Laudator Temporis Acti

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹The passage cannot be determined.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[L]et them that scorn the tartan fear the dirk!

i.e. let those who scorn a Highlander fear a Highland mode of revenge. Although the formulation seems proverbial this is not recorded as a traditional proverb.

Sorry again. But a talk to the general public on 'Paradise Lost' would be an absolute waste of time. What's the good of telling them they'll enjoy it, when we both know they won't?

In conclusion, then, I would say that a city which is accustomed to activity would be very quickly destroyed by a change to inactivity, and that the people who live in the greatest security are those who most respect their existing character and institutions, whatever their shortcomings, in the way they manage their affairs.

παράπαν τε γιγνώσκω πόλιν μὴ ἀπράγμονα τάχιστ᾽ ἄν μοι δοκεῖν ἀπραγμοσύνης μεταβολῇ διαφθαρῆναι, καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀσφαλέστατα τούτους οἰκεῖν οἳ ἂν τοῖς παροῦσιν ἤθεσι καὶ νόμοις, ἢν καὶ χείρω ᾖ, ἥκιστα διαφόρως πολιτεύωσιν.