Sunday, March 12, 2023
Dispute and Contention
Ronald Syme, "A Roman Post-Mortem: An Inquest on the Fall of the Roman Republic," in his Roman Papers, I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 205-217 (at 205):
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When a war has been lost, a political system overthrown, or an empire shattered and dispersed, there is certain to be a post-mortem inquiry, and the discussion is seldom closed with the decease of the survivors: it may be perpetuated to distant ages, and, as strife is the father of all things, so is dispute and contention the soul of history.Id. (at 206):
And silence itself will be revealing. Important truths are often awkward truths, to be covered and disguised, from fear, from complicity, or for comfort.
