Perhaps all this seems incredible to you, but you ought not to disbelieve it; for surely all goodness has not yet entirely perished from among men, but there is still in us a remnant of the ancient virtue.
παράδοξα μὲν ἴσως ταῦθ᾽ ὑμῖν φαίνεται, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἀπιστεῖν ὑμᾶς αὐτοῖς δεῖ· οὐ γάρ που καὶ ἁπλῶς πάντα τὰ ἀγαθὰ ἐκ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀπόλωλεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔστι καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ἔτι τῆς ἀρχαίας ἀρετῆς λείψανον.
"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 15, 2022
Incredible
Dio Cassius 72.26.3 (speech of Marcus Aurelius; tr. Earnest Cary):