“You all seem to me to understand, Athenians, that it is better to make a just peace than to keep going to war. That politicians agree to peace in name but they oppose the acts that foster peace, you do not all perceive this. For they claim that, once peace is achieved, there is the greatest peril for the people that the current regime may be dissolved.
Therefore, if the people of the Athenians had never made peace before with the Lakedaimonians, we might rightly fear this because of inexperience of the process or distrust for them. Since you have often made peace with them previously when you were already ruled as a democracy, how would it not be right for you to first examine the things that happened before. For, it is right, Athenians, to use prior events as a guide about what will happen in the future.”
ὡς ἔστι δεινότατον… Smyth §2224 δεινός εἰμι functions grammatically as an expression of fear, triggering the fear clause postponed to the end of the sentence (μὴ καταλυθῇ)
An number of these are very close to their Greek equivalents
Aelian Varia Historia 5.52
“Nature has produced animals which have the greatest range of voices and sounds, in the same way, in fact, as she has made people. Just as the Skythian speaks one way and the Indian speaks another, or the Aithiopian has his own language and the Sakai have theirs. And the language of Greece is different from Rome. Indeed, it is the same with animals who in various ways utter the a sound or an song native to their tongue. One roars, another moos, a neigh comes from another, a bray from one, a bleat or maaaa from another. A howl is dear to one; a bark to another; while some growl. There are those who scream, whistle, hoot, sing, croon and tweet. There are endless gifts proper to different animals by nature.”
“Snorting is neighing. A snorting echo. This, I believe, means neighing. But neighing is not the same as snorting. It is the sound that comes through horses’ noses when they prance.”
Consider if Aristotle had giuen his minde to idlenesse, hée had neuer ascended to so high a degrée of learning and honour, as to be tearmed Princeps Philosophorum, Cicero had neuer deserued to be called Pater Patriae, but by shunning idlenesse. Remember what honour poore Cleanthes got, who all night accustomed to carrie water, that in the daye he might haue maintenance to studie the liberall Sciences.
How came Alexander to be conqueror of the world, but by flying idlenesse? Idlenesse might haue hindered Hercules in accomplishing his haughtie and honourable labours? But that his manlie brest was neuer possest with such an ignoble mind. Vlisses detesting the delaies of idlenesse, in a moment finished the ten years warre betwixt the Graecians and the Troians. Apelles had neuer prooued so cunning a Painter, if he had not euerie day drawne a line with his pensile
I have been seeing this sign lately. EEE stands for Eastern Equine Encephalitis, which sounds terrifying. The acronym is, coincidentally, the sound I make when I read about it. This, of course, made me think of the Homeric name for Circe’s Island, Aiaia.
Schol. PQV ad Hom. Od. 9.32
“Aiaiê: A name from the Tyrrheanian Island, Aiaia, or, a Kolkhian one. For Aiaia is a city in Kolkhis.”
“Aiaiê: The island which Kirkê inhabits. And Kirkê herself receives the nickname the “tricky Aiaian”. This is probably an ethnic name from the Island. The word is made from the “ai ai” mourners utter, since this was how the men lamented when they were slaughtered by the Laistrygonians. Or the name comes from the rightful mourning of those men who were turned into beasts.”
I have not seen any convincing modern updates, but if one shows up I will add it:
There is the possibility that it could be a primal name, e.g. "earth" or something reflecting the immortality, e.g. "eternal"; but I am a fan of folk-etymologies.
But it is notable and trewe, that Socrates saith in Plato to his frende Crito. That, that number of men is fewest, which far excede, either in good or ill, in wisdom of folie, but the meane betwixt both, be the greatest number: which he proueth trewe in diuerse other thinges: as in greyhoundes, emonges which fewe are found, exceding greate, or exceding litle, exceding swift, or exceding slowe: And therfore I speaking of quick and hard wittes, I ment, the common number of quicke and hard wittes, emonges the which, for the most parte, the hard witte, proueth manie times, the better learned, wiser and honester man: and therfore, do I the more lament, that soch wittes commonlie be either kepte from learning, by fond fathers, or bet from learning by lewde scholemasters.
“In the verses we attribute to Epimenides, the rest [of creation] comes from Air and night. But Homer says that Okeanos produced the younger generation of gods from Tethys (“Okeanos and birth of the gods and their mother Tethys”, [Il. 14.201]). Yet, Abaris thinks it was Kronos and Rhea, while others claim that Zeus and Hera are father and mother of the gods. Pindar thinks that they come from mother Kybele when he sings “queen Kybele, mother…”
Tully, when he was to drive out Catiline as it were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often used that figure of repetition, as Vivit Vivit? Immo vero etiam in senatum venit, etc. Indeed, inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have his words, as it were, double out of his mouth; and so do that artificially, which we see men in choler do naturally. And we, having noted the grace of those words, hale them in sometime to a familiar epistle, when it were too much choler to be choleric. How well store of similiter cadences doth sound with the gravity of the pulpit, I would but invoke Demosthenes’ soul to tell, who with a rare daintiness uses them. Truly they have made me think of the sophister that with too much subtlety would prove two eggs three, and though he might be counted a sophister, had none for his labor. So these men bringing in such a kind of eloquence, well may they obtain an opinion of a seeming fineness, but persuade few,—which should be the end of their fineness.
From the Fragments of the Greek Historians–Mythical traditions record that Thetis hid Achilles at Skyros to prevent him from getting taken to fight at Troy where she knew he would die. Most retellings of this focus on how Odysseus tricked him into revealing himself. But it turns out Achilles also took on a girl’s name while he was there.
BNJ 57 F 1 Ptolemy Chennos, Novel History, Book 1 Photios, Bibliotheca 190, 147a18
Aristonikos the Tarentinian reports that Achilles, when he was living among the girls at Lykomedes’ place, was named Kerkusera, and Issa and Pyrrha. He was also called Aspetos and Promêtheus.
The names he takes on surely deserve a little more contemplation. Why did he also have male names while he was there?
Ken Dowden, in his commentary on this fragment, provides the following explanation of the female names:
“The name Pyrrha (red-head, like Pyrrhos the alternative name of his son Neoptolemos) is also found in Hyginus, Fabulae 96. The name Kerkysera is held to be a ‘joke’ (i.e., of Ptolemy Chennos) by A. Cameron, Greek Mythography in the Roman World (Oxford 2004), 141, presumably by association with κέρκος (a tail or penis). M. van der Valk, Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad (Leiden 1963), 369 n. 228, regards the name as corrupt–it should, according to him, be Κερκουρᾶς (Kerkouras) ‘he who urinates by means of his tail’. Even if this is right, it does not, of course, show that the name was invented by Ptolemy Chennos. Cameron, Mythography, 141, views Issa as an out-of-place Latin term of endearment. But it appears in Greek as the name of a Dalmatian island and, more appropriately to Achilles, of a city on Lesbos (named after a daughter of Makar, Steph. Byz., s.v. Issa). ‘There is also a feminine form Issas on Lesbos found in Partheniosin his Herakles’ (ἔστι καὶ θηλυκὸν Ἰσσάς ἐπὶ τῆς Λέσβου παρὰ Παρθενίῳ ἐν Ἡρακλεῖ) according to Steph. Byz.ibid. A real Aristonikos, given the range of possible dates (see Biographical Essay), might well have been reading Parthenios, or even vice-versa.”
This text is from Brill’s new Jacoby, a collection of the Fragments of the Greek historians
“Everyone still needs some kind of break, not only because there is no material which can endure endless labor—and even those things which lack perception or life must be guarded in turns of rest in order to protect their strength—but also because studying requires a desire to learn which cannot be compelled.
Once renewed and made fresh, students who often bristle at what is compulsory bring a greater intensity and a sharper mind to learning. Games do not bother me in young students—for this is also a sign of an excited mind—and I do not hope that a sad and always downcast child will come to studies with a sharp mind when the natural energy customary to that age is missing.
But, still, there should be a reasonable balance to breaks so students might not hate their studies when breaks are denied nor get too accustomed to leisure. There are even some games which are helpful for sharpening the wits of students—such as when they compete by asking each other little questions of any kind. Characters also unveil themselves more simply during games. But, no age seems to be so infirm that it cannot learn immediately what is right and wrong and the age especially good for shaping a character is before children know how to dissimulate and still yield to their teachers most easily. For it is faster to break things that have hardened into evil than it is to correct them.”
Danda est tamen omnibus aliqua remissio, non solum quia nulla res est quae perferre possit continuum laborem, atque ea quoque quae sensu et anima carent ut servare vim suam possint velut quiete alterna retenduntur, sed quod studium discendi voluntate, quae cogi non potest, constat. Itaque et virium plus adferunt ad discendum renovati ac recentes et acriorem animum, qui fere necessitatibus repugnat. Nec me offenderit lusus in pueris (est et hoc signum alacritatis), neque illum tristem semperque demissum sperare possim erectae circa studia mentis fore, cum in hoc quoque maxime naturali aetatibus illis impetu iaceat. Modus tamen sit remissionibus, ne aut odium studiorum faciant negatae aut otii consuetudinem nimiae. Sunt etiam nonnulli acuendis puerorum ingeniis non inutiles lusus, cum positis invicem cuiusque generis quaestiunculis aemulantur. Mores quoque se inter ludendum simplicius detegunt: modo nulla videatur aetas tam infirma quae non protinus quid rectum pravumque sit discat, tum vel maxime formanda cum simulandi nescia est et praecipientibus facillime cedit; frangas enim citius quam corrigas quae in pravum induruerunt.
