Thought

The Story Of Marcus And Barbula

Quintus Curtius History, Thought , ,

In November of 43 B.C., Rome was gripped by a terrible sense of foreboding.  The historian Appian, in his Civil Wars (IV.1.4) relates that all kinds of strange portents were observed around the city.  Statues sweated blood; a newborn infant uttered words; lightning struck sacred temples; and cattle spoke with a human voice.  So alarmed were some senators that they summoned expert diviners from Etruria to weigh these ominous signs.  The most authoritative of these was an elderly man who told them, “The monarchical rule of ancient times is returning.  You will all be slaves except me.”  Once the Etruscan priest spoke these words to the startled senators, says Appian, he closed his mouth and held his breath until he dropped dead before them.

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Pursue The Phoenix

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One of Saladin’s advisors was a man known by the honorific title Al-Qadi Al-Fadil (“The Excellent Judge”).  We will not try the reader’s patience by recording his protracted real name, but we will note that he lived from 1135 to 1200.  Great conquerors in history always seem to be accompanied by wise counsellors; perhaps there is an important lesson to be derived from this fact. 

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Marcus Valerius Confronts A Gaul In Personal Combat

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There is a story told in Livy (VII.26) of a raven’s fortuitous intervention on behalf of a Roman soldier engaged in personal combat with a Gaul.  This event, if indeed it is not apocryphal, occurred in 348 B.C. during the consulship of Lucius Furius Camillus. 

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Ruses In War, And Schemes In Negotiation

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There is a humorous scene in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid that you may be familiar with.  Paul Newman’s character (Butch), when confronted by a rebellious member of his gang who wishes to displace him as leader, is challenged to a knife fight.

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Implementing A Plan, Or Avoiding Action

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

There is a tendency in conflict situations for inaction to take precedence over action.  In his chapter The Suspension of Action in War (III.16), Clausewitz explains why this is so.  Three determinants, he says, “function as inherent counterweights” to the impulse for positive action. 

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The Diffusion Of Knowledge

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During a recent panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on Green Energy, former American Secretary of State John Kerry made the following rather disconcerting statement:

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Straining At A Gnat, And Swallowing A Camel

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When we focus on what is insignificant, we are likely to neglect what is most crucial.  He who fixates on the irrelevant escrescence overlooks the significance of the larger structure.  It is with good reason that this admonition is of old date:

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How Did Ancient Texts Become Lost?

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The student of classical antiquity’s literary monuments may find himself perplexed by the relative paucity of its surviving examples.  How could it be, we may wonder, that such a large corpus of celebrated works slipped, nearly unnoticed in the passage of centuries, into oblivion?  Why is it that so many writings held in universally high regard exist today only in fragmentary or mutilated form?  How could these tragedies of indifference and neglect have been permitted?  By what processes are classics “lost”?  These are worthy and difficult questions.  They can be answered; but the answers are unsettling, and carry implications very modern in their relevance. 

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Our Job Is Fighting

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

Quintus Fulvius Flaccus was a commander and politician of the Roman Republic who ascended to the consulship in 179 B.C.  There is an interesting story about him found in the ancient historians, which we will relate here. 

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I Was Shipwrecked Even Before Boarding The Ship

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A beautiful feature of proverbs and aphorisms is their flexibility of interpretation.  Different readers can find in them varying interpretations based on their own experiences and perceptions.  Some proverbs admit only a narrow degree of interpretive variance; others draw their power from ambiguity, and allow for a broad range of possible meanings.

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