The biographer Ibn Khallikan relates the following anecdote about a man named Abu Amir Orwa Ibn Uzaina, a scholar and poet who died around A.D. 736. Not much is known of his life except that he was a member of the Iraqi tribe of al-Laith. It illustrates the importance of not chasing things in life too much. From personal experience I can attest to this principle’s soundness. When I was younger, there were times when I would try too much to chase things or control events.
Captain Adolf Von Schell was a veteran German officer of the First World War. In 1914 he first served in Belgium, then saw extensive action on the eastern front in both Romania and the Russian border. After the end of the conflict in 1918, he stayed in the army; he was even sent to one of the US Army’s military schools in Fort Benning in 1930. He delivered many lectures to American officers on his combat lessons of the Great War; these were later collected and published under the title Battle Leadership.
This story is found in Giovanni Boccaccio’s On Famous Women (De mulieribus claris). The same qualities of greatness of soul (magnitudo animi and munificentia animi) and moral character that make men great also serve the same purpose for women, as I have recounted in these pages many times before. It is right, then, for us to praise these virtues wherever we find them.
There is a passage in Cicero’s treatise Tusculan Disputations I was thinking about today while driving home from work. The passage begins as a parable, then closes with a glorious invocation to action. Cicero makes an analogy from nature observed near the River Hypanis, then draws some conclusions from that analogy. He says:
It is unwise to incur the wrath of a powerful man if such a situation may be avoided. Sometimes it can; other times it cannot. Even being in the proximity of power can be perilous, as authority has a way of coloring everything in its field of vision with suspicion. An illustration of this principle appears in Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary on the life of the court official (wazir) Abu Ayyub Al Muryani, who served the second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur.
Several days ago I received a warm email from a young guy in Brooklyn who had read one of my recent articles here. The story, told in the form of a fable, underscored the importance of taking the initiative in matters of love. His questions were these: How do I know when to take the initiative? How can I develop my “initiative-taking” spirit?
The biographer Ibn Khallikan tells the following amusing anecdote about the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu’tadid (المعتضد بالله). He lived from about 860 to 902 A.D. The story makes the point that one must be decisive in matters of love and seduction. To hesitate with a beautiful woman can be ruinous.
Abu Ma’ashar al-Balkhi (A.D. 787-886) was a Persian philosopher and astrologer who flourished during the time of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. Educated in the usual manner of his day with logic, jurisprudence, rhetoric, and the religious sciences, he turned to astrology late in life at the age of 47. We cannot quite call him an astronomer, for in his day that science was still in its embryonic stage; but he did assemble some astronomical tables that added to the collective wisdom in the field. Just as alchemists eventually contributed to chemistry, so did medieval astrologers serve a function as a bridge between superstition and reason.
Gelimer lived from about 480 to 550 A.D. and was the ruler of the Vandal kingdom in North Africa for four years from 530 to 534. The emperor Justinian aspired to restore Roman control over the region, and to this end sent his general Belisarius to expel the barbarian trespassers. This he did. Gelimer was also captured for good measure, and transported back to Byzantium as a prize of war.
Cato the Elder (234-149 B.C.) is one of those legendary figures in early Roman history. Known for his stern, uncompromising vision with regard to personal morality, rules, and social obligations, his treatise On Agriculture (De agri cultura) constitutes the earliest complete Latin prose text that has survived.
Quintus Curtius 
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