Laudator Temporis Acti

Cicero, Pro Murena 13 (tr. C. MacDonald):

Cato calls Murena a dancer. Strong language from a forceful prosecution, if there is any truth in it; slanderous abuse, if it is false. A man of your stature, then, Marcus Cato, should not pick a piece of dirt from the street corner or from parasites' invective or lightly abuse a consul of the Roman people in this way. You should look around for the other vices with which a man must be tainted before you can sustain this charge. Hardly anyone dances except in his cups, either by himself or at any respectable party, unless of course he is out of his mind. Dancing comes at the end of a seasonable meal, in attractive surroundings and after a wealth of sensuous enjoyment. You are seizing upon this climax of debauchery but leave out those attendant vices without which it cannot exist. You do not produce any disgraceful party, any love-making, riotous behaviour, loose and extravagant living, and since there is no sign of behaviour that goes by the name of pleasure but is really vice, do you think that you can find the shadow of debauchery where you cannot find the substance?

Saltatorem appellat L. Murenam Cato. Maledictum est, si vere obicitur, vehementis accusatoris, sin falso, maledici conviciatoris. Qua re cum ista sis auctoritate, non debes, M. Cato, adripere maledictum ex trivio aut ex scurrarum aliquo convicio neque temere consulem populi Romani saltatorem vocare, sed circumspicere quibus praeterea vitiis adfectum esse necesse sit eum cui vere istud obici possit. Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, neque in solitudine neque in convivio moderato atque honesto. Tempestivi convivi, amoeni loci, multarum deliciarum comes est extrema saltatio. Tu mihi adripis hoc quod necesse est omnium vitiorum esse postremum, relinquis illa quibus remotis hoc vitium omnino esse non potest? Nullum turpe convivium, non amor, non comissatio, non libido, non sumptus ostenditur, et, cum ea non reperiantur quae voluptatis nomen habent quamquam vitiosa sunt, in quo ipsam luxuriam reperire non potes, in eo te umbram luxuriae reperturum putas?

Elaine Fantham ad loc.:

[I]t is most unlikely that Servius and his subscriptores had produced the charge of being a "dancer" out of the blue. Did it spring from allegations (not acknowledged by Cicero) of bad behavior or debauchery committed by Licinius Murena after returning from military service? Did his antagonists depict him as a party animal like Verres and his associates or Catiline's cronies, who danced nudi (not naked but clad only in a tunic or subligaculum); cf. Verr. 2.3.23; Cat. 2.23; Pis. 22? Our locus classicus for dancing as ill-becoming a consul is Gabinius, against whom Cicero's chief sources of mockery were his carefully curled hairstyle and his dancing (saltatrix calamistrata, Red. Sen. 13), and Nepos, who introduced his Lives of Foreign Generals with an expression of surprise that Greek biographers praised Epaminondas of Thebes for his skillful dancing and flute-playing. Roman gentlemen did not dance: hence Demea's mockery of Micio dancing with a skipping rope between his daughter-in-law and a sex-slave (Ter. Ad. 752) and Cicero's report that the orator Titius pranced so much as he spoke that his name was given to a kind of dance (Brut. 225). However, we need to distinguish such solo performance from dancing in a religious rite and note the changing associations of saltare with the coming of pantomime under Augustus. Cicero maintains that no one dances unless drunk, nemo fere saltat sobrius. But such behavior may have been pretty common in the parties of the younger generation. And what form did this dancing take? We are not talking about dancing with a sexual partner or as part of a male group. Perhaps the best evidence is the Ionic solo number performed by Plautus's Pseudolus (Ps. 1274), a staggering display of teetering pyrotechnics. For ladies dancing, cf. Sempronia in Sall. Cat. 25 saltare elegantius quam necesse est probae and Horace Od. 2.12.19 on Licymnia dancing (ludere) ceremonially with other women.

Diogenes Laertius 6.2.69 (on Diogenes the Cynic; tr. R.D. Hicks):

Being asked what was the most beautiful thing in the world, he replied, "Freedom of speech."

ἐρωτηθεὶς τί κάλλιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποις, ἔφη, "παρρησία."

This is fragment 473 of Diogenes the Cynic in Gabriele Giannantoni, ed., Socraticorum Reliquiae, Vol. II (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1983), p. 585.

Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560), Les Regrets, sonnet 5, tr. Richard Helgerson:

Those who are in love will sing their loves. Those who love honor will sing of glory. Those who are near the king will publicize his victory. Those who are courtiers will boast of their favors.

Those who love the arts will speak of learning. Those who are virtuous will make themselves known for it. Those who love wine will talk of drinking. Those who have leisure will write tales.

Those who speak ill of others will take pleasure in slander. Those who are less irksome will tell jokes for a laugh. Those who are more valiant will boast of their valor.

Those who are overly pleased with themselves will sing their own praises. Those who wish to flatter will make an angel of a devil. I, who am unhappy, will complain of my unhappiness.

Ceulx qui sont amoureux, leurs amours chanteront,
Ceulx qui ayment l'honneur, chanteront de la gloire,
Ceulx qui sont pres du Roy, publiront sa victoire,
Ceulx qui sont courtisans, leurs faveurs vanteront,

Ceulx qui ayment les arts, les sciences diront,
Ceulx qui sont vertueux, pour tels se feront croire,
Ceulx qui ayment le vin, deviseront de boire,
Ceulx qui sont de loisir, de fables escriront,

Ceulx qui sont mesdisans, se plairont à mesdire,
Ceulx qui sont moins fascheux, diront des mots pour rire,
Ceulx qui sont plus vaillans, vanteront leur valeur,

Ceulx qui se plaisent trop, chanteront leur louange,
Ceulx qui veulent flater, feront d'un diable un ange:
Moy, qui suis malheureux, je plaindray mon malheur.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), "Blucher and Sandt," Imaginary Conversations (Sandt speaking):

Many things are true which we do not believe to be true; but more are false which we do not suspect of falsehood.

Aristophanes, Frogs 341-353 (my translation):

Raising flaming torches in your hands you have come,
Iacchus, o Iacchus,
Light-bearing star of nocturnal rite.
The meadow gleams with light.
Old men's knees leap.
They shake off pains
And lengthy lapses of old years
By sacred worship.
But you, shining with a torch,
As you advance, lead forth to the flowering marshy
Ground, o blessed one, the dancing youthful band.

ἐγείρων φλογέας λαμπάδας ἐν χερσὶ προσήκεις,        340
Ἴακχ᾽ ὦ Ἴακχε,
νυκτέρου τελετῆς φωσφόρος ἀστήρ.
φλογὶ φέγγεται δὲ λειμών·
γόνυ πάλλεται γερόντων·        345
ἀποσείονται δὲ λύπας
χρονίους τ᾽ ἐτῶν παλαιῶν ἐνιαυτοὺς
ἱερᾶς ὑπὸ τιμῆς.
σὺ δὲ λαμπάδι φέγγων        350
προβάδην ἔξαγ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀνθηρὸν ἕλειον
δάπεδον χοροποιόν, μάκαρ, ἥβην.

Critical apparatus from N.G. Wilson's Oxford Classical Text edition:

Matthew 15:37 (tr. Robert K. Brown), in The New Greek-English Interlinear New Testament ... Translators: Robert K. Brown and Philip W. Comfort (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1990), p. 60:

AND EVERYONE-ATE AND THEY WERE SATISFIED AND THE LEFTOVERS OF THE FRAGMENTS WERE SEVEN BASKETS FULL.

The Greek (from the United Bible Societies' 4th corrected edition):

καὶ ἔφαγον πάντες καὶ ἐχορτάσθησαν καὶ τὸ περισσεῦον τῶν κλασμάτων ἦραν ἑπτὰ σπυρίδας πλήρεις.

Brown seems to have regarded ἦραν as some form of the copulative verb εἰμί (perhaps confusing it with the imperfect ἦσαν), but in fact it's the aorist of the transitive verb αἴρω = lift up, remove.

Labels: typographical and other errors

Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 122-123 (tr. Herbert Weir Smyth, slightly modified):

                              ELECTRA
And is this a righteous thing for me to ask of Heaven?
                              CHORUS
How not? To requite an enemy evil for evil?

                              ΗΛΕΚΤΡΑ
καὶ ταῦτά μοὔστιν εὐσεβῆ θεῶν πάρα;
                              ΧΟΡΟΣ
πῶς δ᾿ οὔ, τὸν ἐχθρόν γ᾿ ἀνταμείβεσθαι κακοῖς;

See also William Allan, "The Ethics of Retaliatory Violence in Athenian Tragedy," Mnemosyne 66.4/5 (2013) 593-615 (at 602-603).

Augustine, Sermons 335C.8 (C. Lambot, "Nouveau sermon de S. Augustin pour la fête d'un martyr," Revue Bénédictine 46 [1934] 398-409 [at 401-402]; tr. Edmund Hill):

You know, dearly beloved, on what advice people greedy for money act, when they see they have accumulated an amount of coins. What do they say? "The thing's round, it rolls, it vanishes; it must be tied up with some purchase of real estate." And they want to tie their money up by buying a country house. And hey, presto, they've bought a house in the country, they will have a house in the country. Will the country house, though, always have them? But neither will they have it always, seeing that after a short while they will move on without any deferment. You can't tie up your soul to the place where you've tied up your money. The time will come, you see, when your soul will be required of you; what you have bought, whose will it be then?" So you won't have the country house, and the house in the country won't have you, except perhaps as regards your body, if you're buried there when you're dead. Why, then indeed somehing wonderful happens; it will have you, you won't have it.

Nostis, carissimi, quo consilio agant cupidi pecuniae quando vident se aliquid nummorum habere. Quid dicunt? "Rotunda est res, volvitur, perit, aliqua possessionis emptione liganda est". Et volunt ligare pecuniam suam emendo villam. Et ecce emerunt villam, habebunt villam. Numquid eos semper habebit villa? Sed nec ipsi habebunt unde post modicum tempus sine dilatione migrabunt. Ubi ligasti pecuniam tuam, ligare ibi non potes animam tuam. Veniet enim tempus quando reposcetur a te anima tua. Quod emisti, cuius erit? Ergo nec villam habebis, nec villa te habebit, nisi forte secundum corpus ibi fueris mortuus sepultus. Fit enim tunc mirum aliquid: ipsa te habebit, tu illam non habebis.

I don't have access to François Dolbeau, "Le s. Lambot 2 (335 C): un sermon d'Augustin prêché à Carthage pour la fête du martyr Salvius?" Revue d'Études Augustiniennes et Patristiques 70.1 (2024) 85-111.

Horace, Epistles 1.1.70-75 (tr. Colin Macleod):

But if the Roman people asked me why
I walk where they do, but do not think like them,
and do not share their tastes or their aversions,
I should reply like the canny fox in the fable
to the sick lion: "Those foot-prints frighten me;
all of them point towards you, and none back."

quod si me populus Romanus forte roget, cur        70
non ut porticibus sic iudiciis fruar isdem,
nec sequar aut fugiam quae diligit ipse vel odit,
olim quod volpes aegroto cauta leoni
respondit, referam: "quia me vestigia terrent,
omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum."        75

Aesop, Fables 147 Hausrath, 197 Chambry (tr. Olivia and Robert Temple):

A lion who was getting old and could no longer obtain his food by force decided that he must resort to trickery instead. So he retired to a cave and lay down pretending to be ill. Thus, whenever any animals came to his cave to visit him, he ate them all as they appeared. When many animals had disappeared, a fox figured out what was happening. He went to see the lion but stood at a safe distance outside the cave and asked him how he was. 'Oh, not very well,' said the lion. 'But why don't you come in?' But the fox said: 'I would come inside if I hadn't seen that a lot of footprints are pointing inwards towards your cave but none are pointing out.'

Wise men note the indications of dangers and thus avoid them.

λέων γηράσας καὶ μὴ δυνάμενος δι᾽ ἀλκῆς ἑαυτῷ τροφὴν πορίζειν ἔγνω δεῖν δι᾽ ἐπινοίας τοῦτο πρᾶξαι. καὶ δὴ παραγενόμενος εἴς τι σπήλαιον καὶ ἐνταῦθα κατακλιθεὶς προσεποιεῖτο τὸν νοσοῦντα καὶ οὕτω τὰ παραγενόμενα πρὸς αὐτὸν εἰς ἐπίσκεψιν ζῷα συλλαμβάνων κατήσθιε. πολλῶν δὲ θηρίων καταναλωθέντων ἀλώπηξ τὸ τέχνασμα αὐτοῦ συνεῖσα παρεγένετο καὶ στᾶσα ἄπωθεν τοῦ σπηλαίου ἐπυνθάνετο αὐτοῦ, πῶς ἔχοι. τοῦ δὲ εἰπόντος· «κακῶς» καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν ἐρομένου, δι᾽ ἣν οὐκ εἴσεισιν, ἔφη· "ἀλλ᾽ ἔγωγε εἰσῆλθον ἄν, εἰ μὴ ἑώρων πολλῶν εἰσιόντων ἴχνη, ἐξιόντος δὲ οὐδενός".

οὕτως οἱ φρόνιμοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐκ τεκμηρίων προορώμενοι τοὺς κινδύνους ἐκφεύγουσι.

Kenneth Dover, ed., Aristophanes, Frogs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 41:

Adherents of monotheistic religions which treat God as omnipotent and omnipresent have difficulty in coming to terms with the handling of gods in the Greek theatre, and particularly with the readiness of a comic poet to ridicule the god of the dramatic festivals even to the extent of portraying him as defecating in fear (479-89).

Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought, tr. T.G. Rosenmeyer (tr. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), p. 41:

We find it difficult to understand how the gods of one's faith could be subjected to Aristophanic jests. But laughter is part of the meaning, the fruitfulness, the positive side of life, and it is therefore, in the eyes of the Greeks, more godlike than the sour solemnity which we associate with piety.

Hugh Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 133:

The occasional fun poked at the gods in comedy is no evidence against the religious conservatism of the common man; it is when religion is sure of itself that such amusement is permitted.

Richard Janko, The Iliad: A Commentary, Volume IV: Books 13-16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 170 (on 14.153-353):

Few Greeks ever took their gods wholly seriously: this is, perhaps, the Greeks' greatest gift to civilization.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Untimely Meditations, III: Schopenhauer as Educator, § 8 (tr. R.J. Hollingdale):

The state never has any use for truth as such, but only for truth which is useful to it, more precisely for anything whatever useful to it whether it be truth, half-truth or error.

Dem Staat ist es nie an der Wahrheit gelegen, sondern immer nur an der ihm nützlichen Wahrheit, noch genauer gesagt, überhaupt an allem ihm Nützlichen, sei dies nun Wahrheit, Halbwahrheit oder Irrthum.