“If you put down a rotten foundation, already falling apart, not even a little shack can be built upon it, and the greater and more forceful thing you build upon it, the faster it will fall to the ground.
So you are depriving this dear person of life without any reason, a citizen of the very same state, both the larger one and the local one. Then, as you commit an act of murder and destroy another human being who did no wrong, you claim that “you have to stick to what was decided!” If it ever occurred to you to kill me, would you have to stick to your decisions then?
That kind of a person is scarcely persuaded to change his mind. But it is impossible to transform others today. So, now, I think I understand that proverb that used to confuse me, that “you can’t persuade or break a fool!”
May I never have a wise fool as a friend, there’s nothing harder to deal with. He says, “I have decided.” Well, people who are out of their minds decided too. But just as much as they believe that what isn’t true is solid, that’s how much hellebore they need to drink.”
Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages(p.257)
“The mere mass of matter accumulated by his predecessors must have weighed upon the unfortunate Professor of a later age, crushed his originality, and narrowed the sphere within which originality could be exercised. The truth is that the exigencies of Academic lecturing upon text-books tend of themselves to produce a vast quantity of unnecessary commentation. Where much has been well said, it is hard to say anything fresh that is both original and important: comments must perforce be either unoriginal or superfluous. No doubt comments, analyses, paraphrases, illustrations, applications, which are of no permanent value, may be useful simply as a means of impressing the substance of an author upon the mind of pupils. Lectures of this character are not commonly, in modem times, given to the world. In the Middle Ages, however, when it was possible to produce a dozen copies of a book at the same proportionate cost as to produce a hundred or a thousand, the temptation to the publication of lectures was greater. To this cause we may perhaps owe the publication of large quantities of matter contrasting unfavourably with the terseness, the freshness, the good Latinity, the close contact with the original texts which impress the modem student of the older medieval Jurists.”
“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.”
“And whenever the liver swells more against his lungs, someone goes mad. He thinks he sees before his eyes creeping things and all kinds of beasts, fighting soldiers even as he believes that he is fighting with them. He speaks as if he is seeing these things and lashes out and threatens if someone forbids him from going out. If he stands, he may not be able to raise his legs and falls. His feet are always cold and whenever he sleeps, he jumps up from slumber and has witnessed frightening dreams.
We know that this fitfulness and fearing comes from dreams: whenever he calms down, he describes the kinds of dreams that he shaped out with his body and was describing with his tongue. He suffers these things in this way. And there are times when he is speechless for a whole day and night, gasping deeply for breath. When he stops this mad episode, he is immediately sensible again and if someone asks him a question, he responds right away and understands everything which was said. But, then later again, he falls under the same symptoms. This malady strikes most often when someone is abroad, especially if someone is walking on a deserted road. But it does happen other times too.’
J.E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship Vol. 1
“Eratosthenes (c. 276 — c. 196-4 b.c.) spent some years in Athens, whence he was recalled to Alexandria by Ptolemy Euergetes (c. 235 B.C.), and placed at the head of the Library). He remained in that important position during the reigns of Ptolemy Euergetes (d. 222 B.C.), and Philopator (222-205). ‘The tastes of the former were scientific, those of the latter literary and aesthetic. Philopator was not only the author of a tragedy, but also honoured the memory of Homer by building a temple which was adorned with a seated statue of the poet, surrounded by statues of the cities which claimed his birth. The building of this temple has been regarded as an indication of a change of attitude towards Homer. While Zenodotus had allowed his personal caprice to introduce fanciful alterations into the poet’s text, the influence of Callimachus and Eratosthenes inspired a feeling of greater reverence for Homer as the Father of Greek poetry, and also led to a more sober treatment of his text by Aristophanes and Aristarchus, as well as to a careful imitation of his manner in the epic poems of Rhianus.
Eratosthenes bore among the members of the Museum the singular designation of βῆτα, which is supposed to be due either to some physical peculiarity (such as the bowed back of old age) or (far more probably) to his attaining the second place in many lines of study. The more complimentary designation of πένταθλος implied his high attainments in more than one kind of mental gymnastics, while (like the second sense of βῆτα) it suggested that he was inferior to those who confined themselves to a single line of study. We can easily imagine each of the specialists of the Museum proudly conscious of his supremacy in his own department, and enviously depreciating his widely accomplished and versatile colleague, who was really ‘good all round’, as a ‘second-rate’ man. But it is only in his minor epics and elegiacs and in his philosophical dialogues that he seems actually to have deserved a place lower than the very highest. In other respects he attained the foremost rank among the most versatile scholars of all time. It was this wide and varied learning that prompted him to be the first to claim the honourable title of φιλόλογος.”
From the annals of quack cures not to tell presidents about….
Pliny, Natural History 23. 157
“Some people have suggested using ten berries in a drink against scorpion stings. You can use the same to relieve a relaxed uvula: gargle quarter pound of berries or leaves reduced in three measure of water when it is still warm. To treat a headache, use an uneven number of berries crushed and warmed in oil. The leaves of the delphic bay, once pounded, may stop the spread of the plague if you smell them: this works even better when they are burned.”
quidam adversus scorpionum ictus decem bacas dari iubent potu, item et in remedio uvae iacentis quadrantem pondo bacarum foliorumve decoqui in aquae sextariis tribus ad tertias, eam calidam gargarizare et in capitis dolore inpari numero bacas cum oleo conterere et calfacere. laurus Delphicae folia trita olfactaque subinde pestilentiae contagia prohibent, tanto magis si et urantur.
“For all of the uses of the body it makes a big difference to keep it in as good a condition as possible. Even for thinking, in which the use of the body seems least important, who does not know that many things fail in its practice because the body is not healthy? Forgetfulness, depression, ill temper and madness often strike the mind so badly because of bodily afflictions that it drives out understanding.
There is great stability for those who have strong bodies and there is, at least, no danger from suffering something like this because of physical affliction. No, it is likely that the useful help will develop as the opposite to those things that happen from affliction. And, indeed, what wouldn’t someone who has some sense try to forestall the opposite to those things I have mentioned?”
“Certainly it is necessary—since the city does not provide public expenses for war—not to overlook it privately, nor otherwise to care for yourself less. Know well that you be no worse off in any other struggle or action because you have put your body in better shape. For the body is useful in everything people do. In all functions of the body it makes a big difference that the body is as healthy as possible. Even in something you might think the body is of little use—thinking—who doesn’t know that great errors come from having a sick body?
Forgetfulness, loss of spirit, ill-temper and madness often impinge upon perception because of the weakness of the body so badly that all knowledge is expelled. But for those who are healthy in body it is a great protection and they suffer no suffer no such risk of suffering this kind of thing because of the weakness of their body. It is probably that for those who have a healthy condition they will have the opposite experience. And, certainly, won’t anyone with some sense endure anything for the opposite of these things that have been mentioned?”
…
Anyway, is it not shameful to grow old because of carelessness before seeing how beautiful and strong a person you might be thanks to your body? It is not possible to witness this for someone who doesn’t make an effort. For it is not willing to develop on its own.”
“Salt-ferrying vessels produce an endless multitude of rats—as some people claim—because the female rats get pregnant without intercourse whenever they lick the salt.”
“Amyntas in his work which he named Stages writes that in the Caspian land there are many herds of cattle and horses almost beyond counting. He adds this as well, that in some seasons an unconquerable plague of rats blights the land. He continues with evidence, saying that even though the rivers flow at that of year with a huge surge, the rats swim fearlessly and they even hold on to each other’s tales, biting down on one another, to form a bridge and they they cross the strait in this way.
After swimming into the farmland, he says, they grind down the roots of crops and swarm over trees and once they use their fruits for their meals they sever the branches too just because they are not able to eat them. For this reason, the Caspians—in order to ward off this invasion of rats and the ruin they bring—do not kill the predatory birds which come in turn, flying down from the clouds, and fulfill their nature by freeing the Caspians of this plague.
Caspian foxes are so numerous that they frequent both the sheepfolds in the country and they also appear in cities. By Zeus, a fox will show up in a house not to steal something or ruin it, but like some kind of pet. The Caspian foxes wag their tails just like pet dogs in our land.
The rats of the terrible plague afflicting the Caspians are almost the same in size when you look a them as the ikhneumenos of Egypt, but they are wild, and terrible, and they have teeth strong enough to cut and even eat metal. The rats in Teridon, Babylonia are like this too—and traders bring their skins to sell among the Persians. Indeed, these skins are soft and can be sewn together as a tunic to warm people. And they call them kandutanes, because it is dear to them.
Here is something amazing about these rats: if a pregnant female is caught and her fetus is removed, when the female fetus is dissected and examined, it also has a baby.”
“It is impossible to say exactly how much of life ought to be put down in grammata, but it is fairly clear that in very ancient times there was too little and in modem times there is too much. Most of the books in any great library, even a library much frequented by students, lie undisturbed for generations. And if you begin what seems like the audacious and impossible task of measuring up the accumulated treasures of the race in the field of letters, it is curious how quickly in its main lines the enterprise becomes possible and even practicable. The period of recorded history is not very long. Eighty generations might well take us back before the beginnings of history-writing in Europe; and though the beginnings of Accad and of Egypt, to say nothing of the cave drawings of Altamira, might take one almost incalculably farther in time, the actual amount of grammata which they provide is not large.”
Each week we select scenes from a play, actors and experts from around the world, and put them all together for 90 minutes or so to see what will happen. This process is therapeutic for us; and it helps us think about how tragedy may have had similar functions in the ancient world as well.
Sophokles, Ajax 121-126
“I know nothing more—but I pity him
Now that he suffers, even if he hates me,
Since this evil ruin has him bound.
Really, I am looking no more at his fate than my own.
For I see that those of us alive are nothing
More than ghosts or empty shadows.”
Today at 3 PM we turn to Sophokles’ Ajax. This play may not be his best known, but it has gained a lot of attention over the past few years as a play deeply concerned with psychological issues, especially those of trauma at war. It is clear from the play’s ruminations, that issues of madness and sense are central to the play as well as those of the caprice of the gods, but the play also has deep political concerns. In the abstract, it looks at the aftermath of unexpected distribution of goods. It echoes the very conflict that causes the rupture between Agamemnon and Achilles at the beginning of the Iliad: fury when expected honors and goods are given to someone else.
Athena – Anne Mason
Odysseus – Paul O’Mahony
Ajax – Tim Delap
Tecmessa – Evelyn Miller
Agamemnon – Argyris Xafis
Teucer – Brian Nelson
Chorus – Patrick Walshe McBride
“Someone who is pointlessly sick
Is better when lying in Hades.
Look—one who came from one of the best lines
Of the much suffering Achaeans
Is no longer secure
In his childhood’s mind.
He wanders outside of it.
Miserable parent, what kind of a fate
remains for you to learn of your child,
the kind of life no other the descendants of Aiakos
faced before now.”
“What is left, what will be the final number
For the years of wandering lost?
This count piling up an endless
Ruin of battle’s toils,
The Greeks’ sorrowful insult,
Wide-wayed Troy.”
