The Elder Pliny on The Greatest Happiness

July 28, 2023July 28, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 35.9-12

As it goes though, I believe that there is no greater kind of happiness that if everyone should forever desire to know what kind of person someone was. In Rome this was the innovation of Asinius Pollio who first established a library by declaring works of genius a public good. Whether they kinds of Alexandria or Pergamum began this earlier—those men who built their libraries in a great contest—I couldn’t decide easily. But that friend of Cicero, Atticus, is a witness that a certain passion for images burned in earlier days in the volume he published on the topic…

Non est praetereundum et novicium inventum, siquidem non ex auro argentove, at certe ex aere in bibliothecis dicantur illis, quorum immortales animae in locis iisdem loquuntur, quin immo etiam quae non sunt finguntur, pariuntque desideria non traditos vultus, sicut in Homero evenit. utique maius, ut equidem arbitror, nullum est felicitatis specimen quam semper omnes scire cupere, qualis fuerit aliquis. Asini Pollionis hoc Romae inventum, qui primus bibliothecam dicando ingenia hominum rem publicam fecit. an priores coeperint Alexandreae et Pergami reges, qui bibliothecas magno certamine instituere, non facile dixerim. imaginum amorem flagrasse quondam testes sunt Atticus ille Ciceronis edito de iis volumine…

Image result for Roman imagines — Pssst…Do you want to know what we were like?

The Lyre of Achilles

January 24, 2023January 24, 2023 ~ lawrencebenn ~ 1 Comment

Homer, Iliad, 9.185-189.

They came to the Myrmidon huts and ships
And found Achilles happy-hearted with his clear-toned
handsomely designed lyre with its silver bridge.
He’d gotten it from the spoils of Etion’s sacked city.
With it he cheered his heart when he sang of the fame of men.

Μυρμιδόνων δʼ ἐπί τε κλισίας καὶ νῆας ἱκέσθην,
τὸν δʼ εὗρον φρένα τερπόμενον φόρμιγγι λιγείῃ
καλῇ δαιδαλέῃ, ἐπὶ δʼ ἀργύρεον ζυγὸν ἦεν,
τὴν ἄρετʼ ἐξ ἐνάρων πόλιν Ἠετίωνος ὀλέσσας·
τῇ ὅ γε θυμὸν ἔτερπεν, ἄειδε δʼ ἄρα κλέα ἀνδρῶν.

D Schol. ad Hom. Il. 9.188b [Erbse]

[Achilles] brought the lyre when he came to the foreign war.. In fact, they say, he found it unseemly to pass time without song.

. . . άνοίκειον γαρ είς πόλεμον ήκοντα κιθάραν έπικομίζεσθαι. | εύρόντα ούν, φησίν, παρελθείν ώς άμουσον άπρεπές ήν.

Plutarch. Lives (Alexander). 15.4-15.5.

When he, Alexander, went up to Ilium, he made offerings to Athena and poured libations to the heroes. He also anointed the grave of Achilles with oil, raced before it (naked, as is the custom) with his comrades, and placed garlands on it. He declared Achilles happy, for in life he had a faithful friend and in death a great herald of his name.

While he was there, touring the city and seeing the sights, someone asked if he would like to see Paris’s lyre. He had little interest in that, he said, but he would like to see the lyre of Achilles, the one to which he sang of the fame and deeds of brave men.

ἀναβὰς δὲ εἰς Ἴλιον ἔθυσε τῇ Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ τοῖς ἥρωσιν ἔσπεισε. τὴν δὲ Ἀχιλλέως στήλην ἀλειψάμενος λίπα καὶ μετὰ τῶν ἑταίρων συναναδραμὼν γυμνὸς, ὥσπερ ἔθος ἐστίν, ἐστεφάνωσε, μακαρίσας αὐτόν ὅτι καὶ ζῶν φίλου πιστοῦ καὶ δὲ τελευτήσας μεγάλου κήρυκος ἔτυχεν. ἐν δὲ τῷ περιϊέναι καὶ θεᾶσθαι τὰ κατὰ τὴν πόλιν ἐρομένου τινὸς αὐτόν εἰ βούλεται τὴν Ἀλεξάνδρου λύραν ἰδεῖν, ἐλάχιστα φροντίζειν ἐκείνης ἔφη, τὴν δὲ Ἀχιλλέως ζητεῖν, ᾗ τὰ κλέα καὶ τὰς πράξεις ὕμνει τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν ἐκεῖνος.

Color photograph of a black painted amphora with a red figure on it: Young man singing and playing the kithara.Terracotta amphora. Attributed to the Berlin painter. c.490 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art. — Young man singing and playing the kithara.
Terracotta amphora. Attributed to the Berlin painter.
c.490 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Larry Benn has a B.A. in English Literature from Harvard College, an M.Phil in English Literature from Oxford University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Making amends for a working life misspent in finance, he’s now a hobbyist in ancient languages and blogs at featsofgreek.blogspot.com.

Pliny the Elder on The Greatest Happiness

June 2, 2019June 2, 2019 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 35.9-12

In Rome this was the innovation of Asinius Pollio who first established a library by declaring works of genius a public good. Whether they kinds of Alexandria or Pergamum began this earlier—those men who built their libraries in a great contest—I couldn’t decide easily. But that friend of Cicero, Atticus, is a witness that a certain passion for images burned in earlier days in the volume he published on the topic…

The Elder Pliny on The Greatest Happiness

July 14, 2017July 16, 2017 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 35.9-12

“It would be wrong to ignore the new invention in which, if not from gold then surely from bronze, images of those immortal spirits are set up in libraries, or even more those who did not exist are given shape and they produce glances which are not traditional, as has happened with Homer. As it goes though, I believe that there is no greater kind of happiness that if everyone should forever desire to know what kind of person someone was. In Rome this was the innovation of Asinius Pollio who first established a library by declaring works of genius a public good. Whether they kinds of Alexandria or Pergamum began this earlier—those men who built their libraries in a great contest—I couldn’t decide easily. But that friend of Cicero, Atticus, is a witness that a certain passion for images burned in earlier days in the volume he published on the topic…