The Italian scholar Petrarch spent a significant period of time in southeastern France as a boy and a young man. In 1311, when he was seven years old, he moved to Avignon with his family; in 1312, he moved to the small town of Carpentras and remained there until 1316. During other periods of his life from the 1330s to the 1350s, he chose to reside in what is now the French department of Vaucluse.
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More futility than nobility is found in the wars of the emperor Justinian. His capable general Belisarius reconquered Africa and Italy, humbling the strutting pride of the Vandals and Goths; but these fugacious victories only hastened the West’s final ruin.
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The reckless pursuit of advantage and material gain inevitably leads the unwise to ruin. It is a truth antique with age, yet fleeting in historical memory. Two compelling tales buried in the forgotten pages of the historian Polyaenus (VIII.42—43) remind us of the lesson’s permanence. We now resurrect them for our amusement and edification.
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Homer tells us: “He shall have dread hereafter when some god shall come against him in battle; for hard are the gods to look upon when they appear in manifest presence.” (Iliad XX.130—131).
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The Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who lived from 1879 to 1962, changed his birth name when he was in college. He was originally known as William Stephenson, and was born in Manitoba, Canada. His biographers do not know exactly what prompted him to make such a startling reinvention of identity.
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The following story is told by the political theorist Ibn Zafar (1104–1172?) in his treatise on the art of government. We have encountered him several times previously in these pages, and have discussed many of his ideas on leadership, governance, and the conduct of foreign affairs. There are times when anecdotes can bring certain principles into sharp focus.
Pyrrhus was a powerful king who ruled Epirus and Macedon for some years during the Hellenistic period. Plutarch tells a revealing story about him in his Parallel Lives (Life of Epirus, 14).
One of Pyrrhus’s valued advisors was a man named Cineas, who was entrusted on many foreign missions of great sensitivity.
[To read the rest of my article, click here.]
Quintus Curtius 
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