“I cannot think…or figure out any reason why
I might impeach him. What would let you accuse someone
Who is honorable, if he is good? And if he is not honorable
What would let you impeach him if he thinks it is but a
Minor thing?”
Nequeo . . .
qua causa accusem hunc exputando evolvere.
Nam si veretur quid eum accuses qui est probus?
Sin inverecundum animi ingenium possidet,
quid autem accuses qui id parvi auditum
aestimet? . . .
Aristophanes fr 228 = Suda sigma 290
“Shaking-down”: Blackmail, this is a metaphor from people who shake trees: “I was shaking them down, I demanded money, I was threatening them and was extorting them again and again.”
“To investigate what everyone, including the most worthless people, ever wrote is an example either of excessive misery or empty ostentation, which both detains and destroys minds which would better be left free for other things. Someone who has shaken off all of the dusty fragments unworthy of reading could just as easily spend their labor upon the tales of old women. The commentaries of grammarians are full of these kinds of pitfalls, and even their authors barely know what is in them. It is said of Didymus, than whom no one ever wrote more, that when he was arguing against some tale as though it were wholly fictitious, his very own book was brought against him, since it contained that very tale. This happens especially in fantastic tales, all the way to the point of absurdity and shame, whence comes the excessive license granted to every knave of inventing things such that they safely lie about entire books and authors as they find it convenient, because those things which never existed cannot naturally be discovered. For, in more generally known matters, the forgers are discovered by curious inquisitors. And so, it seems to me that among the grammarian’s virtues will be numbered not to know some things.”
Persequi quidem quid quis umquam vel contemptissimorum hominum dixerit aut nimiae miseriae aut inanis iactantiae est, et detinet atque obruit ingenia melius aliis vacatura. Nam qui omnis etiam indignas lectione scidas excutit, anilibus quoque fabulis accommodare operam potest: atqui pleni sunt eius modi impedimentis grammaticorum commentarii, vix ipsis qui composuerunt satis noti. Nam Didymo, quo nemo plura scripsit, accidisse compertum est ut, cum historiae cuidam tamquam vanae repugnaret, ipsius proferretur liber qui eam continebat. Quod evenit praecipue in fabulosis usque ad deridicula quaedam, quaedam etiam pudenda, unde improbissimo cuique pleraque fingendi licentia est, adeo ut de libris totis et auctoribus, ut succurrit, mentiantur tuto, quia inveniri qui numquam fuere non possunt: nam in notioribus frequentissime deprenduntur a curiosis. Ex quo mihi inter virtutes grammatici habebitur aliqua nescire.
“These men have committed so much horror beyond their own criminal behavior that even while running a so-called democracy they turned each person’s house into a prison and put the police in our homes.”
“For such dealing with criminals, white or black, the South had no machinery, no adequate jails or reformatories; its police system was arranged to deal with blacks alone, and tacitly assumed that every white man was ipso facto a member of that police. Thus grew up a double system of justice, which erred on the white side by undue leniency and the practical immunity of red-handed criminals, and erred on the black side by undue severity, injustice, and lack of discrimination.”
“Caracalla came to Ilium, and as he visited all of the ruins of the city, he came to the tomb of Achilles. Decorating it lavishly with garlands and flowers, he imitated Achilles again. Seeking a Patroclus, he did something like this. He had a particularly beloved freedman named Festus who was the chief imperial secretary. This man Festus died while Caracalla was in Ilium, and some say that he was taken off by poison so that he could have a funeral like Patroclus, but others say that he simply died of an illness.”
Jacques-Louis David, The Funeral Games of Patroclus
In this day and age, this might instead be a text message or a tweet to someone in a position of authority. But this letter is from Libanius to Julian the Apostate, Roman Emperor and our personal (anti-?)hero:
Ep. 86
“Even if you don’t send me letters, I still dine on your words. For whenever someone else gets one, we hear about it and immediately read it, either by persuading or overpowering the unwilling recipient. So, my profit is no less than theirs even though it is only their right to be honored. I would also ask for honor, for some love-token from you. For, clearly, if you would honor me in any way, you wouldn’t do it without love.”
“Still,” he said, “Cluvius told Lucius and Manilius he was not on sworn oath.” If he told them while sworn in, would you believe? What is the difference between a perjurer and a liar? A man who is accustomed to lying, can get used to committing perjury.
I can easily get a man to perjure himself once I am able to persuade him to lie. For once someone has departed from the truth, he is not in the habit of being constrained by greater belief from perjury than from lying. For what man who is not moved by the force of his own conscience is moved by invocation of the gods?
The reason for this is that the gods dispense the same penalty for the perjurer and the liar. The gods become enraged and punish a man not for the institution which frames the swearing of the words but because of the evil and the malice that these traps are set for another person.”
XVI. “Dicit enim,” inquit, “iniuratus Luscio et Manilio.” Si diceret iuratus, crederes? At quid interest inter periurum et mendacem? Qui mentiri solet, peierare consuevit. Quem ego, ut mentiatur, inducere possum, ut peieret, exorare facile potero. Nam qui semel a veritate deflexit, hic non maiore religione ad periurium quam ad mendacium perduci consuevit. Quis enim deprecatione deorum, non conscientiae fide commovetur? Propterea, quae poena ab dis immortalibus periuro, haec eadem mendaci constituta est; non enim ex pactione verborum, quibus ius iurandum comprehenditur, sed ex perfidia et malitia, per quam insidiae tenduntur alicui, di immortales hominibus irasci et suscensere consuerunt.
Sinon. Augustine, La Cit de Dieu, Books I-X. Paris, Ma tre Franois (illuminator); c. 1475-1480.
“I, who once perfected poems while my zeal was at its height, am now, in tears, compelled to embrace a sadder metre. Behold! The mangled Muses dictate what I should write, and these elegies drench my face with real tears. These, at least, no terror could deter from following my path as my lone companions. Once the glory of my happy, vibrant youth, they now console me for my fate as a sad old man. Unexpected old age has come, hastened by misfortunes, and pain adds yet another age to that. My hair, grey before its time, falls from my head, and my loose skin trembles on my weakened body. It is a happy death, which does not intrude upon our happy years, but comes when called in our sadder days. Alas! Death turns a deaf ear to the wretched, and in her savagery, refuses to close my crying eyes! While Fortune, hardly faithful, favored me with trifling gifts, one sad hour nearly buried me. Now that she, cloud-like, has changed her deceitful countenance, my accursed life draws on these unpleasing delays. Why, my friends, did you boast so often that I was happy? He who has fallen never had a stable step.”
carmina qui quondam studio florente peregi,
flebilis heu maestos cogor inire modos.
ecce mihi lacerae dictant scribenda Camenae
et ueris elegi fletibus ora rigant.
has saltem nullus potuit peruincere terror,
ne nostrum comites prosequerentur iter.
gloria felicis olim uiridisque iuuentae,
solantur maesti nunc mea fata senis.
uenit enim properata malis inopina senectus
et dolor aetatem iussit inesse suam.
intempestiui funduntur uertice cani
et tremit effeto corpore laxa cutis.
mors hominum felix, quae se nec dulcibus annis
inserit et maestis saepe uocata uenit.
eheu, quam surda miseros auertitur aure
et flentes oculos claudere saeua negat!
dum leuibus male fida bonis fortuna faueret
paene caput tristis merserat hora meum;
nunc quia fallacem mutauit nubila uultum
protrahit ingratas impia uita moras.
quid me felicem totiens iactastis, amici?
qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu.
“There are other medicinal applications of iron beyond surgery. For when a circle is drawn around both adults and infants—or of they carry a sharp iron weapon with them—it is useful against poisonous drugs. Iron nails which have been taken out of tombs are useful protections against nightmares if they are hammered down before a threshold.
A small penetration with an iron weapon which has wounded a man is effective against sudden side and chest pains. Some afflictions are treated by cauterization, especially true for the bite of a rabid dog, since even when the disease has advanced and those afflicted are starting to exhibit fear of water, they experience relief at cauterization. The drinking of water which has been heated with burning iron is good for many symptoms, but especially for dysentery.”
XLIV. Medicina e ferro est et alia quam secandi. namque et circumscribi circulo terve circumlato mucrone et adultis et infantibus prodest contra noxia medicamenta, et praefixisse in limine evulsos sepulchris clavos adversus nocturnas lymphationes, pungique leviter mucrone, quo percussus homo sit, contra dolores laterum pectorumque subitos, qui punctionem adferant. quaedam ustione sanantur, privatim vero canis rabidi morsus, quippe etiam praevalente morbo expaventesque potum usta plaga ilico liberantur. calfit etiam ferro candente potus in multis vitiis, privatim vero dysentericis.
“His outfit was something between a Phoenician priest’s and the luxury of the Medes. He hated both Roman and Greek dress because they were made of wool, which he said was cheap. He only allowed himself to be adorned with silk, and only went out accompanied by flutes and cymbals as if celebrating the rites of his favorite god.
Julia Maesa was vexed when she saw all this, and with some considerable effort tried to persuade him to put on Roman garb as he was on his way to the city and the senate house, lest he seem to everyone outfitted in something foreign or barbaric and immediately irritate all those who saw him, especially since they were unaccustomed to see things like that, considering that such beautiful finery was more fitting for women than for men. Elagabalus thought little of the advice of the old woman, and was not persuaded by anyone else, because he never allowed anyone to approach him except for those who shared his habits or encouraged his vices.
Hoping, however, to make the Roman people and senate more accustomed to the sight of his dress despite the fact that he was not yet in the city and to see how they would react to the appearance of his outfit, he had a large portrait of himself painted in which he appeared alone strutting forth and performing sacred rites, and set beside it a picture of the god of his land, to whom he was depicted sacrificing. He sent this to Rome, and ordered it to be placed squarely in the middle of the senate house above the statue of Victory, to which visitors in the senate house go to burn incense and pour libations.”
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Roses of Elagabalus (1888)
“This man would feed many by seeking oysters. He uses this word “oyster” only once. It is a kind of marine shellfish. See the Separatists on this. For they claim that the poet of the Iliad does not present heroes using fish at food, while the Odyssey poet does. But it is clear that, if he did not present them as using them, they knew it, from the fact that Patroklos talks about oysters. Note how the poet tends to avoid the trivial. And surely, he does not show people eating greens. But, nevertheless, he does say “The enslaved women using shit to fertilize his great property”
“The poet also does not show heroes eating fish or birds, but still Odysseus’ companions do try to under compulsion. Generally, the poet avoids this kind of habit because of its triviality, but he has [heroes] eat roasted meat.”
