Next to Satan, the barbarians were the problem of the day. Like the devils, the barbarians could be found everywhere, but unlike the devils no simple formula could chase them away.
"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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Sunday, May 23, 2021
The Problem of the Day
The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity. Essays Edited by Arnaldo Momigliano (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), p. 12 (from Momigliano's Introduction):