Compared to the Socrates of Plato, a dialectician with irony and inwardness, Xenophon’s Socrates is more of a rhetorician, direct and assertive. Nevertheless, their respective accounts of the trial and death of Socrates create a compelling and lasting image of their master, whom I would consider myself fortunate to meet. Socrates’ Self-Approval Who is there in your knowledge that is less a slave to his bodily appetites than I am? […]
Read moreCategory: Classics
Greco-Roman and Eastern Classics: Mythology, Philosophy, Literature.
“Parva Naturalia” by Aristotle
In this collection of treatises, Aristotle employs the scientific method (namely, observation, inference, hypothesis and empirical proof) to determine the nature and cause of the joint activities of body and soul, namely, sense perception, memory, sleep, dreams, breathing, aging and death.
Read more“On the Soul” by Aristotle
Of all the books by Aristotle that I’ve read so far, this is the most fascinating in terms of the depth and scope of the concepts, spanning philosophy, epistemology, physics and neurobiology in their nascent form; “Rhetoric“, OTOH, is the most entertaining, in terms of psychological insight and perspective. Substance and Property It seems not only useful for the discovery of the causes of the derived properties of substances to […]
Read more“Satires” by Juvenal
[Warning: The following post contains coarse language, nudity and explicit sexuality. Reader’s discretion is strongly advised.] Eppia, a Senator’s Wife Oblivious of her home and husband and sister, she disregarded her fatherland and shamelessly deserted her wailing children and, what’s more amazing, Paris and the Games. But although as a little girl she had slept in great opulence on her family down in cradles with flounces, she scorned the sea. […]
Read more“Satires” by Persius
The Dissolute He is paralysed with vice, and thick fat has gown over his liver. He has no sense of guilt or of what he’s lost. He’s sunk so deep that he makes no more bubbles on the surface. You’re still snoring and your lolling head with its joint unhinged is yawning yesterday’s yawn, with your jaws completely unstitched. Is there something you’re heading for, a target for your bow? […]
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“Aeneid” by Virgil
“The Plains of Troy Within Us” I chose Mandelbaum’s verse translation of Aeneid for two main reasons. First, because I plan to read his translation of Divine Comedy and the same translator might give me a better sense of the connection between the two classics. Second, Mandelbaum’s introduction and a phrase in his inscription, “the plains of Troy within us”, intrigued me. However, it was not until half way through […]
Read more“On the Ideal Orator” by Cicero
[Original Latin Title: De Oratore] Eloquence Forms a Unity For since all discourse is made up of content and words, the words cannot have any basis if you withdraw the content, and the content will remain in the dark if you remove the words. All the universe above and below us is a unity and is bound together by a single, natural force and harmony. For there is nothing in […]
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