We had at the beginning of the term been instructed to read the first five books of Livy in Latin, to consult always Ogilvie, that to read Latin without a commentary was an act of hubris (though, on the other hand, commentaries were not to be trusted implicitly, and usually failed when one turned to them with real questions; but then again, there was no such thing as a completely useless commentary), and to read another five books as well, but to choose whatever else was pleasing (later we were told to read Book Six along with others because they too were essential).
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Saturday, May 17, 2014
An Act of Hubris
Hans-Friedrich Mueller, "Doctus vir et perfectus magister," in C.F. Konrad, ed., Augusto Augurio: Rerum Humanarum Et Divinarum Commentationes in Honorem Jerzy Linderski (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004), pp. 1-4 (at 2):