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Aristotle, Politics 1287b

“There’s no natural tyranny”

τυραννικὸν δ᾿ οὐκ ἔστι κατὰ φύσιν

Dio Chrysostom, 6.52-53 On Tyranny

“Therefore, whenever there is war, tyrants long for peace, but when there is peace, they immediately plan for war. When people have everything they need in life, tyrants fear the arrogance of the masses, but whenever there is too little, they fear their rage. They believe that it is is neither safe to go out nor to stay at home, nor to appear in public, nor to remain isolated. They do not even think they can go where it is clearly safe to go. They think that every corner is full of plots and deceit. Each tyrant brings to mind the deaths of other tyrants and all the plots that ever developed around them, imaging that every one of them is coming toward him…”

τοιγαροῦν πολέμου μὲν ὄντος εἰρήνης ἐρῶσιν, εἰρήνης δὲ γενομένης εὐθὺς μηχανῶνται πόλεμον. καὶ τοῦτο μὲν τῶν ἐπιτηδείων ἀφθόνων ὄντων δεδοίκασι τοῦ πλήθους τὴν ὕβριν, τοῦτο δὲ εἴ τις ἔνδεια καταλαμβάνοι, τὴν ὀργήν. ἡγοῦνται δὲ μήτε ἀποδημεῖν ἀσφαλὲς μήτε μένειν μήτε προϊέναι μήτ᾿ ἔνδον διαιτᾶσθαι παρ᾿ αὑτοῖς, ἀλλὰ μηδὲ ἐπιβαίνειν οὗ ἂν ἐπιβαίνωσιν ἀσφαλῶς, ἅπαντα δὲ εἶναι μεστὰ ἐνέδρας καὶ δόλων. ἀναλογίζεται δὲ ἕκαστος αὐτῶν καὶ τοὺς θανάτους τῶν τυράννων καὶ τὰς ἐπιβουλάς, ὅσαι πώποτε γεγόνασι, καὶ ξύμπαντα ταῦτα ἐφ᾿ αὑτὸν ἰέναι νομίζει

Dio Chrysostom, On Custom 76.2

“I guess that I can compare the written law to the power of tyranny: for each law is enacted by means of fear and prohibition. Custom, then, I could compare to the ease of kingship when all people follow it because they want to and without compulsion. So, we know many laws which have been taken back by the very people who made them because they were bad, but no one could easily demonstrate a custom that has been eliminated.”

Διό μοι δοκεῖ τις ἂν προσεικάσαι τὸν μὲν ἔγγραφον νόμον τῇ δυνάμει τῆς τυραννίδος, φόβῳ γὰρ ἕκαστον καὶ μετὰ προστάγματος διαπράττεται· τὸ δὲ ἔθος μᾶλλον τῇ φιλανθρωπίᾳ τῆς βασιλείας, βουλόμενοι γὰρ αὐτῷ πάντες καὶ δίχα ἀνάγκης ἕπονται καὶ νόμους μὲν ἴσμεν πολλοὺς ἀνῃρημένους ὑπὸ τῶν θέντων αὐτούς, ὡς πονηρούς· ἔθος δὲ οὐκ ἂν οὐδεὶς ῥᾳδίως δείξειε λελυμένον. 

Tyrannosaurus Rex is a tyrant and a king and this confuses me

Four Years of Just the Best Memories: Warning! An Uneducated Leader Can Still Do What He Wants

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 Another passage from Plutarch’s fragmentary “To an Educated Ruler…”

782b-c

“Among the weak, base and private citizens, ignorance when combined with a lack of power yields little wrongdoing, as in nightmares some trouble upsets the mind, making it incapable of responding to its desires. But when power has been combined with wickedness it adds energy to latent passions. And so that saying of Dionysus is true—for he used to say that he loved his power most when he could do what he wanted quickly. It is truly a great danger when one who wants what is wrong has the power to do what he wants to do.

As Homer puts it “When the plan was made, then the deed was done.” When wickedness has an open course because of its power, it compels every passion to emerge, producing rage, murder, lust, adultery, and greedy acquisition of public wealth.”

Ἐν μὲν γὰρ τοῖς ἀσθενέσι καὶ ταπεινοῖς καὶ ἰδιώταις τῷ ἀδυνάτῳ μιγνύμενον τὸ ἀνόητον εἰς τὸ ἀναμάρτητον τελευτᾷ, ὥσπερ ἐν ὀνείρασι φαύλοις τις ἀνία τὴν ψυχὴν διαταράττει συνεξαναστῆναι ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις μὴ δυναμένην· ἡ δ᾿ ἐξουσία παραλαβοῦσα τὴν κακίαν νεῦρα τοῖς πάθεσι προστίθησι· καὶ τὸ τοῦ Διονυσίου ἀληθές ἐστιν· ἔφη γὰρ ἀπολαύειν μάλιστα τῆς ἀρχῆς, ὅταν ταχέως ἃ βούλεται ποιῇ. μέγας οὖν ὁ κίνδυνος βούλεσθαι ἃ μὴ δεῖ τὸν ἃ βούλεται ποιεῖν δυνάμενον·

αὐτίκ᾿ ἔπειτά γε μῦθος ἔην, τετέλεστο δὲ ἔργον (Il. 19.242). ὀξὺν ἡ κακία διὰ τῆς ἐξουσίας δρόμον ἔχουσα πᾶν πάθος ἐξωθεῖ, ποιοῦσα τὴν ὀργὴν φόνον τὸν ἔρωτα μοιχείαν τὴν πλεονεξίαν δήμευσιν.

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On the Beginning of Medicine

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Isidore, Etymologies 4.13

Some people ask why the art of Medicine is not grouped among the other liberal arts. It is because they all contain singular causes, but medicine contains the causes of all. For doctors ought to know Grammar, so that they can understand or explain what they read. Similarly, they must know Rhetoric, so that they have the power to define what they are doing with true arguments. Indeed, they must know Dialectic for applying their reason to investigating and caring for the causes of diseases. Similarly, they must know Arithmetic on account of the number of hours in the accessions and periods of the day. Not otherwise is the knowledge of Geometry necessary because of the qualities of regions and the sites of various places, in which the doctor must teach what each person ought to observe. Further, Music will not be unfamiliar to doctors, for there are many things which we may read about its effects in sick people. We read of David that he snatched Saul from an unclean spirit with the art of musical modulation. The doctor Asclepiades, too, restored a certain man suffering from frenzy to his earlier state of health through symphonic music. Finally, the doctor will also have some knowledge of Astronomy, through which may be contemplated the relation of the stars and the changes of the seasons. For just as a certain doctor says, our bodies are changed with their qualities. It is for this reason that medicine is called a second Philosophy – for each of these disciplines claims the whole person for itself. For just as the soul is cared for by Philosophy, so is the body cared for by Medicine.

XIII. DE INITIO MEDICINAE. Quaeritur a quibusdam quare inter ceteras liberales disciplinas Medicinae ars non contineatur. Propterea, quia illae singulares continent causas, ista vero omnium. Nam et Grammaticam medicus scire debet, ut intellegere vel exponere possit quae legit. Similiter et Rhetoricam, ut veracibus argumentis valeat definire quae tractat. Necnon et Dialecticam propter infirmitatum causas ratione adhibita perscrutandas atque curandas. Sic et Arithmeticam propter numerum horarum in accessionibus et periodis dierum. Non aliter et Geometriam propter qualitates regionum et locorum situs, in quibus doceat quid quisque observare oporteat. Porro Musica incognita illi non erit, nam multa sunt quae in aegris hominibus per hanc disciplinam facta leguntur; sicut de David legitur, qui ab spiritu inmundo Saulem arte modulationis eripuit. Asclepiades quoque medicus phreneticum quendam per symphoniam pristinae sanitati restituit. Postremo et Astronomiam notam habebit, per quam contempletur rationem astrorum et mutationem temporum. Nam sicut ait quidam medicorum, cum ipsorum qualitatibus et nostra corpora commutantur. Hinc est quod Medicina secunda Philosophia dicitur. Vtraque enim disciplina totum hominem sibi vindicat. Nam sicut per illam anima, ita per hanc corpus curatur.

Four Years of Presidential Memories: Κ᾿[α]π ε᾿φη[φ]ε, A Future Scholion on #Covfefe

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In a distant future, scholars laboring over dead languages and the confluence of allusions in the CET (Corpus Electronicum Pipiatorum) make learned guesses on the possible meanings contained within a mysterious neologism #cavfefe:

Κ᾿ <ά>π ε᾿φη[φ]ε [sc. κε μὴ…τοῦτο]: “would that he had not said it”
or Κ᾿ <ά>π ε᾿φη[φ]ε = κ<αὶ> ἀπ<έ>φη<να>: “And I declared…”

Ex. The lexical item often appears with references to speakers in a position of political or intellectual authority who are making official statements regarding an immutable truth. Vide Eur. Suppl. 335-7 where Theseus speaks:

“The words that I said were right, Mother.
And I have also declared [K’apephênamên] my opinion on the matter,
Of the kinds of councils over which he tripped.”

Θη. ἐμοὶ λόγοι μέν, μῆτερ, οἱ λελεγμένοι
ὀρθῶς ἔχουσ’ ἐς τόνδε κἀπεφηνάμην
γνώμην ὑφ’ οἵων ἐσφάλη βουλευμάτων.

Cf. Anth. Graec. 9.366

“Many people are worse” declared Bias of Priêne.
„Τοὺς πλέονας κακίους” δὲ Βίας ἀπέφηνε Πριηνεύς.

Cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Distinguished Philosophers

“[Plato] claimed that there are two origins of everything, god and matter, which he also called the mind and the cause.”

3.69 δύο δὲ τῶν πάντων ἀπέφηνεν ἀρχάς, θεὸν καὶ ὕλην, ὃν καὶ νοῦν προσαγορεύει καὶ αἴτιον.

Many contemporaries puzzled over the meaning. Proposals included scribal error (which we bar based on the lectio difficilior), a coded, but ungrammatical wish, a desire for an implement to brew a now extinct stimulant, and, as typical of those barbarous times, invocations of the occult.

https://twitter.com/SegoAG/status/869894608880357377

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Four Years of the Best Greatness: Bragging About Fake Accomplishments, Another Fable for Our Times

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Phaedrus I.22. Mustela et Homo

“A weasel was caught by a man and to avoid
Coming death, was begging him “Spare me, please
Since I rid your home of pestilent mice.”
And he responded, “if you did this for me
I would be grateful and do for you something nice.
But since you do these favors to enjoy the remains
Which the mice leave behind when you eat them too
Don’t ask me to do anything kind for you!”

He said this and sentenced the wicked weasel to die.

There are those who should know this tale is about them:
Their private business safeguards their own affairs
And they brag about accomplishments that are not there.”

A Weasel

Mustela ab homine prensa, cum instantem necem
effugere vellet, “Parce, quaeso”, inquit “mihi,
quae tibi molestis muribus purgo domum”.
Respondit ille “Faceres si causa mea,
gratum esset et dedissem veniam supplici.
Nunc quia laboras ut fruaris reliquiis,
quas sunt rosuri, simul et ipsos devores,
noli imputare vanum beneficium mihi”.
Atque ita locutus improbam leto dedit.
Hoc in se dictum debent illi agnoscere,
quorum privata servit utilitas sibi,
et meritum inane iactant imprudentibus.

Tantalus and a Tyrant, A Living Corpse

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Dio Chrysostom, 6.54-55 On Tyranny

“The more clearly a tyrant is afraid, the more people conspire against him because they despise his cowardice. He lives like a person  isolated in a small cage where swords are hanging above his head, pointing at him from every direction, some just grazing his skin.

They are fixed this close not just to his body but to the tyrant’s soul too, so much that Tantalos in Hades has an easier plight, the one they say: “fears the rock swinging over his head.” Tantalos, at least, doesn’t have to fear death any more, while the tyrant suffers alive what people say only happens to a corpse.”

ὅσῳ γὰρ ἂν ἐνδηλότερος ᾖ φοβούμενος ἀνὴρ τύραννος, τοσούτῳ μᾶλλον ἐπιβουλεύουσι καταφρονοῦντες τῆς δειλίας. ἔστιν οὖν ὁ βίος ὅμοιος ὥσπερ εἴ τις καθείρξειέ τινα ἐν εἱρκτῇ μικρᾷ, τῶν μὲν ἄνωθεν ξιφῶν κρεμαμένων, τῶν δὲ κυκλόθεν περιπεπηγότων, καὶ τούτων ἁπτομένων τοῦ χρωτός· οὕτως οὐ τῷ σώματι μόνον, ἀλλὰ τῇ ψυχῇ τοῦ τυράννου περιπέπηγε τὰ ξίφη, ὥστε τὸν ἐν Ἅιδου Τάνταλον, ὅν φασι  “κεφαλῆς4 ὑπερτέλλοντα δειμαίνειν πέτρον” πολὺ ῥᾷον διάγειν. οὐ γὰρ δὴ ἔτι φοβεῖται ὁ Τάνταλος μὴ ἀποθάνῃ· τῷ δὲ τυράννῳ ζῶντι τοῦτο ξυμβέβηκεν ὃ ἐκείνῳ νεκρῷ λέγουσιν.

“The Sword of Damocles” by Richard Westfall

Presidential Advice: Keep Up With Latin and Greek!

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Letter From Thomas Jefferson to Francis Eppes, 6 October 1820:

“Your letter of the 28th came to hand yesterday, and, as I suppose you are now about leaving Richmond for Columbia, this letter will be addressed to the latter place. I consider you as having made such proficiency in Latin & Greek that on your arrival at Columbia you may at once commence the study of the sciences: and as you may well attend two professors at once, I advise you to enter immediately with those of Mathematics & Chemistry. after these go on to Astronomy, Natl philosophy, Natl history & Botany. I say nothing of Mineralogy or Geology, because I presume they will be comprehended in the Chemical course. nor shall I say any thing of other branches of science, but that you should lose no time on them until the accomplishment of those above named, before which time we shall have opportunities of further advising together. I hope you will be permitted to enter at once into a course of mathematics, which will itself take up all that is useful in Euclid, and that you will not be required to go formally thro’ the usual books of that Geometer. that would be a waste of time which you have not to spare, and if you cannot enter the Mathematical school without it, do not enter it at all, but engage in the others sciences above mentioned. Your Latin & Greek should be kept up assiduously by reading at spare hours: and, discontinuing the desultory reading of the schools. I would advise you to undertake a regular course of history & poetry in both languages, in Greek, go first thro’ the Cyropaedia, and then read Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon’s Hellenies & Anabasis, Arrian’s Alexander, & Plutarch’s lives,, for prose reading: Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey, Euripides, Sophocles in poetry, & Demosthenes in Oratory; alternating prose & verse as most agreeable to yourself. in Latin read Livy, Caesar, Sallust Tacitus, Cicero’s Philosophies, and some of his Orations, in prose; and Virgil, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Horace, Terence & Juvenal for poetry. After all these, you will find still many of secondary grade to employ future years, and especially those of old age and retirement.”

Four Years of Presidential Memories: “The Criminal We Selected,” Another Fable for Our Time

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Phaedrus 1.31 Kite and doves

“Whoever trusts a dishonest man to keep him safe,
Discovers ruin where he thought he would find aid.
When the doves were often fleeing from the kite
And were avoiding death by wings’ rapid flight
The kite turned his plans toward deceit
And tricked the silly race with this conceit:
“Why do you live a live with so much worrying,
When with a simple oath, you could make me king?
I would keep you safe from every harm?”
Believing him, they put their safety in his arms.
Once he gained the realm he ate them one by one
And exercised his power with the harshest talons.
Then one of the remaining doves reflected,
“We deserve this: we gave our life to a criminal we selected.”

kite

I.31 Milvus et Columbae

Qui se committit homini tutandum improbo,
auxilia dum requirit, exitium invenit.
Columbae saepe cum fugissent milvum,
et celeritate pinnae vitassent necem,
consilium raptor vertit ad fallaciam,
et genus inerme tali decepit dolo:
“Quare sollicitum potius aevum ducitis
quam regem me creatis icto foedere,
qui vos ab omni tutas praestem iniuria?”
Illae credentes tradunt sese milvo.
Qui regnum adeptus coepit vesci singulas,
et exercere imperium saevis unguibus.
Tunc de reliquis una “Merito plectimur,
huic spiritum praedoni quae commisimus”.

A Tyrant’s Life is Never Safe

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Dio Chrysostom, On Tyranny 6.56-7

“It is not impossible for however so many people become tyrants of a city or small country to escape their regime and live somewhere else in hiding. Yet no one loves a tyrant, instead people hate them, are suspicious of them, and easily give them up to those they wronged.

But those who rule over many cities, peoples, and endless land, as the Persian king does, cannot ever escape, not even if they come to understand their troubles when some god frees them of their ignorance. A tyrant could never live safely, not even if he turned into bronze or iron, because even then he’d die, broken into pieces and melted down.”

Ὅσοι μὲν οὖν μιᾶς γεγόνασι τύραννοι πόλεως ἢ χώρας ὀλίγης, τούτοις οὐκ ἀδύνατον ἀποδράντας ἐκ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἀλλαχόσε ποι καταφυγόντας ζῆν· καίτοι οὐδεὶς ἄνδρα ἀγαπᾷ τύραννον, ἀλλὰ μισοῦσί τε καὶ ὑποπτεύουσι καὶ ῥᾳδίως ἐκδιδόασι τοῖς ἠδικημένοις· ὅσοι δὲ πολλῶν πόλεων ἄρχουσι καὶ ἐθνῶν καὶ ἀπείρου γῆς, ὥσπερ ὁ τῶν Περσῶν βασιλεύς, τούτοις, οὐδ᾿ ἄν ποτε παραστῇ συνεῖναι τῶν κακῶν κἂν θεῶν τις ἀφέλῃ τὴν ἄγνοιαν αὐτῶν, οὐ δυνατὸν ἐκφυγεῖν.   δοκεῖ δὲ οὐδέποτε ἂν ἀσφαλῶς ζῆν, οὐδ᾿ εἰ χαλκοῦς ἢ σιδηροῦς γένοιτο, ἀλλὰ καὶ οὕτως ἂν κατακοπεὶς ἢ καταχωνευθείς ἀπολέσθαι.

Periander, the Tyrant of Corinth by Paulus Moreelse

Leaving Fallow a Productive Field

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Philo, The Contemplative Life 14-15

“It was necessary that those who readily accept the wealth that sees should give up the senseless wealth to those who still are lacking in perception. The Greeks sing the praises of Anaxagoras and Democritus because they were so struck by philosophy that they allowed their fields to be ground down by sheep.

I do admire those men myself because they showed that they were stronger than wealth—but how much better would it have been if they had not given up their possessions to feed beasts but instead used them for the needs of people, their friends and family, transforming their loss of interest into wealth for someone else.

That first action is negligent—it would be considered nuts if Greece did not admire those people—while the second is sober, something carefully thought out.”

ἔδει γὰρ τοὺς τὸν βλέποντα πλοῦτον ἐξ ἑτοίμου λαβόντας τὸν τυφλὸν παραχωρῆσαι τοῖς ἔτι τὰς διανοίας τυφλώττουσιν. Ἀναξαγόραν καὶ Δημόκριτον Ἕλληνες ᾄδουσιν, ὅτι φιλοσοφίας ἱμέρῳ πληχθέντες μηλοβότους εἴασαν γενέσθαι τὰς οὐσίας· ἄγαμαι τοὺς ἄνδρας καὶ αὐτὸς γενομένους χρημάτων κρείττονας. ἀλλὰ πόσῳ βελτίονες οἱ μὴ θρέμμασιν ἐμβόσκεσθαι τὰς κτήσεις ἀνέντες, ἀλλὰ τὰς ἀνθρώπων ἐνδείας, συγγενῶν ἢ φίλων, ἐπανορθωσάμενοι καὶ ἐξ ἀπόρων εὐπόρους ἀποφήναντες; ἐκεῖνο μὲν γὰρ ἀπερίσκεπτον—ἵνα μὴ μανιῶδες ἐπ᾿ ἀνδρῶν, οὓς ἡ Ἑλλὰς ἐθαύμασεν, εἴπω τὸ ἔργον —, τοῦτο δὲ νηφάλιον καὶ μετὰ φρονήσεως ἠκριβωμένον περιττῆς.

“The Guerilla’s Departue” by David Wilkie