In his treatise on medicine, the Roman writer Celsus digresses to make a shrewd observation on the behavior of personalities of rare distinction. He happened to note, in the writings of Hippocrates, that the great Greek doctor once confessed to having been misled by the presence of sutures in a patient. Such a comment might have passed without notice with any other reader; but Celsus was a perceptive observer and a man of broad sophistication. He ventured the following remarks:
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In this podcast we discuss H.G. Wells’s fable The Beautiful Suit. It was originally published in 1909 under the title A Moonlight Fable. You may never have heard of the story, but it imparts a powerful message. What does it mean? What is the author trying to communicate to his readers? And what lesson can we take from the tale, and incorporate into our own lives?
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We have in these pages chronicled many shipwrecks and maritime disasters, each of which is woeful in its own way. The wreck of the barque Mexico in 1836, however, evokes particular pity, not only from the fact that its victims—most of whom were women and children—perished from freezing, but also because the wreck occurred so tantalizingly close to shore. Let the tale be told.
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The French East Indiaman Prince left Port L’Orient in France on February 19, 1752. She soon ran into trouble, and became temporarily grounded on a sand bank; but her captain, M. Morin, ordered some cargo to be thrown overboard, and the lightened vessel was able to proceed. The ship returned to port temporarily for repairs, and set out again on June 10th of that year.
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Some conceptions are possessed of such awesome magnitude and gravity that the mind can only with difficulty apprehend their sublime grandeur. I would like to share one such idea.
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Sir Charles Wager served as Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty from 1733 to 1742. He had a long and distinguished naval career, both at sea and ashore; and it will be useful for us to relate an anecdote from his early life that discloses much about his character and fortitude. The story that follows is found in the 1840 volume The Book of Shipwrecks and Narratives of Maritime Discoveries and the Most Popular Voyages.
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The tale of the Persian nobleman Zopyrus appears in the third book of Herodotus, from chapter 150 to 160. We will relate it here, with no justification beyond the insight it may provide on human nature.
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Recent events have encouraged, or should have encouraged, some reflection on general principles of conflict. In this podcast, we propose ten of them.
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We have previously reviewed the best movies of the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and the first two decades of the new millennium. Until now I have hesitated to go further back in time; it did not seem to me that the 1960s was a particularly grand decade for film, at least not when compared to the remarkable artistic efflorescence that the 1970s represented. I have now realized how wrong I was. The 1960s laid the cinematic foundation for the 70s and 80s, and its influence is still felt today. Counterculture was only one aspect of the 1960s, perhaps not even its most important aspect. Conventions were being tested and revised, boundaries were being pushed and exceeded, and a new mood began to descend on the culture. It would take years for this new mood to find its full fruition. If we appreciate the movies of the 1970s and 1980s, we must thank the filmmakers of the 1960s for pointing the way to a new ethos.
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I had the privilege of doing a recent interview with Ms. Anya Leonard of Classical Wisdom, a publication that focuses on classical learning and education. The interview can be seen here:
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Quintus Curtius 
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