It is a specious complaint that the power of understanding lessons is granted to only a few people while many waste their labor and their time through the slowness of their intellect. For you will find, much to the contrary, many people who are quick in thought and prompt to learn. Indeed, learning is natural to humans. Just as birds are born to fly, horses to run, and beasts to be savage, so is mental action and adroitness natural to us. It is for this reason that the origin of the mind is thought to lie in the heavens.
Dullness and an inability to be taught are no more aligned with human nature than colossal bodies and signs of monstrosity at birth, though these are comparatively few anyway. The proof is that hope of more shines forth in children. When it dies away over time, it is clear that it is due to a lack of care, not a fault of nature. ‘Some people are more talented than others.’ Sure, I grant that much. But that will achieve more or less: yet no one can be found who has accomplished nothing with effort.
Falsa enim est querela, paucissimis hominibus vim percipiendi quae tradantur esse concessam, plerosque vero laborem ac tempora tarditate ingenii perdere. Nam contra plures reperias et faciles in excogitando et ad discendum promptos. Quippe id est homini naturale, ac sicut aves ad volatum, equi ad cursum, ad saevitiam ferae gignuntur, ita nobis propria est mentis agitatio atque sollertia: unde origo animi caelestis creditur.
Hebetes vero et indociles non magis secundum naturam hominis eduntur quam prodigiosa corpora et monstris insignia, sed hi pauci admodum fuerunt. Argumentum, quod in pueris elucet spes plurimorum: quae cum emoritur aetate, manifestum est non naturam defecisse sed curam. “Praestat tamen ingenio alius alium.” Concedo; sed plus efficiet aut minus: nemo reperitur qui sit studio nihil consecutus.
“The best doctor for sufferings when they’re done
Is celebration—and the Muses’ talented daughters,
Songs to distract when they touch us,
Not even warm water can make limbs as soft
As the praise that takes the lyre as its partner.
An utterance lives longer than deeds,
Any word the tongue chances upon
With the Graces, drawn from a deep mind.”
“Shining Klytemnestra was resisting the shameful deed
Previously, for she had use of some good advice for her mind.
See, a man was there beside her, a singer whom Agamemnon
Ordered much to safeguard his wife when he went to Troy.
But when the fate of the gods was bound to overcome him,
Then [he*] packed off the singer to some lonely island
And left him there as food and booty for the birds
And he, willingly, took her willing to his own home”
*note how carefully the Homeric text leaves the subject of the action in doubt until the final line.
Schol. EM ad Od. 3.267
“In olden days, singers used to hold the position of philosopher, everyone used to consider them wise and they entrusted their kind to them to be educated. When gathering in festivals and to rest for many days, they used to listen to them if any famous or noble deed had happened. So, the singer who was left with Klytemnestra was trying to hinder wicked thoughts from happening by narrating the virtues of men and women. And she was acting prudently as long as that singer was present. Some people say that the singer did not have genitals, wrongly. Some named him Khariades, others call him Demodokos, others Glaukos.”
“A singer was stationed with her too. For in ancient times, singers used to have the position of philosophers. Some people who know things badly report that he was a Eunuch”
“Demetrius of Phalerum has as follows: “Menelaos, when he went with Odysseus to Delphi asked about the expedition which was about to happen against Troy. At that time, in fact, Kreon was running the nine-year contest of the Pythian games. The Spartan Demodokos won, a student of Automedon of Mycenae who was the first who composted the Battle of Amphritryon against the Teleboans and the Conflict of Kithairon and Helikon for whom the mountains in Boiotia are named. He was also a student of Perimedes the Argive who taught the Mycenean Automedes himself along with Likymnios the Bouprasian and Sinis along with Dôrieus, the Laconian Pharides and the Spartan Probolos.
At that time, Menelaos dedicated the expedition for Helen to Athena thanks to forethought. Agamemnon led Demodokos to Mycenae and ordered him to watch over Klytemnestra.
People used to honor singers excessively as teachers of the gods and other ancient acts of good men and they used to delight in the lyre beyond the other instruments. Klytemnestra clearly honored him—she didn’t have him murdered but instead ordered him to be exiled. Timolaus suggest that he was the brother of Phemios who accompanied Penelope to Ithaca to keep a watch over her. He sang for the suitors under compulsion.”
“The music of rhapsodes applied so much to political matters that people report that the city of Sparta used it especially to encourage like-mindedness and preservation of the customs. They also say that once the Pythia, when a disturbance developed, told people to listen a Lesbian song and stop their rivalry.”
“You deny that anything is possible without god. Look, here Strato from Lampascus interrupts to grant immunity to that god of yours, however big the task. And, since the gods’ priests get a vacation, it is so much fairer that the gods do too!
Anyway, Strato denies that he needs to use divine actions to create the universe: whatever exists—he teaches—comes from natural causes. He does not, however, follow the one who argues that [the world] was put together out of rough and smooth, hook-shaped or crooked atoms separated by void. He believes that these are dreams of Democritus not as he teaches but as he imagines things. Strato himself, as he outlines the components of the universe in order, insists that whatever is or develops emerges from or was made by natural means, through gravity and motion.
Thus he frees the god of great labor and me of fear. For, once they imagine that some deity is worrying about them, who wouldn’t shudder at divine power day and night and, when anything bad happens—for who avoids such things?—wouldn’t fear that it happened because of some negative judgment? Still, I don’t agree with Strato nor, to be honest, with you. Sometimes his idea seems more likely, at other times yours does.”
[121] Negas sine deo posse quicquam: ecce tibi e transverso Lampsacenus Strato, qui det isti deo inmunitatem — magni quidem muneris; sed cum sacerdotes deorum vacationem habeant, quanto est aequius habere ipsos deos —: negat opera deorum se uti ad fabricandum mundum, quaecumque sint docet omnia effecta esse natura, nec ut ille qui asperis et levibus et hamatis uncinatisque corporibus concreta haec esse dicat interiecto inani: somnia censet haec esse Democriti non docentis sed optantis, ipse autem singulas mundi partes persequens quidquid aut sit aut fiat naturalibus fieri aut factum esse docet ponderibus et motibus. ne ille et deum opere magno liberat et me timore. quis enim potest, cum existimet curari se a deo, non et dies et noctes divinum numen horrere et si quid adversi acciderit, quod cui non accidit, extimescere ne id iure evenerit? nee Stratoni tamen adsentior nec vero tibi; modo hoc modo illud probabilius videtur.’
“There’s not anyone who doesn’t change their plan and prayer every day. They want a spouse then a girlfriend, now to be kind and then next tries to act no better than a slave. Blow up so big to attract everyone’s contempt only to shrink and whittle back down to more humility than those who are barely there at all. Sometimes, you toss money around; other times, you steal it.
This is the foremost sign of a foolish mind: it tries to take this shape and that and is never equal to itself–a thing which I think is the most shameful quality. Trust me, it is a prize role, to play the part of a single person. But there’s no one who can be only one person except the wise one. The rest of us frequently change our shapes. Sometimes, you believe we are are frugal and serious, the rest of the time wasteful and silly. We keep changing our masks to take up the opposite character.
Instead, you should make yourself play that role up to the end of your life that you started at its beginning. Try to make people praise you, or, at the least, recognize who you are. As it is now, you can say about the person you saw yesterday, “who is this”, because that’s how much they’ve changed. Goodbye.”
Nemo non cotidie et consilium mutat et votum. Modo uxorem vult habere, modo amicam, modo regnare vult, modo id agit, ne quis sit officiosior servus, modo dilatat se usque ad invidiam, modo subsidit et contrahitur infra humilitatem vere iacentium, nunc pecuniam spargit, nunc rapit.
Sic maxime coarguitur animus inprudens; alius prodit atque alius et, quo turpius nihil iudico, impar sibi est. Magnam rem puta unum hominem agere. Praeter sapientem autem nemo unum agit, ceteri multiformes sumus. Modo frugi tibi videbimur et graves, modo prodigi et vani. Mutamus subinde personam et contrariam ei sumimus, quam exuimus. Hoc ergo a te exige, ut, qualem institueris praestare te, talem usque ad exitum serves. Effice ut possis laudari, si minus, ut adgnosci. De aliquo, quem here vidisti, merito dici potest: “hic qui est?” Tanta mutatio est. Vale.
Mid third century House of Masks, Sousse Archeological Museum of Sousse
22. “And, look, Joseph was prepared to leave to Judea and there was trouble in Bethlehem. For the Magi had come from the East in Persia, saying, “Where is the child born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the East and we have come to bow before him. When Herod heard this, he was upset and he sent attendants to the Magi and he also summoned the high priests and asked them, “Where has this “Christ” been born?” and they answered, “In Bethlehem of Judea—for it was written thus.” And he let them go. Then he questioned the Magi, saying to them, “What sign did you see for a king who was born?” And the magi said to him, we say the greatest start blazing among the these stars and making them seem dull. We knew from this that a king had been born for Israel. For this reason we came to bow before him.” And Herod responded, “Go and seek out the child carefully. And when he is found, send me news of it so that I can go and bow to him too.
And so the Magi left and, look, the star which they saw in the east led them on until they came to that place where the cave protected the child’s head. And when they saw him with his mother Mary, they bowed and took from their strongboxes the gifts they brought: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Because they had been warned by a sacred angel not to enter Judea near Herod, they took another route to return to their country.
22 But once Herod figured out that he had been evaded by the Magi, he was enraged and he sent assassins whom he ordered to kill all infants under two years. Once Mary heard that the infants were being killed, she took her child in fear and left to Egypt with Joseph, just as was predicated to them. But when Elisabeth took John and went into the hills and looked around for a place to hide him, there was no safe sanctuary. Then, she said as she cried, “Mountain, mountain—take a mother with her child. For she was not able to leave. And then suddenly, the mountain split into two and welcomed her. The mountain itself was alight for them and there was an angel of the lord looking over them.”
“I believe that you will anticipate that I didn’t lose those books without some kind of a stomach ache…”
puto enim te existimaturum a me illos libros non sine aliquo meo stomacho esse relictos.
Cicero, Letters to Quintus 24
“Concerning the issue of supplementing your Greek library and trading books in order to acquire Latin ones, I would really like to help get this done, since these exchanges are to my benefit as well. But I don’t have anyone even for my own purposes whom I can trust with this. The kinds of books which are helpful are not for sale and they cannot be procured without a deeply learned person who has a serious work ethic.”
De bibliotheca tua Graeca supplenda, libris commutandis, Latinis comparandis, valde velim ista confici, praesertim cum ad meum quoque usum spectent. sed ego mihi ipsi ista per quem agam non habeo. neque enim venalia sunt, quae quidem placeant, et confici nisi per hominem et peritum et diligentem non possunt.
“Whoever thinks that giving presents is an easy matter is wrong. This is a subject of extreme difficulty, if the gifts are made carefully and not just cast about randomly and impulsively. To one person I do a favor; to another I return one; to one I help; another I show pity.
I give to someone else because they shouldn’t be overcome by poverty and obsessed by it; to some I will give nothing even though they need it because they would still be in need whatever I give; to others I offer aid and some people I force to take it. I cannot be negligent in this effort and I am never more certain to write down names than when I am making a gift.”
Errat, si quis existimat facilem rem esse donare; plurimum ista res habet difficultatis, si modo consilio tribuitur, non casu et impetu spargitur. Hunc promereor, illi reddo; huic succurro, huius misereor; illum instruo dignum quem non deducat paupertas nec occupatum teneat; quibusdam non dabo, quamvis desit, quia, etiam si dedero, erit defuturum; quibusdam offeram, quibusdam etiam inculcabo. Non possum in hac re esse neglegens; numquam magis nomina facio quam cum dono.
“You appear to think that happiness comes from delicacy and abundance. But I think that wanting nothing is godlike, that wanting as little as possible is next-best, that the divine is the highest goal and next-best the closest thing.”
Athenian red figure pottery cup. Man offering a gift (rooster) to a boy, 5th century BC. With inscription: HO PAIS KALOS. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, AN 1896-1908 G.279.
“Drinking is double-edged for wretched mortals:
Thirst weakens your limbs and drunkenness is mean.
I’ll walk a fine line: you won’t persuade me
Not to drink nor to get too drunk.
