"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, November 09, 2025
A Barbarian
Aristophanes, Clouds 492 (tr. Jeffrey Henderson):
This fellow's ignorant and barbaric!
ἅνθρωπος ἀμαθὴς οὑτοσὶ καὶ βάρβαρος.
S. Douglas Olson ad loc.:
A βάρβαρος is someone who does not know Greek, and thus by definition an idiot.