J.E. Sandys, Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Classical Learning:
“In 1499 (as we are all aware) a son of Florence, Amerigo Vespucci, took part in the discovery of Venezuela. But it is not perhaps so widely known that his graphic description of the third and most famous of his four voyages was translated into Latin by none other than Fra Giocondo himself. This translation was printed by Martin Waltzemuller at Strassburg in 1505, and also reprinted with the narrative of the three other voyages in 1507, and it is in this reprint that we find the first suggestion that the newly discovered continent should receive the name of America. In this volume Amerigo makes a vainglorious display of his classical learning in the form of quotations from Pliny, Virgil, and Aristotle.”
J.E. Sandys, Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning:
“Cicero and Virgil became the principal text-books of the Revival of Learning. Petrarch describes them in one of his poems as the ‘two eyes’ of his discourse. In his very boyhood he had been smitten with the charm of Virgil, and, even in his old age, he was still haunted by the mediaeval tradition of the allegorical significance of the Aeneid. But, unlike the mediaeval admirers of Virgil, he does not regard the Latin poet as a mysteriously distant and supernatural being; he finds in him a friend, and he is even candid enough to criticise him. Under his influence the Aeneid was accepted as the sole model that was worthy of imitation by the epic poets of the succeeding age. A German critic regards this result with regret, a regret that few, if any, will share; nor is it easy to believe that any scholar would really have preferred seeing Petrarch throw the weight of his example on to the side of any other Latin epic poet, such as Lucan.”
“Eudêmos tells the story of how a groom lusted after a young mare, one who was the best of the whole herd, as if she was in fact a beautiful girl, even among the most attractive of all those in the land. In the beginning, he controlled himself; but eventually he dared to enter the foreign bed and have intercourse with her.
But that mare had a foal and it was noble. It was upset when it saw what was happening, as if his mother was being ruled terribly by a despot, and he jumped on the man and killed him. After that, it watched where he was buried, went there, dug him up, and desecrated the corpse, injuring it with every kind of injury.”
This story may not be entirely fantastic. In the US, an Oklahoma man was arrested for having sex with a pony in August (h/t to @donnacarrwest for this detail). A bit of detail: “Walton said it appeared Schlosser was a utility worker. Schlosser allegedly blamed his actions on medication. The sheriff added that, fortunately, his agency rarely encounters bestiality cases.”
Fragment of a red figure vase, c. 350 BCE. On sale on line without provenance.
Many books and websites quote Aristotle as saying “It is unbecoming for a young man to use maxims”. Aristotle kind of says this, but why he says it and what he means by a maxim is not understood clearly from the way this quotation is applied as a meme. This is ironic because the quotation is a maxim but it violates the very reason Aristotle says the young should not use maxims (because they don’t have the experience to know what they’re talking about).
Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.1395a
“Using maxims is appropriate for those who are older in age [when uttered] about things for which they have some experience. Using maxims before one is this age lacks propriety as does story-telling: [to speak] about what one has no experience in is foolish and uneducated. A sufficient sign of this is that bumpkins especially tend to make up maxims and they easily show them off.”
Something else this usage misses is how Aristotle defines a maxim. Oh, and there is also the fact that this comes from the Rhetoric. Aristotle is not claiming that it is unseemly for the young to use maxims because it is amoral or unethical, but rather that because of their youth and lack of experience they will not be persuasive by doing so.
2.1394a
“A maxim is a statement which does not concern specifics about each thing—as in what kind of a person Iphikrates was—but it is general. Nevertheless, it does not aim at all general things—such as the fact that straight is the opposite of crooked—but about however so many things are the goals of actions and what should be selected or avoided in acting.
And where the enthymeme is pretty much the syllogism for these things, maxims are the outcomes of the enthymeme or the starting principles without the syllogism’s completion. Here’s an example: ‘It isn’t right that any sensible man have his children educated to be excessively wise’ [Eur. Medea 296]. This is a maxim; should the cause and the explanation be added, it would be an enthymeme.”
“I shall not pursue into further details this account of the political condition of the Silesians. You have seen that it is a system of manacles, & fetters, & I hope it will serve to endear to your mind the institutions of your own country. Not that I think it wise to amuse one’s self, or honest to delude others with a general, vague idea, that our form of government & state of society is the best in the world; the last effort to perfection of the human intellect. In contemplating the miseries of mankind, when bowed beneath the yoke of absolute dominion, let us not forget the vices & follies, into which a state of liberty too often leads them. Where there is no freedom of agency there can be neither virtue nor vice. Liberty gives ample scope for the exercise of both; but such is the perverseness, & such are the artifices of the human passions, that vice too often assumes the name, or the disguise of virtue. The historians of the antient Grecian republics impute their final ruin to this perversion of the moral sentiments. It is the most dangerous internal enemy of all Republics, & is the more powerful in proportion as the principle of democracy predominates in the Constitution. It is the duty of every virtuous citizen to stem this current with all his influence, & to withstand the failings in order to promote the happiness of his country…”
“Just like a lion confident in its strength I grabbed a fawn
From a doe with my hands but did not drink its blood.
After I climbed the high walls, I did not sack the city.
Although I yoked the horses to the chariot, I did not climb on board.
“Although I have acted, I have not done; Although I am done, I have not finished.
Although I have tried, I have not accomplished. While I have met success, I have not succeeded.”
Fragment 1 (Preserved in Dionysus of Halicarnassus’ On Literary Composition 23)
Immortal Aphrodite in your elaborate throne,
Wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, I beseech you:
Don’t curse my heart with grief and pains
My queen—
But come here, if ever at different time
You heeded me somewhere else because you heard
My pleadings, and once you left the golden home of your father
You came
After you yoked your chariot. Then the beautiful, swift
Sparrows ferried you over the dark earth
By churning their wings quickly down through the middle
Of the sky.
And they arrived quickly. But you, blessed one,
Composed a grin on your immortal face
And were asking what in fact it was I suffered that made me
Call you.
“The things which I most wish would happen for me
In my crazy heart”. “Whom, then, do I persuade to
Return you to their love? O Sappho, who is it who
Hurt you?
For if she flees now, she will soon chase you.
If she refuses gifts, then she will give them too.
If she does not love you now, she will love you soon, even if,
She doesn’t want to.”
Come to me now, too, and free me from
my terrible worries. Whatever things my heart longs
to accomplish, you, achieve them—
be my ally.
“Don’t remind me of my troubles. I have suffered as Odysseus did
When he returned after ascending from Hades’ great home,
The one who also killed the suitors with a pitiless heart,
Filled with joy for his wedded wife Penelope
Who was waiting for him so long, staying alongside his dear son
Until he embarked on the shores and the vales of his land.”
“In this way, I am one who has always been a proponent of peace, especially within the state; even though this is true for all good men, I have still hoped for it among the first ranks. All of the effort of my work has has been in the forum, in the senate house, and in the defense of friends from dangers. From this source we have earned the greatest honors, a modest amount of wealth, and however much dignity I have.
Therefore, I, a beneficiary of peace, as you might say, who, however much of a man I am and I do not claim anything for myself, I certainly would not have been like this within civil peace. I speak dangerously and I shake a little at the thought of the way you might receive this, Senators, but I plead and I ask you, based on my own endless longing to maintain and increase your dignity, that first, even if it is unbelievable that it was said by Marcus Cicero, which is bitter or incredible to your hearing, that you will take what I say without offense and not reject it outright before I explain what I mean. And I will say often that I am a constant champion of peace but I am not looking for peace with Marcus Antonius.
I am turning to the rest of this speech with great hope, Senators, because I have made it through the most dangerous part in silence. Why then do I oppose peace? Because it is corrupt, because it is dangerous, and because it is not possible.”
Itaque ego ille qui semper pacis auctor fui cuique pax, praesertim civilis, quamquam omnibus bonis, tamen in primis fuit optabilis—omne enim curriculum industriae nostrae in foro, in curia, in amicorum periculis propulsandis elaboratum est; hinc honores amplissimos, hinc mediocris opes, hinc dignitatem si quam habemus consecuti sumus—ego igitur pacis, ut ita dicam, alumnus, qui quantuscumque sum (nihil enim mihi adrogo) sine pace civili certe non fuissem—periculose dico: quem ad modum accepturi, patres conscripti, sitis, horreo, sed pro mea perpetua cupiditate vestrae dignitatis retinendae et augendae quaeso oroque vos, patres conscripti, ut primo, etsi erit vel acerbum auditu vel incredibile a M. Cicerone esse dictum, accipiatis sine offensione quod dixero, neve id prius quam quale sit explicaro repudietis—ego ille, dicam saepius, pacis semper laudator, semper auctor, pacem cum M. Antonio esse nolo. Magna spe ingredior in reliquam orationem, patres conscripti, quoniam periculosissimum locum silentio sum praetervectus. Cur igitur pacem nolo? Quia turpis est, quia periculosa, quia esse non potest.
“Kick the empty-minded people in the ass, smack them with a sharp goad,
Put an uncomfortable yoke over their neck.
For no matter how many people the are under the sun
You will find none more in love with a despot.”
