“Sweat is The Price of Virtue”: Some Greek Quotes for Labor Day

“I consider facility with poetry the greatest part of a man’s education, that he should be able to understand what the poets have said correctly or incorrectly and to know how to analyze them and provide an explanation when questioned.”

ἡγοῦμαι, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐγὼ ἀνδρὶ παιδείας μέγιστον μέρος εἶναι περὶ ἐπῶν δεινὸν εἶναι: ἔστιν δὲ τοῦτο τὰ ὑπὸ τῶν ποιητῶν λεγόμενα οἷόν τ᾽ εἶναι συνιέναι ἅ τε ὀρθῶς πεποίηται καὶ ἃ μή, καὶ ἐπίστασθαι διελεῖν τε καὶ ἐρωτώμενον λόγον δοῦναι.

Petronius, Satyricon 1

Posted on June 12, 2014 by palaiophron

“And therefore, I reckon that our young men are becoming total fools in our schools, because they neither hear nor see any of the things which we find useful, but rather pirates standing in shackles on the shore, and tyrants issuing decrees ordering that sons decapitate their fathers, and solutions to plagues which urge that three or even more virgins be burned, and those little honey-balls of words, and all things said or done as though sprinkled with poppy and sesame.”

Et ideo ego adulescentulos existimo in scholis stultissimos fieri, quia nihil ex his, quae in usu habemus, aut audiunt aut vident, sed piratas cum catenis in litore stantes, sed tyrannos edicta scribentes quibus imperent filiis ut patrum suorum capita praecidant, sed responsa in pestilentiam data, ut virgines tres aut plures immolentur, sed mellitos verborum globulos, et omnia dicta factaque quasi papavere et sesamo sparsa.

Aristotle, Poetics 1448b5-6

Posted on December 16, 2013 by sententiaeantiquae

“Imitation is natural in men from childhood and they differ in this from the other animals because it is the most representative and our first education comes from imitation.”

τό τε γὰρ μιμεῖσθαι σύμφυτον τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐκ παίδων ἐστὶ καὶ τούτῳ διαφέρουσι τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων ὅτι μιμητικώτατόν ἐστι καὶ τὰς μαθήσεις ποιεῖται διὰ μιμήσεως τὰς πρώτας…

Phocylides (Pseudo-Plutarch, On the Education of Children 5.3f)

Posted on November 13, 2012 by sententiaeantiquae

“It is right to teach noble things to one who is still a child”

χρὴ παῖδ᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἐόντα / καλὰ διδάσκειν ἔργα

Horace, Ars Poetica 335

Posted on August 7, 2012 by sententiaeantiquae

“Whatever you are teaching, be brief . . .” quidquid praecipies, esto brevis Quintus Horatius Flaccus

Beginning and Ending the Week with Parmenides

August 10, 2014 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 1 Comment

Feeling metaphysical this morning? Some of our favorite lines from Parmenides:

Parmenides, fragment 3.7

Posted on December 13, 2012 by sententiaeantiquae

“Thinking and being are the same thing.”

… τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι

For fun, invert the predicate and verb and pretend you’re Yoda.

Parmenides and other presocratics provide a good workout for the articular infinitive.

Parmenides, fr. 2.8-9

Posted on May 16, 2013 by sententiaeantiquae

“These are the only paths of investigation to contemplate: how it both is and is not possible not to be…and how it is both unnecessary and necessary not to be”

αἵπερ ὁδοὶ μοῦναι διζήσιός εἰσι νοῆσαι·

ἡ μὲν ὅπως ἔστιν τε καὶ ὡς οὐκ ἔστι μὴ εἶναι, ….

ἡ δ’ ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν τε καὶ ὡς χρεών ἐστι μὴ εἶναι

Some great structure in this piece. The stripped down version on the twitter-feed (“the only paths of investigation: how it is and isn’t possible not to be; and how it is isn’t and is necessary not to be”) seems vaguely (and haphazardly) Heraclitean.

Parmenides, fr. 6.16

Posted on October 8, 2012 by sententiaeantiquae

“The path of all things goes backwards.”

…πάντων δὲ παλίντροπός ἐστι κέλευθος.

Yeah, yeah, Cole: and time is a flat circle, right?

Parmenides, fr. 7.1

Posted on October 26, 2012 by sententiaeantiquae

“You can never prove that what doesn’t exist exists”

οὐ γὰρ μήποτε τοῦτο δαμῆι εἶναι μὴ ἐόντα·

Is the opposite true as well?

Now, I’m confused.

Parmenides, fr. 1 51-53

Posted on November 21, 2012 by sententiaeantiquae

“It is right that you learn all things: both the steadfast heart of well-polished truth and the opinions of men…”

χρεὼ δέ σε πάντα πυθέσθαι

ἠμὲν ᾿Αληθείης εὐκυκλέος ἀτρεμὲς ἦτορ

ἠδὲ βροτῶν δόξας….

Apologies to Cicero: Vetera Verba in his Favor

July 26, 2014 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday, we might have been a bit unfair to our friend M. Tully Cicero

People seem into Seneca. Quick survey: who's the more loathsome ancient know-it-all, Seneca or Cicero? And Why?

— sententiae antiquae (@sentantiq) July 25, 2014

At least one person objected to the question:

@sentantiq "Loathsome" know-it-all? Neither punked out when it came to it. Tully, the slipperier, but, eh, life is sweet, ha ha.

— deadgod (@equiprimordial) July 25, 2014

To be fair, one respondent had some antipathy for the consul-extraordinaire:

@sentantiq Cicero. "O fortunatam natam me consule Romam"

— didaclopez (@didaclopez) July 25, 2014

To make some amends, here are some of our Cicero quotes:

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Epist. ad Fam. 6.6.6

“I would prefer the most unfair peace to the justest war”

iniquissimam pacem iustissimo bello anteferrem

Philippics 12.5

“All men make mistakes; but it is fools who persist in them”

cuiusvis hominis est errare; nullius nisi insipientis perseverare in errore

On Old Age, 24

“No one is so old that he thinks he could not live another year”

nemo enim est tam senex qui se annum non putet posse vivere

In Verrem, 1.1.4

“There is nothing so sacred that it cannot be sullied, nor anything so protected that it cannot be overcome by money”.

nihil esse tam sanctum quod non violari, nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit.

Tusculan Disputations, 2.47

“Reason is the mistress and queen of all things”

domina omnium et regina ratio

De Oratore, 3.7

“O, how misleading is the hope of men”

O fallacem hominum spem

So, who’d you rather share a drink with, Cicero or Seneca?

Some notes on Odysseus’ life and death: Forgotten Family and Falling Feces

July 24, 2014 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 4 Comments

“No other Odysseus will ever come home to you”

οὐ μὲν γάρ τοι ἔτ’ ἄλλος ἐλεύσεται ἐνθάδ’ ᾿Οδυσσεύς,

Since it seems we have been obsessed with Odysseus for a while, starting with our concern about whether anyone can ever know the real Odysseus (especially his wife if he follows Agamemnon’s advice and thanks to the various disguises facilitated by Athena), we wanted to put some of them together. Even though we know we shouldn’t repeat ourselves (say something once, why say it again?), we have learned a few delightful things about are favorite (un)hero.

For one, we learned that Odysseus had a sister named Ktimene! And we’re still waiting for news from anyone else about this one.

In his great exploits, satyrs are by his side (according to Euripides, at least). And though Pindar is convinced his Homeric tales are a pack of lies, all of his tales teach us that suffering has meaning and helps to define who we are.

And how we end our lives is probably more important than how they begin. We already knew that death would come to Odysseus from the sea, but who knew that it would involve falling feces?

Any other strange storiesout there?