Wednesday, June 03, 2020

 

Plea for Peace

Tacitus, Histories 3.81 (tr. Kenneth Wellesley):
Among these envoys was Musonius Rufus, a knight and a keen student of philosophy and the principles of Stoicism. Mixing with the troops in their companies, he now proceeded to lecture armed men about the benefits of peace and the dangers of war. Many of them laughed in his face, more still found him boring, and a few were even ready to knock him over and trample on him, but luckily the warnings of the most obedient men and the threats of the rest made him abandon his untimely moralizing.

miscuerat se legatis Musonius Rufus equestris ordinis, studium philosophiae et placita Stoicorum aemulatus; coeptabatque permixtus manipulis, bona pacis ac belli discrimina disserens, armatos monere. id plerisque ludibrio, pluribus taedio: nec deerant qui propellerent proculcarentque, ni admonitu modestissimi cuiusque et aliis minitantibus omisisset intempestivam sapientiam.



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