classics digests, reflections and reviews
The Wounds and Glory of Alexander When the thigh of his father Philip had been pierced by a spear in battle with the Triballians, and Philip, although he escaped with his life, was vexed with his lameness, Alexander said, ‘Be of good cheer, father, and go on your way rejoicing, that at each step you may recall your valour.’… How, then, think you, did he glory in his own wounds, […]
Read morePlato wrote a book on the One Ideal Constitution, but because of its forbidding character he could not persuade anyone to adopt it; but Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Grecian magistracies, and thus overcame its uncivilized and brutish manner of living. Although few of us read Plato’s Laws, yet hundreds of thousands have made use of Alexander’s laws, and continue to […]
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Humanity On Trial Milton recounts and reinterprets the Biblical story of Satan Tempting Christ in Paradise Regained, in which he lays open to criticism and derision the whole of human existence and history. There is a distinct undertone of defiance and bitterness. In the poem, Christ is represented, not so much as the only begotten Son of God, but a heroic moral figure, who triumphs over Satan, not by His […]
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