We all know that the ability to think on one’s feet is an important skill. There may even be times when this ability makes the difference between survival and execution. The amusing anecdote that follows appears in Ibn Khallikan’s biographical sketch (IV.200) of a government official and administrator (مولى) named Yazid Ibn Abi Muslim, who served under an Umayyad governor of Iraq named Al-Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf (c. 661—714 A.D.).
After reading Charles Leerhsen’s excellent biography of baseball player Ty Cobb (Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty), it’s clear that each of us is responsible for making sure that misinformation and lies do not go unanswered. Even if you are not a baseball fan–maybe especially if you are not a baseball fan–there are very important life lessons to be learned here.
In this podcast, we discuss two films: “Joker” (2019), and “The Killing Fields” (1984), both of which I recommend.
One of the fables of Aesop concerns Hercules and Athena. One day, Hercules was proceeding along a pathway in the mountains when he spotted an apple lying on the ground. Irritated at its presence, he decided to smash it with his club; and when he tried to do so, the apple doubled in size. Shocked, he swung his club at it again, this time determined to crush it completely.
In this podcast we discuss two movies: “Never Look Away” (2018), a German coming-of-age drama directed by Florian von Donnersmarck, and “Ad Astra” (2019), the space drama starring Brad Pitt and directed by James Gray.
In studying the writings of scholars of ages past, one often begins to suspect that they were aware of more things than we generally give them credit for. We begin to understand that the progress of knowledge is not always “upwards” in a steadily sloping straight line; there are periods of setbacks, stagnation, and decay. And very often we perceive that men of great ability can be trapped in environments that are hostile to the development of their talents.
My fully illustrated and annotated translation of Cornelius Nepos’s Lives of the Great Commanders was published on September 20, 2019. It is available in paperback, hardcover, audiobook, and Kindle editions.
I was recently reading some of Cicero’s letters to Atticus, and came across this sentence in one of them:
Quid enim sumus, aut quid esse possumus? Domis an foris?
[Epistulae XIII.10]
Readers are likely to have heard, in one form or another, the New Testament proverb, “And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). The saying is an old one, and probably was in common currency centuries before its alleged utterance by Jesus. I find proverbs and adages interesting, as they contain not just worldly wisdom, but information about the culture and period in which they were composed. This point was recently impressed upon me while reading a forgotten bit of nineteenth-century travel literature, the Rev. F.J. Arundell’s 1834 memoir Discoveries in Asia Minor.
In this podcast we deal with two recent emails. One email asks about the military: what lessons did I learn, and how did it change me. Another email is from a man asking about what subjects he should be studying in college, and what sort of career he should pursue. There are no easy answers to these questions, but just talking about them can be of real benefit.
Quintus Curtius 
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