Laudator Temporis Acti

Aristophanes, Wasps 488-489 (tr. Jeffrey Henderson):

How you see tyranny and conspirators everywhere,
as soon as anyone voices a criticism large or small!

ὡς ἅπανθ᾽ ὑμῖν τυραννίς ἐστι καὶ ξυνωμόται,
ἤν τε μεῖζον ἤν τ᾽ ἔλαττον πρᾶγμά τις κατηγορῇ.

Douglas M. MacDowell ad loc.:

The twentieth-century English equivalents would hardly be 'tyranny' and 'conspirators', but rather 'dictatorship' and 'subversive'.

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Alphabetical Collection. Translated, with a forward by Benedicta Ward, rev. ed. (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984), p. 73 (Theodore of Pherme, #1):

Abba Theodore of Pherme had acquired three good books. He came to Abba Macarius and said to him, Ί have three excellent books from which I derive profit; the brethren also make use of them and derive profit from them. Tell me what I ought to do: keep them for my use and that of the brethren, or sell them and give the money to the poor?' The old man answered him in this way, 'Your actions are good; but it is best of all to posses nothing.' Hearing that, he went and sold his books and gave the money for them to the poor.

Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 65, col. 188 A:

Ὁ ἀββᾶς Θεόδωρος ὁ τῆς Φέρμης ἐκτήσατο τρία βιβλία καλά· καὶ παρέβαλε τῷ ἀββᾷ Μακαρίῳ͵ καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ͵ ὅτι Ἔχω τρία βιβλία καλὰ͵ καὶ ὠφε λοῦμαι ἐξ αὐτῶν· καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ κιχρῶνται αὐτὰ͵ καὶ ὠφελοῦνται. Εἰπὲ οὖν μοι͵ τί ὤφειλον ποιῆσαι; κατάσχω αὐτὰ εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν καὶ τὴν τῶν ἀδελφῶν ὠφέλειαν͵ ἢ πωλήσω αὐτὰ καὶ δώσω πτωχοῖς; Καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ γέρων εἶπε· Καλαὶ μὲν αἱ πράξεις͵ ἀλλὰ μείζων πάντων ἡ ἀκτημοσύνη ἐστί. Καὶ τοῦτο ἀκούσας͵ ἀπελθὼν ἐπώλησεν αὐτὰ͵ καὶ διέδωκε πτωχοῖς.

I would have kept the books for myself.

Aesop, Fables 209 Perry, 313 Chambry, 225 Hausrath  (tr. Robin Waterfield):

A shepherd found some wolf cubs and brought them up with a great deal of care because he thought that when they were adult they would not only protect his own sheep but also steal other people's sheep and bring them to him. But as soon as they were grown up, the first thing they did was take advantage of the shepherd's carelessness and kill his sheep. And the shepherd groaned and said, "It serves me right! Why did I save their lives when they were little, since I've got to kill them now when they're big?"

Likewise, those who keep bad people safe are failing to realize that all they're doing is empowering them to do them harm.

Ποιμὴν εὑρὼν λυκίδια, ἔτρεφεν ἐπιμελῶς, οἰόμενος ὅτι μεγαλυνθέντα τηρήσουσι τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πρόβατα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔτι προσθήσουσιν ἁρπάζοντες ἕτερα καὶ εἰσάξουσιν ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ μάνδρᾳ. Οἱ δὲ, ὡς ηὐξήνθησαν, πρῶτον αὐτοῦ τὴν ποίμνην διέφθειραν. Καὶ ὃς ἀναστενάξας εἶπεν· Δίκαια πέπονθα· τί φὰρ μὴ νηπίους ἀπέκτεινον;

Ὁ μῦθος δηλοῖ ὅτι οἱ τοὺς πονηροὺς διασώζοντες λανθάνουσι καθ' ἑαυτῶν πρῶτον αὐτοὺς ῥωννύντες.

Homer, Odyssey 1.96 (tr. Daniel Mendelsohn):

Her words.

ὣς εἰποῦσ᾽...

Homer, Odyssey 1.381 (tr. Daniel Mendelsohn):

His words.

ὣς ἔφαθ᾽...

My words: grotesque, jolting, irritating, obtrusive. The translation here draws attention to itself in an unpleasing way.

W.K.C. Guthrie (1906-1981), The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950; rpt. 1956), p. 34:

Now chronologically it is true that empty thrones came before sculptured gods, and that orgiastic rites like those of Dionysos or the Great Mother are older than the Olympian religion of Homer. If that is all that we mean, we may call them more primitive, but it does not follow that there was progress from one to the other. That depends on what our criterion of progress is. If it is the growth of spiritual insight, there is much to be said for the view that the man who carves a stone seat and leaves it for the god to occupy when he will, asking only to see him with the eye of the imagination, is at a higher stage of religious development than the man who demands to see the god in physical form, carved by the hand of a Pheidias. Similarly the Dionysiac idea of communion and identification with the god, or the belief of the worshipper of the Mother-goddess that he could be adopted into the family of his deity, together with the other mystical forms of religion practised from time immemorial in Aegean lands, contained, despite their crudeness, possibilities of spiritual development which were lacking to the religion of Homer.

Peter Green (1924-2024), Armada from Athens (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970), pp. 339-340:

A few years ago workmen digging in Peristéri, a northern suburb of Athens, found some ancient slabs of marble that had been used to construct an early Christian sarcophagus. These slabs dated from the fifth century B.C., and were covered with lists of names. As the Greek scholar Mastrokostas has conclusively shown, they were originally memorial plaques, and formed part of a cenotaph to the Athenian citizen-hoplites who died during the Sicilian Expedition.

We know too little of the anonymous, uncelebrated heroes of history, the men who passed through great events, whose sweat and blood helped to shape the world we inherit, yet who died and were forgotten as though they had never been, leaving no memorial to posterity. Throughout this story we have been concerned, inevitably, with the men who were not forgotten, the politicians and commanders who took the decisions that others carried out. But now, for one brief moment, the curtain is lifted. Here, passing in silent order, like the names on any war memorial in any age, are the heavy-armed infantrymen who toiled and fought and died on the heights of Epipolae or during the long agony of that final retreat. 2,950 Athenians of hoplite rank fought in Sicily. Between 700 and 1,200 of them died in action. Of these casualties, 169 names, from five tribal regiments, are preserved on the Peristéri stelae.

See Inscriptiones Graecae I³ 1186.

Euripides, Heracles 637-654 (tr. William Arrowsmith):

Youth I long for always.
But old age lies on my head,
a weight more heavy than Aetna's rocks;
darkness hides
the light from my eyes.
Had I the wealth of an Asian king,
or a palace crammed with gold,
both would I give for youth,
loveliest in wealth,
in poverty, loveliest.
But old age I loathe: ugly,
murderous. Let the waves take it
so it comes no more to the homes
and cities of men! Let the wind
whirl it away forever!

ἁ νεότας μοι φίλον αἰ-
εί· τὸ δὲ γῆρας ἄχθος
βαρύτερον Αἴτνας σκοπέλων
ἐπὶ κρατὶ κεῖται, βλεφάρων        640
σκοτεινὸν φάος ἐπικαλύψαν.
μή μοι μήτ᾽ Ἀσιήτιδος
τυραννίδος ὄλβος εἴη,
μὴ χρυσοῦ δώματα πλήρη        645
τᾶς ἥβας ἀντιλαβεῖν,
ἃ καλλίστα μὲν ἐν ὄλβῳ,
καλλίστα δ᾽ ἐν πενίᾳ.
τὸ δὲ λυγρὸν φόνιόν τε γῆ-
ρας μισῶ· κατὰ κυμάτων δ᾽        650
ἔρροι, μηδέ ποτ᾽ ὤφελεν
θνατῶν δώματα καὶ πόλεις
ἐλθεῖν, ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ αἰθέρ᾽ αἰ-
εὶ πτεροῖσι φορείσθω.