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Outlaw Wealth? Maybe Not – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Seneca, Moral Epistle 87.41 "Let's imagine that we are called to an assembly: a law is on offer concerning outlawing wealth. Would we be advocating for or against it based on our philosophical arguments? Could we use our disputations to persuade the Roman people to request and praise poverty, that fundamental cause of our own empire, …
How Do I Feel About the Liberal Arts? – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Seneca, Moral Epistles 88.1-2 "You are longing to know how I feel about the liberal arts. Well, I respect nothing--I include nothing among the good disciplines--that aims at making money. These arts are for profit--they're useful to the point that they exercise the wit but do not occupy it forever. They should be studied only when…
Angry Poet and Killer Songs – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
CW: Suicide Greek Anthology, 7.351, Dioscorides “By this holy tomb of the dead we daughters of Lykambes Who received a hateful reputation, make this oath: We didn’t shame our virginity or our parents Nor Paros, the highest of the sacred islands. No: Archilochus spat hateful rumor And frightening insult against our family. By the gods…
You Have Enough Books Already – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Lucian, On the Ignorant Book-Collector 26 “Once a dog has learned to chew leather it can’t stop. Another way is easier: not buying any more books. You are sufficiently educated, you have enough wisdom. You have all of antiquity nearly at the top of your lips. You know all of history, every art of argumentation…
Learning Like the Kids – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Seneca, Moral Epistles 76.1-3 "You are threatening to become my enemy if I leave you ignorant of what I am doing every day. Look how straightforward I am with you when I tell you even this. I am listening to a philosopher and I am on my fifth day listening to his lectures at school, starting…
Appropriating Like A Stoic – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
CW: Slavery, self harm, suicide Seneca, Moral Epistle 77.14-15 "Now, you think I am going to offer examples of great men? I'll talk about a boy. There's a tale of that Spartan youth that people still tell. When he was captured, he was shouting, "I will not serve" in his own Doric dialect. And he kept his…
The Injustice of Justice’s “Slow Grind” – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Plutarch, On Divine Vengeance (Moralia 549c-e) “Just as a lash or a prod that immediately follows a stumble or a misdirection straightens out a horse and compels it to the right path, but if you annoy the creature and pull on the reins or flick the whip later on and at length, such an action…
Happy Birthday Rome–You Were Almost Remora! – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Traditional founding of Rome: April 21, 753 BCE This passage from Ennius is preserved in Cicero's De Divinatione 1.48 “They were struggling over whether the city would be called Roma or Remora. And worry about which one of them would rule infected all men. They were awaiting the word as when the consul wishes to…
Drugs, the Homeric Scholia and the Lotus-Eaters – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
In Odysseus' tale of his wanderings he recounts how he saved his men from the temptations of the land of the Lotus-Eaters Odyssey 9.82-97 “From there for nine days I was carried by ruinous winds over the fish-bearing sea. On the tenth we came to the land of the Lotus-Eaters where they eat the florid…
Taking the Mind Down from the Shelf – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Seneca, Moral Epistles 72.1-2 "The thing you were asking me about used to be clear enough because I had learned it so well. But I haven't checked my memory for a while and it isn't coming back to me so easily. I seem to have turned out like those books that are stuck together from sitting in…
Wannabe Politicians and Lords of Lies – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Euripides, Hecuba 251-257 “Don’t you engage in true evil in these plans When you even admit that I treated you well But instead of helping me you do as much harm as possible? You are a thankless brood, you mob of wannabe Politicians. I wish I didn’t know you When you don’t care about harming…
Conquering the Champions of the World – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Seneca, Moral Epistle 71.36-37 "No one can restart their progress at the point where they gave it up. So, let us keep on keeping on! More of the journey remains than we have finished--but wanting to proceed is the greater part of progress. I am conscious of this matter; I want it and I want it with…
The Shared Personae of Female Narrators in Ovid’s Heroides and Lyrical Jazz – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Editor's note: We are happy to bring you this amazing guest post. SA is always open for posts about ancient literature and the modern world. Feel free to reach out over email if you have an idea While visual arts have been synonymous with classics for centuries, substantial research has connected the field of classics…
Writing Advice for Thesis Season: Write Drunk, Edit Sober. Rinse and Repeat – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Herodotus, Histories 1.133.3-4 “The [Persians] are really fond of wine. It is not permissable to puke or to piss in front of another—these things are guarded against. And they are in the custom of taking counsel about the most important matters while they are drunk. Whatever seems fit to them while they are deliberating, the…
Sappho Springs to Mind – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Sappho, fr. 96 “.....Sardis.... Often she turns her mind there ...[where she brought you ].... Like a goddess best known She was delighting especially in your song. Now she stands out among the Lydian Women like the rosy-fingered moon when the sun is setting and it outshines all the stars— Its light pours over the…
Unpolished Words and Saying What You Mean – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Seneca, Moral Epistles 75.1-3 "You grumble that my letters to you are not very polished. Well, who speaks with polish unless they want to talk ostentatiously? I want my letters to have the quality of the kind of conversation we'd have while sitting next to each other or walking: easy and unlabored, since there is nothing…
Lying about the Self – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Augustine, Confessions 10.3 “What is left for me, then, with other people so that they may listen to my confessions as if they would heal all my problems? We are a species desperate to know about other people’s lives but negligent in fixing our own. Why do those who do not want me to say…
Fear of Flute-girls and Heights: Some Physician’s Notes – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Hippocrates, Epidemics 5 “Whenever he went to a drinking party, Nikanor was afflicted with fear of the flute girl. Whenever she began playing the flute and he would hear it in the Symposium, he would be filled with anxiety. He said he could scarcely endure it whenever it was night. But during the day time,…
The Short Dream and the Sudden Darkness – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 14.620c “Chamaeleon claims in his book On Stesichorus that it wasn’t only Homer’s poetry that was accompanied by music but also Archilochus’ and Hesiod’s too. He adds the work of Mimnermus and Phocylides to this as well.” Χαμαιλέων δὲ ἐν τῷ περὶ Στησιχόρου (fr. 28 Wehrli) καὶ μελῳδηθῆναί φησιν οὐ μόνον τὰ Ὁμήρου…
Everything Terrible is Our Fault – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Theognis, 1.833-836 “Everything’s gone to hell and is in the shitter, Kyrnos, And not even one of the blessed, immortal gods is to blame! No, it’s the violence of men, their craven profits, and arrogance That’s damned us to evil from bountiful good." Πάντα τάδ' ἐν κοράκεσσι καὶ ἐν φθόρωι· οὐδέ τις ἡμῖν αἴτιος ἀθανάτων,…
Why Wives Should Learn Geometry and Plato. And, an Eclipse – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Plutarch, Advice to Bride and Groom (Moralia138a-146a : Conjugalia Praecepta) “These kinds of studies, foremost, distract woman from inappropriate matters. For, a wife will be ashamed to dance when she is learning geometry. And she will not receive spells of medicine if she is charmed by Platonic dialogues and the works of Xenophon. And if…
An Eclipse in the Odyssey? – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
When he arrives in Odysseus' household, the seer Theoklymenos gets a little judgy: Homer, Odyssey 20.351-57 “Wretches! What evil is this you are suffering? Now your heads Are covered with night along with your faces and legs below. A wailing burns and your cheeks streak with tears As the walls and fine rafters are sprayed…
Now Nothing is Unexpected: Archilochus on an Eclipse (fr. 122) – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Archilochus on an Eclipse (fr. 122) “Nothing is unexpected, nothing is foresworn and Nothing amazes now that father Zeus the Olympian veiled the light to make it night at midday even as sun was shining: so dread fear has overtaken men. From this time on everything that men believe will be doubted: may none of…
Occult and Medical in the Ancient Eclipse – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Historia Augusta The Three Gordians, 23.2-4 “The consulship went to Gordian, the boy. But there was a sign that Gordian would be emperor for a short time. It was this: there was a solar eclipse so much like night that it was not possible to do anything without burning torches. And yet, afterwards, the Roman…
The Death of Phaethon: An Aetiology for an Eclipse – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.381-93 “All along, Phaethon’s father, filthy and bereft Of his own light, the way he is when the sun is eclipsed, He hates the light and himself and the day And he dedicates his soul to sorrow and adds rage To his mourning as he refuses his duty to the world. ‘I’m done.…
Eclipse and a Metaphor for Seeing the Real – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Plato, Phaedo 99d-e “So it seemed to me, he said, that after these travails, since I had come away with nothing while examining reality, that I should be careful not to suffer the very thing which people who gaze at the sun during an eclipse do. For some of them go blind, I think, unless…
Science This! Some Ancient Theories on Eclipses – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
N.B. This selection is by no means exhaustive. Xenophanes, fr. D34 “Xenophanes [says eclipses] come from flames going out and that a different one happens again in the east. He reports in addition that there was an eclipse for an entire month and also a total eclipse that made the day seem like night.” D34 (A41)…
The Iliad, a Final Word – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Homer, Iliad 24.804 “And so they were completing the burial of horse-taming Hektor” ῝Ως οἵ γ' ἀμφίεπον τάφον ῞Εκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο. Schol. bT ad. Hom. Il. 21.804 “Menekrates claims that because he sensed his own weakness and inability [to tell their stories] equally, the poet decided to stay silent about the events after Hektor. The rest…
Changing Your Mind is the Point of Research – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 3.6. “I admit that I now have a bit of a different opinion from what I believed before. Perhaps it would be safest for my reputation to change nothing which I not only believed but also approved for many years. But I cannot endure knowing that I misrepresent myself, especially in this work…
The Trojan War Took 30 Years, Not 20 – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Homer, Iliad 24.761-775 “Among them then Helen was the third to take up the lament” 'Hektor, you were by far the dearest of my in-laws— My husband was actually godlike Alexandros, The one who brought me to Troy. I wish I had died before that. This is the twentieth years since I arrived from there…
Remembering To Forget – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Augustine, Confessions 10.3.24 “When I utter the word “forgetfulness” and I similarly see what I am naming, how would I acknowledge it if I have not remembered it? I don’t mean the word’s sound, but the thing that it means. If I had forgotten it, I would not be able to connect the meaning with…
Rowing the Same Ship, Twice – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Plutarch, Theseus 23.1 “The Athenians preserved the boat—a thirty-oared ship—on which Theseus sailed with his companions and came back safely until the time of Demetrius of Phalerus, changing out the older wood and replacing it with strong, new parts until the ship became a famous example to philosophers of the problem of growth. Some say…
On Seeing the Clown in the Mirror – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
CW: ableism, cruel humor Seneca, Moral Epistles 50.2-3 "You know that Harpaste, my wife's clown, has stayed in my home as a hereditary burden. I am particularly turned off by these weirdos. If I want to be entertained by a clown, I don't need to search very far--I can laugh at myself. This clown suddenly lost…
Friendship and the Human Commonwealth – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Seneca, Moral Epistle 47.2-3 "Am I talking like an Epicurean again? Well, the same thing is good for me as for you--I am not your friend unless whatever bothers you matters to me too. Friendship makes everything into a partnership between us. There's nothing good or bad for individuals: life is lived in common. It isn't possible…
When This is All Over, It Will Happen Again – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Nemesius, De natura Hominis 37 “The stoics say that once the planets return into the same sign and location where each one was at the beginning when the universe first arose, in that appointed circuit of time there is a burning and purging of existence and everything returns necessarily to the same order. Each of…
Rushing Ahead To Fall Behind – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Seneca, Moral Epistles 45.6-7 "If there is anything that can make a life happy, it is the good in its own right. For it cannot be debased into evil. How do we mess this up, when everyone wants a happy life? It is because people mistake the means to happiness for the thing itself--while they seek…
Mattia, Daughter of Mattios and Eutukhia – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
IC II x 20 Crete, early Rom. Imp. period "Mattia, the daughter of Loukios, says hello: Hades stole away this pretty girl because of her beauty and form Suddenly, this girl most desirable to all people alive. Mattios fathered me and my mother Eutukhia Nursed me. I have died at twelve years old, unmarried. My…
Praksô, the Samian, Gone at 22 – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
ΑΜΥΝΤΑΣ [P. Oxy.iv. 1904, no. 662, p. 64. ] “Tell me, woman, who are you and who is your father? Tell me what kind of terrible sickness you died from. My name is Praksô, the Samian, Friend. I was an offspring of Kalliteleus, but I died in childbirth. Who provided this tomb? Theokritos, the man They…
Gone at 20 in Childbirth, Mourned Evermore – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
SEG 9.193 (Cyrene, 1st/2nd Century CE) “This grave holds Plauta who lived twenty years, Pregnant twice, leaving a single child, She was equal to the goddesses, But perished through sickness and childbirth. Her loomcloth goes unknown In the shadow and her talkative shuttle Sits similarly on her skilled distaff. Yet the fame of her life…
The Problem with the Ides of March: Not Enough Cicero, Not Enough MURDER – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
Cicero, Epistulae Familiares 10.28.1 (To Trebonius) "How I wish that you had invited me to that most sumptuous feast on the Ides of March! We would now have no little scraps if you had. But now you have with them such difficulty in preventing that divine benefit which you bestowed upon the Republic from exciting some complaint.…