“On the Art of Horsemanship” by Xenophon

A 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 […]

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“Moralia: III. Advice to Husband and Wife” by Plutarch

Excellent 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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“Symposium” by Xenophon

Socrates and Xanthippe “Socrates,” asked Antisthenes, “how does it come that you don’t practise what you preach by yourself educating Xanthippe, but live with a wife who is the hardest to get along with of all the women there are—yes, or all that ever were, I suspect, or ever will be?” “Because,” he replied, “I observe that men who wish to become expert horsemen do not get the most docile […]

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