And yet each man among us knows which of the two to prefer, the good or ill, and how much better peace is for mankind than war, peace, the Muses' dearest friend, the foe of Sorrow, whose joy is in glad throngs of children, and its delight in prosperity. These are the blessings we cast away and wickedly embark on war, man enslaving his weaker brother, and cities following suit.Peace Holding Wealth, by Cephisodorus (Roman copy, in Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, inv. 219):
καίτοι δυοῖν γε πάντες ἄνθρωποι λόγοιν
τὸν κρείσσον᾽ ἴσμεν, καὶ τὰ χρηστὰ καὶ κακά,
ὅσῳ τε πολέμου κρεῖσσον εἰρήνη βροτοῖς·
ἣ πρῶτα μὲν Μούσαισι προσφιλεστάτη,
Ποιναῖσι δ᾽ ἐχθρά, τέρπεται δ᾽ εὐπαιδίᾳ, 490
χαίρει δὲ πλούτῳ. ταῦτ᾽ ἀφέντες οἱ κακοὶ
πολέμους ἀναιρούμεσθα καὶ τὸν ἥσσονα
δουλούμεθ᾽, ἄνδρες ἄνδρα καὶ πόλις πόλιν.
"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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Tuesday, February 24, 2026
War and Peace
Euripides, Suppliant Women 486-493 (tr. Edward P. Coleridge):
