My First Podcast: Part One Of A Lecture Series On Stoicism

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

I have decided to add podcasts to the content offered on my site.  There is a refreshing value in mixing the presentation of material by audio, along with material already offered in a written format.

Because of the many questions I receive on Stoicism, and the enduring interest in this subject, I have decided to give a series of 10 lectures on Cicero’s Stoic Paradoxes.

I published a translation of Stoic Paradoxes in September, and this lecture series will explain and explore the themes of this work.  Those who have not read the work will find these lectures to be a good introduction to it, while those who have already read it will benefit from the additional review.

Since this is the first podcast I’ve made, I appreciate the feedback of listeners.  I expect things to become additionally refined as we move forward.

Coming In Spring 2016: “On Duties”

Quintus Curtius Current News , ,

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For well over a year now, I’ve been working steadily on the most ambitious literary project of my life.  It has been an incredible and exhausting adventure, and has opened up vistas in my perception of the world that I never would have expected.

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The World Will Provide

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

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Our spirits are driven by two things:  appetite and Reason.

Appetite is the hunger for pleasures, and Reason is the rational impulse.  When Reason does not control the appetite, then the appetite usurps the leadership position of the spirit.

And this is a sure road to ruin.

Appetite leads us around aimlessly by the nose, this way and that, like some kind of insensate farm animal.

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What Is It Like To Get Older?

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

 

One of the questions that I’ve been asked a lot these days is how one’s perceptions change about things as one gets older. A lot of younger guys in their twenties or thirties want to get a glimpse of what lies around the corners of life that they will be approaching soon.

[To read the rest of the article, click here.]

 

One Illusion Is Only Worth Another Illusion: The Judgment Of Bocchoris

Quintus Curtius Thought , , ,

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Here is a sly and amusing story that I came across in Plutarch this weekend.  We find it in his Life of Demetrius (Ch. 27).  It is short, but effective.

There was an Egyptian pharaoh named Bakenranef, who was known to the Greeks as Bocchoris (names of foreign rulers and notables were often Hellenized by historians).  According to the chronicler Manetho, he ruled Lower Egypt as a king of the Twenty-Fourth Dynasty from 725 to 720 B.C.  According to tradition, he was famous for his wisdom and prudence.

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Success Can Be Fatal

Quintus Curtius Thought , , , , ,

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I was eating today at one of those a kilo places in Rio:  one of those places where the food is purchased by the total weight.  The greater the quantity of food, the greater the price.  It turned out to be an opportunity for reflection on the price not of food, but of achievement.

Where food is concerned, nourishment is measured in quantities, by weight.  But so is life, or mortality, in a way.

For the doctors of medicine assure us that one can die just as readily from overeating, as from under-eating.  Excess is just as much a danger as dearth.  And in the developed world, it is more of a danger.  For few of us will be faced with the prospect of starvation in our lives.  More likely, our challenges will come from the over-abundance of choices, from the temptations of bounty.

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Genius Springs Up In Unlikely Places

Quintus Curtius Thought , , ,

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On an airline flight yesterday I was watching a 2014 Mark Wahlberg film called The Gambler.  I had not heard of it before.  Apparently it didn’t do too well at the box office last year, due to its depressing and nihilistic tone.

Regardless, there was a great speech near the beginning of the movie by Wahlberg, who plays an existentially-troubled English teacher.  In the speech to his class, he offers a few words on the whole “Shakespeare controversy”:  that is, were Shakespeare’s plays written by him, or by someone else?

You may know that there is an industry built up around the denial that Shakespeare wrote his places.  These deniers claim it must have been some aristocrat or some professor who wrote the plays attributed to him.

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Civil And Military Organization Of The Later Roman Empire

Quintus Curtius History , , ,

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Introduction

Current news headlines of populations on the move into Europe have drawn attention to a previous era in European history, one in which mass migrations of foreign peoples played a major role.  The Roman Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries was faced with these very challenges from the movements of Germanic tribes, as well as Avars, Bulgars, and Huns.

As I looked more into the details of this period of history, I was struck with how resilient and stable the Empire’s organization was.  There is vast ignorance of this period of history, even (or especially) among Europeans.  While it is often portrayed as an age of continuous decline and decadence, this picture is not the whole truth.

The civil and military organization established by Constantine was wise and enduring, and it deserves to be better known.  It stands in stark contrast to the ineptitude and feebleness of the heads of state in modern Europe.

This article is technical in nature, and will be of interest to the few, rather than to the majority.  Those comprising the latter group may wish to pass on this post, and spare themselves some heaviness of the eyelids.

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Never Get Out Of The Boat, Unless You’re Going All The Way

Quintus Curtius Film, Thought , , ,

There is a scene in the 1979 film classic Apocalypse Now where Willard and the Chef stop their river patrol boat to collect some mangoes in the jungle.  They come face to face with a tiger, and this causes the tightly-wound Chef to become unglued.

“Never get out of the boat…never get out of the boat…I got to remember:  never get out of the boat,” he repeats over and over.

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The Films Of Gaspar Noé

Quintus Curtius Film , , ,

Sometimes we need to take a break from virtue.  All things in moderation, I say, including virtue. Sometimes, we need to look deeply into the abyss.  Someone once said that the abyss looks back at you, but it’s more accurate to say something else: it blows out its breath at you, like the open maw of a hungry grizzly bear, if you happen to be unlucky enough to be near his jaws.  And then you catch a good whiff of that dank, fetid breath.

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