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The Lyceum Of Aristotle, And The National Archaeological Museum
Today I visited the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, as well as the historical site of Aristotle’s Lyceum. The Lyceum was the place of origin of Aristotle’s Peripatetic school of philosophy, which took shape around 335 B.C. Like the Platonic Academy, there is not much in the way of physical remains; but this did not…
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Seeing The Platonic Academy
I walked to the ruins of the Platonic Academy in Athens this morning. Founded by Plato himself around 387 B.C., it persisted through many generations under a variety of scholarchs (i.e., heads). It finally came to an official end during the reign of the emperor Justinian in 529 A.D., who ordered the closure of all…
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Surge And Consolidate, Surge And Recuperate
There is a line in one of Seneca’s letters (107.11) that reads: Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. Seneca is quoting a line by the philosopher Cleanthes, which means, “The fates lead along the willing, and carry along the unwilling.” It does not matter whether we want, or do not want, to move in some direction;…
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Starvation On The High Seas: The Ordeal Of The “Saint Le Jacques”
Perhaps it is well that the modern traveler remains serenely unaware of the extraordinary hardships endured by his itinerant ancestors. For if he knew what travel in the pre-modern era truly entailed, he would be rightfully consumed by a sense of shame and inadequacy. His concerns are whether he will have the chicken or the…
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René Caillié: To Timbuktu And Back Alive
The modern traveler has little conception of the hardships and expense that were involved in the journeys of ages past. Surrounded by comfort, his every whim catered to by a global tourism industry, he is blissfully unaware of the suffering and danger necessarily involved in travel to remote regions of the globe before the modern…
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“Pathways” Is Now Available As An Audio Book
My essay collection Pathways is now available as an audio book. You can click on the icon above for purchase information. It is available on Amazon and iTunes. The book contains my best short essays published in 2015 (56 essays in all), and is professionally read by Saethon Williams, who also produced the audio books…
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Virtue Is A Sentinel (Podcast)
The virtues have been a force promoting social cohesion and stability for thousands of years. As a society becomes more wealthy, it tends to neglect these virtues. The consequences are deeply destructive: loss of social cohesion, indiscipline, greed and moral corruption. History suggests that such societies become ripe for disorder, even collapse.
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On The Solitary Life
The scholar Petrarch once secured an audience with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who lived from 1316 to 1378. His meeting with the emperor at Lombardy in 1354 is described in one of Petrarch’s luminous letters (Familiares XIX.3). It was a charming custom of those days that kings and popes would occasionally seek out…
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How To Sight-Read A Foreign Language With Speed And Efficiency
One of the skills needed to acquire reading proficiency in a foreign language is “sight-reading.” This is the act of reading a text quickly for information and comprehension. I have found from experience that there are effective and ineffective ways of approaching this skill, and that some discussion of these points may prove to be…
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The Rose Of The Alhambra
We will tell the tale of the Rose of the Alhambra. For many years after the city of Grenada came under the control of the Spanish kings, it remained a quiet and secluded place. Mute and desolate were its haunting spires; and, while every stone bore a secret, they contented themselves with accommodating the restless…
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“How Can I Help Someone With Anger Issues?” (Podcast)
A reader says that he has a family member with anger issues. Every time he tries to help the family member, the person lashes out and becomes defensive. Nothing he does seems to make the situation any better. The reader wants to know if there is anything he can do. We discuss.
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Why We Should Forgive The Faults Of Our Heroes
There comes a time in the life of every son or daughter when they begin to see their parents as flawed mortals. Before this, they are still under the spell of their upbringing; they see their parents more as imposing authority figures than as anything else. I am not sure exactly when, or how, this…
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Do Not Be Too Proud Of Your Generosity
I have always counted myself fortunate when receiving the generosity of another. I have never paused to ask questions about the circumstances of the giver, or to weigh the relative merits of a gift. To be graced with the kindness of another is enough. Perhaps what matters more is the sincerity of the giver; for…
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The Justice Of Malik Shah, Son Of Alp Arslan
Malik Shah I lived from about 1053 to about 1092, and was the sultan of the Seljuk Turkish Empire from 1072 to 1092. His name in Turkish is given as Melikşah; and he succeeded his father, the renowned Alp Arslan. According to his biographer Ibn Khallikan, Malik Shah was famous for his sense of justice…
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The Mystery Of Cicero’s Lost Work “On Glory”
Of the literary works of classical antiquity, only a fraction have survived to the present day. What fraction this is, we do not know; one estimate places it at one-fourth, but the true figure will never be known. The reader may wonder how it can be that literary masterpieces could have been permitted to fade…
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O Arquiteto Da Imaginação (Translation By Daniel Castro)
[The following is a Portuguese translation of my recent article The Architect of the Imagination, which was published here on July 1, 2018. Mr. Daniel Castro, the translator, has done great work in capturing the spirit of the original, and for that I am grateful. He can be found at his website, Nuvem de Giz.]…
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On The Acceptance Of Disappointments
There is no man who can boast of having enjoyed an unbroken string of successes. The variability of Fortune, a pervasive theme in these pages, is a force of nature that ensures success will be liberally interspersed by failure. So it seems to me that we ought to spent just as much time–perhaps even more…
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The Corrupt Rule Of Walter VI Of Brienne, The “Duke Of Athens”
The citizens of a free republic should always be alert to threats to their liberty. Such threats may come in a variety of forms; one of the most dangerous is that posed by a fraud or con artist who appears in the guise of a “people’s champion.” Skilled at manipulation and demagoguery, such men know…
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The Pursuit Of Work, And The Quest For Ideals
In 1893 Leo Tolstoy published an essay whose title was rather clumsily translated into English as “Non-Acting.” In it the great novelist compared the relative merits of two positions, one held by Emile Zola, and the other held by Alexandre Dumas. Both Zola and Dumas had been asked to state their opinions on what they…
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“The King Likes Only Empty Words” (Podcast)
The willingness to do what is necessary is an essential condition of success in any enterprise. There are those who are willing to do what is necessary, and those who are not. We discuss an anecdote from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War,” and several other historical examples, to bring these points into focus.
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The Travels Of John Bell In Persia and China
John Bell was born in 1690 in Antermony, Scotland. He seems to have decided at an early age to study medicine, but was lured into the world of adventure and travel by hearing stories of Peter the Great of Russia, who was a famous figure in Europe in the early eighteenth century. He resolved to…
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Solomon Outwits The Queen Of Sheba
The following tale is related in a forgotten nineteenth-century volume on the literature of the ancient world. Its ultimate source is the Talmud (literally, “learning”), that immense compendium of Judaic civil and religious law, garnished with the diligent commentaries of hundreds of learned men. To the foreigner unfamiliar with its mysteries, it appears to be…
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The Genius Of The Iliad
About a year and a half ago, I listened to an audio book translation of the Iliad. I like listening to audio books in my car as I drive around during the day; I can control the content of what I hear, and can avoid listening to the news. It had been a long time…
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“Pantheon” Is Now Available As An Audio Book
First published in 2015, Pantheon: Adventures in History, Biography, and the Mind is now available as an audio book.
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The Architect Of The Imagination
Man was born for action. Even if he does not know this–especially if he does not know this–his physical being revolts from long intermissions of supine inertia, and craves the physical release of the violent contest. This is part of his blood-spirit, his irreconcilable inner Being. He can try to deny this, and he can…
Original copy of Cicero’s De Officiis (On Duties) published in Holland in 1642. From the collection of Fortress of the Mind.
Quintus Curtius 
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