Month: October 2015

Civil And Military Organization Of The Later Roman Empire

Quintus Curtius History , , ,

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Introduction

Current news headlines of populations on the move into Europe have drawn attention to a previous era in European history, one in which mass migrations of foreign peoples played a major role.  The Roman Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries was faced with these very challenges from the movements of Germanic tribes, as well as Avars, Bulgars, and Huns.

As I looked more into the details of this period of history, I was struck with how resilient and stable the Empire’s organization was.  There is vast ignorance of this period of history, even (or especially) among Europeans.  While it is often portrayed as an age of continuous decline and decadence, this picture is not the whole truth.

The civil and military organization established by Constantine was wise and enduring, and it deserves to be better known.  It stands in stark contrast to the ineptitude and feebleness of the heads of state in modern Europe.

This article is technical in nature, and will be of interest to the few, rather than to the majority.  Those comprising the latter group may wish to pass on this post, and spare themselves some heaviness of the eyelids.

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Never Get Out Of The Boat, Unless You’re Going All The Way

Quintus Curtius Film, Thought , , ,

There is a scene in the 1979 film classic Apocalypse Now where Willard and the Chef stop their river patrol boat to collect some mangoes in the jungle.  They come face to face with a tiger, and this causes the tightly-wound Chef to become unglued.

“Never get out of the boat…never get out of the boat…I got to remember:  never get out of the boat,” he repeats over and over.

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The Films Of Gaspar Noé

Quintus Curtius Film , , ,

Sometimes we need to take a break from virtue.  All things in moderation, I say, including virtue. Sometimes, we need to look deeply into the abyss.  Someone once said that the abyss looks back at you, but it’s more accurate to say something else: it blows out its breath at you, like the open maw of a hungry grizzly bear, if you happen to be unlucky enough to be near his jaws.  And then you catch a good whiff of that dank, fetid breath.

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You Will Never Reach The End-Zone

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

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Some want to reach a point of victorious finality.  They want to enter the end-zone of the football field, slam the ball down, and celebrate.  Finally, they say, I have arrived!

I have made it, they bray.  I can now coast a little, they assure us.  Listen to these asses bray, bray, bray. I can hardly stand it.  And then they tell us:  I can subsist on this victorious inertia for a while, and see where that takes me.

Oh, if only it were that simple.  The end-zone, sorry to say, does not exist.  Fortune hates inertia, and will snuff it out quickly.

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I Won’t Go Back To Nature

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

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There is this entire literature of sentimentalizing the soil, and Nature in general.  Sentimentalizing the brute labor required to fructify the soil.  Think of Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Rousseau, Emerson, Thoreau.  You know, the whole nineteenth century Romanticism of it all.  I never really liked this impulse, as it always smacked to me of idealistic falsity, of insincerity.  Those who hate the world find solace in the Stone-Age.

And modernly we have Pearl Buck, with her odes to the Chinese peasant.  Never mind, of course, that that same saintly peasant would have stank to high heaven.  There may be a Good Earth, but there is also a Bad Earth, too, and Peal Buck never wrote that novel.

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The Wisdom Of Moderation, And The Danger Of Extremism

Quintus Curtius History, Politics , , ,

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Plutarch’s lives of Phocion and Cato the Younger can be read as case studies on the contrasting features of moderation and extremism.

The successful, rational leader will know when to compromise and seek settlements; the extremist will not, and thereby brings himself and others to ruin.

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Beware The Waters Of Salmacis

Quintus Curtius Literature, Thought , ,

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Men take their masculinity too lightly.  That is, they do not value that which makes them men.  They are too eager to minimize its power, to dull its sheen, and to snuff out its distinct phosphorescence.

What one does not value, is not safeguarded from outside attack.

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A Professional Translator Shares His Thoughts

Quintus Curtius Language , ,

[A reader of Stoic Paradoxes contacted me recently and shared some of his experiences and adventures gained from many years of translating.  I told him that his ideas would make for a great guest post here.

His language is expertise is Japanese, a language that I am not proficient in.  But it is interesting that translators all face the same challenges, more or less, regardless of the language they are working in.

His comments highlight one of the things I mentioned in a recent article about translating.  It is the idea that you sometimes need to set things aside, and come back to them later, with a new and refreshed perspective.

His article appears below.]

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