Laudator Temporis Acti

Michael Reeve, "Cuius in Usum? Recent and Future Editing," Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000) 196-206 (at 201):

From an edition so conceived I have come to expect five things: a survey of the available witnesses, reasons for using some rather than others, accurate collation, guidance on the difference between the best text that can be extracted from the witnesses and what the author seems likely to have written, and substantial progress in at least one of these four. Ideally, the first two should be combined in a historical account, because the value of a witness depends on the aims, resources, and abilities of whoever produced it; but it would be a luxury to dwell on the ideal when many editions still fall at one or more of the five hurdles.

C.S. Lewis, letter to Dom Bede Griffiths OSB (May 8, 1939):

The process of living seems to consist in coming to realise truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes.

Plato, Laws 9.863c (tr. Trevor J. Saunders):

The lawgiver would, in fact, do a better job if he divided ignorance into two: (1) 'simple' ignorance, which he would treat as the cause of trivial faults, (2) 'double' ignorance, which is the error of a man who is not only in the grip of ignorance but on top of that is convinced of his own wisdom, believing that he has a thorough knowledge of matters of which, in fact, his ignorance is total.

διχῇ μὴν διελόμενος αὐτὸ ὁ νομοθέτης ἂν βελτίων εἴη, τὸ μὲν ἁπλοῦν αὐτοῦ κούφων ἁμαρτημάτων αἴτιον ἡγούμενος, τὸ δὲ διπλοῦν, ὅταν ἀμαθαίνῃ τις μὴ μόνον ἀγνοίᾳ συνεχόμενος ἀλλὰ καὶ δόξῃ σοφίας, ὡς εἰδὼς παντελῶς περὶ ἃ μηδαμῶς οἶδεν.

Euripides, Suppliant Women 949-954 (tr. Edward P. Coleridge):

O wretched sons of men! Why do you get weapons and bring slaughter on one another? Cease from that, give over your toiling, and in mutual peace keep safe your cities. Short is the span of life, so it would be best to run its course as lightly as we may, free from trouble.

                                       ὦ ταλαίπωροι βροτῶν,
τί κτᾶσθε λόγχας καὶ κατ᾽ ἀλλήλων φόνους
τίθεσθε; παύσασθ᾽, ἀλλὰ λήξαντες πόνων        950
ἄστη φυλάσσεθ᾽ ἥσυχοι μεθ᾽ ἡσύχων.
σμικρὸν τὸ χρῆμα τοῦ βίου· τοῦτον δὲ χρὴ
ὡς ῥᾷστα καὶ μὴ σὺν πόνοις διεκπερᾶν.

C.S. Lewis, letter to Owen Barfield (February 8, 1939):

[M]y distrust of all lexicons and translations is increasing.

[J.] Enoch Powell (1912-1998), No Easy Answers (London: Sheldon Press, 1973), p. 8:

It is not unusual to discover that when we suppose ourselves to have risen superior to what generations of our predecessors found overwhelmingly significant and self-evident, we are in reality describing our own impoverishment of imagination or of vision.

Plutarch, Life of Philopoemen 4.3 (tr. Bernadotte Perrin):

As for what he got from his campaigning, he used to spend it on horses, or armour, or the ransoming of captives; but his own property he sought to increase by agriculture, which is the justest way to make money. Nor did he practise agriculture merely as a side issue, but he held that the man who purposed to keep his hands from the property of others ought by all means to have property of his own.

τὰ μὲν οὖν ἐκ τῶν στρατειῶν προσιόντα κατάνλισκεν εἰς ἵππους καὶ ὅπλα καὶ λύσεις αἰχμαλώτων, τὸν δὲ οἶκον ἀπὸ τῆς γεωργίας αὔξειν ἐπειρᾶτο δικαιοτάτῳ τῶν χρηματισμῶν, οὐδὲ τοῦτο ποιούμενος πάρεργον, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάνυ προσήκειν οἰόμενος οἰκεῖα κεκτῆσθαι τὸν ἀλλοτρίων ἀφεξόμενον.

Related post: The Foundation.

Plato, Laws 9.862e (tr. Trevor J. Saunders):

But suppose the lawgiver finds a man who's beyond cure — what legal penalty will he provide for this case? He will recognize that the best thing for all such people is to cease to live — best even for themselves. By passing on they will help others, too: first, they will constitute a warning against injustice, and secondly they will leave the state free of scoundrels.

ὃν δ᾽ ἂν ἀνιάτως εἰς ταῦτα ἔχοντα αἴσθηται νομοθέτης, δίκην τούτοισι καὶ νόμον θήσει τίνα; γιγνώσκων που τοῖς τοιούτοις πᾶσιν ὡς οὔτε αὐτοῖς ἔτι ζῆν ἄμεινον, τούς τε ἄλλους ἂν διπλῇ ὠφελοῖεν ἀπαλλαττόμενοι τοῦ βίου, παράδειγμα μὲν τοῦ μὴ ἀδικεῖν τοῖς ἄλλοις γενόμενοι, ποιοῦντες δὲ ἀνδρῶν κακῶν ἔρημον τὴν πόλιν.

Otto Kern, Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maeander (Berlin: W. Spemann, 1900), Nr. 98, pp. 82-84, lines 21-31 on p. 83, tr. Frank R. Trombley after Royden Keith Yerkes:

At the exhibition of the bull the sacred herald is to pray, with the priest and priestess, the stephanophorus, the boys and girls, the military officers, the cavalry officers, the stewards, the secretary of the council, the auditor and the general, for the safety of the city and the land, the women and children and all the inhabitants of the city and the land, for peace and wealth and bearing of grain and all other fruits and possessions.

καὶ ἐν τῶι ἀναδείκνυσθαι τὸν ταῦρον κατευ-
χέσθω ὁ ἱεροκῆρυξ μετὰ τοῦ ἱέρεω καὶ τῆς ἱερείας καὶ
τοῦ στεφανηφόρου καὶ τῶμ παίδων καὶ τῶν παρθένων
καὶ τῶμ πολεμάρχων καὶ τῶν ἱππάρχων καὶ τῶν οἰ-
κονόμων καὶ τοῦ γραμματέως τῆς βουλῆς καὶ τοῦ    25
ἀντιγραφέως καὶ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ ὑπέρ τε σωτηρί-
ας τῆς τε πόλεως καὶ τῆς χώρας καὶ τῶμ πολιτῶν
καὶ γυναικῶν καὶ τέκνων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν κατοικούν-
των ἔν τε τῆι πόλει καὶ τῆι χώραι ὑπέρ τε εἰρήνης καὶ
πλούτου καὶ σίτου φορᾶς καὶ τῶν ἄλλων καρπῶν πάν-    30
τῶν καὶ τῶν κτηνῶν.

The translation is faulty in the last word — it seems to confuse κτηνῶν (herds) with κτημάτων (possessions).

On the inscription as a whole see Stéphanie Paul, "Sharing the Civic Sacrifice: Civic Feast, Procession, and Sacrificial Division in the Hellenistic Period," in Floris van den Eijnde et al., edd., Feasting and Polis Institutions (Leiden: Brill, 2018), pp. 315-339 (at 316-321).

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From Gonzalo Jerez Sánchez:

Maybe he had too much Aeschylus in his mind and had κτήνη τὰ δημιοπληθῆ (Ag. 129, vid. Fraenkel ad loc.) in mind.

Fraenkel translated κτήνη τὰ δημιοπληθῆ as "the herds ... the plentiful possessions of the people". Here is his note: From Eric Thomson:

It behooves me to mention Old English feoh (cognate with Latin pecus) which often has a sense indeterminate between livestock in the flesh and (metonymically derived) wealth and possessions.

Related posts:

• Goods and Chattels
• Wealth in Cattle

Labels: typographical and other errors