Thought

Ne Plus Ultra

Quintus Curtius Thought , , , ,

Canto XXVI of Dante’s Inferno takes place in the eighth bolgia (ditch) of the Eighth Circle of Hell.  Here reside those guilty of providing fraudulent or deceitful counsel.  In life, these souls used their persuasive abilities to harm or destroy others; and, in keeping with Dante’s attention to the principle of contrapasso, their punishment in Hell fits their crimes during life.  As they once used their tongues for malicious speech, so in the afterlife are their souls “tongued” forever with flame. 

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Deep Memories Yield No Epitaphs

Quintus Curtius Literature, Thought , , ,

Chapter 23 of Moby-Dick is entitled “The Lee Shore.”  It offers some philosophical commentary on the need for travel and direct experience.  Melville reflects on the restless, roaming nature of a sailor named Bulkington: 

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Nowhere Is Rome Less Known Than At Rome

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In a letter written to Giovanni Colonna in 1337 or 1341—scholars are uncertain of the precise date—Petrarch says as follows:

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Press Your White Hairs With A Helmet

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In book nine of the Aeneid, the Rutulian warrior Numanus Remulus makes a famous declamation, in which he speaks the following lines:

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When The Sleeper Wakes

Quintus Curtius Literature, Thought ,

We are told that the word dystopia first entered the lexicon in 1868, when John Stuart Mill used it in a parliamentary speech.  The first dystopian novel is somewhat open to debate, but many consider H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, first published in 1895, to be a strong candidate.

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The Millennium Challenge Of 2002

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

In 2000, the U.S. Congress proposed a detailed joint-service war game that came to be called “Millenium Challenge 2002,” or, in military parlance, MC02.  The idea was a sound one.  Rapid technological and doctrinal changes in the preceding decades had generated uncertainty about the U.S. military’s ability to respond to a sudden crisis. 

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Few Are Those Who Follow The Man, But Many Are Those Who Follow His Fortune

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

Around 1440, the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini composed an interesting dialogue entitled On the Unhappiness of Leaders (De Infelicitate Principum).  It is styled on the classical model, in which notable figures debate the relative merits of different propositions. 

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Who Frontinus Was, Why He Is Important, And Why You Should Read Him

Quintus Curtius Current News, Thought , ,

I once heard someone pose the question, “Why didn’t the Greeks or Romans produce a military theorist like Sun Tzu?”  The answer to this question is that they did, in fact, produce a theorist just as profound—arguably more profound—than the great Chinese sage.  The problem is that you’ve never heard of him.  His name is Frontinus.  He lived from about A.D. 31 to about 104.  Here I intend to explain who he was, what is found in his book Stratagems, and why his work is so important.

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Baklushin’s Story

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In 1849, the young Fyodor Dostoyevsky was arrested for anti-tsarist activities and sentenced to death.  His sentence was commuted by the tsar at the last instant, and he was instead given a four-year term in a prison camp in Siberia.  From this shattering experience came his semi-autobiographical novel The House of the Dead, which was published in 1860. 

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