Author: Quintus Curtius

Kerameikos: The Spirits Of The Dead

Quintus Curtius Travel & Exploration , , ,

Today I visted a site called Kerameikos in Athens.  It was a cemetery for many centuries, and contains numerous examples of funerary art.  The site was only rediscovered in 1861 during road construction in the neighborhood.  On the site is also located the famous Dipylon Gate, which was the main entrance into Athens during ancient times when the city was surrounded by walls.  The gate itself is said to have been the largest gateway in the ancient world, covering around 1800 square meters.  Constructed around 478 B.C., it had four large covered towers and a courtyard that also served as an official meeting place and a location for commercial activity.  I was excited to see the remains of the Gate, as I had read references to it in classical texts.

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Some Observations On Classic Greek Art, And Its Lessons For Today

Quintus Curtius Health & Fitness, Thought , , ,

I have spent the past two days in Athens seeking out some of the monuments of classic Greek art.  I have tried to see as many works of art and architecture as was reasonably possible, and thought I would here provide the impressions gained from these observations.

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The Lyceum Of Aristotle, And The National Archaeological Museum

Quintus Curtius Travel & Exploration , , ,

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 matter to me at all.  Just to be able to stand on this ground was to me worth the effort in coming to Greece.  It was only discovered in 1996. How often do we read of Aristotle, and yet no one bothers to link a physical location to his memory?  This is why it was important for me to take these pictures, and show them to readers here.

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Seeing The Platonic Academy

Quintus Curtius History, Travel & Exploration , ,

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 the pagan institutions of higher learning.

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Surge And Consolidate, Surge And Recuperate

Quintus Curtius Thought , , ,

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; we will be brought there by the operation of Fate.  Of course there are many who will say that this is nothing but a crude fatalism that promotes resignation and apathy.  Carried to excess, the idea does lend itself to these sentiments.  On the other hand, I am sure that there are many who can confirm that, in some cases, doing nothing is better than constantly straining to force a certain outcome.

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Starvation On The High Seas: The Ordeal Of The “Saint Le Jacques”

Quintus Curtius History, Travel & Exploration , ,

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 pasta aboard Delta Flight XYZ bound for one city or another; his ancestors, however, were grateful just to get a few moldy biscuits and rum during some miserable transoceanic ordeal.  Perspective is everything, or nearly everything.

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René Caillié: To Timbuktu And Back Alive

Quintus Curtius Travel & Exploration , ,

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 consumer age.  His chief preoccupations are the adjustment of his body to new time zones, the temperature of his air-conditioning, and the quality of his accommodations.  Perhaps it is well that this is so:  for nothing so unbalances the complacent mind than the realization that its perspective is based on narrow, parochial experience.  Knowledge can both liberate and destroy.

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“Pathways” Is Now Available As An Audio Book

Quintus Curtius Current News , , ,

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 for On Duties, Sallust, Thirty-Seven, and Pantheon.  I’ve found audio books to be a convenient way for busy people to enjoy good literary content.  You almost feel as if you are participating in a private seminar.

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Virtue Is A Sentinel (Podcast)

Quintus Curtius 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

Quintus Curtius Thought , , ,

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 men of letters for the purpose of philosophical inquiry.  Perhaps kings preferred to talk with scholars because they were removed from the concerns of power, and could speak with a frankness that was lacking with the royal ministers and advisors.

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