“How I wish that you had invited me to that most sumptuous feast on the Ides of March! We would now have no little scraps if you had. But now you have with them such difficulty in preventing that divine benefit which you bestowed upon the Republic from exciting some complaint. But, though it is hardly right, I am on occasion angry with you, because it was by you – a noble man indeed – it was by you and by your good service that this pest [Marc Antony] was led away and still lives. Now you have left behind more trouble for me alone than for everyone else.”
Quam vellem ad illas pulcherrimas epulas me Idibus Martiis invitasses! reliquiarum nihil haberemus. at nunc cum iis tantum negoti est ut vestrum illud divinum <in> rem publicam beneficium non nullam habeat querelam. quod vero a te, viro optimo, seductus est tuoque beneficio adhuc vivit haec pestis, interdum, quod mihi vix fas est, tibi subirascor; mihi enim negoti plus reliquisti uni quam praeter me omnibus.
“But should all these things befall us, the Ides of March may console. Our heroes too accomplished most gloriously and magnificently everything it was in their power to do. For the rest, we need money and troops, neither of which we have.”
Sed omnia licet concurrant, Idus Martiae consolantur. nostri autem ἥρωες quod per ipsos confici potuit gloriosissime et magnificentissime confecerunt; reliquae res opes et copias desiderant, quas nullas habemus
Cicero, Letters to Brutus I.15 (23) 14 July 43
“Therefore, come here, by the gods, as fast as possible; Convince yourself that it would do your country no greater good if you come quickly than you did on the Ides of March when you freed your fellow citizens from slavery.”
subveni igitur, per deos, idque quam primum, tibique persuade non te Idibus Martiis, quibus servitutem a tuis civibus depulisti, plus profuisse patriae quam, si mature veneris, profuturum.
Cicero, Letters to Brutus, 1.15 (23) July 43
“After the death of Caesar and your unforgettable Ides of March, Brutus, you will not have lost sight of the the fact that I said that one thing was overlooked by you—how much a storm loomed over the Republic. The greatest disease was warded off thanks to you—a great blight was cleansed from the Roman people—and you won immortal fame for your part. But the mechanism of monarchy fell then to Lepidus and Antonius—one of whom is more erratic, while the other is rather unclean—both fearing peace and ill-fit to idle time.”
Post interitum Caesaris et vestras memorabilis Idus Martias, Brute, quid ego praetermissum a vobis quantamque impendere rei publicae tempestatem dixerim non es oblitus. magna pestis erat depulsa per vos, magna populi Romani macula deleta, vobis vero parta divina gloria, sed instrumentum regni delatum ad Lepidum et Antonium, quorum alter inconstantior, alter impurior, uterque pacem metuens, inimicus otio.
The death of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate by Vincenzo Camuccini
J.E. Sandys, A Companion to Latin Studies (§ 1047)
Philosophy, on its first introduction into Rome in the wake of Greek literature, art, and science, encountered fierce opposition, but the personal influence of the younger Scipio and his friends procured the new learning a hearing; and the teachers, notably Panaetius, had the tact to keep abstruse speculation out of sight and present their subject to their Roman pupils on its practical and literary side.
Each of the three Schools most prominent at the time, the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the New Academy, gained some adherents, but the influence of the first was undoubtedly the greatest and the most permanent. It has been well said that the heroes of the early Republic were unconscious Stoics, and no sooner was this system of moral philosophy made intelligible to cultivated Romans than it exercised an irresistible attraction. In a time when religious belief was decaying, the best intellects welcomed in its place a doctrine which had so strong an affinity with the national character: there was a sort of informal alliance between the public policy and the philosophic convictions of such a man as Cato.
But, though philosophy had its triumphs at Rome, it never quite shook off the national prejudice. Having been committed to the Republican cause by Cato, the Stoics were generally in opposition during the early Empire, and more than once the government, as a precautionary measure, banished philosophers from Rome. The educational value of philosophic study was, indeed, recognised, and its wide influence is attested by much of the best literature. But zeal on the part of the pupils never supplied the lack of initiative; they had no ambition to found new schools of thought, originality was confined either to the choice of a system (thus Varro selected the Old Academy out of 288 possible systems), or to the arbitrary fitting together of various parts from different systems, according to the individual’s own caprice.
In confining their attention to popular philosophy and to practical questions, the Roman students conformed to, and by their adhesion strengthened, a tendency already powerful in the later Greek schools, where the controversies of centuries had led to scepticism on one hand and eclecticism on the other.
“Isis sends her mother the most greetings. I make a prayer for you each day before lord Sarapis and the gods who are with him.
I want to tell you that I made it safely and well to Alexandria in four days. I send greetings to my sister and her children, and Elouath and his wife, as well as Diokorous and her husband and son and Tamalis and her husband and son, and Hêron and Ammonarion and her children and her husband and Sanpat and her children. If Aiôn wants to join the army, have him come. For everyone is joining the army.
I pray for you and everyone in the house to be well.
Apart from Trotsky, whom Breton visited in Mexico City before his murder, the Surrealists had no durable heroes among politicians, dead or alive. But they did accumulate a list of “saints” who, in their opinion, had lived out the surrealist ideal of liberty before its time. It was a mixed bag of Romantic heroes and heroines, given to strong feeling and unrestrained search; among others, Byron and Victor Hugo, Novalis and Lautréamont, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Huysmans, and Jarry. Surrealism preferred Heraclitus to Plato, and Raymond Lull’s mystico-alchemical fantasies to the ordered arguments of Thomas Aquinas.
“Please don’t let me be associated with any artistic movements in the future!”
This letter contains a reference to disposing of a female infant.
P. Oxy. 120 (1st Century BCE) From Hilarion to Alis
“Hilarion sends sends many, many greetings to his sister along with my lady Berous and Apollonarion. Listen, we are still in Alexandria. Don’t worry about this—if they go home completely, I will stay in Alexandria. I am asking you and begging you to take care of the little child and when we are paid, I will send it to you right away. If you happen to be pregnant again, if it is a boy, leave it; if it is a girl, throw it out.
You have told Aphrodisias “don’t forget me.” How could I possibly forget you? Please, do not be worried….”
After a short description of the unworthy conduct of those Apostates who, in a time of persecution, deserted the Faith of Christ, I produced the evidence of a Pagan Proconsul, and of two Christian Bishops, Pliny, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Cyprian. And here the unforgiving Critic remarks,
“That Pliny has not particularized that difference of conduct (in the different Apostates) which Mr. Gibbon here describes: yet his name stands at the head of those Authors whom he has cited on the occasion. It is allowed indeed that this distinction is made by the other Authors; but as Pliny, the first referred to by Mr. Gibbon, gives him no cause or reason to use them,” (I cannot help Mr. Davis’s bad English) “it is certainly very reprehensible in our Author, thus to confound their testimony, and to make a needless and improper reference.”
A criticism of this sort can only tend to expose Mr. Davis’s total ignorance of historical composition. The Writer who aspires to the name of Historian, is obliged to consult a variety of original testimonies, each of which, taken separately, is perhaps imperfect and partial. By a judicious re-union and arrangement of these dispersed materials, he endeavours to form a consistent and interesting narrative. Nothing ought to be inserted which is not proved by some of the witnesses; but their evidence must be so intimately blended together, that as it is unreasonable to expect that each of them should vouch for the whole, so it would be impossible to define the boundaries of their respective property. Neither Pliny, nor Dionysius, nor Cyprian, mention all the circumstances and distinctions of the conduct of the Christian Apostates; but if any of them was withdrawn, the account which I have given would, in some instance, be defective.
Thus much I thought necessary to say, as several of the subsequent misrepresentations of Orosius, of Bayle, of Fabricius, of Gregory of Tours, etc, which provoked the fury of Mr. Davis, are derived only from the ignorance of this common historical principle.
Another class of Misrepresentations, which my Adversary urges with the same degree of vehemence (See in particular those of Justin, Diodorus Siculus, and even Tacitus), requires the support of another principle, which has not yet been introduced into the art of criticism; that when a modern historian appeals to the authority of the ancients for the truth of any particular fact; he makes himself answerable, I know not to what extent, for all the circumjacent errors or inconsistencies of the authors whom he has quoted.
BBC206171 Portrait of Edward Gibbon (1737-94) c.1779 (oil on canvas) by Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1723-92) Private Collection English, out of copyright
After the suitor Amphimedon arrives in the underworld and tells the story of Penelope’s shroud and Odysseus’ return, Agamemnon responds:
Odyssey 24.192-202:
“Blessed child of Laertes, much-devising Odysseus,
You really secured a wife with magnificent virtue!
That’s how good the brains are for blameless Penelope,
Ikarios’ daughter, how well she remembered Odysseus,
Her wedded husband. The fame of her virtue will never perish,
And the gods will craft a pleasing song
Of mindful Penelope for mortals over the earth.
This is not the way for Tyndareos’ daughter.
She devised wicked deeds and since she killed
Her wedded husband, a hateful song
Will be hers among men, she will attract harsh rumor
To the race of women, even for those who are good.”
More than half of this speech praises Penelope for being a loyal, ‘good’ wife (and that is another issue of its own). Of course, this makes Agamemnon think of Klytemnestra. There’s a lot to be said about how this passage sets up the end of the Odyssey, but Agamemnon’s words are striking because they reflect a sad reality not just about misogynistic thinking but about the operation of human thought.
Let’s start with the misogyny: Agamemnon says here, quite clearly, that because of the behavior of one woman (well, two if we hear ambiguity in the phrase “Tyndareos’ daughter” and think of Helen too) all women have bad fame, even if they are “good”? A simple response to this is to wonder whether the same applies to men (of course not…) Let’s pass over the fact that the murder of Agamemnon was probably well deserved. I think this passage also reflects human cognition: the story of Klytemnestra is paradigmatic. We learn basic patterns about people and the world and apply these patterns (prejudices) as substitutions for deeper thought.
I am not sure whether this serves as a bit of an anticipatory apologetic on the part of epic–that the tale of Penelope cannot match up to negative messages about women. It probably stands as an acknowledgement of a “negative expectancy effect”–we are primed to hear negative tales and to believe negative things. I suspect that on Homer’s part this is probably less about women and more about anticipating the reception of this poem.
But, at the very least, this is a clear indication that Homer knows the way it goes: we live in a cultural system that discounts positive stories about women in favor of negative ones and which, accordingly, downgrades the authority of the stories they tell. In our responses to the testimonies of men and women, men have the privilege of being individuals whose lives might be ruined by rumor and false claims, while women are always already undermined. This is is an example of structural misogyny.
For discussions of this passage see: On the contrasting fame of Klytemnestra and Penelope, see Franco 2012, 60–61. For invocations of Klytemnestra as an example of how a woman can ruin a nostos, see Murnaghan 2011, chapter 4 and Nagy 1999, 36–39.
Classical myth deserves trigger warnings.
Franco, Cristina. 2012. “Women in Homer,” in Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon, eds., A Companion to Women in the Ancient World. London. 55–65.
Marquardt, Patricia. 1989. “Love’s Labor’s Lost: Women in the Odyssey,” in Robert Sutton, ed., Daidalikon: Studies in Honor of Raymond V. Schoder, S.J. Chicago. 239-248.
Murnaghan, Sheila. 2011. Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey, Second Edition. Lanham.
Nagy, Gregory 1996. Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond. Cambridge
Lorenzo Valla gives his greetings to that exceptional man Giovanni Tortelli
I have received news that you are wondrously dedicated to Greek literature, which is exceptionally pleasing news to me. I hope, for our friendship, that you will be a totally singular man in the humanities, as even in other arts. But more about this at another time. I am writing to you now in haste wishing to be informed whether you returned my books to my brother, or whether you still have them with you? This way I’ll know who I can run to when the need arises. Farewell.
LAURENTIUS VALLENSIS EXIMIO VIRO IOANNI ARRETINO SALUTEM.
Accepi te mirifice deditum litteris grecis, quod mihi pergratum est. Pro nostra amicitia spero te singularem virum fore in studiis humanitatis, ut et in ceteris artibus. Sed hec alias. Nunc per festinantiam scribo volens abs te certior fieri an libros meos fratri meo reddideris,?an? tecum retinueris, ut sciam, quando opus erit, ad quem possem recurrere. Vale.
