Laudator Temporis Acti

When the despots in Phocis had seized Delphi, and the Thebans were waging war against them in what has been called the Sacred War, the women devotees of Dionysus, to whom they give the name of Thyads, in Bacchic frenzy wandering at night unwittingly arrived at Amphissa. As they were tired out, and sober reason had not yet returned to them, they flung themselves down in the market-place, and were lying asleep, some here, some there. The wives of the men of Amphissa, fearing, because their city had become allied with the Phocians, and numerous soldiers of the despots were present there, that the Thyads might be treated with indignity, all ran out into the market-place, and, taking their stand round about in silence, did not go up to them while they were sleeping, but when they arose from their slumber, one devoted herself to one of the strangers and another to another, bestowing attentions on them and offering them food. Finally, the women of Amphissa, after winning the consent of their husbands, accompanied the strangers, who were safely escorted as far as the frontier.

τῶν ἐν Φωκεῦσι τυράννων κατειληφότων Δελφοὺς καὶ τὸν ἱερὸν κληθέντα πόλεμον Θηβαίων πολεμούντων πρὸς αὐτούς, αἱ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον γυναῖκες, ἃς Θυιάδας ὀνομάζουσιν, ἐκμανεῖσαι καὶ περιπλανηθεῖσαι νυκτὸς ἔλαθον ἐν Ἀμφίσσῃ γενόμεναι· κατάκοποι δ᾽ οὖσαι καὶ μηδέπω τοῦ φρονεῖν παρόντος αὐταῖς, ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ προέμεναι τὰ σώματα σποράδην ἔκειντο καθεύδουσαι. τῶν δ᾽ Ἀμφισσέων αἱ γυναῖκες, φοβηθεῖσαι μὴ διὰ τὸ σύμμαχον τὴν πόλιν Φωκέων γεγονέναι καὶ συχνοὺς στρατιώτας παρεῖναι τῶν τυράννων ἀγνωμονηθῶσιν αἱ Θυιάδες, ἐξέδραμον εἰς τὴν ἀγορὰν ἅπασαι καὶ κύκλῳ περιστᾶσαι σιωπῇ κοιμωμέναις μὲν οὐ προσῄεσαν, ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἐξανέστησαν, ἄλλαι περὶ ἄλλας ἐγίγνοντο θεραπεύουσαι καὶ τροφὴν προσφέρουσαι· τέλος δὲ πείσασαι τοὺς ἄνδρας ἐπηκολούθησαν αὐταῖς ἄχρι τῶν ὅρων ἀσφαλῶς προπεμπομέναις.

What is this bore chattering for?

quid iste argutat molestus?

The climate of most of the Mediterranean basin invited people to live out of doors. Their homes held out no conflicting attraction: cramped, dark; for furniture, straw beds and a chest containing clothes and valuables; on the floor a brazier to cook the soup, sending savor and smoke up to the ceiling, from which, in a hammock contraption, were suspended a baby or two. Turning from such depressing quarters, men satisfied their sociability at cookshops and taverns, gathered at street-corner fountains, or, where the blank walls of houses fell back to form a market place, idled their way through the day's buying and selling. Wealthy people provided all open points of the city with ambitious amenities, very pleasant to enjoy during most seasons of the year...

• Life Outdoors
• Life Outdoors
• A Preference for Life Outdoors
• Indoors
• Imagine

Zeus, look on us and pity us before we perish!

ὦ Ζεῦ, σκοπῶν οἴκτιρε μη 'πολωλότας.

ὦ Turnebus: ἰὼ M
Ζεῦ σκοπῶν Friis Johansen: ζεὺσ κόπων M: ζεῦ κόπων rell. codd.

ἀπολωλότας: the predicative use of an oblique case of the pf. ptc. is apparently unparalleled (FJ–W): ‘have mercy on us (so that we are) not destroyed’ or, as Moorhouse (1948, 37): ‘pity us … not being, I pray, consigned to perdition’.³⁷³ On nominative participles as predicatives (with εἶναι, γίγνεσθαι, etc.), see also K–G i.38–39.

Friis Johansen’s (1966) σκοπῶν is palaeographically extremely easy, and the stem is associated with Zeus elsewhere in the drama (381, 402–3, 646–47). If the traditional arrangement of the stichomythia is kept, σκοπῶν may be answered by ἴδοιτο δῆτα in 210 (see 204–24n. above).

³⁷³ On the masculine gender, see 204n. Here it may possibly mean that Danaus is included in the reference (so FJ–W).

Our happiness, dear friend, will always fit between the soles of our feet and the crown of our head; and whether it costs us a million a year or a hundred louis, we all, inside, have the same intrinsic perception of it.

Notre bonheur, mon cher, tiendra toujours entre la plante de nos pieds et notre occiput; et qu'il coûte un million par an ou cent louis, la perception intrinsèque en est la même au dedans de nous.

In his later years (during the early 19th century), he was the priest of a parish on the outskirts of Staffordshire who, when not preaching sermons to a sparse congregation, published variously on Classical matters. His only companions were a housekeeper of advanced years, Mrs Eurycleia Smith, a learned cat called Cicero who loved to recline on his Classical dictionaries and lexica, a voluble parrot called Cassandra, and his ever-faithful hound Argos, of somewhat decrepit appearance.

• Animal Dedicatees
• Yet More Feline Dedicatees of Books
• More Feline Dedicatees of Books
• Feline Dedicatees of Scholarly Books (D.R. Shackleton Bailey)
• Prince of the City of Books (Anatole France)
• Pangur Ban (Irish poem)
• Cats (poem by Baudelaire)

But perhaps this friend of yours, to pass over other things, is an old man; it can happen after all, that you have an old man as a friend. What do you love in the old man? His bent and twisted body, his white hairs, the wrinkles in his face, his sunken cheeks? If it's just the body you can see, there is nothing more unsightly than old age; and yet you love something, and you don't love the body which you can see, which is unsightly.

Sed forte amicus iste tuus, ut alia omittam, senex homo est: fieri enim potest ut habeas amicum senem. Quid amas in sene? Incurvum corpus, album caput, rugas in fronte, contractam maxillam? Si corpus quod vides, nihil deformius prae senectute: et tamen amas aliquid, et corpus quod vides non amas, quia deforme est.

May Zeus make all be well in very truth!
The desire of Zeus is not easy to hunt out:
the paths of his mind
stretch tangled and shadowy,
impossible to perceive or see clearly.

εἴθ᾿ εἴη ᾿κ Διὸς εὖ παναληθῶς·        86
Διὸς ἵμερος οὐκ εὐθήρατος ἐτύχθη·        87
δαῦλοι γὰρ πραπίδων        93
δάσκιοί τε τείνου-        94
σιν πόροι κατιδεῖν ἄφραστοι.        95

transp. Westphal

How can I be expected to see into the mind
of Zeus, gazing into its bottomless depths?

τί δὲ μέλλω φρένα Δίαν
καθορᾶν, ὄψιν ἄβυσσον;

... never unworthy of my mighty forebears.

... magnorum haud umquam indignus
avorum.

T.'s wish to prove himself worthy of his ancestors is a quintessentially Roman trait. Propertius' Cornelia, recently arrived in the Underworld, exhibits a similar concern. Her speech ends with a probable echo of T.'s words (4.11.99-100): sim digna merendo | cuius honoratis ossa uehantur auis. (auis is Heinsius' emendation for the manuscript readings aquis and equis; the Virgilian parallel may give it some additional support.) See also Oakley on Livy 7.10.3.

Let no such act be yours, men of Athens, but guard the laws, which are your own and above all else have made you supremely great, and do not try to do anything without their sanction.

μὴ ὑμεῖς γε, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, ἀλλ᾽ ἑαυτῶν ὄντας τοὺς νόμους, δι᾽ οὓς μάλιστα μέγιστοί ἐστε, φυλάττοντες, ἄνευ τούτων μηδὲν πράττειν πειρᾶσθε.

Here in Eusebius can be seen, sometimes obvious, sometimes a little more deftly hidden, almost the full range of perfectly alien motifs imported into martyrologies from pagan writings. The events described really took place, in some sequence now obscured by dramatic ornament; the date survives as witness to the original protocol; but, to begin with, the general atmosphere of a battle of wits, of παρρησία, in which both judge and persecuted engage and from which the one emerges triumphant, the other baffled even in ways that he does not realize, is quite false and quite in the style of Cynic debates. It is typical, too, that the judge should not only be called τύραννος, but should display the cruelty, dullness, and lack of culture regularly attributed to the tyrant. In the end, his very barbarity avails nothing against his victims, whose smiles in the midst of their agony defeat him—smiles and victories common in the martyr literature and suggestive of a debt to reports on the trials or deaths of Zeno, of Seneca, or the like.

1–12. If you are surprised in spite of your learning that I am celebrating on Matrons’ Day, it is because I made a vow to Bacchus on my escape from the falling tree; today will uncork a jar laid down in the year of that event. 13–16 Drink, Maecenas, in honour of your friend’s deliverance, and away with all hubbub. 17–24. You can forget your worries about home affairs; our enemies have been defeated in Dacia and Parthia, Spain and Scythia. 25–8. Do not be over-anxious about the people of Rome, and enjoy the moment.

What is a bachelor like myself doing on the first of March? What do the flowers mean, and the casket full of incense, and the charcoal laid on the altar of fresh-cut turf?

Are you, learned as you are in the discourses of both languages, wondering about this? Well, I vowed to the God of Freedom a delicious meal, including a white goat, on the occasion when I was almost sent to my grave by the blow of a tree.

As the year comes round, this festal day will remove the cork, with its seal of pitch, from a jar that was first taught to drink the smoke in Tullus’ consulship.

So quaff a hundred ladles, Maecenas, in honour of your friend’s escape, and keep the lamp burning until daylight. Away with all shouting and quarrelling.

Cast aside your worries for the capital and its citizens. The Dacian Cotiso’s army has fallen, our enemy, the Medes, are torn apart by a war that brings grief only to themselves.

The Cantabrian, our ancient foe from the coast of Spain, is our slave, tamed and in fetters at long last; now the Scythians have unstrung their bows and prepare to withdraw from their plains.

Don’t worry in case the people are in any trouble; you are a private citizen, so try not to be overanxious; gladly accept the gifts of the present hour, and let serious things go hang.

---

Martiis caelebs quid agam kalendis,
quid velint flores et acerra turis
plena miraris positusque carbo in
    caespite vivo,

docte sermones utriusque linguae?        5
voveram dulcis epulas et album
Libero caprum prope funeratus
    arboris ictu.

hic dies anno redeunte festus
corticem adstrictum pice dimovebit        10
amphorae fumum bibere institutae
    consule Tullo.

sume, Maecenas, cyathos amici
sospitis centum et vigiles lucernas
perfer in lucem: procul omnis esto        15
    clamor et ira.

mitte civilis super urbe curas:
occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen,
Medus infestus sibi luctuosis
    dissidet armis,        20

servit Hispanae vetus hostis orae
Cantaber, sera domitus catena,
iam Scythae laxo meditantur arcu
    cedere campis.

neglegens, ne qua populus laboret,        25
parce privatus nimium cavere et
dona praesentis cape laetus horae,
    linque severa.

But even so, why should we be interested in the past? The answer is the same: because we are interested in reality. There is nothing less real than the present.

But Pound, for good measure, deliberately planted ludicrous howlers, to amuse those who knew the Latin or chose to consult it.

• Pegasus Impounded, by W.G. Hale
• Dr. Syntax and Mr. Pound

In numeris etiam similiter κύβοϲ dicitur cum omne latus eiusdem numeri aequabiliter in sese sol uitur, sicuti fit cum ter terna ducuntur atque ipse numerus terplicatur.

Labels: typographical and other errors

With money so short the Athenians were unwilling to commit to expenditure, and so they immediately sent away the Thracians who had arrived too late for Demosthenes’ expedition. They commissioned Diitrephes to take them back home and told him to use them to do the enemy any damage he could on the way (they were going by the Euripus channel). [2] He disembarked them at Tanagra and quickly grabbed some plunder, then at nightfall sailed from Chalcis in Euboea across the Euripus and after landing in Boeotia led them against Mycalessus. [3] He camped for the night undetected near the sanctuary of Hermes, somewhat less than two miles from Mycalessus and at daybreak made an assault on the town, which is not a large one. He took it by storm, falling on the inhabitants when they were off their guard and not expecting anyone to come so far inland to attack them; besides, their walls were weak, in some places dilapidated and in others built to no great height; and at the same time the gates had been left open because they felt they had nothing to fear. [4] The Thracians surged into Mycalessus and started sacking the houses and temples and butchering the people; they spared neither young nor old but killed everyone in their path as they came on them — women and children, even beasts of burden and any other living thing they set eyes on. These Thracians are at their most murderous when their blood is up, like the very worst savages. [5] On this occasion total mayhem ensued, and death and destruction came in every form. They even burst in on a boys’ school, the largest one there, just after the pupils had entered it, and they massacred them all. So disaster struck the whole city and was the worst ever suffered, so sudden was it and so terrible.

[1] τοὺς οὖν Θρᾷκας τοὺς τῷ Δημοσθένει ὑστερήσαντας διὰ τὴν παροῦσαν ἀπορίαν τῶν χρημάτων οὐ βουλόμενοι δαπανᾶν εὐθὺς ἀπέπεμπον, προστάξαντες κομίσαι αὐτοὺς Διειτρέφει, καὶ εἰπόντες ἅμα ἐν τῷ παράπλῳ (ἐπορεύοντο γὰρ δι᾽ Εὐρίπου） καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους, ἤν τι δύνηται, ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν βλάψαι. [2] ὁ δὲ ἔς τε τὴν Τάναγραν ἀπεβίβασεν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἁρπαγήν τινα ἐποιήσατο διὰ τάχους καὶ ἐκ Χαλκίδος τῆς Εὐβοίας ἀφ᾽ ἑσπέρας διέπλευσε τὸν Εὔριπον καὶ ἀποβιβάσας ἐς τὴν Βοιωτίαν ἦγεν αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ Μυκαλησσόν. [3] καὶ τὴν μὲν νύκτα λαθὼν πρὸς τῷ Ἑρμαίῳ ηὐλίσατο（ἀπέχει δὲ τῆς Μυκαλησσοῦ ἑκκαίδεκα μάλιστα σταδίους）, ἅμα δὲ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ πόλει προσέκειτο οὔσῃ οὐ μεγάλῃ, καὶ αἱρεῖ ἀφυλάκτοις τε ἐπιπεσὼν καὶ ἀπροσδοκήτοις μὴ ἄν ποτέ τινας σφίσιν ἀπὸ θαλάσσης τοσοῦτον ἐπαναβάντας ἐπιθέσθαι, τοῦ τείχους ἀσθενοῦς ὄντος καὶ ἔστιν ᾗ καὶ πεπτωκότος, τοῦ δὲ βραχέος ᾠκοδομημένου, καὶ πυλῶν ἅμα διὰ τὴν ἄδειαν ἀνεῳγμένων. [4] ἐσπεσόντες δὲ οἱ Θρᾷκες ἐς τὴν Μυκαλησσὸν τάς τε οἰκίας καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ ἐπόρθουν καὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐφόνευον φειδόμενοι οὔτε πρεσβυτέρας οὔτε νεωτέρας ἡλικίας, ἀλλὰ πάντας ἑξῆς, ὅτῳ ἐντύχοιεν, καὶ παῖδας καὶ γυναῖκας κτείνοντες, καὶ προσέτι καὶ ὑποζύγια καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα ἔμψυχα ἴδοιεν· τὸ γὰρ γένος τὸ τῶν Θρᾳκῶν ὁμοῖα τοῖς μάλιστα τοῦ βαρβαρικοῦ, ἐν ᾧ ἂν θαρσήσῃ, φονικώτατόν ἐστιν. [5] καὶ τότε ἄλλη τε ταραχὴ οὐκ ὀλίγη καὶ ἰδέα πᾶσα καθειστήκει ὀλέθρου, καὶ ἐπιπεσόντες διδασκαλείῳ παίδων, ὅπερ μέγιστον ἦν αὐτόθι καὶ ἄρτι ἔτυχον οἱ παῖδες ἐσεληλυθότες, κατέκοψαν πάντας: καὶ ξυμφορὰ τῇ πόλει πάσῃ οὐδεμιᾶς ἥσσων μᾶλλον ἑτέρας ἀδόκητός τε ἐπέπεσεν αὕτη καὶ δεινή.

The Greek lexicon has not half done its work in telling us that idea meant appearance. Even in Plato's time it had got farther than that. Aquinas, who wrote in Latin, and translates it by the Latin forma, explains idea as being the builder's plan of a not-yet-built house. Now my Dutch word-book renders "idea" (as an English word) by ontwerp, which is to say, out-throw—that which the mind throws out, and not what it takes in. And in Holland a builder's plan is called an ontwerp. When the mind of a great Roman theologian jumps with the common mind of a Dutch folk, we ought to be able to take the result with some security. And it is the opposite pole of the meaning given us by the lexicon. The idea is not the appearance of a thing already there, but rather the imagination of a thing not yet there. It is not the look of a thing, it is a looking forward to a thing.

Previously unearthed, misidentified, and then nearly forgotten, Hannah Cotton Paltiel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem rediscovered the papyrus in 2014.

metuam hau multum. prope est quando †ceruso faciam† pretium exsoluet.

984 uersus sanari non potest

I shan't be greatly afraid. The time is close when my master will reward me.

• erus ob facta Bothe
• erus ob facta mihi Petrus Scherer, De particulae quando apud vetustissimos scriptores Latinos vi et usu (diss. Strasbourg, 1883), p. 29 (quandoc pro quando)
• erus sic si faciam Schoell
• hoc erus quae faciam Lindsay

Yet even in a Dark Age life continues, which is something that historians tend to overlook. Fields are still ploughed and sown, men go hunting, see their friends and relations, even tell stories.