥσπερ ἐν τραγῳδίᾳ βοῶντα 'ὦ γῆ καὶ ἥλιε καὶ ἀρετὴ' καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα, καὶ πάλιν 'σύνεσιν καὶ παιδεία' ἐπικαλούμενον, 'ᾗ τὰ καλὰ καὶ τὰ αἰσχρὰ διαγιγνώσκεται.' ταῦτα γὰρ δήπουθεν ἠκούετ᾽ αὐτοῦ λέγοντος.

σοὶ δ᾽ ἀρετῆς, ὦ κάθαρμα, ἢ τοῖς σοῖς τίς μετουσία; ἢ καλῶν ἢ μὴ τοιούτων τίς διάγνωσις; πόθεν ἢ πῶς ἀξιωθέντι; ποῦ δὲ παιδείας σοὶ θέμις μνησθῆναι; ἧς τῶν μὲν ὡς ἀληθῶς τετυχηκότων οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς εἴποι περὶ αὑτοῦ τοιοῦτον οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ κἂν ἑτέρου λέγοντος ἐρυθριάσειε, τοῖς δ᾽ ἀπολειφθεῖσι μέν, ὥσπερ σύ, προσποιουμένοις δ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀναισθησίας τὸ τοὺς ἀκούοντας ἀλγεῖν ποιεῖν ὅταν λέγωσιν, οὐ τὸ δοκεῖν τοιούτοις εἶναι περίεστιν.

And what of our country herself? Heaven knows that words can scarce express the love and joy which she inspires! How beauteous is Italy, how renowned are her cities, how fair her landscapes, her fields, and her crops! How splendid is her metropolis, how enlightened her citizens, how majestic her commonwealth, and how great the dignity of you her children!

ipsa autem patria, di immortales! dici vix potest quid caritatis, quid voluptatis habeat! quae species Italiae! quae celebritas oppidorum! quae forma regionum! qui agri! quae fruges! quae pulcritudo urbis! quae humanitas civium! quae rei publicae dignitas! quae vestra maiestas!

σκευήν ... ὀργίων ἐμῶν: 'the livery of my service'. ὄργια, from same root as ἔργον, are properly 'things done' in a religious sense (cf. ἔρδειν, to sacrifice), the actions of a religious ritual: H. Dem. 473 ff. ἡ δέ ... δεῖξε ... δρησμοσύνην θ᾽ ἱερῶν καὶ ἐπέφραδεν ὄργια πᾶσι. Custom restricted the application of the word mainly to the private rites of the mystery cults (see L.S.⁹ s.v.), more especially those of Dion. (ὄργια τὰ μυστὴρια, κυρίως δὲ τὰ Διονυσιακά, Etym. Magn. 629). The modern sense of 'orgies' derives from the Hellenistic and Roman conception of the nature of Dionysiac religion: it must not be imported into the Bacchae.

Historically the word humanitas has had two clearly distinguishable meanings, the first arising from a contrast between man and what is less than man; the second, between man and what is more. In the first case humanitas means a value, in the second a limitation.

The concept of humanitas as a value was formulated in the circle around the younger Scipio, with Cicero as its belated, yet most explicit spokesman. It meant the quality which distinguishes man, not only from animals, but also, and even more so, from him who belongs to the species homo without deserving the name of homo humanus; from the barbarian or vulgarian who lacks pietas and παιδεία—that is, respect for moral values and that gracious blend of learning and urbanity which we can only circumscribe by the discredited word "culture."

In the Middle Ages this concept was displaced by the consideration of humanity as being opposed to divinity rather than to animality or barbarism. The qualities commonly associated with it were therefore those of frailty and transience: humanitas fragilis, humanitas caduca.

Thus the Renaissance conception of humanitas had a two-fold aspect from the outset. The new interest in the human being was based both on a revival of the classical antithesis between humanitas and barbaritas, or feritas, and on a sur­vival of the mediaeval antithesis between humanitas and divinitas. When Marsilio Ficino defines man as a "rational soul participating in the intellect of God, but operating in a body," he defines him as the one being that is both autonomous and finite. And Pico's famous "speech," "On the Dignity of Man," is anything but a document of paganism. Pico says that God placed man in the center of the universe so that he might be conscious of where he stands, and therefore free to decide "where to turn." He does not say that man is the center of the universe, not even in the sense commonly attributed to the classical phrase, "man the measure of all things."

It is from this ambivalent conception of humanitas that humanism was born. It is not so much a movement as an attitude which can be defined as the conviction of the dignity of man, based on both the insistence on human values (rationality and freedom) and the acceptance of human limitations (fallibility and frailty); from this two postulates result—responsibility and tolerance.

Small wonder that this attitude has been attacked from, two opposite camps, whose common aversion to the ideas of responsibility and tolerance has recently aligned them in a united front. Entrenched in one of these camps are those who deny human values: the determinists, whether they believe in divine, physical or social predestination, the authoritarians, and those "insectolatrists" who profess the all-importance of the hive, whether the hive be called group, class, nation or race. In the other camp are those who deny human limitations in favor of some sort of intellectual or political libertinism, such as aestheticists, vitalists, intuitionists and hero-worshipers. From the point of view of determinism, the humanist is either a lost soul or an ideologist. From the point of view of authoritarianism, he is either a heretic or a revolutionary (or a counterrevolutionary). From the point of view "insectolatry," he is a useless individualist. And from the point of view of libertinism he is a timid bourgeois.

We're at war on account of the money, is that it?

διὰ τἀργύριον πολεμοῦμεν γάρ;

I could do without your face
and neck and hands and legs
and breasts and buttocks and hips
and (not to be at the trouble of going through particulars)
I could do without you, Chloe, in your entirety.

Et vultu poteram tuo carere
et collo manibusque cruribusque
et mammis natibusque clunibusque,
et, ne singula persequi laborem,
tota te poteram, Chloe, carere.

Take oh take that face away,
    That neck away, those arms away,
Hips and bottom, legs and breast—
    Dear, must I catalogue the rest?
Take, Chloe, take yourself away.

... had he not flown for refuge to the sanctuary of the tribunate, [he] would have been unable to escape either the multitude of his creditors or the proscription of his fortunes...

...nisi in aram tribunatus confugisset, neque vim praetoris nec multitudinem creditorum nec bonorum proscriptionem effugere potuisset...

...if he had not fled into the tribunate for sanctuary, he could never have escaped the Praetor's²⁶ coercion, the multitude of his creditors, and the auction of his possessions...

26. The City Praetor (praetor urbanus), who dealt with litigation between Roman citizens.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Moreover, gentlemen, if any of you thinks the penalty a heavy one and the law too severe, he should remember that you have come here, not to legislate on these affairs, but to vote in accordance with the established laws; not to pity the guilty, but much rather to be angry with them and to be protectors of the whole State. For you know well that by punishing a few for what has been done in the past you will improve the discipline of many among those who have to face danger in the future.

καὶ μὲν δή, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, εἴ τῳ δοκεῖ μεγάλη ἡ ζημία  εἶναι καὶ λίαν ἰσχυρὸς ὁ νόμος, μεμνῆσθαι χρὴ ὅτι οὐ νομοθετήσοντες περὶ αὐτῶν ἥκετε, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τοὺς κειμένους νόμους ψηφιούμενοι, οὐδὲ τοὺς ἀδικοῦντας ἐλεήσοντες, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον αὐτοῖς ὀργιούμενοι καὶ ὅλῃ τῇ πόλει βοηθήσοντες, εὖ εἰδότες ὅτι ὑπὲρ τῶν παρεληλυθότων ὀλίγους τιμωρησάμενοι πολλοὺς ποιήσετε κοσμιωτέρους ἐν τοῖς μέλλουσι κινδυνεύειν.

Ah, but the Consuls then in office were petty men, whose base, perverse minds, filled with darkness and greed, could not contemplate or support or understand the very word "consulship"—the splendor of the office, the greatness of the authority it confers. They were no Consuls, but traffickers in provinces, barterers of your dignity.

Sed fuerunt ii consules, quorum mentes angustae, humiles, pravae, oppletae tenebris ac sordibus, nomen ipsum consulatus, splendorem illius honoris, magnitudinem tanti imperii nec intueri nec sustinere nec capere potuerunt, non consules, sed mercatores provinciarum ac venditores vestrae dignitatis.