classics digests, reflections and reviews
The motives of my voyage were a certain intellectual restlessness, a passion for novelty, a curiosity about the limits of the ocean and the peoples who might dwell beyond it. The Island of the Blest As we drew near it, a marvellous air was wafted to us, exquisitely fragrant. Its sweetness seemed compounded of rose, narcissus, hyacinth, lilies and violets, myrtle and bay and flowering vine. There were meadows and […]
Read morePlato writes in “Phaedrus” that if Wisdom has a visible image, men would be transported by her beauty and loveliness, and be roused to pursue wisdom above all else. But alas, we have no eye for wisdom; Plutarch relates a story of the legendary lawgiver Lycurgus that suggests the true meaning of the law, “eye for eye”. The well-to-do citizens resented Lycurgus’ radical reform, denounced him and pelted him, wishing […]
Read moreEducation of the Spartan Youths Their voice you would no more hear, than if they were of marble, their gaze is as immovable as if they were cast in bronze. You would deem them more modest than the very maidens in their eyes. In other states equals in age associate together, and such an atmosphere is little conducive to modesty. Whereas in Sparta Lycurgus was careful so to blend the […]
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Confessions of a Despot I assure you that despots are worse off than private citizens in the matter of pleasure and delights. Marriage It is commonly held that a marriage into a family of greater wealth and influence is most honourable, and is a source of pride and pleasure to the bridegroom. Next to that comes a marriage with equals. A marriage with inferiors is considered positively degrading and useless. […]
Read moreA horse adapted to parade and state processions, a high stepper and a showy animal, must have high spirit and a stalwart body. Not a horse with flexible legs, but one with short, supple and strong loins. If when he is planting his hind-legs under him you pull him up with the bit, he bends the hind-legs on the hocks and raises the fore-part of his body, so that anyone […]
Read moreFor no living man feeds upon another living creature ; nay, we put to death the animate creatures and destroy these things that grow in the ground, which also are partakers in life, in that they absorb food, and increase in size ; and herein we do wrong. For anything that is changed from what it was by nature into something else is destroyed, and it undergoes utter corruption that […]
Read moreExcellent marriage advice from Plutarch. Fishers of Men Fishing with poison is a quick and easy way to catch fish, but it makes the fish inedible and bad. In the same way women who employ love-potions and magic spells upon their husbands, and gain the mastery over them through pleasure, find themselves consorts of dull-witted, degenerate fools. The men bewitched by Circe were of no service to her, after they […]
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