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some things about ancient literature

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 1:11 pm
by Kunigunde Kreuzerin
.
Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, a 5th-century philosopher, wrote
Vergilius has certain passages which he is believed to have transferred from Homer; but I shall show that they are passages which were taken from authors of ours who, earlier than Vergilius, had transferred these passages from Homer to their own poetic works. . . . Homer on a fierce fight fought by Ajax has ... This passage Ennius in the sixteenth book transferred to the fight of the tribune C. Aelius, ... By the use of this as an example, Vergilius, on the subject of Turnus hemmed in, has rendered the same passage with a more elegant grace


Homer, Iliad, book 16, 102-11 Ennius, Annales, quoted by Macrobius Vergil, Aeneid, book 9, 806-814
On this wise spake they one to the other, but Aias no longer abode, for he was sore beset with darts; the will of Zeus was overmastering him, and the lordly Trojans with their missiles; and terribly did the bright helm about his temples ring continually, as it was smitten, for smitten it ever was upon the well-wrought cheek-pieces, and his left shoulder grew weary as he ever firmly held his flashing shield; nor might they beat it back about him, for all they pressed him hard with darts. And evermore was he distressed by laboured breathing, and down from his limbs on every side abundant sweat kept streaming, nor had he any wise respite to get his breath withal, but every way evil was heaped upon evil. From all sides the javelins like a rain-storm showered in upon the tribune, and pierced his buckler ; then jangled the embossment under spears, the helmets too with brassy clang ; but not one of them, though strain they did from every side, could rend apart his body with the iron. Every time he shakes and breaks the waves of lances ; sweat covers all his body ; he is hard distressed ; to breathe he has not a chance. Therefore the warrior's shield avails no more, nor his strong arm; but he is overthrown by general assault. Around his brows his smitten helmet rings; the ponderous mail cracks under falling stones; the haughty plumes are scattered from his head, nor can the boss of his stout shield endure; the Trojans hurl redoubled rain of spears; and with them speeds Mnestheus like thunderbolt. The hero's flesh dissolves in sweat; no room to breathe has he; his limbs are spent and weary; his whole frame shakes with his gasping breath: then bounding fort with all his harness on, headlong he plunged into the flowing stream;


Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:06 pm
by Ben C. Smith
Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote: Wed Jul 26, 2017 1:11 pm .
Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, a 5th-century philosopher, wrote
Vergilius has certain passages which he is believed to have transferred from Homer; but I shall show that they are passages which were taken from authors of ours who, earlier than Vergilius, had transferred these passages from Homer to their own poetic works. . . . Homer on a fierce fight fought by Ajax has ... This passage Ennius in the sixteenth book transferred to the fight of the tribune C. Aelius, ... By the use of this as an example, Vergilius, on the subject of Turnus hemmed in, has rendered the same passage with a more elegant grace


Homer, Iliad, book 16, 102-11 Ennius, Annales, quoted by Macrobius Vergil, Aeneid, book 9, 806-814
On this wise spake they one to the other, but Aias no longer abode, for he was sore beset with darts; the will of Zeus was overmastering him, and the lordly Trojans with their missiles; and terribly did the bright helm about his temples ring continually, as it was smitten, for smitten it ever was upon the well-wrought cheek-pieces, and his left shoulder grew weary as he ever firmly held his flashing shield; nor might they beat it back about him, for all they pressed him hard with darts. And evermore was he distressed by laboured breathing, and down from his limbs on every side abundant sweat kept streaming, nor had he any wise respite to get his breath withal, but every way evil was heaped upon evil. From all sides the javelins like a rain-storm showered in upon the tribune, and pierced his buckler ; then jangled the embossment under spears, the helmets too with brassy clang ; but not one of them, though strain they did from every side, could rend apart his body with the iron. Every time he shakes and breaks the waves of lances ; sweat covers all his body ; he is hard distressed ; to breathe he has not a chance. Therefore the warrior's shield avails no more, nor his strong arm; but he is overthrown by general assault. Around his brows his smitten helmet rings; the ponderous mail cracks under falling stones; the haughty plumes are scattered from his head, nor can the boss of his stout shield endure; the Trojans hurl redoubled rain of spears; and with them speeds Mnestheus like thunderbolt. The hero's flesh dissolves in sweat; no room to breathe has he; his limbs are spent and weary; his whole frame shakes with his gasping breath: then bounding fort with all his harness on, headlong he plunged into the flowing stream;

Very nice. It is always good to have analogies from other ancient literature when analyzing the biblical and patristic texts.

Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:35 pm
by Kunigunde Kreuzerin
Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:06 pmIt is always good to have analogies from other ancient literature when analyzing the biblical and patristic texts.
Agreed.

Horace (the “fat and happy Epicurean pig” - Epistles 1.4.16) claimed in Ode 2.7 that he lost his shield at the battle of Philippi (42 B.C.) but the Roman god Mercury raised him in the air.

With you I have experienced Philippi and a
swift escape with my little shield not well left behind,
when strength had been subdued and threatening people
touched the disgraceful ground with their chin.

But quick Mercury raised me, frightened,
through enemies in a dense air
;
on the other hand, a wave swallowing you
brought you to war in a burning sea.

One could assume that the participation of Mercury is just a myth, but the story with the shield a historical und biographical fact. But it seems that the use of the mentioned shield (the “parmula“) is an anachronism and the whole story a literary theme.

Gregson Davis, Polyhymnia: The Rhetoric of Horation Lyric Discourse
The variations that occur in the convention (the shield, for example, is "left behind" by Archilochus and Horace, and "thrown away" by Alcaeus and also, apparently, Anacreon) are in themselves of negligible import. What the gesture signifies remains, in its broad outline, stable: a radical devaluation of the warrior ethos and posthumous glory, together with an enhancement of the value of life in the present.

Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 11:06 am
by Kunigunde Kreuzerin
.
coursera.org: Lecture 22 - Introduction to Epicurus
Epicurus seems to have founded more than one community like 'The Garden'. And his letters to such communities are in many ways like the letters from the Apostle Paul to far flung Christian communities centuries later. That is, they contain reminders and summaries of core doctrines with the injunction to rehearse and memorize them.

Epicurus to Pythocles

Epicurus to Pythocles, greeting.

In your letter to me, of which Cleon was the bearer, you continue to show me affection which I have merited by my devotion to you, and you try, not without success, to recall the considerations which make for a happy life. To aid your memory you ask me for a clear and concise statement respecting celestial phenomena; for what we have written on this subject elsewhere is, you tell me, hard to remember, although you have my books constantly with you. I was glad to receive your request and am full of pleasant expectations.

We will then complete our writing and grant all you ask. Many others besides you will find these reasonings useful, and especially those who have but recently made acquaintance with the true story of nature and those who are attached to pursuits which go deeper than any part of ordinary education. So you will do well to take and learn them and get them up quickly along with the short epitome in my letter to Herodotus. In the first place, remember that, like everything else, knowledge of celestial phenomena, whether taken along with other things or in isolation, has no other end in view than peace of mind and firm conviction.

...


Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:26 pm
by Kunigunde Kreuzerin
.
The larger ring-composition can be found in many ancient literary works (both Greek and Near East)

Homer's Iliad, Books IX-XII (according to Glenn W. Most )
Troy
Cicones
…....... 2-day storm, followed by drifting (Book IX)
….......…....... Lotus-Eaters (Book IX)
….......….......…....... Cyclops (Book IX)
….......….......….......….......Aeolus and a storm (Book X)
….......….......…....... Laestrygonians (Book X)
….......…....... Circe (Book X)
….......….......…....... Elpenor's death (departure from Circe) (Book X)
….....…..…......…............... Nekuia (Book XI)
…...….…................. Elpenor's burial (return to Circe) (Book XI)
….....…......... Sirens (Book XII)
……...….................. Scylla and Charybdis (Book XII)
….…...…....….................... Helios and another storm (Book XII)
…..…........…........... Charybdis and Scylla (Book XII)
….…............. Calypso (Book XII)
…....... 2-day storm followed by drifting (Book VII, V)
Phaiacians
Ithaka


Genesis 12-22 (according to Jonathan Magonet)
"Go (leḵ-lə-ḵā) from your country ..."; leave his father; blessings and promises
…....... Sarai is in danger from Pharaoh (wife and sister)
…......…........ Lot is in jeopardy (Sodom)
…....….........…........ covenant
…....….........…........…....... Hagar and Ishmael
…....….........…........ covenant
…......…........ Lot is in jeopardy (Sodom)
…....... Sarah is in danger from Abimelech (wife and sister)
„Go (leḵ-lə-ḵā) to the land of Moriah ...“; bid farewell to his son; blessings and promises


Mark 8-10
healing of a blind
…....... confession that Jesus is the Christ
…...…........... first passion/resurrection prediction, uncomprehending, further teachings
……...….................. second passion/resurrection prediction, uncomprehending, further teachings
….…............. third passion/resurrection prediction uncomprehending, further teachings
…....... confession that Jesus is the son of David
healing of a blind


Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2017 2:07 pm
by Kunigunde Kreuzerin
.
Erich Auerbach wrote „Odysseus' scar“ in the middle of the 1940s. The predominant view of his time was that Homer was ancient high literature but the stories of the Bible were just humble tales and folk stories. Auerbach's study showed that such categories are not sufficient. He used the story about Odysseus' scar in Homer's Odyssey, book 19, and the Akedah and described different „presentations of reality“ in these epic narratives. Auerbach may have oversimplified some points. Nevertheless, I think his view is essentially correct in its tendency. Some of his points:


It would be difficult, then, to imagine styles more contrasted than those of these two equally ancient and equally epic texts.


(Homer) On the one hand, externalized, uniformly illuminated phenomena, at a definite time and in a definite place, connected together without lacunae in a perpetual foreground; thoughts and feeling completely expressed; events taking place in leisurely fashion and with very little of suspense. (Genesis) On the other hand, the externalization of only so much of the phenomena as is necessary for the purpose of the narrative, all else left in obscurity; the decisive points of the narrative alone are emphasized, what lies between is nonexistent; time and place are undefined and call for interpretation; thoughts and feeling remain unexpressed, are only suggested by the silence and the fragmentary speeches; the whole, permeated with the most unrelieved suspense and directed toward a single goal (and to that extent far more of a unity), remains mysterious and “fraught with background.”


We find the same contrast if we compare the two uses of direct discourse.


(Homer) All this is scrupulously extemalized and narrated in leisurely fashion. The two women (Euryclea and Penelope) express their feelings in copious direct discourse. Feelings though they are, with only a slight admixture of the most general considerations upon human destiny, the syntactical connection between part and part is perfectly clear, no contour is blurred ... and not less clear-wholly expressed, orderly even in their ardor--are the feelings and thoughts of the persons involved. … Much that is terrible takes place in the Homeric poems, but it seldom takes place wordlessly: Polyphemus talks to Odysseus; Odysseus talks to the suitors when he begins to kill them; Hector and Achilles talk at length, before battle and after; and no speech is so filled with anger or scorn that the particles which express logical and grammatical connections are lacking or out of place. (Genesis) The personages speak in the Bible story too; but their speech does not serve, as does speech in Homer, to manifest, to externalize thoughts—on the contrary, it serves to indicate thoughts which remain unexpressed. God gives his command in direct discourse, but he leaves his motives and his purpose unexpressed; Abraham, receiving the command, says nothing and does what he has been told to do. The conversation between Abraham and Isaac on the way to the place of sacrifice is only an interruption of the heavy silence and makes it all the more burdensome. The two of them, Isaac carrying the wood and Abraham with fire and a knife, “went together.” Hesitantly, Isaac ventures to ask about the ram, and Abraham gives the well-known answer. Then the text repeats: “So they went both of them together.” Everything remains unexpressed.


(Homer) The interruption, which comes just at the point when the housekeeper recognizes the scar—that is, at the moment of crisis—describes the origin of the scar, a hunting accident which occurred in Odysseus’ boyhood, at a boar hunt, during the time of his visit to his grandfather Autolycus. This first affords an opportunity to inform the reader about Autolycus, his house, the precise degree of the kinship, his character, and, no less exhaustively than touchingly, his behavior after the birth of his grandson; then follows the visit of Odysseus, now grown to be a youth; the exchange of greetings, the banquet with which he is welcomed, sleep and waking, the early start for the hunt, the tracking of the beast, the struggle, Odysseus’ being wounded by the boar’s tusk, his recovery, his return to Ithaca, his parents’ anxious questions—all is narrated, again with such a complete externalization of all the elements of the story and of their interconnections as to leave nothing in obscurity. (Genesis) After this opening, God gives his command, and the story itself begins: everyone knows it; it unrolls with no episodes in a few independent sentences whose syntactical connection is of the most rudimentary sort. In this atmosphere it is unthinkable that an implement, a landscape through which the travelers passed, the servingmen, or the ass, should be described, that their origin or descent or material or appearance or usefulness should be set forth in terms of praise; they do not even admit an adjective: they are serving-men, ass, wood, and knife, and nothing else, without an epithet; they are there to serve the end which God has commanded; what in other respects they were, are, or will be, remains in darkness. A journey is made, because God has designated the place where the sacrifice is to be performed; but we are told nothing about the journey except that it took three days, and even that we are told in a mysterious way: Abraham and his followers rose “early in the morning” and “went unto” the place of which God had told him; on the third day he lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. That gesture is the only gesture, is indeed the only occurrence during the whole journey, of which we are told; and though its motivation lies in the fact that the place is elevated, its uniqueness still heightens the impression that the journey took place through a vacuum; it is as if, while he traveled on, Abraham had looked neither to the right nor to the left, had suppressed any sign of life in his followers and himself save only their footfalls. Thus the journey is like a silent progress through the indeterminate and the contingent, a holding of the breath, a process which has no present, which is inserted, like a blank duration, between what has passed and what lies ahead, and which yet is measured: three days!


(Homer) Here is the scar, which comes up in the course of the narrative; and Homer’s feeling simply will not permit him to see it appear out of the darkness of an unilluminated past; it must be set in full light, and with it a portion of the hero’s boyhood— just as, in the Iliad, when the first ship is already burning and the Myrmidons finally arm that they may hasten to help, there is still time not only for the wonderful simile of the wolf, not only for the order of the Myrmidon host, but also for a detailed account of the ancestry of several subordinate leaders (16, vv. 155). (Genesis) While God and Abraham, the serving-men, the ass, and the implements are simply named, without mention of any qualities or any other sort of definition, Isaac once receives an appositive; God says, “Take Isaac, thine only son, whom thou lovest.” But this is not a characterization of Isaac as a person, apart from his relation to his father and apart from the story; he may be handsome or ugly, intelligent or stupid, tall or short, pleasant or unpleasant—we are not told. Only what we need to know about him as a personage in the action, here and now, is illuminated, so that it may become apparent how terrible Abraham’s temptation is, and that God is fully aware of it.


(Homer) For the element of suspense is very slight in the Homeric poems; nothing in their entire style is calculated to keep the reader or hearer breathless. The digressions are not meant to keep the reader in suspense, but rather to relax the tension. And this frequently occurs, as in the passage before us. The broadly narrated, charming, and subtly fashioned story of the hunt, with all its elegance and self-sufficiency, its wealth of idyllic pictures, seeks to win the reader over wholly to itself as long as he is hearing it, to make him forget what had just taken place during the foot-washing. But an episode that will increase suspense by retarding the action must be so constructed that it will not fill the present entirely, will not put the crisis, whose resolution is being awaited, entirely out of the reader’s mind, and thereby destroy the mood of suspense; the crisis and the suspense must continue, must remain vibrant in the background (Genesis) But here, in the story of Abraham’s sacrifice, the overwhelming suspense is present; what Schiller makes the goal of the tragic poet—to rob us of our emotional freedom, to turn our intellectual and spiritual powers (Schiller says “our activity”) in one direction, to concentrate them there—is effected in this Biblical narrative, which certainly deserves the epithet epic.


Herein lies the reason why the great figures of the Old Testament are so much more fully developed, so much more fraught with their own biographical past, so much more distinct as individuals, than are the Homeric heroes. … Fraught with their development, sometimes even aged to the verge of dissolution, they show a distinct stamp of individuality entirely foreign to the Homeric heroes. Time can touch the latter only outwardly, and even that change is brought to our observation as little as possible; whereas the stern hand of God is ever upon .the Old Testament figures; he has not only made them once and for all and chosen them, but he continues to work upon them, bends them and kneads them, and, without destroying them in essence, produces from them forms which their youth gave no grounds for anticipating.


(Homer) Achilles and Odysseus are splendidly described in many well-ordered words, epithets cling to them, their emotions are constantly displayed in their words and deeds—but they have no development, and their life-histories are clearly set forth once and for all. So little are the Homeric heroes presented as developing or having developed, that most of them—Nestor, Agamemnon, Achilles—appear to be of an age fixed from the very first. Even Odysseus, in whose case the long lapse of time and the many events which occurred offer so much opportunity for biographical development, shows almost nothing of it. Odysseus on his return is exactly the same as he was when he left Ithaca two decades earlier. (Genesis) But what a road, what a fate, lie between the Jacob who cheated his father out of his blessing and the old man whose favorite son has been torn to pieces by a wild beast!—between David the harp player, persecuted by his lord’s jealousy, and the old king, surrounded by violent intrigues, whom Abishag the Shunnamite warmed in his bed, and he knew her not! The old man, of whom we know how he has become what he is is more of an individual than the young man; for it is only during the course of an eventful life that men are differentiated into full individuality; and it is this history of a personality which the Old Testament presents to us as the formation undergone by those whom God has chosen to be examples.


How entangled and stratified are such human relations as those between David and Absalom, between David and Joab! Any such “background” quality of the psychological situation as that which the story of Absalom’s death and its sequel ... rather suggests than expresses, is unthinkable in Homer. Here we are confronted not merely with the psychological processes of characters whose depth of background is veritably abysmal, but with a purely geographical background too.


(Genesis) For David is absent from the battlefield; but the influence of his will and his feelings continues to operate, they affect even Joab in his rebellion and disregard for the consequences of his actions; in the magnificent scene with the two messengers, both the physical and psychological background is fully manifest, though the latter is never expressed. (Homer) With this, compare, for example, how Achilles, who sends Patroclus first to scout and then into battle, loses almost all “presentness so long as he is not physically present.


(Homer) For the great and sublime events in the Homeric poems take place far more exclusively and unmistakably among the members of a ruling class; and these are far more untouched in their heroic elevation than are the Old Testament figures, who can fall much lower in dignity ...; and finally, domestic realism, the representation of daily life, remains in Homer in the peaceful realm of the idyllic, (Genesis) whereas, from the very first, in the Old Testament stories, the sublime, tragic, and problematic take shape precisely in the domestic and commonplace: scenes such as those between Cain and Abel, between Noah and his sons, between Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, between Rebekah, Jacob, and Esau, and so on, are inconceivable in the Homeric style.


(Homer) Yet these two characters are the only ones whom Homer brings to life who do not belong to the ruling class. Thus we become conscious of the fact that in the Homeric poems life is enacted only among the ruling class—others appear only in the role of servants to that class. The ruling class is still so strongly patriarchal, and still itself so involved in the daily activities of domestic life, that one is sometimes likely to forget their rank. But they are unmistakably a sort of feudal aristocracy, whose men divide their lives between war, hunting, marketplace councils, and feasting, while the women supervise the maids in the house. As a social picture, this world is completely stable; wars take place only between different groups of the ruling class; nothing ever pushes up from below. (Genesis) In the early stories of the Old Testament the patriarchal condition is dominant too, but since the people involved are individual nomadic or half-nomadic tribal leaders, the social picture gives a much less stable impression; class distinctions are not felt. As soon as the people completely emerges—that is, after the exodus from Egypt—its activity is always discernible, it is often in ferment, it frequently intervenes in events not only as a whole but also in separate groups and through the medium of separate individuals who come forward; the origins of prophecy seem to lie in the irrepressible politico-religious spontaneity of the people. We receive the impression that the movements emerging from the depths of the people of Israel-Judah must have been of a wholly different nature from those even of the later ancient democracies—of a different nature and far more elemental.


(Homer) The Homeric poems, then, though their intellectual, linguistic, and above all syntactical culture appears to be so much more highly developed, are yet comparatively simple in their picture of human beings; and no less so in their relation to the real life which they describe in general. Delight in physical existence is everything to them, and their highest aim is to make that delight perceptible to us. Between battles and passions, adventures and perils, they show us hunts, banquets, palaces and shepherds’ cots, athletic contests and washing days—in order that we may see the heroes in their ordinary life, and seeing them so, may take pleasure in their manner of enjoying their savory present, a present which sends strong roots down into social usages, landscape, and daily life. And thus they bewitch us and ingratiate themselves to us until we live with them in the reality of their lives; so long as we are reading or hearing the poems, it does not matter whether we know that all this is only legend, “make-believe.” The oft-repeated reproach that Homer is a liar takes nothing from his effectiveness, he does not need to base his story on historical reality, his reality is powerful enough in itself; it ensnares us, weaving its web around us, and that suffices him. (Genesis) It is all very different in the Biblical stories. Their aim is not to bewitch the senses, and if nevertheless they produce lively sensory effects, it is only because the moral, religious, and psychological phenomena which are their sole concern are made concrete in the sensible matter of life. But their religious intent involves an absolute claim to historical truth. The story of Abraham and Isaac is not better established than the story of Odysseus, Penelope, and Euryclea; both are legendary. But the Biblical narrator ... had to believe in the objective truth of the story of Abraham’s sacrifice—the existence of the sacred ordinances of life rested upon the truth of this and similar stories. He had to believe in it passionately; or else (as many rationalistic interpreters believed and perhaps still believe) he had to be a conscious liar—no harmless liar like Homer, who lied to give pleasure, but a political liar with a definite end in view, lying in the interest of a claim to absolute authority. To me, the rationalistic interpretation seems psychologically absurd; but even if we take it into consideration, the relation of the Elohist to the truth of his story still remains a far more passionate and definite one than is Homer’s relation.


(Homer) And this “real” world into which we are lured, exists for itself, contains nothing but itself; the Homeric poems conceal nothing, they contain no teaching and no secret second meaning. (Genesis) In the story of Isaac, it is not only God’s intervention at the beginning and the end, but even the factual and psychological elements which come between, that are mysterious, merely touched upon, fraught with background; and therefore they require subtle investigation and interpretation, they demand them. Since so much in the story is dark and incomplete, and since the reader knows that God is a hidden God, his effort to interpret it constantly finds something new to feed upon.


(Homer) The Homeric poems present a definite complex of events whose boundaries in space and time are clearly delimited; before it, beside it, and after it, other complexes of events, which do not depend upon it, can be conceived without conflict and without difficulty. (Genesis) The Old Testament, on the other hand, presents universal history: it begins with the beginning of time, with the creation of the world, and will end with the Last Days, the fulfilling of the Covenant, with which the world will come to an end. Everything else that happens in the world can only be conceived as an element in this sequence; into it everything that is known about the world, or at least everything that touches upon the history of the Jews, must be fitted as an ingredient of the divine plan


Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 7:54 am
by Ben C. Smith
I hope you do not mind me using this thread to add something, simple though it may be. Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to Baebius Macer concerning the writing habits of his uncle, none other than Pliny the Elder, which I thought interesting for its possible insight into ancient compositional techniques. This is epistle 3.5:

I was delighted to find that you are so zealous a student of my uncle's books that you would like to possess copies of them all, and that you ask me to give you a complete list of them. I will play the part of an index for you, and tell you, moreover, the order in which they were written, for this is a point that students are interested to know. "Throwing the Javelin from Horseback," one volume; this was composed, with considerable ingenuity and research, when he was on active service as a cavalry lieutenant. "The Life of Pomponius Secundus," two volumes;--Pomponius was remarkably attached to my uncle, who, so to speak, composed this book to his friend's memory in payment of his debt of gratitude. "The German Wars," twenty volumes;--this comprises an account of all the wars we have waged with the German races. He commenced it, while on service in Germany, in obedience to the warning of a dream, for, while he was asleep, the shade of Drusus Nero, who had won sweeping victories in that country and died there, appeared to him and kept on entrusting his fame to my uncle, beseeching him to rescue his name from ill-deserved oblivion. "The Student," three volumes, afterwards split up into six on account of their length;--in this he showed the proper training and equipment of an orator from his cradle up. "Ambiguity in Language," in eight volumes, was written in the last years of Nero's reign when tyranny had made it dangerous to write any book, no matter the subject, in anything like a free and candid style. "A Continuation of the History of Aufidius Bassus," in thirty-one books, and a "Natural History," in thirty-seven books;--the latter is a comprehensive and learned work, covering as wide a field as Nature herself.

Does it surprise you that a busy man found time to finish so many volumes, many of which deal with such minute details? You will wonder the more when I tell you that he for many years pleaded in the law courts, that he died in his fifty-seventh year, and that in the interval his time was taken up and his studies were hindered by the important offices he held and the duties arising out of his friendship with the Emperors. But he possessed a keen intellect; he had a marvellous capacity for work, and his powers of application were enormous. He used to begin to study at night on the Festival of Vulcan, not for luck but from his love of study, long before dawn; in winter he would commence at the seventh hour or at the eighth at the very latest, and often at the sixth. He could sleep at call, and it would come upon him and leave him in the middle of his work. Before daybreak he would go to Vespasian-- for he too was a night-worker--and then set about his official duties. On his return home he would again give to study any time that he had free. Often in summer after taking a meal, which with him, as in the old days, was always a simple and light one, he would lie in the sun if he had any time to spare, and a book would be read aloud, from which he would take notes and extracts. For he never read without taking extracts, and used to say that there never was a book so bad that it was not good in some passage or another. After his sun bath he usually bathed in cold water, then he took a snack and a brief nap, and subsequently, as though another day had begun, he would study till dinner-time. After dinner a book would be read aloud, and he would take notes in a cursory way. I remember that one of his friends, when the reader pronounced a word wrongly, checked him and made him read it again, and my uncle said to him, "Did you not catch the meaning?" When his friend said "yes," he remarked, "Why then did you make him turn back? We have lost more than ten lines through your interruption." So jealous was he of every moment lost.

In summer he used to rise from the dinner-table while it was still light; in winter always before the first hour had passed, as though there was a law obliging him to do so. Such was his method of living when up to the eyes in work and amid the bustle of Rome. When he was in the country the only time snatched from his work was when he took his bath, and when I say bath I refer to the actual bathing, for while he was being scraped with the strigil or rubbed down, he used to listen to a reader or dictate. When he was travelling he cut himself aloof from every other thought and gave himself up to study alone. At his side he kept a shorthand writer with a book and tablets, who wore mittens on his hands in winter, so that not even the sharpness of the weather should rob him of a moment, and for the same reason, when in Rome, he used to be carried in a litter. I remember that once he rebuked me for walking, saying, "If you were a student, you could not waste your hours like that," for he considered that all time was wasted which was not devoted to study.

Such was the application which enabled him to compile all those volumes I have enumerated, and he left me one hundred and sixty commonplace books, written on both sides of the scrolls, and in a very small handwriting, which really makes the number of the volumes considerably more. He used to say that when he was procurator in Spain he could have sold these commonplace books to Largius Licinus for four hundred thousand sestertia, and at that time they were much fewer in number. Do you not feel when you think of his voluminous writing and reading that he cannot have had any public duties to attend to, and that he cannot have been an intimate friend of the Emperors? Again, when you hear what an amount of work he put into his studies, does it not seem that he neither wrote nor read as much as he might? For his other duties might surely have prevented him from studying altogether, and a man with his application might have accomplished even more than he did. So I often smile when some of my friends call me a book-worm, for if I compare myself with him I am but a shocking idler. Yet am I quite as bad as that, considering the way I am distracted by my public and private duties? Who is there of all those who devote their whole life to literature, who, if compared with him, would not blush for himself as a sleepy-head and a lazy fellow? I have let my pen run on, though I had intended simply to answer your question and give you a list of my uncle's works; but I trust that even my letter may give you as much pleasure as his books, and that it will spur you on not only to read them, but also to compose something worthy to be compared with them. Farewell.


Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2017 7:10 am
by Secret Alias
Deuteronomy's repurposing of Exodus is another example. This is especially true if you look at the oldest copies of Exodus where large passages of Deuteronomy are clearly copied straight out of Exodus. Of course our minds can't get around 'our edition of Deuteronomy' being 'the correct one' because these repurposed passages have been deleted.

Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 3:23 pm
by Iphigeneia
The shield in ancient Greece is directly linked to a man's honor.
Throwing away your shield, opposed to another armament, was a cowardly thing to do.
This was because in a battle formation, you used your shield to defend the man beside you instead of only yourself.
So returning from battle without your shield was often something that was mentioned as being shameful.

Often in literature when someone would try to discredit the other party, he would mention this.
The poet Alkaios was mentioned that he returned safe, but without his shield and that it now hung in the temple of the grey eyed Athena.

Re: some things about ancient literature

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 3:57 pm
by Ben C. Smith
Iphigeneia wrote: Tue Nov 28, 2017 3:23 pmSo returning from battle without your shield was often something that was mentioned as being shameful.

Plutarch, Moralia (Sayings of Spartan Women) 241.16: Ἄλλη προσαναδιδοῦσα τῷ παιδὶ τὴν ἀσπίδα καὶ παρακελευομένη, «Τέκνον,» ἔφη, «ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς.» / Another, upon handing the shield to her boy and encouraging him, says, "Child, either this or upon this."

Often paraphrased as, "Return with your shield or on it."