The idea of divine retribution is a current that runs consistently through the pages of Herodotus. Evil deeds, wicked actions, or the manifestation of hubris, will eventually be repaid; and the payment is usually devastating.
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While the power and utility of forensic linguistics is taken for granted today, this was not always the case. The world of scholarship was slow to appreciate the degree to which written language betrays its authorship and pedigree. The “Phalaris Controversy” is a famous, and striking, example of the use of textual analysis in resolving an acrimonious intellectual brick-fight.
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The imminent release of Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey on July 17 has ignited a vigorous and necessary debate regarding the tension between artistic license and the importance of fidelity to a classic text. It is a question of old date. But while every generation has felt the compulsion to interpret anew the literary monuments of the past, they have often hesitated, out of respect for the antiquity of these monuments, to tamper unduly with the words and sentiments contained within them.
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The word climacteric is not one commonly encountered. The Oxford English Dictionary describes its variegated colors of meaning. A consultation with Volume II of the 1970 edition (covering the letter C) informs us that the word is an adjective “applied to that period of life (usually between the ages of 45 and 60) at which the vital forces begin to decline.”
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Dear Sir:
Some recent news reports have occasioned me to call attention to a principle of learning which, in our era of existential unease and fracture, often escapes notice. A professor at an institution of higher learning, we have been told, worries that he may not be able to “compete” (as he says) with the volumes of information made available to his students by the machines of artificial intelligence. In this I think his fears are misplaced, and that he need not heat his mind to such a state of fretful ebullition; and I will attempt, with a few disjointed thoughts and unconnected meanderings, to explain why I believe this to be so.
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The progress of duncery is geometric, while knowledge and understanding advance, if at all, with arithmetic slowness. He who demands acute perception from the overwhelming mass of humanity will find himself crushed in disappointments, and immersed in doleful ruminations.
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In his treatise on medicine, the Roman writer Celsus digresses to make a shrewd observation on the behavior of personalities of rare distinction. He happened to note, in the writings of Hippocrates, that the great Greek doctor once confessed to having been misled by the presence of sutures in a patient. Such a comment might have passed without notice with any other reader; but Celsus was a perceptive observer and a man of broad sophistication. He ventured the following remarks:
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Some conceptions are possessed of such awesome magnitude and gravity that the mind can only with difficulty apprehend their sublime grandeur. I would like to share one such idea.
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The tale of the Persian nobleman Zopyrus appears in the third book of Herodotus, from chapter 150 to 160. We will relate it here, with no justification beyond the insight it may provide on human nature.
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If someone were to ask me why I read history, my reply would be in three words: solace, advice, and examples for our edification. Let me explain further.
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Quintus Curtius 
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