Author: Quintus Curtius

Without Good Leadership, Valor Is Wasted

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

One of the rules of the nineteenth-century whaling industry was that if a captured whale carcass were lost by its owner, it thereafter became the property of the first ship to recover it.  After being killed, a whale had to be secured to the side of the whale ship, or towed with ropes; and it occasionally happened that the prize would become untethered from its owner, and float away upon the open ocean.  In those cases, the first hand to plant a harpoon in the carcass could claim it as his own.

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The Tale Of Paches The Athenian

Quintus Curtius History, Thought , ,

In the 1998 film Fallen, one of the characters intones an ominous motto:  “What goes around, really goes around.”  This is a more emphatic version of the old adage, “What comes around, goes around.”  In both cases the meaning is the same:  he who spreads iniquity and evil, will eventually be himself visited by iniquities and evils of even greater magnitude.

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The Man Of Virtue Is A Quiet Insurgent

Quintus Curtius Thought , , ,

It is tempting to believe that our current social problems are uniquely modern, and that they have no analogues to conditions of previous ages.  A review of the thoughtful writings of the past shows that this belief is far from the truth.  Consider, for example, this comment from the Latin dialogue Antonius, which was composed by the humanist Giovanni Pontano around 1487 and first printed in 1491:

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The Greatest Movies Of 2010 To 2020

Quintus Curtius Film , ,

I’ve been straining my memory for the past week in an attempt to articulate a dominant ethos of the 2010s. Does one exist? It was a decidedly elusive decade. Our initial impression was that it blended seamlessly with the first decade of the new millennium, and never really emerged with its own distinctive palette.

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The Greatest Movies Of 2000 To 2010

Quintus Curtius Film ,

In previous articles here, I’ve submitted my candidates for the best films of the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. So the laws of natural progression compel me to move forward with the next decade. Few would argue that the 70s, 80s, and 90s had their own distinctive flavor. But can the same be said for the first decade of the new millennium? I think it can.

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The 2024 Blued Colt Python And The Smith & Wesson Model 27: Impressions And Opinion

Quintus Curtius Uncategorized ,

For a change of pace, in this video I discuss my impressions of the new blued Colt Python and the classic Smith & Wesson Model 27.

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The Palomares Incident

Quintus Curtius History , ,

We often underestimate the ease with which terrible disasters can accompany our efforts and enterprises.  Vigilance tends to lapse with routine; and with time, even the most dangerous cargoes may begin to look benign.  Any nation wishing to handle nuclear materials enters a kind of pact with the devil:  in return for power and prestige, it can never forget what it is dealing with, and it can never let its guard down.  Two lines from the Roman poet Lucan (Pharsalia IX.1020) expresses this idea well:

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To The Man Of Virtue, All Soil Is Native

Quintus Curtius Thought , , ,

There is a line in Statius’s Thebiad (VIII.320) which reads,

Omne homini natale solum.

This means, “All soil is native to man.”  I think it is appropriate to interpret soil in an abstract form, and understand it as signifying land.  He does not mean just any land, but terra incognita: the vast expense of the unknown, untamed and hostile. Does this line have any significance, or is it just another poetic garland?  To me the poet is trying to communicate the idea that, for the brave man, every piece of ground on this earth may be claimed as his own, and called his own; and that, through his discipline and efforts, the man of virtue may conquer the challenges of his environment, wherever the locale may be. 

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Sometimes Winning Is Not Enough (Podcast)

Quintus Curtius Podcast , ,

Sometimes even a decisive victory is not enough. The victory may create entirely new landscapes, obstacles, and challenges that test you to the ultimate limit. There is no such thing as reaching a safe “end zone.” We discuss the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 B.C., where the Greek mercenaries of Cyrus won the battle, but immediately realized that their fight for survival had just begun. One man, a natural leader named Xenophon the Athenian, then stepped forward to assume the responsibility of command.

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The Books Of Numa Pompilius

Quintus Curtius Thought , , ,

The defilement of a nation’s cultural heritage is among the most odious of crimes.  But the offense is especially noxious, and finally unforgivable, when committed by national leaders for their own personal aggrandizement.  The past is always vulnerable to the malicious exigencies of the present.  An illustrative example is found in the pages of Roman history. 

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