Fronto’s Regrets: Neck Pain Kept Me from Your Party

Fronto To Antonius Pius, 5 (Naber, p. 167).

“I would pay more than a part of my own life to embrace you on this happiest and most anticipated anniversary of your imperial accession—a day which I consider to be the birthday of my health, dignity, and security.

But serious shoulder pain and even worse neck pain afflict me so badly that I can barely bend, straighten up, or turn because I have to keep my neck so still. But I have returned to my Lares, Penates, and Family gods and have taken up my vows and I have prayed that next year I can embrace you twice on this day, twice to kiss your chest and hands, simultaneously completing the duty of this year and next.”

| Antonino Pio Augusto Fronto.

Carius <quam> vitae meae parte adpicisci cupio ut te complecterer felicissimo et optatissimo initi imperii die, quem ego diem natalem salutis dignitatis securitatis meae existimo. Sed dolor humeri gravis, cervicis vero multo gravissimus ita me adflixit, ut adhuc usque vix inclinare me vel erigere vel convertere possim: ita immobili cervice utor. Sed apud Lares Penates deosque familiares meos et reddidi et suscepi vota, et precatus sum, uti anno insequenti bis te complecterer isto die, bis pectus tuum et manus exoscularer praeteriti simul et praesentis anni vicem perficiens.

color photograph of a balding man clutching his neck in profile
From Wikimedia commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neckpain1621.jpg

“Everything is Laughter in The End”: An Epitaph

Anonymous epitaph for Democritus, Greek Anthology 7.56

“This was the source of Democritus’ laughter, as he would say immediately:
‘Did I not say, while laughing, that everything is laughter in the end?
For I too, after my boundless wisdom and ranks of books
lie like a joke beneath so many of them for a tomb.”

῏Ην ἄρα Δημοκρίτοιο γέλως τόδε, καὶ τάχα λέξει·
„Οὐκ ἔλεγον γελόων· ‚Πάντα πέλουσι γέλως’;
καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ σοφίην μετ’ ἀπείρονα καὶ στίχα βίβλων
τοσσατίων κεῖμαι νέρθε τάφοιο γέλως.”

By Antoine Coypel, 1692. Wikimedia Commons

Actors without Masks and Dancing Monkeys

Lucian, Apology 5

“These accusers will have no shortage of other examples for you. Some will liken you to tragic actors who strut the stage like an Agamemnon Creon, or even Herakles in the flesh, only with their masks off like a Polus or Aristodemus, acting parts for cash. They get booed and chased from the stage and sometimes they even get whipped when the audience wants it.

Others will claim you’re more like the monkey that Kleopatra is known for. It was taught to dance with charm and rhythm and was as much an object of praise because it kept up this charade, parading around in a proper fashion to accompany the singers and musicians of a bridal procession.”

οὐκ ἀπορήσουσι δὲ οἱ κατηγοροῦντες καὶ ἄλλων παραδειγμάτων ἐπί σε, ἀλλ᾿ οἱ μὲν τοῖς τραγικοῖς ὑποκριταῖς εἰκάσουσιν, οἳ ἐπὶ μὲν τῆς σκηνῆς Ἀγαμέμνων ἕκαστος αὐτῶν ἢ Κρέων ἢ αὐτὸς Ἡρακλῆς εἰσιν, ἔξω δὲ Πῶλος ἢ Ἀριστόδημος ἀποθέμενοι τὰ προσωπεῖα γίγνονται ὑπόμισθοι τραγῳδοῦντες, ἐκπίπτοντες καὶ συριττόμενοι, ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ μαστιγούμενοί τινες αὐτῶν, ὡς ἂν τῷ θεάτρῳ δοκῇ. ἄλλοι δὲ τὸ τοῦ πιθήκου πεπονθέναι σε φήσουσιν ὃν Κλεοπάτρᾳ τῇ πάνυ φασὶ γενέσθαι· ἐκεῖνον γὰρ διδαχθέντα τέως μὲν ὀρχεῖσθαι πάνυ κοσμίως καὶ ἐμμελῶς καὶ ἐπὶ πολὺ θαυμάζεσθαι μένοντα ἐν τῷ σχήματι καὶ τὸ πρέπον φυλάττοντα καὶ τοῖς ᾄδουσι καὶ αὐλοῦσι συγκινούμενον ὑμέναιον…

Dancing monkey at the Daman i Koh park, Margalla Hills, near Islamabad, Pakistan

Come, Play that Country Song

Moschus, Lament for Bion 116-126

“If I could have…
I would have gone down quickly to Plouto’s home
Descending into Tartaros like Orpheus or
Odysseus or Alkeides so I might see you and hear
What song you sing if you sing for Death.

But come, sing for Kore some Sicilian melody
And play some sweet country song.
She’s a country girl too and she also used to play
On the beaches near Aetna. She knows the Doric tune.

You won’t go without a prize for your melody
Just as once upon a time she gave Orpheus Eurydice
Because he played the lyre so sweetly, so too
To the hills, Bion, she will perhaps restore you.
And If I had any power in in my song
I would have sung for Plouto on my own.”

….εἰ δυνάμαν δέ,
ὡς Ὀρφεὺς καταβὰς ποτὶ Τάρταρον, ὥς ποκ’ Ὀδυσσεύς,
ὡς πάρος Ἀλκεΐδας, κἠγὼ τάχ’ ἂν ἐς δόμον ἦλθον
Πλουτέος ὥς κέ σ’ ἴδοιμι καί, εἰ Πλουτῆι μελίσδῃ,
ὡς ἂν ἀκουσαίμαν τί μελίσδεαι. ἀλλ’ ἄγε Κώρᾳ
Σικελικόν τι λίγαινε καὶ ἁδύ τι βουκολιάζευ·
καὶ κείνα Σικελά, καὶ ἐν Αἰτναίαισιν ἔπαιζεν
ᾀόσι, καὶ μέλος οἶδε τὸ Δώριον· οὐκ ἀγέραστος
ἐσσεῖθ’ ἁ μολπά, χὠς Ὀρφέι πρόσθεν ἔδωκεν
ἁδέα φορμίζοντι παλίσσυτον Εὐρυδίκειαν,
καὶ σέ, Βίων, πέμψει τοῖς ὤρεσιν. εἰ δέ τι κἠγών
συρίσδων δυνάμαν, παρὰ Πλουτέι κ’ αὐτὸς ἄειδον.

 

Pretending We Know the Good

Seneca, Moral Epistles 120.4-5

“Observation seems to us imply information, along with a comparison of things that happen often. So, our discipline judges what is good and honorable by analogy. Now, Latin grammarians have granted citizenship to this word “analogy, so I don’t think it should be condemned, while I do believe that it should be properly framed in its own state of origin. So, I will use this word not as it has been adapted, but as it was customarily applied.

Let me explain what this analogy is. We have comprehended the health of a body and from this have imagined that there is also health of mind. Just as we recognized physical strength, so too did we suggest mental vigor. Acts of kindness, humane deeds, feats of bravery, all these have dumfounded us. So we began to wonder at them as if they are perfect.

They all have many faults under the surface, but the appearance of a certain kind of glorious deed and the shine distract us. We pretend we don’t see these things. Nature commands us to amplify acts that we should praise; and everyone takes their glory beyond the truth. So, from these kinds of acts, we have crafted some appearance of the great good.”

Nobis videtur observatio collegisse et rerum saepe factarum inter se conlatio, per analogian nostri intellectum et honestum et bonum iudicant. Hoc verbum cum Latini grammatici civitate donaverint, ego damnandum non puto, puto in civitatem suam redigendum. Utar ergo illo non tantum tamquam recepto, sed tamquam usitato.

Quae sit haec analogia, dicam. Noveramus corporis sanitatem; ex hac cogitavimus esse aliquam et animi. Noveramus vires corporis; ex his collegimus esse et animi robur. Aliqua benigna facta, aliqua humana, aliqua fortia nos obstupefecerant; haec coepimus tamquam perfecta mirari. Suberant illis multa vitia, quae species conspicui alicuius facti fulgorque celabat; haec dissimulavimus. Natura iubet augere laudanda, nemo non gloriam ultra verum tulit; ex his ergo speciem ingentis boni traximus.

Rick Astley meme with Rick dancing and mixed latin and english saying "never going to bonum atque honestum videre perhaps meaning "never gonna see the good and the honorable"

On Counting and Thinking and Souls

Plato, Euthydemos 294b

“Are you also talented at these kinds of things, counting the stars and the sands?”

Ἦ καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα, τοὺς ἀστέρας, ὁπόσοι εἰσί, καὶ τὴν ἄμμον;

Plato, Theaetetus 198c

“Shall we make counting nothing different from examining how great a number happens to be?”

Τὸ δὲ ἀριθμεῖν γε οὐκ ἄλλο τι θήσομεν τοῦ σκοπεῖσθαι πόσος τις ἀριθμὸς τυγχάνει ὤν.

Aristotle, On Indivisible Lines 96ba-b

“The thought of touching each point of an infinite series is not counting, if someone should imagine that the mind approaches infinity in this way. Perhaps this is impossible. For the movement of thought is not like the movement of things carried along in a continuous sequence. But, whatever the case, even if movement like this can happen, it is not counting. For counting needs discrete stopping points.”

Οὐδὲ δὴ τὸ καθ᾿ ἕκαστον ἅπτεσθαι τῶν ἀπείρων τὴν διάνοιαν οὐκ ἔστιν ἀριθμεῖν, εἰ ἄρα τις καὶ νοήσειεν οὕτως ἐφάπτεσθαι τῶν ἀπείρων τὴν διάνοιαν. ὅπερ ἴσως ἀδύνατον· οὐ γὰρ ἐν συνεχέσι
καὶ ὑποκειμένοις ἡ τῆς διανοίας κίνησις, ὥσπερ ἡ τῶν φερομένων.
Εἰ δ᾿ οὖν καὶ ἐγχωρεῖ κινεῖσθαι οὕτως, οὐκ ἔστι τοῦτο ἀριθμεῖν· τὸ γὰρ ἀριθμεῖν ἐστὶ τὸ μετὰ ἐπιστάσεως.

Plotinus, Ennead 1.1

“But how do we have God? For he travels on the true nature of thought and reality as it really is. Here is we we come to meet him, in the third lot counted from him. As Plato says, “from the undivided above” and from those things that are divided into bodies.

We need to imagine this portion of the soul as also divided into bodies and that it supplies itself in part as the size of the bodies in relations to how much each living thing is proportionally, since it gives itself to everything, even though it is one….”

Τὸν δὲ θεὸν πῶς; Ἢ ὡς ἐποχούμενον τῇ νοητῇ φύσει καὶ τῇ οὐσίᾳ τῇ ὄντως, ἡμᾶς δὲ ἐκεῖθεν τρίτους ἐκ τῆς ἀμερίστου, φησί, τῆς ἄνωθεν καὶ ἐκ τῆς περὶ τὰ σώματα μεριστῆς, ἣν δὴ δεῖ νοεῖν οὕτω μεριστὴν περὶ τὰ σώματα, ὅτι δίδωσιν ἑαυτὴν τοῖς σώματος μεγέθεσιν, ὁπόσον ἂν ζῷον ᾖ ἕκαστον, ἐπεὶ καὶ τῷ παντὶ ὅλῳ, οὖσα μία·

Distracted from Justice by Profit

Plutarch, Life of Brutus 29

“Faith in his sense of principle provided was the foundation of his great good will and fame. For Pompey the Great was not expected—should he overcome Caesar—to put down his power in deference to the laws, but people thought he would keep his political control, smooth-talking the people with the name of consulship or dictator or some other more palatable office.

Now it was imagined that Cassius, an eager and emotional man often distracted from justice by profit, was pursuing war and adventure to create some dynasty for himself rather than freedom for his fellow citizens. For in an earlier time than that, people like Cinna, Marius, and Carbo, even though they made their own country their victory prize and source for spoils, they warred by their own confession for tyranny alone.”

καὶ μέγιστον ὑπῆρχεν αὐτῷ πρὸς εὔνοιαν καὶ δόξαν ἡ τῆς προαιρέσεως πίστις, οὔτε γὰρ ἐκεῖνος ὁ μέγας Πομπήϊος, εἰ Καίσαρα καθεῖλεν, ἠλπίζετο βεβαίως προήσεσθαι τοῖς νόμοις τὴν δύναμιν, ἀλλ᾿ ἀεὶ τὰ πράγματα καθέξειν, ὑπατείας ὀνόματι καὶ δικτατορίας ἤ τινος ἄλλης μαλακωτέρας ἀρχῆς παραμυθούμενος τὸν 5δῆμον· Κάσσιον δὲ τοῦτον, σφοδρὸν ἄνδρα καὶ θυμοειδῆ καὶ πολλαχοῦ πρὸς τὸ κερδαλέον ἐκφερόμενον τοῦ δικαίου, παντὸς μᾶλλον ᾤοντο πολεμεῖν καὶ πλανᾶσθαι καὶ κινδυνεύειν αὑτῷ τινα δυναστείαν κατασκευαζόμενον, οὐκ ἐλευθερίαν 6τοῖς πολίταις. τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἔτι τούτων πρεσβύτερα, Κίνναι καὶ Μάριοι καὶ Κάρβωνες, ἆθλον ἐν μέσῳ καὶ λείαν προθέμενοι τὴν πατρίδα, μονονουχὶ ῥητῶς ὑπὲρ τυραννίδος ἐπολέμησαν.

Pauwels Casteels, “The Death of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Philippi” c. 1650s

Get Rich With this One Simple Trick

Seneca, Moral Epistles 119.1-2

“Whenever I find something, I don’t wait until you say, “What’s yours is mine!” No. I say it myself.  You want to know what I found? Open your pocket, the profit is clear. I am going to show you how you can become rich as fast as possible.

Oh, you’re just burning up to hear it! And you’re not wrong–I’ll will show you the shortcut to the greatest riches. Still, you will need to get a loan. You need to take out debt to make money, but I don’t want you to use a broker. I will show you a lender ready and waiting, that famous one of Cato’s, who says “Take out a mortgage with yourself!” However little you get, it will be enough, if we can make up what’s missing from our own savings.

My Lucilius, it makes no difference whether you desire nothing or you have it. The biggest deal in either situation is the same: you shouldn’t be tortured by it.”

Quotiens aliquid inveni, non expecto, donec dicas “in commune.” Ipse mihi dico. Quid sit, quod invenerim quaeris; sinum laxa, merum lucrum est. Docebo, quomodo fieri dives celerrime possis. Quam valde cupis audire! nec inmerito; ad maximas te divitias conpendiaria ducam. Opus erit tamen tibi creditore; ut negotiari possis, aes alienum facias oportet, sed nolo per intercessorem mutueris, nolo proxenetae nomen tuum iactent. Paratum tibi creditorem dabo Catonianum illum, a te mutuum sumes. Quantulumcumque est, satis erit, si, quidquid deerit, id a nobis petierimus. Nihil enim, mi Lucili, interest, utrum non desideres an habeas. Summa rei in utroque eadem est: non torqueberis.

Meme of oil painting with man at money lender's table. the latin says "a te mutuum sumes" whihc means "borrow money for yourself"

Writing Advice from Odysseus and David Byrne

Homer, Odyssey 12.447-453

“From there I was carried for nine days and on the tenth
The gods drove me at night to the island where Kalypso,
That nymph with the good hair, the dread goddess lives.
She was loving me and taking care of me. But why should I tell that story again?
I already told the tale of these things yesterday in this house
To you and your wife. It is super annoying for me
To say something again once it was already said clearly.”

ἔνθεν δ’ ἐννῆμαρ φερόμην, δεκάτῃ δέ με νυκτὶ
νῆσον ἐς ᾿Ωγυγίην πέλασαν θεοί, ἔνθα Καλυψὼ
ναίει ἐϋπλόκαμος, δεινὴ θεὸς αὐδήεσσα,
ἥ μ’ ἐφίλει τ’ ἐκόμει τε. τί τοι τάδε μυθολογεύω;
ἤδη γάρ τοι χθιζὸς ἐμυθεόμην ἐνὶ οἴκῳ
σοί τε καὶ ἰφθίμῃ ἀλόχῳ· ἐχθρὸν δέ μοί ἐστιν
αὖτις ἀριζήλως εἰρημένα μυθολογεύειν.”

Odysseus Yearns for Ithaca by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein

The Talking Heads, Psycho Killer 14-17

You start a conversation you can’t even finish it
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed
Say something once, why say it again?

David Byrne

Teach Me What I Need to Know

Seneca, Moral Epistles 109.17-18

“I have done what you asked, although it was in a series of subjects which are in my works on moral philosophy. Consider what I am in the habit of telling you often: there is nothing in these kinds of studies for us other than practicing our wit. I repeatedly return to this: How does this subject help me? Make me braver now, more just, more temperate. There has been no time to practice yet, I still need my trainer beside me. Why do you ask me about useless knowledge?

You made massive promises: check this, watch!. You were saying that I would be fearless even if swords were clashing around me, even if the edges were just touching my throat–you were claiming I would feel safe, even if fires were raging around me, even if a sudden storm would toss my ship over the whole sea!

Offer me this cure now so I can spurn pleasure and glory. After that you will teach me to solve logic problems and make sense of ambiguity. For now, teach me what I need to know. BYE.”

Persolvi id quod exegeras, quamquam in ordine rerum erat, quas moralis philosophiae voluminibus complectimur. Cogita, quod soleo frequenter tibi dicere, in istis nos nihil aliud quam acumen exercere. Totiens enim illo revertor: quid ista me res iuvat? Fortiorem fac iam, iustiorem, temperantiorem. Nondum exerceri vacat; adhuc medico mihi opus est. Quid me poscis scientiam inutilem? Magna promisisti; exige, vide. Dicebas intrepidum fore, etiam si circa me gladii micarent, etiam si mucro tangeret iugulum; dicebas securum fore, etiam si circa me flagrarent incendia, etiam si subitus turbo toto navem meam mari raperet. Hanc mihi praesta curam, ut voluptatem, ut gloriam contemnam. Postea docebis inplicta solvere, ambigua distinguere, obscura perspicere; nunc doce quod necesse est. Vale.

screen shot from super mario brothers. mario about to get a power uo