Laudator Temporis Acti

Plutarch, Precepts of Statecraft 14 (Moralia 809e; tr. Harold North Fowler):

For the statesman should not regard any fellow-citizen as an enemy, unless some man, such as Aristion, Nabis, or Catiline, should appear who is a pest and a running sore to the State.

δεῖ γὰρ ἐχθρὸν μηδένα πολίτην νομίζειν, ἂν μή τις, οἷος Ἀριστίων ἢ Νάβις ἢ Κατιλίνας νόσημα καὶ ἀπόστημα πόλεως ἐγγένηται.

Homer, Odyssey 15.371-372 (tr. Peter Green):

                                       Yet the blessed gods
prosper the work of my hands, at which I labor.

                                                ἀλλά μοι αὐτῷ
ἔργον ἀέξουσιν μάκαρες θεοὶ ᾧ ἐπιμίμνω.

ἐπιμίμνω = ἐπιμένω.

Homer, Odyssey 15.343-345 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

There is nothing worse for mortal men than the vagrant
life, but still for the sake of the cursed stomach people
endure hard sorrows, when roving and pain and grief befall them.

πλαγκτοσύνης δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστι κακώτερον ἄλλο βροτοῖσιν·
ἀλλ᾽ ἕνεκ᾽ οὐλομένης γαστρὸς κακὰ κήδε᾽ ἔχουσιν
ἀνέρες, ὅν τιν᾽ ἵκηται ἄλη καὶ πῆμα καὶ ἄλγος.        345

W.B. Stanford ad loc.:

343. 'There is nothing worse for mortal men than going astray.' Note O.'s attitude to his travels: he was no romantic adventurer indulging his Wanderlust, but a weary ex-soldier always yearning to reach home—yet, it must be added, with enough vitality and curiosity to take an interest in his enforced travels. But now, looking back on them, in this line he gives his melancholy considered judgement. With πλαγκτοσύνη cp. πλάγχθη in 1, 2: it implies unwilling deflection from one's chosen course.

344-5. ἀλλ᾽ κ.τ.λ.: 'But the fact is that men suffer cruelly to satisfy their accursed belly, involving themselves in wandering, sorrow, and woe '. ἀλλά here has its common eliminative force 'substituting the true for the false' (Denniston, G.P. p. 1) after a negative clause. οὐλομένη (2 aor. mid. part. of ὄλλυμι, used as an adj.) has the force of the English slang expression 'his perishing' so-and-so. Schulze explains it as a development from the imprecation ὄλοιο or ὄλοιτο 'may it perish', as ὀνήμενος from ὄναιο (ὀνίνημι).

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams (July 5, 1814):

I am just returned from one of my long absences, having been at my other home for five weeks past. Having more leisure there than here for reading, I amused myself with reading seriously Plato's republic. I am wrong however in calling it amusement, for it was the heaviest task-work I ever went through. I had occasionally before taken up some of his other works, but scarcely ever had patience to go through a whole dialogue. While wading thro' the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this? How the soi-disant Christian world indeed should have done it, is a piece of historical curiosity. But how could the Roman good sense do it? And particularly how could Cicero bestow such eulogies on Plato? Altho' Cicero did not wield the dense logic of Demosthenes, yet he was able, learned, laborious, practised in the business of the world, and honest. He could not be the dupe of mere style, of which he was himself the first master in the world. With the Moderns, I think, it is rather a matter of fashion and authority. Education is chiefly in the hands of persons who, from their profession, have an interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato. They give the tone while at school, and few, in their after-years, have occasion to revise their college opinions. But fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities, and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? In truth, he is one of the race of genuine Sophists, who has escaped the oblivion of his brethren, first by the elegance of his diction, but chiefly by the adoption and incorporation of his whimsies into the body of artificial Christianity. His foggy mind, is forever presenting the semblances of objects which, half seen thro' a mist, can be defined neither in form or dimension. Yet this which should have consigned him to early oblivion really procured him immortality of fame and reverence. The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from it's indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained. Their purposes however are answered. Plato is canonized; and it is now deemed as impious to question his merits as those of an Apostle of Jesus. He is peculiarly appealed to as an advocate of the immortality of the soul; and yet I will venture to say that were there no better arguments than his in proof of it, not a man in the world would believe it. It is fortunate for us that Platonic republicanism has not obtained the same favor as Platonic Christianity; or we should now have been all living, men, women and children, pell mell together, like beasts of the field or forest.

Jefferson's "other home" was Poplar Forest. He may have read Plato's Republic in the Bipontine edition.

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (July 16, 1814):

I am very glad you have seriously read Plato: and still more rejoiced to find that your reflections upon him so perfectly harmonize with mine. Some thirty Years ago I took upon me the severe task of going through all his Works. With the help of two Latin Translations, and one English and one French Translation and comparing some of the most remarkable passages with the Greek, I laboured through the tedious toil. My disappointment was very great, my Astonishment was greater and my disgust was shocking.

Thanks to Kevin Muse for help with this post.

Related post: Abstract versus Concrete.

David Vermette, "Prudent Racine: Patriote of 1837, Rebel Against Entrenched Power and Privilege," French North America (July 31, 2012).

Line of descent:

Prudent Racine (1807-1881)
Philibert Racine (1845-1900, aka Philip Root)
Grace Albina Racine (1868-1947)
Eddie Paiement (1895-1971), my grandfather

See Copy of the report of the Commissioners appointed in Lower Canada, under an ordinance of 1 Vict.c.7, to inquire into the losses sustained during the late Rebellion; Also the names of persons who claimed compensation before the commissioners and the amount of their claims (1840), pp. 16 (claim dismissed) and 29 (list of rebels).

Henri Julien (1852-1908), Le Patriote: The Monument des Patriotes (Cimetière-de-Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, Montréal, Québec) commemorates those who died in the battles of Saint-Eustache, Saint-Denis, and Saint-Charles, as well as the twelve patriots executed in 1839: Photograph of Prudent Racine and his wife Eleonore Combe Brindamour (Roxton Falls, Québec):

Sallust, The War Against Jugurtha 31.23-24 (tr. William W. Batstone):

As for trust and harmony, what hope is there for that? They want to be masters, you want to be free; they want to break the law, you want to stop them; finally, they treat our allies like enemies, our enemies like allies. With such different ideas about the world can there be peace or friendship between you?

nam fidei quidem aut concordiae quae spes est? dominari illi volunt, vos liberi esse; facere illi iniurias, vos prohibere; postremo sociis nostris veluti hostibus, hostibus pro sociis utuntur. potestne in tam divorsis mentibus pax aut amicitia esse?

Herodotus 7.10ε (tr. Robin Waterfield):

You can see how the god blasts living things that are prominent and prevents their display of superiority, while small creatures don't irritate him at all; you can see that it is always the largest buildings and the tallest trees on which he hurls his thunderbolts. It is the god's way to curtail anything excessive.

ὁρᾷς τὰ ὑπερέχοντα ζῷα ὡς κεραυνοῖ ὁ θεὸς οὐδὲ ἐᾷ φαντάζεσθαι, τὰ δὲ σμικρὰ οὐδέν μιν κνίζει· ὁρᾷς δὲ ὡς ἐς οἰκήματα τὰ μέγιστα αἰεὶ καὶ δένδρεα τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀποσκήπτει τὰ βέλεα· φιλέει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς τὰ ὑπερέχοντα πάντα κολούειν.

Homer, Odyssey 14.462-466 (tr. Richmond Lattimore):

Hear me now, Eumaios and all you other companions.
What I say will be a bit of boasting. The mad wine tells me
to do it. Wine sets even a thoughtful man to singing,
or sets him into softly laughing, sets him to dancing.
Sometimes it tosses out a word that was better unspoken.

κέκλυθι νῦν, Εὔμαιε καὶ ἄλλοι πάντες ἑταῖροι,
εὐξάμενός τι ἔπος ἐρέω· οἶνος γὰρ ἀνώγει
ἠλεός, ὅς τ᾽ ἐφέηκε πολύφρονά περ μάλ᾽ ἀεῖσαι
καί θ᾽ ἁπαλὸν γελάσαι, καί τ᾽ ὀρχήσασθαι ἀνῆκε,        465
καί τι ἔπος προέηκεν ὅ περ τ᾽ ἄρρητον ἄμεινον.

W.B. Stanford on lines 463-466:

O. describes the earlier (the 'merry') stages of intoxication: singing, laughing [ἁπαλὸν is better taken pejoratively as 'feebly', rather than 'gently' with L.-S.-J.], dancing and unrestrained talk. For the disgusting and dangerous next stage see 9, 371-4 and 21, 304. Wine was not a luxury to the Greeks, but a pleasant necessity of life. H. mentions its aroma, taste, colour (always red or dark red in H.), as well as its keeping properties and potency (for references see on 9, 196). Drunkenness was despised (cp. οἰνοβαρής as an abusive word in Il. 1, 225), not pitied. The triple rhyme of -ηκε conceivably may be designed to suggest a drunken jingle here.

Related posts:

• Some Effects of Wine
• Praise of Dionysus
• Wine
• The Power of Wine

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams (July 5, 1814):

But why am I dosing you with these Ante-diluvian topics? Because I am glad to have some one to whom they are familiar, and who will not recieve them as if dropped from the moon. Our post-revolutionary youth are born under happier stars than you and I were. They acquire all learning in their mothers' womb, and bring it into the world ready-made. The information of books is no longer necessary; and all knolege which is not innate, is in contempt, or neglect at least. Every folly must run it's round; and so, I suppose, must that of self-learning, and self sufficiency; of rejecting the knolege acquired in past ages, and starting on the new ground of intuition.

Homer, Iliad 9.613-615 (Achilles to Phoenix; this man = Agamemnon; tr. Richmond Lattimore):

                                                               It does not become you
to love this man, for fear you turn hateful to me, who love you.
It should be your pride with me to hurt whoever shall hurt me.

                                                    οὐδέ τί σε χρὴ
τὸν φιλέειν, ἵνα μή μοι ἀπέχθηαι φιλέοντι.
καλόν τοι σὺν ἐμοὶ τὸν κήδειν ὅς κ᾽ ἐμὲ κήδῃ.

Theognis 869-872 (tr. Douglas E. Gerber):

May the great wide bronze sky fall upon me from above, the fear of earth-born men, if I do not aid those who are my friends and cause my enemies pain and great misery.

ἔν μοι ἔπειτα πέσοι μέγας οὐρανὸς εὐρὺς ὕπερθεν
    χάλκεος, ἀνθρώπων δεῖμα χαμαιγενέων,
εἰ μὴ ἐγὼ τοῖσιν μὲν ἐπαρκέσω οἵ με φιλεῦσιν,
    τοῖς δ' ἐχθροῖσ' ἀνίη καὶ μέγα πῆμ' ἔσομαι.

Archilochus, fragment 23 West, lines 14-16 (tr. Laura Swift):

Indeed, I know how to love my friend
and hate and attack my enemy,
like an ant. There is truth, then, in my words.

ἐπ]ίσταμαί τοι τὸν φιλ[έο]ν[τα] μὲν φ[ι]λεῖν[,
τὸ]ν δ' ἐχθρὸν ἐχθαίρειν τε [κα]ὶ κακο[στομέειν
μύ]ρμηξ. λόγῳ νυν τ[ῷδ' ἀλη]θείη πάρ[α.

Gilbert Highet (1906-1978), A Clerk of Oxenford (1954; rpt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 24:

If I were a lonely man, or a despondent man, believing this was a terrifying age of hitherto unparalleled anxiety and danger, or if I were a young man who thought I lacked courage and wanted to train for it, I should read half a dozen of the Icelandic stories, beginning with Grettir the Strong and Burnt Nial.

Horace, Epodes 4.5-6 (tr. Niall Rudd):

You may strut around as proudly as you like on account of your money—
fortune does not alter breeding.

licet superbus ambules pecunia,
fortuna non mutat genus.

David Mankin ad loc.:

5 licet 'although'; cf. 15.19n.

superbus: a term of opprobrium, especially in political contexts (2.7n.).

ambules 'strut' (OLD s.v. 4), a manner of walking that H. found particularly hateful (5.71, 8.14 (cf. 17.41), S. 1.2.25, 4.51, 66). There may be a reference here to Cat. 29.6-7 (of Mamurra) et ille nunc superbus et superfluens I perambulabit omnium cubilia; cf. 5.69n. ambulo is unpoetic and possibly colloquial (Blok (1961) 65, ThLL 1 1870).

pecunia: cf. Ep. 1.6.36-7 scilicet uxorem cum dote fidemque et amicos I et genus et formam regina Pecunia donat.

6 fortuna 'good luck' (C. 1.31.10, 37.11, 3.27.75, 4.4.71, S. 1.9.45, Ep. 1.5.12, 8.17, 2.1.32), but still only luck (C. 1.34, 3.29.49-56). Cf. 13.7n.

genus '(low) birth'; cf. C. 2.4.15, 4.7.23, S. 2.5.8, Ep. 1.6.37 (5n.), 20.22. The speaker's view of the importance of ancestry is very different from that expressed by H. in S. 1.6 (4 intro.).

Sophocles, Philoctetes 1316-1320 (Neoptolemus to Philoctetes; tr. Richard Jebb):

Men must needs bear the fortunes given by the gods; but when they cling to self-inflicted miseries, as thou dost, no one can justly excuse or pity them.

                  ἀνθρώποισι τὰς μὲν ἐκ θεῶν
τύχας δοθείσας ἔστ᾽ ἀναγκαῖον φέρειν·
ὅσοι δ᾽ ἑκουσίοισιν ἔγκεινται βλάβαις,
ὥσπερ σύ, τούτοις οὔτε συγγνώμην ἔχειν
δίκαιόν ἐστιν οὔτ᾽ ἐποικτίρειν τινά.

Related posts:

• Self-Inflicted Woes
• Self-Inflicted Wounds
• Architects of Our Own Sadness

Sydney Smith, letter to Francis Jeffrey (1814), in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. By His Daughter Lady Holland. With a Selection from His Letters, Edited by Mrs. Austin, 3rd ed., Vol. II: Letters (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855), p. 121:

I am truly glad to read of your pleasure from your little girl and your château. The haunts of Happiness are varied, and rather unaccountable; but I have more often seen her among little children, and home firesides, and in country houses, than anywhere else,—at least, I think so. God bless you!

William Mullen, "Pindar and Athens: A Reading in the Aeginetan Odes," Arion 1.3 (1973/1974) 446-495 (at 446):

Walking around the steps of the temple of Aphaea on Aegina, you have the finest view in Greece. At this altitude the mainland is visible in a 270 degree arc from south to east. Over the hills of the Peloponnesus to the south is the great plain of Argos; over the hills to the west is Nemea, and a bit to the northwest the Isthmus—the sites of most of Aegina's athletic victories. Fully visible in the north, and brought into focus by the alignment of the temenos, is Salamis, where she won her greatest victory of all, first prize for valor in the battle. Behind is the sacred plain of Eleusis, and then as your eye continues north and east it hits Athens. On clear days when the pollution is not too bad you can make out the Parthenon. Finally you continue to Sounion, though the temple of Poseidon is too distant to be seen. Beyond, only sea.

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (July 15, 1813):

Let me now ask you, very seriously my Friend, Where are now in 1813, the Perfection and perfectability of human Nature? Where is now, the progress of the human Mind? Where is the Amelioration of Society? Where the Augmentations of human Comforts? Where the diminutions of human Pains and Miseries?

[....]

When? Where? and how? is the present Chaos to be arranged into Order?