“There is in fact no way of correcting wrongdoing in those who think that the height of virtue consists in the execution of their will.”
"Sovereign power is nothing if it does not care for the welfare of others, and...it is the task of a good ruler to keep his power in check, to resist the passions of unbridled desire and implacable rage."
#SundayFunday @bookmarktavern
definitely with something in mind, I can't browse, it's no good for me, 😂 😂 if I did, I'd come out with the whole store .
Mind you, that doesn't work either, I have 3 translations of The Aeneid, and let's not even get to how many versions of Frankenstein or Romo and Juliet I have - ummm, 7 for the first and 5 for the second, so yeah, no browsing for me 😂
pickHis various letters are illuminating, his Philippic against Antony is furious & damning, and his expositions on Duties & Old Age are still relevant today. The style in his written letters & essays may be more accessible to modern readers than his speeches, which can get long in the tooth. But stick with it. As a window into Ancient Rome & into the mind of the most celebrated orator of his time, his insight is still penetrating & meaningful.
"Life's course is invariable - nature has one path only, and you cannot travel along it more than once. Every stage of life has its own characteristics: boys are feeble, youths in their prime are aggressive, middle-aged men are dignified, old people are mature. Each one of these qualities is ordained by nature for harvesting in due season." - from On Old Age
"Consider the paradox of a person who admits the wickedness of tyrannizing a country....but who nevertheless sees advantage in himself becoming its tyrant if he can....Who, in God's name, could possibly derive advantage from murdering his country? Of all murders that is the most hideous...even when its perpetrator is hailed, by the citizens he has trodden underfoot, as 'Father of his Country'."
"So everyone ought to have the same purpose: to identify the interest of each with the interest of all. Once men grab for themselves, human society will completely collapse."
"...neglect of the common interest is unnatural, because it is unjust... nature's law promotes and coincides with the common interest."
So even in Cicero's day, "competition [was] the law of the jungle, but cooperation [was] the law of civilization." (Pyotr Kropotkin)
so-soThere were parts where the poetry was moving, but minus: the story of Dido; the sea voyage Aeneas has; and some sobering war scenes, this mostly read like a piece of propaganda, but I would read again. This time I read Robert Fagles verse translation, I found it to be an easy read.
#Fiction #books #readaway2024 #eBook #Romance #mythology #war #epic poetry
"For honesty is not particularly virtuous when there is no one with the ability or ambition to corrupt it."
“He's not a man, he's a compendium of weirdness“, Plautus
So am I, Plautus. So am I... 🤣
Ammianus was alive, though over 1000 miles away, during the Great Conspiracy to overrun Britannia in 367, which is the setting of the tagged book I'm reading, and I'm interested in reading his original account (but, tsundoku 😒📚).