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@revisionmiscellany
Size matters to Pliny
"Like all good things, a good book is all the better if it is a long one; and statues, busts, pictures and drawings of human beings, many animals, and also trees can be seen to gain by being in a large scale as long as they are well-proportioned."—Pliny to Tacitus, 1.20
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Hypophora
Will I explain what hypophora is? No, I will not. Can you look up what hypophora means? Yes, you can.
Crowns
Aeschines attacks Ctesiphon for honouring Demosthenes with a crown—thus making the interesting historical point that orators might be awarded crowns at all:
“But that part of my accusation remains upon which I lay greatest stress: the pretext upon which he claims that the crown is deserved. It reads thus in his motion: “And the herald shall proclaim in the theatre in the presence of the Hellenes that the Athenian people crown him for his merit and uprightness,” and that monstrous assertion, “because he continually speaks and does what is best for the people.” You see how entirely simple the remainder of our argument becomes, and how easy for you, my hearers, to weigh. For it is obviously incumbent upon me, the complainant, to show this to you, that the praise given to Demosthenes is false, and that he never began to “speak what was best,” nor now “continues to do what is good for the people.””
—Aeschines 3.49, Against Ctesiphon
The beautiful is the symbol of the morally good.
Kant, Critique of Judgement
Daydream exam question #1
Aristophanes Clouds: basically the first campus fiction? Discuss.
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Ecclesiazousai
first woman
But how can a congregation of women, with women’s minds, expect to address the people?
praxagora
Much better than anybody, that’s how. They say that the young men who’ve been reamed the most are also the most effective orators. And as luck would have it, that’s exactly what nature suits us for!
(110-114)
The reality of the Republic
“I understand. You mean that he’ll be willing to take part in the politics of the city we were founding and describing, the one that exists in theory, for I don’t think it exists anywhere on earth,” [said Glaucon].
“But perhaps,” I said, “there is a model of it in heaven, for anyone who wants to look at it and to make himself its citizen on the strength of what he sees. It makes no difference whether it is or ever will be somewhere, for he would take part in the practical affairs of that city and no other.”
Dokimasia
Use of performance of liturgies as a defence and demonstration of civic participation:
“I have equipped a warship five times, fought in four sea-battles, contributed to many war levies, and performed my other public services as amply as any citizen. But my purpose in spending more than was enjoined upon me by the city was to raise myself the higher in your opinion, so that if any misfortune should chance to befall me I might defend myself on better terms. Of all this credit I was deprived under the oligarchy…”
—Defendant of Lys. 22, ‘Against the Charge of Subverting the Democracy’ [probably a dokimasia trial?]
Example of an old-fashioned Loeb footnote making absolutely nothing clearer (in presuming that anyone reading about mid-4th-century BC Athens will of course know about the political details of the sack of Rome 753 years later...).
Magistracies debased under the Triumvirate
“It was not Caesar but the Triumvirate that depressed beyond recovery the dignity of magistracies and of Senate. A character in a play produced under the Dictatorship professed himself dazed and speechless when he saw six aediles in the place of the traditional four; and Cicero became shocked and petulant about sixteen praetors—‘magistratus levissimus et divulgatissimus.’ He was spared the sight of sixty-seven praetors in a single year. Caesar, by aPlebiscitum Antonium of the beginning of 44 BC, reserved the right of designating the consuls and half of the other magistrates… But he did not intend that the consulate should be other than annual, as witness his designations for the two years following (44 and 43). The Triumvirs changed that, rising even to six consuls in 34 BC and eight in the year following. Though Augustus restored annual consuls and a semblance of free election, the names on the consular Fasti and the record of certain significant incidents in the early years of his Principate (such as the grant of the consulate to Cn. Pio in 23, though he had held no other senatorial office) show how firm and undisputed his control really was.”—Syme, “Caesar, the Senate, and Italy” (1938)
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Tiberius’ nickname
Suetonius, in discussing Tiberius’ vices, records that the emperor Tiberius (Claudius Nero) was jokingly called Biberius Caldius Mero in his youth—the effect being something like “Drinksy Redface Wino.”
On his return to Capri, [Tiberius] let all affairs of state slide: neither filling vacancies that occurred in the Equestrian Order, nor making new appointments to senior military commands in any province. Spain and Syria were left without governors of consular rank for several years. He allowed the Parthians to overrun Armenia; the Dacians and the Sarmatians to ravage Moesia; and the Germans to invade Gaul—a negligence as dangerous to the Empire as it was dishonourable.
Suetonius, Life of Tiberius 41
The people of the capital unanimously bestowed upon him votes of praise, statues, the right to the front seat, an arch surmounted by trophies, and the privilege of riding into the city on horseback, of wearing the laurel crown on all occasions, and of holding a banquet with his wife and children in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter on the anniversary of the day on which he had won his victory, which was to be a perpetual day of thanksgiving. These were the honours which they granted him immediately after his victory. ... And when Caesar himself arrived, he assembled the people according to ancient custom outside the pomerium, gave them an account of what he had done, declined some of the honours which had been voted to him, remitted the tribute called for in the registered lists and all the other debts owed to the state for the time previous to the civil war, abolished certain taxes, and refused to accept the priesthood of Lepidus, which was offered to him, as it was not lawful to take away the office from a man who was still alive. Thereupon they voted him many other distinctions. ... The people at this time resolved that a house should be presented to Caesar at public expense; for he had made public property of the place on the Palatine which he had bought for the purpose of erecting a residence upon it, and had consecrated it to Apollo, after a thunderbolt had descended upon it. Hence they voted him the house and also protection from any insult by deed or word; any one who committed such an offence was to be liable to the same penalties as had been established in the case of a tribune. This was only logical, inasmuch as he received the privilege of sitting upon the same benches with the tribunes. These were the privileges bestowed upon Caesar by the senate. And Caesar on his own responsibility enrolled among the augurs, above the proper number, Valerius Messalla, whom he had previously in the proscriptions condemned to death, made the people of Utica citizens, and gave orders that no one should wear the purple dress except the senators who were acting as magistrates; for some ordinary individuals were already using it. ... there was no aedile owing to a lack of candidates, but the praetors and the tribunes performed the aediles’ duties; also no prefect of the city was appointed for the Feriae, but some of the praetors discharged his functions. Other matters in the city and in the rest of Italy were administered by one Gaius Maecenas, a knight, both then and for a long time afterward.
Cassius Dio 49.16, 36 BC
When he arrived at Rome the Senate voted unbounded honours, giving him the privilege of accepting all, or such as he chose. They and the people went out a long distance to meet him, wearing garlands on their heads, and escorted him, when he arrived, first to the temples, and then from the temples to his house. The next day he made speeches to the Senate and to the people, recounting his exploits and his policy from the beginning to the present time. These speeches he wrote down and published in pamphlet form. He proclaimed peace and good-will, said that the civil wars were ended, remitted the unpaid taxes, and released the farmers of the revenue and the holders of public leases from what they owed. Of the honours voted to him, he accepted an ovation and annual solemnities on the days of his victories, and a golden image to be erected in the forum, with the garb he wore when he entered the city, to stand on a column covered with the beaks of captured ships. There the image was placed bearing the inscription:—“Peace, Long Disturbed, He Re-Established on Land and Sea.”
Appian on Octavian’s welcome in Rome after the conclusion of the Sicilian War, BC 5.130
However, the other people in the city were greatly disturbed not only by this but also by the changes in the magistrates; for not only the consuls and praetors but even the quaestors were continually succeeding one another, and this lasted for some time. The reason was that all were anxious, not so much to hold office for any considerable time at home, as to be counted among the ex-officials and so secure the offices and military forces outside of Italy. Accordingly, some of the magistrates were no longer chosen for a specified period, but merely for a time sufficient to assume the title of the office, and then to resign from it whenever it seemed good to those in power; indeed, many did both on the same day.
Cassius Dio 48.53, on public offices in Rome under the triumvirate at the time of the Sicilian War (38-36 BC)
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Praeteritio
I am not going to explain what praeteritio is here; I am not even going to demonstrate the application of the concept...
Why Pericles wore a helmet
John Thorley: "Pericles had a strangely shaped head (Cratinos strictly says "like a squill," which is a kind of onion) which bulged at the back. He seems to have been very self-conscious about this, and statues portray him with a helmet tipped backwards to conceal his bump."