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1.030_-_The_Romans

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   3 Epistle to the Romans
   1 Origen

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   28 Rick Riordan
   16 Edward Gibbon
   13 Mary Beard
   13 Anonymous
   12 Reza Aslan
   8 Terry Jones
   6 Niccol Machiavelli
   6 Mark Kurlansky
   6 Lesley Livingston
   6 Elizabeth Speller
   5 Petr Beckmann
   5 Ernle Bradford
   5 Brian Godawa
   4 William J Bernstein
   4 Plutarch
   4 Heinrich Heine
   4 Hannah Arendt
   4 Bill Bryson
   3 Tom Holland
   3 Tacitus

1:Whatsoever things were written afore time, were written for our learning. ~ Epistle to the Romans,

2:The man who docth these things shall live by them. ~ Epistle to the Romans, the Eternal Wisdom

3:Whatsoever things were written afore time, were written for our learning. ~ Epistle to the Romans, the Eternal Wisdom

4:The separation of the body from the soul is called death. But thi - cannot be said to be either good or bad; it is neutral ~ Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 6.6.5).,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove

2:Satire among the Romans, but not among the Greeks, was a bitter invective poem. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove

3:Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove

4:She is an excellent creature, but she can never remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove

5:Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove

6:Sallust is indisputably one of the best historians among the Romans, both for the purity of his language and the elegance of his style. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove

7:I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove

8:The Romans worshipped their standard; and the Roman standard happened to be an eagle. Our standard is only one tenth of an eagle,&

9:I am sure no other civilization, not even the Romans, has showed such a vast proportion of ignominious and degraded nudity, and ugly, squalid dirty sex. Because no other civilization has driven sex into the underworld, and nudity to the W.C. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove

10:The Greeks adored their gods by the simple compliment of kissing their hands; and the Romans were treated as atheists if they would not perform the same act when they entered a temple. This custom, however, as a religious ceremony declined with paganism,but was continued as a salutation by inferiors to their superiors, or as a token of esteem among friends. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove

11:Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed... . I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove

12:Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed... . I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove

13:This letter [to the Romans] is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove

14:The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They didn't believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn't believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove

15:I believe in books. And when our people [coughing] - our people of Jerusalem, let's say after the Romans destroyed the temple and the city, all we took is a little book, that's all. Not treasures, we had no treasures. They were ransacked, taken away. But the book - the little book - and this book produced more books, thousands, hundreds of thousands of books, and in the book we found our memory, and our attachment to that memory is what kept us alive. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove

16:Of the land which the Romans gained by conquest from their neighbours, part they sold publicly, and turned the remainder into common; this common land they assigned to such of the citizens as were poor and indigent, for which they were to pay only a small acknowledgment into the public treasury. But when the wealthy men began to offer larger rents, and drive the poorer people out, it was enacted by law that no person whatever should enjoy more than five hundred acres of ground. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:the Romans, spring and early ~ Harry Turtledove,

2:The Romans, the sexual nomads. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

3:What have the Romans ever done for us? ~ John Cleese,

4:When in Rome, do as the Romans do. ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan,

5:The Romans brought devestation, but they called it peace. ~ Tacitus,

6:The Romans were the tonal incarnate, complete order. ~ Frederick Lenz,

7:Limits the Romans' anxieties to two things - bread and games. ~ Juvenal,

8:To the Romans, the Greeks and the Jews Sumeria was unknown. ~ Will Durant,

9:The man who docth these things shall live by them. ~ Epistle to the Romans,

10:Football is American; why are the Romans numering our bowls?! ~ Stephen Colbert,

11:Jesus was, if anything, far more useful than dangerous to the Romans. ~ Kamal Salibi,

12:I read the Romans had bread and circuses. We had home relief and boxing. ~ Jake LaMotta,

13:Change was Fate' the Romans said. well, Andreas loathed Fate, That Bitch. ~ Anne Mallory,

14:Let us now relieve the Romans of their fears by the death of a feeble old man. ~ Hannibal,

15:If, like the Romans, he must make a desert and call it peace, so be it. ~ Sharon Kay Penman,

16:Satire among the Romans, but not among the Greeks, was a bitter invective poem. ~ John Dryden,

17:Whoever said "When in Rome, do as the Romans do", has never driven a car there. ~ Lev L Spiro,

18:Whatsoever things were written afore time, were written for our learning. ~ Epistle to the Romans,

19:Whatsoever things were written afore time, were written for our learning. ~ Epistle to the Romans,

20:Long before the empire had reached its greatest extent, the Romans were bored by it. ~ Robert Payne,

21:Spartacus, like Jesus, was also crucified by the Romans. And for equally good reasons. ~ Edward Abbey,

22:I care nothing about this Percy. If he has gone over to the Romans, let him perish. Kill ~ Rick Riordan,

23:The name Cornelius was a common one among the Romans, so that from it we can draw no inference. ~ Tacitus,

24:The Romans used every housing form known today and they have a remarkably modern look. ~ Stephen Gardiner,

25:When in Rome, live as the Romans do. When elsewhere, live as they live elsewhere. ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan,

26:To the Romans, Egypt was exciting: incomprehensible, with a pleasing hint of malignity. ~ Elizabeth Speller,

27:The Epistle to the Romans is an extremely important synthesis of the whole theology of St. Paul. ~ Hans Kung,

28:I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary. ~ Thomas Jefferson,

29:The Romans knew it: quod me alit me extinguit, they said: That which nourishes me, extinguishes me. ~ John Green,

30:the Romans first neutralized Greek philosophy, then turned Christianity into a prop for their empire. ~ Ian Morris,

31:The Romans knew it: quod me alit me extinguit, they said: That which nourishes me, extinguishes me. ~ John Green,

32:the Romans were one of the first to also place leaders behind their men in an open order of battle. ~ Dave Grossman,

33:If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found time to conquer the world. ~ Heinrich Heine,

34:The Germans will make a few scattered attacks, then go away. The Romans will enjoy a fine September. ~ Pietro Badoglio,

35:Remember the maxim of the Romans which states that by union and counsel we can achieve anything. ~ Saint Vincent de Paul,

36:San Francisco! City of dreaming spires, people live here... Golden Gate Bridge, ahh the Romans came here. ~ Eddie Izzard,

37:She is an excellent creature, but she can never remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans. ~ Benjamin Disraeli,

38:The Romans spent the next 200 years using their great engineering skill to construct ruins all over Europe. ~ Dave Barry,

39:According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. ~ Edward Gibbon,

40:When in Rome, you must do as the Romans do and accept the local customs, if they are not immoral. ~ Saint Vincent de Paul,

41:If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they would never have found the time to conquer the world. ~ Heinrich Heine,

42:The Romans assisted their allies and friends, and acquired friendships by giving rather than receiving kindness. ~ Sallust,

43:THE ROMANS PAID homage to democracy, the rights of the common citizen and, for a time, republicanism. But ~ Mark Kurlansky,

44:The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. ~ Heinrich Heine,

45:The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear. ~ Baron de Montesquieu,

46:The Romans had to kill him because he was threatening the order because he had a great deal of personal power. ~ Frederick Lenz,

47:And according to her dagger, that crazy teddy-bear-strangling kid, Octavian, was whipping the Romans into a war frenzy. ~ Rick Riordan,

48:Just as the Romans were the only nation that was truly a nation, so our age is the first genuine age. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel,

49:What the Romans would have done left to their own devices, Nico didn't know. But he hadn't counted on the Greeks. ~ Rick Riordan,

50:If the Romans could have fortified their cities the way the human brain fortifies itself, we'd still be wearing togas. ~ Kelley Armstrong,

51:The Romans, Jones pointed out, called a man in love salax, in a salted state, which is the origin of the word salacious. ~ Mark Kurlansky,

52:The Romans saw loss of virtue all around them. The Victorians decried the decline in religiosity in the next generation. ~ Fareed Zakaria,

53:Nico enjoyed how nervous the Romans acted around him, even though they were older and bigger and more experienced fighters. ~ Rick Riordan,

54:ZEUS /n./ The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. ~ Ambrose Bierce,

55:The ancient Greeks could laugh at themselves. The Romans could not. That is why France is a civilized society and Spain is not. ~ John Fowles,

56:The Romans used to say that courage is not the only virtue, but it's the only one that makes the other virtues possible. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu,

57:Clean of officious fence or hedge, Half-wild and wholly tame, The wise turf cloaks the white cliff-edge As when the Romans came. ~ Helen Simonson,

58:The Romans were not wiped out by the invasions of the barbarians, nor by the Christian virus, but by a more subtle evil, boredom. ~ Emil M Cioran,

59:Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous. ~ Plutarch,

60:Today was the day the dorms opened for fall semester. During her freshmen year, Nicola had thought the Romans and Cashes of campus ~ Cristin Harber,

61:THE ROMANS SALTED their greens, believing this to counteract the natural bitterness, which is the origin of the word salad, salted. ~ Mark Kurlansky,

62:Venerable the scorn of the Jews for the Ishmaelites may have been; but it was nothing like so savage as their loathing for the Romans. ~ Tom Holland,

63:I was so happy when I went to Rome and I saw that the Romans eat them too, the squash blossoms. [...] No wonder I like the Italians! ~ Sandra Cisneros,

64:Sallust is indisputably one of the best historians among the Romans, both for the purity of his language and the elegance of his style. ~ Edmund Burke,

65:Every culture has its own way of teaching the same lesson: Memento mori, the Romans would remind themselves. Remember you are mortal. It ~ Ryan Holiday,

66:Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf, But that he sees the Romans are but sheep: He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. ~ William Shakespeare,

67:The Romans thought of themselves as the chosen people, yet they built the greatest army on Earth by recruiting warriors from any background. ~ Amy Chua,

68:There was one obligation that the Romans imposed on all those who came under their control: namely, to provide troops for the Roman armies. ~ Mary Beard,

69:THE ROMANS SALTED their greens, believing this to counteract the natural bitterness, which is the origin of the word salad, salted. The ~ Mark Kurlansky,

70:We can build cities for the Romans.” “Actually, I was thinking about saving mankind.” “Forget that nonsense, Josh. Rocks, I tell you. ~ Christopher Moore,

71:Our sexual ideas are also borrowed not from the sophisticate cultures who created the Kama Sutra, but from kindred brutalists, the Romans. ~ Ian F Svenonius,

72:What did the Romans say? “De gustibus non disputandum est”: It is worthless to discuss personal taste. It is called 'personal' for a reason. ~ Massimo Marino,

73:What did the Romans say? “De gustibus non est disputandum”: It is worthless to discuss personal taste. It is called 'personal' for a reason. ~ Massimo Marino,

74:For me, as much as for anyone else, the Romans are a subject not just of history and inquiry but also of imagination and fantasy, horror and fun. ~ Mary Beard,

75:Yes, Istanbul does live up to its nickname as the ‘Queen of Cities.’ Born to the Greeks, raised by the Romans, and matured under the Ottomans. ~ Clive Cussler,

76:The Greek city-states were as keen on winning battles as the Romans were, and most had little to do with the brief Athenian democratic experiment. ~ Mary Beard,

77:What investment banking is to the ambitious and acquisitive today, the pepper trade was to the Romans—the most direct route to great riches. ~ William J Bernstein,

78:No doubt the Romans had felt that theirs was an eternal civilization, right up to the moment their empire fell apart. Were they suicides, too? ~ Michel Houellebecq,

79:In short, the Romans conquered most of their known world as much with the deeply institutionalized pen as with the sword, shield, and catapult. ~ William J Bernstein,

80:My point," Jason said, "is that blaming each other isn't going to solve anything. That's how the Romans and the Greeks got divided in the first place. ~ Rick Riordan,

81:There is only one way to happiness,” Epictetus taught the Romans, “and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. ~ Dale Carnegie,

82:I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence. ~ Charles Dickens,

83:despair, even when their practical fortunes were hopeful. How could they understand that the Romans could hope even when their fortunes were hopeless? ~ G K Chesterton,

84:It's not the Jews that killed Christ. It was a political situation, and it was the Romans who killed Jesus. They put Jesus on the cross, not the Jews ~ Monica Bellucci,

85:It would have been much more fortunate had the Persians become masters of the Greeks, rather than have the Romans of all people assume that role. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

86:Everybody blames the Jews for killing Christ, and the Jews try to pass it off on the Romans. I'm one of the few people who believes it was the blacks. ~ Sarah Silverman,

87:The Romans had a great general named Cincinnatus. The legend is that he had wanted to live quietly on his farm but was persuaded twice to return to public ~ Elaine N Aron,

88:When my father arrived in Kenya, he had found the Kikuyu way of life similar to that of the British at the time the Romans invaded England 2,000 years ago. ~ Louis Leakey,

89:(In the computer era we have returned to the custom of scrolling through texts, but we now scroll up and down, rather than right to left as the Romans did.) ~ Tom Standage,

90:The Romans held Britain from the invasion of Julius Caesar till their voluntary withdrawal from the island, A.D. 420,- that is, about five hundred years. ~ Thomas Bulfinch,

91:As the Romans valued science and observation less and less, the artistic and scientific institutions that fed Roman culture began to weaken and decline. ~ Shawn Lawrence Otto,

92:Which is to say, the Romans didn’t believe that an exceptionally gifted person was a genius; they believed that an exceptionally gifted person had a genius. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,

93:If the soul within us does not change, Judas, the world outside us will never change. The enemy is within, the Romans are within, salvation starts from within! ~ Nikos Kazantzakis,

94:We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics. ~ Donald Kagan,

95:Say what you will of the Romans, they were no incompetents when it came to killing. They knew better than to nail some poor bugger up by his palms; the bones are too small. ~ Brian Hodge,

96:There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to split an infinitive, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans. ~ Bill Bryson,

97:I understood something else, too - that one kiss didn't change a thing. Anyone can give a kiss, after all; a kiss was how Judas Iscariot showed the Romans which one was Jesus. ~ Stephen King,

98:Some of the gold possessed by the Romans is doubtless mixed with what we now possess; and some small part of it will be handed down as long as the human race exists. ~ William Stanley Jevons,

99:In fact, a marriage was normally contracted, as the Romans put it, ‘by practice’: that is, in our terms, ‘by cohabitation’. If you lived together for a year, you were married. It ~ Mary Beard,

100:Why the Romans, Father?” I asked him one afternoon. “Because, my child, they teach us how to bear suffering in a world of injustice where all faith is dead,” he answered. ~ Judith Merkle Riley,

101:In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, “We know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. ~ James Comey,

102:The Berbers belong to a powerful, formidable, and numerous people; a true people like so many others, the world has seen - like the Arabs, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. ~ Ibn Khaldun,

103:I no longer think, as I once naively did, that we have much to learn directly from the Romans – or, for that matter, from the ancient Greeks, or from any other ancient civilisation. ~ Mary Beard,

104:Is it legitimate to eliminate ‘terrorists’ outside the due processes of law? How far should civil rights be sacrificed in the interests of homeland security? The Romans never ceased ~ Mary Beard,

105:On New Year's Eve he ould make a resolution to recover some his previous scepticism, but until then he would do as the Romans do, and smile at people even if he disapproved of them ~ Nick Hornby,

106:All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? ~ John Cleese,

107:Why the Romans, Father?" I asked him one afternoon. "Because, my child, they teach us how to bear suffering in a world of injustice where all faith is dead," he answered. ~ Judith Merkle Riley,

108:Chapter 3.   That the Romans Did Not Show Their Usual Sagacity When They Trusted that They Would Be Benefited by the Gods Who Had Been Unable to Defend Troy.    And these ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,

109:Such was the cost of dealing with the Romans: even when one fought against them, the stain of their violence licked and crackled at the soul like a fire about to engulf an entire forest. ~ Ruth Downie,

110:Their religion was a religion of despair, even when their practical fortunes were hopeful. How could they understand that the Romans could hope even when their fortunes were hopeless? ~ G K Chesterton,

111:As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

112:The Romans did not see [the tale of Romulus, Remus and the she-wolf] as a charming story; they meant to show that they had imbibed wolfish appetites and ferocity with their mother's milk. ~ Terry Jones,

113:Nico jumped into the crowd, kicking groins, smacking faces with the flat of his blade, bashing helmets with his pommel. In ten seconds, the Romans all lay groaning and dazed on the ground. ~ Rick Riordan,

114:Do not say that! How few are the Romans and how numerous are we ! 'An army's strength lies not in numbers of men but in Allah's help, and its weakness lies in being forsaken by Allah ~ Khalid ibn al Walid,

115:Even Tacitus admitted that “whatever their origin, [the Jews’] observances are sanctioned by their antiquity,”64 and the Romans respected tradition. Christians, however, had no such excuse. ~ Elaine Pagels,

116:There have been circuses from the times of the Romans and Greeks, our traditions centuries old. We had survived the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic Wars, the Great War. We would survive this, too. ~ Pam Jenoff,

117:What most puzzled Rome about the Jews was not their unfamiliar rites or their strict devotion to their laws, but rather what the Romans considered to be their unfathomable superiority complex. ~ Reza Aslan,

118:The American people are sheep. They're comfortable, rich, working. It's like the Romans, they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right. ~ Jack Kevorkian,

119:The Romans say, 'You must', the Protestant Nonconformists say, 'You must not', the Catholic Church of England says, 'You may.' [regarding the practice of confession; Overture to Death, chapter 17] ~ Ngaio Marsh,

120:the Romans knew of the watermill but made nearly no use of it, continuing to rely on muscle power to grind their flour.20 The Ottoman Empire prohibited the mechanical clock, and so did the Chinese. ~ Rodney Stark,

121:Although the Romans knew Chinese silk, they knew not China. They believed that silk grew directly on the mulberry tree, not realizing that the leaves were merely the worm's home and its food. ~ William J Bernstein,

122:(Not incidentally, lead’s symbol is Pb, for the Latin plumbum, the source word for our modern plumbing.) The Romans also flavored their wine with lead, which may be part of the reason they are not the ~ Bill Bryson,

123:While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius. ~ Edward Gibbon,

124:The Romans worshipped their standard; and the Roman standard happened to be an eagle. Our standard is only one tenth of an eagle,--a dollar, but we make all even by adoring it with tenfold devotion. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

125:You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans: great, big, vulgar, bustling people more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt. ~ Harold MacMillan,

126:Needless to say, they refused to submit to the Empire, conducting such a persistent guerrilla war that the Romans gave up hope of conquering Scotland, and the Wee Free Men remained both wee and free. ~ Terry Pratchett,

127:Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the Romans under Fabricius, but with great slaughter of his own side, said to them, "Yes; but if we have such another victory, we are undone." ~ Francis Bacon,

128:People would start to follow him and they'd say: "Well why should I follow the Romans? This man says I can be free and do what I want." So he had to be put out of the way quickly because he was a revolutionary. ~ Frederick Lenz,

129:An example of a really responsible system is the system the Romans used when they built an arch. The guy who created the arch stood under it as the scaffolding was removed. It’s like packing your own parachute. ~ Charles T Munger,

130:Because if the Romans, the Greeks, the Hebrew scholars, and the Christians all describe the same entities, and issue the same warnings and formulae for controlling them, then surely that is something not to be dismissed. ~ Anne Rice,

131:Censor, n. An officer of certain governments, employed to supress the works of genius. Among the Romans the censor was an inspector of public morals, but the public morals of modern nations will not bear inspection. ~ Ambrose Bierce,

132:As the class went through the Greeks and the Romans and the Renaissance painters, (who were easy enough to remember if you’d ever seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) there was more dick on display than in a locker room. ~ K A Mitchell,

133:The Romans' contribution to science was mostly limited to butchering antiquity's greatest mathematician, burning the Library of Alexandria, and slowly stifling the sciences that flourished in the colonies of their Empire. ~ Petr Beckmann,

134:The characteristic danger of great nations, like the Romans or the English which have a long history of continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions which they have created ~ Walter Bagehot,

135:[S]oul, interiority, wholeness and rebirth come under the sign of the feminine. The soul is feminine and has been seen in that light by the Greeks, who called the soul psyche, and the Romans, for whom soul was anima, also feminine. ~ David Tacey,

136:And, most of all, these women remembered what their mothers and grandmothers had learned from the Romans, the Byzantines, the Turks, and the Mongols: that history almost always repeats itself. And it is almost always written by men. ~ Ally Carter,

137:And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. [The Epistle Of Paul The Apostle To The Romans; Chapter 12, Verse 2] ~ Anonymous,

138:The Romans eat much Garlic and the Hungarians more while in the Markets of Sidon lovelorn Men pay Ransoms for a Jelly dusted with Sugar from which the Scent of Roses does rise and which no veiled Maid can taste without yielding. ~ Lawrence Norfolk,

139:When I'm in England, I know I'm a visitor, but being a white man in England with ancestry that's German and Italian, I have a history with the Romans and the Saxons. I feel some connection and ancestry here, as weird as that sounds. ~ Nicolas Cage,

140:Must I remind you that it was the Romans who brought civilization to your country?" Ralston's eyebrows rose. "You plan to be a challenge, do you?" Juliana smiled angelically. "I agreed to remain, my lord. Not to remain silent. ~ Sarah MacLean,

141:The curious thing in this world is not the stupidity, but the upper-handism of the stupidity. The geese are in the Capitol, and the Romans in the farm-yard—and it seems all quite natural that it should be so, both to geese & Romans! ~ Anonymous,

142:The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is that you believe what the Bible tells you, and do what the Bible bids you. ~ Thomas Chalmers, Lectures on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans vol. 1 (1837) pp. 29-30,

143:Were the Romans Christians?” I asked him, remembering my curiosity at the Roman farm. “Not always,” Ravn said. “They had their own gods once, but they gave them up to become Christians and after that they knew nothing but defeat. ~ Bernard Cornwell,

144:After his death, Augustus was declared a god by the Senate, to be worshipped by the Romans. His titles Augustus and Caesar were adopted by every subsequent emperor, and the month of Sextilius was officially renamed August in his honour. ~ Neil MacGregor,

145:English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background. ~ David Crystal,

146:When I am at Rome I fast as the Romans do; when I am at Milan I do not fast. So likewise you, whatever church you come to, observe the custom of the place, if you would neither give offence to others, nor take offence from them. ~ Saint Ambrose of Milan,

147:I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans. I am contending for honor and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavouring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour. ~ Hannibal,

148:I am sure no other civilization, not even the Romans, has showed such a vast proportion of ignominious and degraded nudity, and ugly, squalid dirty sex. Because no other civilization has driven sex into the underworld, and nudity to the W.C. ~ D H Lawrence,

149:When the Greeks got the gospel, they turned it into a philosophy; when the Romans got it, they turned it into a government; when the Europeans got it, they turned it into a culture; and when the Americans got it, they turned it into a business. ~ Frank Viola,

150:Like the Roman town grid, the New York plan was laid down on largely empty land, a city designed in advance of being inhabited; if the Romans consulted the heavens for guidance in this effort, the city fathers of New York consulted the banks. ~ Richard Sennett,

151:THIS MESSAGE is for you. You will find the text in the Epistle to the Romans, in the fourth chapter and the fifth verse: To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,

152:The prospect of gain will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleto; every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is subdued by the hopes of an inheritance, or even of a legacy; and a wealthy childless citizen is the most powerful of the Romans. ~ Edward Gibbon,

153:The later years of the Romans, who abandoned Britain in 410, were perturbed by attacks of the Scoti (Scots) from Ireland, and it is to a settlement in Argyll of “Dalriadic” Scots from Ireland about 500 A.D. that our country owes the name of Scotland. ~ Andrew Lang,

154:Then none was for a party; Than all were for the state; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great: Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old. ~ Thomas B Macaulay,

155:So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. ~ Anonymous,

156:The Romans recognized potential difficulties in advance and always remedied them in time. They never let problems develop just so they could escape a war, for they knew that such wars cannot be avoided, only postponed to the advantage of others. ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

157:Qart Hadasht, New Town, Carthage to the Romans, was traditionally said to have been founded in 814 B.C. by Phoenician traders who had discovered an ideal site for a trading settlement on a small peninsula well sheltered and deep in the Gulf of Tunis. ~ Ernle Bradford,

158:I am somewhat proud of this," Mab's cold voice said. "To be sure, the White Christ never suffered so long or so terribly as did this traitor. Three days on a tree. Hardly enough time for a prelude. When it came to visiting agony, the Romans were hobbyists. ~ Jim Butcher,

159:[Romans] never made any improvements on the cavalry. And amazingly, when you read the sources, they couldn't make it because stirrups were not known in Europe. For hundreds of years, the Romans couldn't make a cavalry which proved to be extremely effective. ~ Garry Kasparov,

160:Oddly enough, fear seems to have played a key role in the history of Rome, and despite the might and power of the Romans, there is something curiously desperate about their whole story. It's almost as if the grandeur of Rome was born of paranoia and desperation. ~ Terry Jones,

161:For the Romans, gravitas denoted a man’s metaphorical “heaviness” — a strength of purpose, sense of authority, depth of character, and commitment to the task at hand that together formed a structure sturdy enough to bear the weight of his significant responsibilities ~ Brett McKay,

162:The appreciation of wine was based solely on the way it tasted. The invention of drinking glasses meant that the color, transparency, and clarity of wine became important, too. We are used to seeing what we drink, but this was new to the Romans, and they loved it. ~ Mark Miodownik,

163:What i would not do is flaunt my Indianess by wearing a saree to work everyday, because it distracts from the Job. So, i would not do that. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Social events are different. If i feel comfortable in a saree for a social event, I wear it. ~ Indra Nooyi,

164:If you never engage gentiles in theological matters, they'd never even consider Theology as part of their lives and will always leave it for war to settle it. Lots of them exist among Arabs -as mentioned by name in Koran- and many more among the Romans themselves. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

165:The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians. ~ Edward Gibbon,

166:The impact of European conquerors on Africa, for good and evil, was relatively brief as history is measured-about three generations, as compared to the centuries in which the Romans ruled Britain or imperial China ruled parts of southeast Asia or the Moors ruled Spain. ~ Thomas Sowell,

167:Ground-elder was introduced to Britain by the Romans for the commendable purpose of relieving gout, doubling as a pot-herb into the bargain. But 2,000 years and several medical revolutions later, it’s become the most obstinate and detested weed in the nation’s flowerbeds. ~ Richard Mabey,

168:The Romans may not have understood the Jewish religion, with its strange observances and its overwhelming obsession with ritual purity—“The Jews regard as profane all that we hold sacred,” Tacitus wrote, “while they permit all that we abhor”—but they nevertheless tolerated it. ~ Reza Aslan,

169:If you go back sixty-four generations, to the time of the Romans, the number of people on whose cooperative efforts your eventual existence depends has risen to approximately one million trillion, which is several thousand times the total number of people who have ever lived!. ~ Bill Bryson,

170:All societies have these cases. There are many, many crime cases that remain famous from the times of the Romans. The Bible is full of crime stories. You can almost flip to a page. Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers is a crime story. The Bible is full of crime stories. ~ Bill James,

171:An American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein - and the replacement of the radical Baathist dictatorship with a new government more closely aligned with the United States would put America more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans, or maybe even the Romans. ~ David Frum,

172:The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far - the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. ~ Elon Musk,

173:The Romans can not be condemned for the conquest of Egypt; we were conquered by time itself in the end. And all the wonders of this brave new century should draw me from my grief and yet I can not heal my heart; and so the mind suffers; the mind closes as if it were a flower without sun ~ Anne Rice,

174:The Temple of Dendur," Zia said. "Actually it was built by the Romans - " "When they occupied Egypt," Carter said, like this was delightful information. "Augustus commissioned it." "Yes," Zia said. "Fascinating," I murmured. "Would you two like to be left alone with a history textbook? ~ Rick Riordan,

175:Historian Richard Nixon knew the vice could be fatal for civilization: “You know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo, we all know that, so was Socrates. Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six emperors were fags.” Civilizer ~ Eduardo Galeano,

176:The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people. ~ James Madison,

177:The entire stock of relationships which suited in war—militiae—was regarded as inadmissible and improper in peace—domi. We have the measure of how right the Romans were in this respect in the experience of the intellectual and moral impoverishment brought about by total mobilisation. ~ Bertrand De Jouvenel,

178:I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in consequence. Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle's Roman nose so aggravated me, during the recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it until he howled. ~ Charles Dickens,

179:Zeus Zeus was god of the skies and ruler of all the Greek gods and goddesses. Zeus and his family were called Olympians because they lived on top of a mountain called Mount Olympus. The major Greek gods and goddesses were later adopted by the Romans. Zeus was called Jupiter by the Romans. ~ Mary Pope Osborne,

180:The Temple of Dendur," Zia said. "Actually it was built by the Romans - " "When they occupied Egypt," Carter said, like this was delightful information. "Augustus commissioned it." "Yes," Zia said. "Fascinating," I murmured. "Would you two like to be left alone with a history textbook? ~ Rick Riordan,

181:Roman women are the possessions of men. There you can be killed with impunity by your father or husband for drinking wine. And sharing a man’s dining couch is not even contemplated. The Romans think I am decadent and wicked because I chose to live here willingly after war was declared.” Semni ~ Elisabeth Storrs,

182:With that kill, the watching crowd realized this wasn’t just a show designed to inflate auction prices, and they howled for more blood. The brigand’s, Elka’s, mine, it didn’t matter. It made my stomach turn. This was what the Romans thought of as entertainment? And they called us barbarians. ~ Lesley Livingston,

183:... and people are to march around the church to commemorate the event, Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was greeted with applause and with palms. People thought he had come to overthrow the Romans, but ... no ... he had come to change THEM ... and that led to things turning bad. ~ Garrison Keillor,

184:...discontented inhabitants who willingly admit a foreign power either through excessive ambition or through fear, as was the case with the Etolians, who admitted the Romans into Greece. So it was with every province that the Romans entered: they were brought in by the inhabitants themselves. ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

185:We hear and see what they want us to hear and see. You think some drunk slut in Hollywood is news? They want us distracted. Not paying attention. Bread and circuses distracted the Romans two millennia ago, and it hasn’t changed that much since, just different bread and different circuses.’ “Luther ~ Victor Methos,

186:There was a common proverb of old, "What is it to the Romans that the Greeks die?" So we think that our dangers and calamities only belong to ourselves. But how does this principle agree with the commandment of God? For his will is that we should all live together, and be to each other as brethren. ~ Martin Luther,

187:Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his body with poisons that none could injure him. When captured by the Romans he tried in vain to poison himself, then ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him. ~ A E Housman,

188:Who could be so indifferent or so idle that they did not want to find out how, and under what kind of political organisation, almost the whole of the inhabited world was conquered and fell under the sole power of the Romans in less than fifty-three years, something previously unparalleled?’ Who indeed? ~ Mary Beard,

189:I think that you've got to be prepared to write a load of nonsense to start with and then you can tart it up. The business of getting going, getting started, is enormously important, and this can be physical. Solvitur Ambulando as the Romans used to say, which means the solution comes through walking. ~ Colin Dexter,

190:What do the hieroglyphs tell us of what it was like to live under the lash, building the pyramids? Do we talk of that? Do we? No, we talk of the magnificence and majesty of the Egyptians. Of the Romans. Of Saint Petersburg, and nothing of the bones of the hundred thousand slaves that it is built on. ~ Richard Flanagan,

191:Yet the Romans did something the heart-ripping Aztecs and the Spanish burners didn’t do … they killed people for fun! The Romans made murder into a sport. They built wonderful buildings like the Colosseum, filled them with happy Romans and then massacred thousands of people and animals for entertainment. ~ Terry Deary,

192:The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle. ~ Naomi Wolf,

193:I hate this Gladiator shit," Sabin muttered. "Yes, well, where do you think the Romans learned from?" Sabin sputtered for a minute. "You're trying to tell me Harpies are responsible for this? That the Romans learned from them?" "I must try only if you are lacking intelligence. ~ Gena Showalter,

194:It was the association of Celtic women with barbarism that persuaded the Senate to decree in AD 40 that prostitutes should make their hair blonde – the colour the Romans associated with the Celts. It was the eroticism, how-ever, that persuaded ladies at the highest level of Roman society to put on blonde wigs. ~ Terry Jones,

195:The Fall of Rome, the biggest and greatest of all Empires, was due to the Faith of people the Romans deemed weak and inconsequential. The more they tried to squash them, the stronger their faith grew until Rome, with all its might and cruelty, became the very weak and inconsequential people they looked down upon. ~ Kailin Gow,

196:The Romans learned what European armies were to discover hundreds of years later: that the best-trained and best-equipped fighting force in the world might come to grief against partisans fighting on their own territory and for a cause for which they would willingly sacrifice themselves and their families. ~ Elizabeth Speller,

197:I know not why any one but a school boy in his declamation would whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they were rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves and of one another. ~ Samuel Johnson,

198:The Romans learned what European armies were to discover hundreds of years later: that the best-trained and best-equipped fighting force in the world might come to grief against partisans fighting on their own territory and for a cause for which they would willingly sacrifice themselves and their families. ========== ~ Anonymous,

199:I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another. ~ Samuel Johnson,

200:Actually, Paul sometimes directly contradicts Jesus. Compare what Paul writes in his epistle to the Romans—“everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13)—to what Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21). ~ Reza Aslan,

201:The attempt to live that way, the attempt to treat everybody - it fails all the time - but the attempt to treat people as equals is a good attempt. It's a very good attempt. And there have been very few governments that have come anywhere near it in the past. The Greeks began to, the Romans began to - they both failed. ~ W S Merwin,

202:When the Albans had left their city the Romans levelled to the ground all the public and private edifices in every direction, and a single hour gave over to destruction and ruin the work of those four centuries during which Alba had stood. The temples of the gods, however, were spared, in accordance with the king’s proclamation. ~ Livy,

203:The news, when it leaked out, caused outrage and horror in Rome. The Republic was never so dangerous as when it believed that its security was at stake. The Romans rarely went to war, not even against the most negligible foe, without somehow first convincing themselves that their preemptive strikes were defensive in nature. ~ Tom Holland,

204:But oh! the Latin!-Madame, you can really have no idea of what a mess it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Lucky dogs! they already knew in their cradles the nouns ending in im. I on the contrary had to learn it by heart, in the sweat of my brow. ~ Heinrich Heine,

205:I do not believe that God intended the study of theology to be dry and boring. Theology is the study of God and all his works! Theology is meant to be LIVED and PRAYED and SUNG! All of the great doctrinal writings of the Bible (such as Paul's epistle to the Romans) are full of praise to God and personal application to life. ~ Wayne Grudem,

206:The scourge, which the Romans called the flagrum, was a long-handled whip that branched out into multiple leather thongs a total of five feet in length. At the end of each thong was a knot with an embedded piece of iron or glass. The sharp material would rip the flesh from the victim in streaks of bloody gore down their backs. ~ Brian Godawa,

207:To ignore the Romans is not just to turn a blind eye to the distant past. Rome still helps to define the way we understand our world and think about ourselves, from high theory to low comedy. After 2,000 years, it continues to underpin Western culture and politics, what we write and how we see the world, and our place in it. The ~ Mary Beard,

208:America now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud: Not since the age of the Romans have one people achieved such preeminence. But we are not Romans; we do not seek an empire. We are Americans, trustees of a vision and a heritage that commit us to the values of democracy and the universal cause of human rights. ~ John F Kerry,

209:As I lit the last of the lamps, I thought about the day they’d told me my sister was dead, killed by the Romans. The women of the tribes of Prydain—Cantii and Catuvellauni, Trinovantes and Iceni—could choose to fight alongside the men or not. Many did and with such skill that they were feared as much as the men—more so, even. ~ Lesley Livingston,

210:Is this really the sun? I thought Helios and Selene were the sun and moon gods. How come sometimes it’s them and sometimes it’s you and Artemis?” “Downsizing,” Apollo said. “The Romans started it. They couldn’t afford all those temple sacrifices, so they laid off Helios and Selene and folded their duties into our job descriptions. ~ Rick Riordan,

211:Sadly the very thing that strikes us as obvious always defeats our thinking about it in more penetrating ways: just as the Romans said that "the good is the enemy of the better," so too "the self-evident is the enemy of the very process of clarification or understanding," not to mention the enemy of the "transcendent or ultimate." ~ Kenny Smith,

212:Oddly, none of the chroniclers who describe this 'sack of Rome' seem at all interested in the fact that what was being taken had actually been brought to the city as loot in the first place. And whereas the Romans had destroyed the places from which they took their plunder, not a single building in Rome was destroyed by the Vandals. ~ Terry Jones,

213:(The Romans appear to have been of two minds about depilation. On the one hand, “it is better to fuck a hairy cunt,” but on the other, women often plucked their pubic hair or singed it with an oil lamp. The very rich and very decadent might even employ a picatrix, a young female slave whose job was to arrange her mistress’s pubic hair.) ~ Melissa Mohr,

214:If the Romans could have fortified their cities the way the human brain fortifies itself, we’d still be wearing togas. The mind is an amazing piece of biomachinery, really. A serious threat presents itself at the gate and up fly the walls, standing firm in the face of earth-shaking revelations, ideological bullets, and plain old logic. ~ Kelley Armstrong,

215:The people and the cultures of what is known as Africa are older than the word 'Africa.' According to most records, old and new, Africans are the oldest people on the face of the earth. The people now called Africans not only influenced the Greeks and the Romans, they influenced the early world before there was a place called Europe. ~ John Henrik Clarke,

216:My arithmetic is fine, thank you," Nicole snapped. Her arithmetic from what she'd seen was a damn sight better than that of any local without a counting board in front of him. The Romans, naturally enough, used and thought in terms of Roman numerals, and Roman numerals were to arithmetic what cruel and unusual punishment was to jurisprudence. ~ Judith Tarr,

217:...Aldersgate Street, the bottom of the A1 - which was the modern designation of the original Great North Road, built by the Romans two thousand years ago to march its garrisons to the very edge of the empire three hundred miles to the north. Their duty was to reinforce Hadrian's Wall, keeping the outer darkness at bay and the empire safe. ~ Peter F Hamilton,

218:It is to the Romans, acting as always under the tuition of the Hellenistic mind, that we owe the conception of a history both oecumenical and national, a history in which the hero of the story is the continuing and corporate spirit of a people and in which the plot of the story is the unification of the world under that people’s leadership. ~ R G Collingwood,

219:The Christians tried to separate themselves from the Jewish crowd so they wouldn't be the recipients of the persecution of the Romans. And the way they did it was to say, the Jews killed our hero too. And so Christians began to define themselves over against the orthodox party of the Jews as a way of surviving against the Roman onslaught. ~ John Shelby Spong,

220:That’s because you’re not reading the right news. We hear and see what they want us to hear and see. You think some drunk slut in Hollywood is news? They want us distracted. Not paying attention. Bread and circuses distracted the Romans two millennia ago, and it hasn’t changed that much since, just different bread and different circuses.’ “Luther ~ Victor Methos,

221:The way you can move from city to city and always find a Catholic church, the same Mass said everywhere, no matter what foster place the kid was sent, he could always find the Internet. The truth was, if Christ had laughed on the cross, or spat on the Romans, if he'd done anything more than just suffer, the kid would've liked church a lot more. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

222:So by all means let's have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be delivered by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, selling ergot pills. After all the public is entitled to what it wants, isn't it? The Romans knew that and even they lasted four hundred years after they started to putrefy. ~ Raymond Chandler,

223:In my country there are no gods left. The Romans have driven them out. There are some who say that they have hidden themselves in the mountains, but I do not believe it. Three nights I have been on the mountains seeking them everywhere. I did not find them. And at last I called them by their names, and they did not come. I think they are dead. ~ Jeanette Winterson,

224:In August Rafa quit his job at the carpet factory—I’m too fucking tired, he complained, and some mornings his leg bones hurt so much he couldn’t get out of bed right away. The Romans used to shatter these with iron clubs, I told him while I massaged his shins. The pain would kill you instantly. Great, he said. Cheer me up some more, you fucking bastard. ~ Junot D az,

225:I grew up under Roman rule, although I didn't see many Romans until I was ten. The Romans mostly stayed in the fortress city of Sepphoris, an hour's walk north of Nazareth. That's when Joshua and I saw a Roman soldier murdered, but I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, assume that the soldier is safe and sound and happy wearing a broom on his head. ~ Christopher Moore,

226:Upon accepting the keys to Jerusalem, as the new ruler of the city, he invited the Hews back to live, pray and be among the people of Jerusalem. After 500 years of being banished by the Romans, it was Omar and the pluralist spirit of Islam that brought Jews home to Jerusalem. Today's Muslims would do well to remember the ways of these early Muslim luminaries. ~ Ed Husain,

227:The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia. ~ Edward Gibbon,

228:The Greeks adored their gods by the simple compliment of kissing their hands; and the Romans were treated as atheists if they would not perform the same act when they entered a temple. This custom, however, as a religious ceremony declined with paganism,but was continued as a salutation by inferiors to their superiors, or as a token of esteem among friends. ~ Benjamin Disraeli,

229:The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so. ~ Thomas Jefferson,

230:Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet even the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the provinces, would be sufficient to prove that those countries were once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. ~ Edward Gibbon,

231:He found a grommet on one belt half-wrenched from its place and twisted it, grimacing, trying to force the iron ring back into the leather. He supposed the Suebi tribes were a bit like that — hard to force, tough to bend, and once driven in they were difficult to move. But the Romans had a talent for metallurgy, and Germania was one of its most productive forges. ~ Heather Domin,

232:She predicted the fall of Troy. She foresaw the rise of Alexander the Great. She advised Aeneas on where he should establish the colony that would one day become Rome. But did the Romans listen to all her advice, like Watch out for emperors, Don't go crazy with the gladiator stuff or Togas are not a good fashion statement? No. No, they didn't. ~ Rick Riordan,

233:The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard: but if he will apply himself to learn from the objects of nature he will produce good results. This we see was the case with the painters who came after the time of the Romans, for they continually imitated each other, and from age to age their art steadily declined. ~ Leonardo da Vinci,

234:Over the centuries, Armenians have been scattered throughout the world to escape persecution or to find a land that is safe from neighboring marauders. Before the Turks invaded our native lands, it was the Persians, the Romans and many others. Do not be surprised then if you are on a journey or in a new land and one of the first souls you meet happens to be Armenian.” – ~ Keri Topouzian,

235:He lay back unfazed, in a confidence unknown to me. “The Holy Spirit,” he whispered with the patience of a sage, “gives us time to make fools of ourselves, so we will long to see with Jesus’s eyes.” He imitated a blind person suddenly seeing. His words reminded me of George MacDonald’s. “This is how we learn. As we do, we see people, even the Romans, with new eyes.” “But ~ C Baxter Kruger,

236:Even the name, Celt, is not from their own Indo-European language but from Greek. Keltoi, the name given to them by Greek historians, among them Herodotus, means “one who lives in hiding or under cover.” The Romans, finding them less mysterious, called them Galli or Gauls, also coming from a Greek word, used by Egyptians as well, hal, meaning “salt.” They were the salt people. ~ Mark Kurlansky,

237:We all remain who we are. But on the way to healing or liberation we have to do what the Romans called agere contra: we have to act against the grain of our natural compulsions. This requires clear decisions. Because it does not happen by itself, it is in a way "unnatural" or "supernatural" . . . (we) simply have to cut loose now and then, and in the process . . . make mistakes. ~ Richard Rohr,

238:The Romans are difficult to assess today. They employed force, yet what they accomplished by use of it has never been equaled. For Rome conferred, indeed imposed, upon the Mediterranean area and upon vast hinterlands on three continents, a unity that these regions had never known before. And will they ever regain it? So far they have not" - Foreword to History of Rome (1978). ~ Michael Grant,

239:If you're creating a slave situation, you would almost never bring women. And if we look at Slavery for example, we look at the Greeks and the Romans, right? It was always men. They never brought any women. Because women carry the seeds of the revolution, right? And if you have the men by themselves, then you can do what the French did with the Blackfeet, which is breed them out. ~ Nikki Giovanni,

240:In the end, North Africa and Rome agreed to differ on the issue of baptism, the North Africans saying that valid baptism could take place only within the Christian community which is the Church, the Romans saying that the sacrament belonged to Christ, not to the Church, and that therefore it was valid whoever performed it if it was done in the right form and with the right intentions. ~ Anonymous,

241:Pride is an illusion that curses greatness. The great are the ones who see their failings and work to overcome, not the ones who fancy themselves to be without weakness. And as long as you admit no weakness, you will never grow to your full strength. This was a rare gift in the ancient world; neither the Romans nor the Greeks even had a word in their vocabulary for humility. ~ John F MacArthur Jr,

242:The Romans always wanted bread and circuses-food and entertainement! As we destroy their city, I will offer them both. Behold, a sample!" Someething dropped from the ceiling and landed at Percy's feet: a loaf of sandwich bread in a white plastic wrapper with red and yellow dots. Percy picked it up. "Wonder bread?" "Magnificent, isn't it?" Ephialtes eyes danced with crazy excitement. ~ Rick Riordan,

243:The ancient Egyptians encountered the same miscalculation in the Great Pyramid as that which the Romans faced in their Julian Calendar; 10 days drift away from the 20th/21st of March (i.e., Equinox day). The Romans amended the calendar into the Gregorian system, and the ancient Egyptians tried to correct the GPG's height using the capstone and the base underneath the Great Pyramid. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

244:The light of reason and civilization was virtually snuffed out by the Barbarian hordes who swarmed across Europe, annihilating everything the Romans had put in place, sacking Rome itself and consigning Europe to the Dark Ages. The Barbarians brought only chaos and ignorance, until the Renaissance rekindled the fires of Roman learning and art. It's a familiar story, but it's codswallop. ~ Terry Jones,

245:He seemed constantly impressed with the idea that, at the moment of his extinction, the noble fabric which he [sewed], must infallibly sink in ruins. For this, as in every other respect, the citizens of the United States are more fortunate than the Romans, as there is every reason to believe that the benefits of the present enlightened administration will extend to other generations.” The ~ Jon Meacham,

246:So…these Pillars of Hercules. Are they dangerous?” Annabeth stayed focused on the cliffs. “For Greeks, the pillars marked the end of the known world. The Romans said the pillars were inscribed with a Latin warning—” “Non plus ultra,” Percy said. Annabeth looked stunned. “Yeah. Nothing Further Beyond. How did you know?” Percy pointed. “Because I’m looking at it. ~ Rick Riordan,

247:Those who are marching into the battlefield and are ready to be killed today in the name of democracy, in the name of freedom, in the name of communism, are no different from those who threw themselves to the lions in the arenas. The Romans watched that fun with great joy. How are we different from them? Not a bit. We love it. To kill and to be killed is the foundation of our culture. ~ U G Krishnamurti,

248:Annoyed that although outlawed in Rome, astrology was nevertheless alive and well, Cicero noted that at Cannae in 216 B.C., Hannibal, leading about 50,000 Carthaginian and allied troops, crushed the much larger Roman army, slaughtering more than 60,000 of its 80,000 soldiers. “Did all the Romans who fell at Cannae have the same horoscope?” Cicero asked. “Yet all had one and the same end. ~ Leonard Mlodinow,

249:The Romans always wanted bread and circuses-food and entertainement! As we destroy their city, I will offer them both. Behold, a sample!" Someething dropped from the ceiling and landed at Percy's feet: a loaf of sandwich bread in a white plastic wrapper with red and yellow dots. Percy picked it up. "Wonder bread?" "Magnificent, isn't it?" Ephialtes eyes danced with crazy excitement. ~ Rick Riordan,

250:It was an article of faith to the Romans that they were the most morally upright people in the world. How else was the size of their empire to be explained? Yet they also knew that the Republic's greatness carried its own risks. To abuse it would be to court divine anger. Hence the Roman's concern to refute all charges of bullying, and to insist they had won their empire purely in self-defense. ~ Tom Holland,

251:It is scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. ~ Edward Gibbon,

252:It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated. ~ Edward Gibbon,

253:And it wasn’t just the subjugation of human beings that distressed her but the level of daily, almost casual brutality. Even for routine punishments there were blood-stained stakes, lead-tipped whips. She’s always rather admired the Romans, for their literacy, their order, their engineering, their respect for the law. Now, she was finding, she’d never fully imagined this side of their civilisation. ~ Stephen Baxter,

254:Lusitania, after a Roman province on the Iberian Peninsula that occupied roughly the same ground as modern-day Portugal. “The inhabitants were warlike, and the Romans conquered them with great difficulty,” said a memorandum in Cunard’s files on the naming of the ship. “They lived generally upon plunder and were rude and unpolished in their manners.” In popular usage, the name was foreshortened to “Lucy. ~ Erik Larson,

255:The triumph of the Romans was indeed sullied by their treatment of the captive king, whom they hung on a gibbet without the knowledge of their indignant general. This disgraceful act of cruelty which might be imputed to the fury of the troops, was followed by the deliberate murder of Withicab, the son of Vadomair; a German prince, of a weak and sickly constitution, but of a daring and formidable spirit. ~ Edward Gibbon,

256:What most puzzled Rome about the Jews was not their unfamiliar rites or their strict devotion to their laws, but rather what the Romans considered to be their unfathomable sense of superiority. The notion that an insignificant Semitic tribe residing in a distant corner of the mighty Roman Empire demanded, and indeed received, special treatment from the emperor was, for many Romans, simply incomprehensible. ~ Reza Aslan,

257:Perhaps,” thought Robin, “the soldiers didn’t actually mock Jesus at all. It was just a game, which they let him join in. He might even have thrown dice with them. The crown and the purple robe were just dressing-up. It was the Romans’ idea of fun. I don’t believe when a prisoner is condemned to death the people guarding him are beastly. They try and make the time go quickly, because they feel sorry for him. ~ Daphne du Maurier,

258:Just as the Romans had destroyed Spartacus, the Spaniards had cleansed from their native country every last vestige of the Moors. The laws of empire building are brutal and dispassionate, and both the Incas and the Spaniards implicitly understood them. No two empires, after all, can exist simultaneously in the same area; the stronger empire will always defeat the weaker, until in the end only a single empire remains. ~ Anonymous,

259:Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed.... I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas,

260:A man, a life - it was barely worth mentioning. The Visigoths had destroyed the Romans, and had themselves been destroyed by the Muslims. Who were destroyed by the Spanish and Portuguese. You did not need Hitler to see that it was not a pleasant story. And yet here she was. Breathing, having these thoughts. The blood that ran through history would fill every river and ocean, but despite all the butchery, here you were. ~ Philipp Meyer,

261:I wanted to confront her, to make her see the folly of her religion, to change her diet, to help her spend less on makeup and other nonessentials, to make her worship every biological moment she was offered instead of some badly punctured deity. I also wanted to kiss her for some reason, feel the life pulsing in those big Catholic lips, remind myself of the primacy of the living animal, of my time amongst the Romans. ~ Gary Shteyngart,

262:Hearing now from his servants that his house was surrounded by soldiers, he is said to have remarked: ‘It is now time to end the anxiety of the Romans. Clearly they are no longer able to wait for the death of an old man who has caused them so much concern.’ His irony mocked his enemies to the last. When the Romans burst into the house they found their great adversary lying dead; even in his very end he had eluded them. ~ Ernle Bradford,

263:Every winter, the Latin Club celebrated Saturnalia ... We wore togas ... and wreaths made out of pipe cleaners, and we had a feast of whole roast chickens and carbonated grape juice, which we ate with our hands, like the Romans. We toasted each other by saying "Io Saturnalia!" and pretended to be drunk emperors in the teachers' multipurpose room. You know, just the typical stuff you do when you are really cool in high school. ~ Mindy Kaling,

264:Lou Ellen and the Hecate kids have been putting up magic barriers, and the whole Hermes cabin has been lining the hills with traps and snares and all kinds of nice surprises for the Romans!" Jake Mason frowned. "Most of which you stole from Bunker Nine and the Hephaestus cabin." Clarisse grumbled in agreement. "They even stole the land mines from around the Ares cabin. How do you steal live land mines? ~ Rick Riordan,

265:This letter [to the Romans] is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy himself with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes. ~ Martin Luther,

266:Cause Jesus I do think did exist, and he was, I think, a guy who had interesting ideas in the Gandhi-type area, in the Nelson Mandela-type area, you know, relaxed and groovy; and the Romans thought, Relaxed and groovy?! No, no, no, no, no! So they murdered him. And kids eat chocolate eggs, because of the color of the chocolate, and the color of the... wood on the cross. Well, you tell me! It's got nothing to do with it, has it? ~ Eddie Izzard,

267:Modern Romans insisted that there was only one god, a notion that struck Alobar as comically simplistic. Worse, this Semitic deity was reputed to be jealous (what was there to be jealous of if there were no other gods?), vindictive, and altogether foul-tempered. If you didn't serve the nasty fellow, the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down. ~ Tom Robbins,

268:The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They didn't believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn't believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time. ~ Carl Sagan,

269:Poetical feelings are a peril to scholarship. There are always poetical people ready to protest that a corrupt line is exquisite. Exquisite to whom? The Romans were foreigners writing for foreigners two millenniums ago; and for people whose gods we find quaint, whose savagery we abominate, whose private habits we don't like to talk about, but whose idea of what is exquisite is, we flatter ourselves, mysteriously identical to ours. ~ Tom Stoppard,

270:The idea that the Creator is on your side, guiding your footsteps, taking a personal interest in your troubles, deriving pleasure from your victories, providing solace in your defeats, orchestrating the world such that, in the words of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, ‘All things work together for good to those who love God’ – all this must have a dramatic impact on the efficacy of a sportsman, or indeed anyone else. As Muhammad ~ Matthew Syed,

271:Oh thou degenerate child of the great and glorious mother, Who with the Romans' strong might couplest the Tyrians' deceit! But those ever governed with vigor the earth they had conquered, These instructed the world that they with cunning had won. Say! what renown does history grant thee? Thou, Roman-like, gained'st That with the steel, which with gold, Tyrian-like, then thou didst rule! ~ Friedrich Schiller, Carthage ,

272:The Romans gave them Roman names, and let them be; but the Christians refuse to believe in them, and their priests berate the poorer folk for clinging to the old ways—and no doubt for wasting offerings which would do better at some hermit’s cell than at some ancient holy place in the forest. But still the simple folk creep out to leave their offerings, and when these vanish by morning, who is to say that a god has not taken them? This, ~ Mary Stewart,

273:The temple that was standing in Jesus' time was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. Many evangelical Christians are waiting eagerly for the Jews to build a new temple, seeing that as a sign of the end of the age. They fail to understand that the temple already has been rebuilt. Christ is the temple, the locus of the living presence of God in the midst of His people, and the rebuilding of the temple took place on the (lay of His resurrection. ~ R C Sproul,

274:Thus began the long process of transforming Jesus from a revolutionary Jewish nationalist into a peaceful spiritual leader with no interest in any earthly matter. That was a Jesus the Romans could accept, and in fact did accept three centuries later when the Roman emperor Flavius Theodosius (d. 395) made the itinerant Jewish preacher’s movement the official religion of the state, and what we now recognize as orthodox Christianity was born. ~ Reza Aslan,

275:Thus began the long process of transforming Jesus from a revolutionary Jewish nationalist into a pacifistic spiritual leader with no interest in any earthly matter. That was a Jesus the Romans could accept, and in fact did accept three centuries later when the Roman emperor Flavius Theodosius (d. 395) made the itinerant Jewish preacher’s movement the official religion of the state, and what we now recognize as orthodox Christianity emerged. ~ Reza Aslan,

276:You complain of Catholicism for setting up an ideal of virginity; it did nothing of the kind. The whole human race set up an ideal of virginity; the Greeks in Athene, the Romans in the Vestal fire, set up an ideal of virginity. What then is your real quarrel with Catholicism? Your quarrel can only be, your quarrel really only is, that Catholicism has achieved an ideal of virginity; that it is no longer a mere piece of floating poetry. ~ G K Chesterton,

277:It's only that the answers in most stories are boring because they are supplied by the real world rather than, well, something better. Something more stimulating. Sit down with the Greeks and the Romans, and the boring answers get more interesting. Seasons because a girl and a crocus. Death because a girl and an apple. The moon because a girl keeps driving her daft chariot into the sea. It's all down to girls, one way or another. ~ Catherynne M Valente,

278:I wish we could grow up about it, I'm sure we are contributing to global warming, and we must do all we can to reduce that, but our climate has always changed. The Romans had vineyards in Yorkshire. We're all on this bandwagon of 'Ban the 4x4 in Fulham'. Why didn't we have global warming during the Industrial Revolution? In those days you couldn't have seen across the street for all the carbon emissions and the crap coming out of the chimneys. ~ Alan Titchmarsh,

279:The mystery of the Cross does not simply confront us; rather, it draws us in and gives a new value to our life. This existential aspect of the new concept of worship and sacrifice appears with particular clarity in the twelfth chapter of the Letter to the Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [word-like] worship” (v. 1). ~ Benedict XVI,

280:The Romans learn Art from their Greek slaves, but they learn reluctantly. They are almost Modern in their reluctance; they are almost ready to say that a killing machine is beautiful if it works. They are not quite that modern, and they let Greek craftsmen conceal the brutal militarism with Architecture, Sculpture and Painting. They learn Aesthetics, that strange ability to see in blood gushing from a wound only the beauty of the shape and color. ~ Fredy Perlman,

281:I believe in books. And when our people [coughing] - our people of Jerusalem, let's say after the Romans destroyed the temple and the city, all we took is a little book, that's all. Not treasures, we had no treasures. They were ransacked, taken away. But the book - the little book - and this book produced more books, thousands, hundreds of thousands of books, and in the book we found our memory, and our attachment to that memory is what kept us alive. ~ Elie Wiesel,

282:The plaque the Romans placed above Jesus's head as he writhed in pain—"King of the Jews"—was called a titulus and, despite common perception, was not meant to be sarcastic. Every criminal who hung on a cross received a plaque declaring the specific crime for which he was being executed. Jesus's crime, in the eyes of Rome, was striving for kingly rule (i.e., treason), the same crime for which nearly every other messianic aspirant of the time was killed. ~ Reza Aslan,

283:In twenty-five years, the Mongol army subjugated more lands and people than the Romans had conquered in four hundred years. Genghis Khan, together with his sons and grandsons, conquered the most densely populated civilizations of the thirteenth century. Whether measured by the total number of people defeated, the sum of the countries annexed, or by the total area occupied, Genghis Khan conquered more than twice as much as any other man in history. ~ Jack Weatherford,

284:But Decebalus was not one to be cowed easily, and still showed his spirit by taunting the Romans. As Trajan reached the Iron Gates, Decebalus sent him a warning inscribed rather surprisingly, according to Dio Cassius, on 'a large mushroom'. This was probably a mushroom-shaped dish used for ritual purposes, and sadly not the only instance in history of diplomatic correspondence by fungi. The inscription advised Trajan to turn back and 'keep the peace'.22 ~ Terry Jones,

285:Did you ever see so many pee-wee hats, Carl?" "They're beanies." "They call them pee-wees in Brooklyn." "But I'm not in Brooklyn." "But you're still a Brooklynite." "I wouldn't want that to get around, Annie." "You don't mean that, Carl." "Ah, we might as well call them beanies, Annie." "Why?" "When in Rome do as the Romans do." "Do they call them beanies in Rome?" she asked artlessly. "This is the silliest conversation... ~ Betty Smith,

286:Frankness and courage are luxuries confined to the more comic varieties of runners-up at national conventions. Thus it is pleasant to remember Cleveland, and to speak of him from time to time. He was the last of the Romans. If pedagogy were anything save the puerile racket that it is he would loom large in the schoolbooks. As it is, he is subordinated to Lincoln, Roosevelt I and Wilson. This is one of the things that are the matter with the United States. ~ H L Mencken,

287:Every two years on the Eve of Lughnasa—which also happened to be my birthday—the kings of the Four Tribes came together to feast and toast each other with wide smiles and enough thick, foamy beer to strengthen the bonds of friendship forged in the alliances of years past. This would be Aeddan’s first time there as king, newly returned from a long period of exile in Rome after his father was killed, executed for selling vital information to the Romans. ~ Lesley Livingston,

288:Just like that. It had been almost seven years since the legions left our shores, having declared the Island of the Mighty sufficiently conquered. In all that time, the Romans had not returned to Prydain, the island they called Britannia in their strident native tongue. Of course, the traders had never left—they’d been here before Caesar had set foot on our shore, and they’d stayed when he’d departed, “triumphant.” Since that time, we’d been left in peace. ~ Lesley Livingston,

289:That’s really what the Romans would do. They’d come in first under a white flag. As simple merchants wanting to trade. Then they brought in roads, then settlers, then public works and temples, then armies for protection. The next thing you knew, you had to pay them taxes, bow down before their gods, and sacrifice all the freedoms that made your people special. That’s what they called the Roman Peace. It was peace as long as you did everything they told you to do. ~ Joshua Safran,

290:In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. ~ John Wesley,

291:Numa forbade the Romans to revere an image of God which had the form of man or beast. Nor was there among them in this earlier time any painted or graven likeness of Deity, 8 but while for the first hundred and seventy years they were continually building temples and establishing sacred shrines, they made no statues in bodily form for them, convinced that it was impious to liken higher things to lower, and that it was impossible to apprehend Deity except by the intellect. ~ Plutarch,

292:We don't like to admit it," said Julian, "but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than anything. All truly civilized people - the ancients no less than us - have civilized themselves through the willful repression of the old, animal self. Are we, in this room, really very different from the Greeks and the Romans? Obsessed with duty, piety, loyalty, sacrifice? All those things which are to modern tastes so chilling? ~ Donna Tartt,

293:There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry. ~ Benjamin Franklin,

294:If the Romans regarded crucifixion with horror, so did the Jews, though for a different reason. They made no distinction between a ‘tree’ and a ‘cross’, and so between a hanging and a crucifixion. They therefore automatically applied to crucified criminals the terrible statement of the law that ‘anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse’ (Deut. 21:23). They could not bring themselves to believe that God’s Messiah would die under his curse, strung up on a tree. ~ John R W Stott,

295:Nations, as well as man, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I contemplate the ardour with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and the success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain from believing that they will one day become the first maritime power of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer the world. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

296:Of the land which the Romans gained by conquest from their neighbours, part they sold publicly, and turned the remainder into common; this common land they assigned to such of the citizens as were poor and indigent, for which they were to pay only a small acknowledgment into the public treasury. But when the wealthy men began to offer larger rents, and drive the poorer people out, it was enacted by law that no person whatever should enjoy more than five hundred acres of ground. ~ Plutarch,

297:Here, the Prophet was born in a settled and stable province of a strong Roman Empire. Much as in our timeline, Islamic civilisation, the dar-al Islam, flourished, but under Roman protection. There were no centuries of inter-faith conflict in Europe – no crusades, for instance. Even in the pre-Christian days, the Romans were always pragmatic about local religions. To the Romans, Islam is a muscular sister creed of the Christianity that is their official state religion. ~ Stephen Baxter,

298:Such was the pattern employed by the Romans during their centuries of conquest: first, recruit the ablest soldiers from recently pacified local populations overawed by the legionaries’ size, military prowess, technology, and literacy; second, teach the new troops not only to fight but also to read and write Latin (or, in the East, Greek); and last, employ these intellectually and physically impressive specimens to conquer, pacify, overawe, and recruit adjoining peoples. ~ William J Bernstein,

299:Jesus Again Predicts His Death 17 As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside privately and told them what was going to happen to him. 18 “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man* will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die. 19 Then they will hand him over to the Romans* to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised from the dead. ~ Anonymous,

300:There was about all the Romans a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. Their virtues were great and noble, and these virtues madethem great and noble. They possessed a natural majesty that was not put on and taken off at pleasure, as was that of certain eastern monarchs when they put on or took off their garments of Tyrian dye. It is hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity may have swallowed it up in humility. ~ Herman Melville,

301:So what are you doing next Friday night?" "What have you got in mind?" "We could try hitting each other with cars," she suggested cheerfully. "Did that last weekend with Jase," he said with mock regret. "Go to the zoo and throw ourselves to the lions?" she fired back quickly, desperate to keep him focused on her rather than his caved-in chest. "The Romans sort of wore that one out. Got anything original?" "I'll think of something," she warned him. "Can't wait! ~ Josephine Angelini,

302:Unlike the anything-goes Greeks, the Romans felt a need to set some linguistic limits and invented censorship in the fifth century B.C. Originally censori (censors) had been charged with ascertaining the wealth of the citizenry, a crucial reckoning because different social and economic classes had different rights and obligations. In 443 B.C. these magistrates took on the extra duty of assuring the respect of public morals, although they objected less to foul language than to offensive satires. ~ Anonymous,

303:The Romans had, like other Pagan nations, a nature festival, called by them Saturnalia, and the Northern peoples had Yule; both celebrated the turn of the year from the death of winter to the life of spring - the winter solstice. As this was an auspicious change the festival was a very joyous one... The giving of presents and the burning of candles characterized it. Among the Northern people the lighting of a huge log in the houses of the great and with appropriate ceremonies was a feature. ~ Samuel L Jackson,

304:The dark picture which St. Paul, in addressing the Romans, draws of the heathenism of his day, is fully sustained by Seneca, Tacitus, Juvenal, Persius, and other heathen writers of that age, and shows the absolute need of redemption. "The world," says Seneca, in a famous passage, "is full of crimes and vices. More are committed than can be cured by force. There is an immense struggle for iniquity. Crimes are no longer bidden, but open before the eyes. Innocence is not only rare, but nowhere."83  ~ Philip Schaff,

305:We seem to have forgotten that the expression "a liberal education" originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while the learning of trades and professions by which to get your livelihood merely, was considered worthy of slaves only. But taking a hint from the word, I would go a step further and say, that it is not the man of wealth and leisure simply, though devoted to art, or science, or literature, who, in a true sense, is liberally educated, but only the earnest and free man. ~ Henry David Thoreau,

306:Accountability, as well as personal responsibility, had been chucked out the window of American government. It also had been abdicated by the American voter. As long as most Americans could have their McDonald’s drive-throughs, listen to their iPods, and watch American Idol, they didn’t seem to care how negligently the nation’s national security apparatus was being run. Bread and circuses. The Romans had it right. As long as people had food and fun, they didn’t care much about the erosion of their nation. ~ Brad Thor,

307:English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin - a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans. ~ Bill Bryson,

308:Julian sincerely abhorred the system of oriental despotism which Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of four score years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition prevented the execution of the design which Julian had frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a costly diadem; but he absolutely refused the title of Dominus or Lord, a word which was grown so familiar to the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its servile and humiliating origin. ~ Edward Gibbon,

309:Pliny the Elder, the indefatigable encyclopedist of the Natural History, has barely a good word to say for them, and even that is expressed in the negative, as when he comments that ‘Of the Greek sciences, it is only medicine that the Romans have not followed, thanks to their good sense,’ or that ‘amber provides an opportunity for exposing the false accounts of the Greeks. My readers should bear with me patiently, since it is important to realize that not everything handed down by the Greeks merits admiration. ~ Elizabeth Speller,

310:Your fear is, that if you marry Adèle, you will love her. If you have children, you will love them more than anything else in the world, more than patriotism, more than democracy. If your children grow up, and prove traitors to the people, will you be able to demand their deaths, as the Romans did? Perhaps you will, but perhaps you will not be able to do it. You’re afraid that if you love people you may be deflected from your duty, but it’s because of another kind of love, isn’t it, that the duty is laid upon you? ~ Hilary Mantel,

311:The first heuristic addresses the asymmetry in rewards and punishment, or transfer of fragility between individuals. Ralph Nader has a simple rule: people voting for war need to have at least one descendant (child or grandchild) exposed to combat. For the Romans, engineers needed to spend some time under the bridge they built—something that should be required of financial engineers today. The English went further and had the families of the engineers spend time with them under the bridge after it was built. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

312:By the end of the fourth century BCE, the Romans had probably not far short of half a million troops available (compare the 50,000 or so soldiers under Alexander in his eastern campaigns, or perhaps 100,000 when the Persians invaded Greece in 481 BCE). This made them close to invincible in Italy: they might lose a battle, but not a war. Or as one Roman poet put it in the 130s BCE, ‘The Roman people has often been defeated by force and overcome in many battles, but never in an actual war on which everything depends.’ There ~ Mary Beard,

313:Achilles replies that there is no equality of right between the weak and the strong, for men have never made pacts with lions nor have lambs and wolves ever shared the same desires. This was the law of the heroic gentes, based on the belief that the strong were of a different and more noble nature than the weak. Hence arose that law of war through which, by force of arms, the victors deprive the defeated of all their rights of natural liberty, so that the Romans took them as slaves in place of material things. ~ Giambattista Vico,

314:...nuclear warfare is not necessary to cause a breakdown of our society. You take a large city like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago-their water supply comes from hundreds of miles away and any interruption of that, or food, or power for any period of time, you're going to have riots in the streets. Our society is so fragile, so dependent on the interworking of things to provide us with goods and services, that you don't need nuclear warfare to fragment us anymore than the Romans needed it to cause their eventual downfall. ~ Gene Roddenberry,

315:The 'medium' is unaware of its attractiveness, that's all. Everyone loves comics. I've proven this to my own satisfaction by handing them out to acountants, insurance brokers, hairdressers, mothers of children, black belts, pop stars, taxi drivers, painters, lesbians, doctors etc. etc. The X-Files, Buffy, the Matrix, X-Men - mainstream culture is not what it once was when science fiction and comics fans huddled in cellars like Gnostic Christians dodging the Romans. We should come up into the light soon before we suffocate. ~ Grant Morrison,

316:a Greek monk and theologian (today revered as a saint by the Orthodox Church) who was imprisoned for a time by the Turks, remarked trenchantly about Muslims: “These infamous people, hated by God and infamous, boast of having got the better of the Romans [i.e., Byzantines] by their love of God…They live by the bow, the sword, and debauchery, finding pleasure in taking slaves, devoting themselves to murder, pillage, spoil…and not only do they commit these crimes, but even—what an aberration—they believe that God approves of them.”18 ~ Robert Spencer,

317:under a practice called evocatio, the Romans would take possession of an enemy’s temple—and therefore its god, for the two were inextricable in the ancient world—and transfer it to Rome, where it would be showered with riches and lavish sacrifices. Such displays were meant to send a clear signal that the hostilities were directed not toward the enemy’s god but toward its fighters; the god would continue to be honored and worshipped in Rome if only his devotees would lay down their arms and allow themselves to be absorbed into the empire. ~ Reza Aslan,

318:But for me, the true attraction of America is that it’s practically godless. When I was younger and dodging the Romans, I could hardly walk a mile in Europe without stepping on a stone sacred to some god or other. But out here in Arizona, all I have to worry about is the occasional encounter with Coyote, and I actually rather like him. (He’s nothing like Thor, for one thing, and that right there means we’re going to get along fine. The local college kids would describe Thor as a “major asshat” if they ever had the misfortune to meet him.) ~ Kevin Hearne,

319:If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. It is our soul's seat, the vessel that holds our being-in-potential, our star's beacon and Polaris. ~ Steven Pressfield,

320:The Romans have provided a lot of writers with a model for various interstellar empires, of course, and no wonder. The Roman Empire is a really good example of a large empire that, in one form or another, functioned for quite a long time over a very large area. And over all that time, there was all sorts of exciting drama - civil wars and assassinations and revolts and bits breaking off and being forced back in ... But I didn't want my future - however fanciful it was - to be entirely European. The Radchaai aren't meant to be Romans in Space. ~ Ann Leckie,

321:The Romans have provided a lot of writers with a model for various interstellar empires, of course, and no wonder. The Roman Empire is a really good example of a large empire that, in one form or another, functioned for quite a long time over a very large area. And over all that time, there was all sorts of exciting drama – civil wars and assassinations and revolts and bits breaking off and being forced back in ... But I didn’t want my future – however fanciful it was – to be entirely European. The Radchaai aren’t meant to be Romans in Space. ~ Ann Leckie,

322:Jove, or Jupiter, was the Roman counterpart of the Greek's Zeus, and like Zeus was regarded as chief among the gods. When the Romans were naming the planets, they gave the name Jupiter to the one that, as they may have already known, was the largest of all (though only the second-brightest to the naked eye). When the practice of astrology reached the Roman empire from the East, astrologers declared that those “born under Jupiter” were destined to be merry and generous, and many centuries later this would result in the words jovial and joviality. ~ Anonymous,

323:Some of these various sects and denominations are peaceful, but the largest of them—the most successful of them—have been built on the blood, bones, and screams of those who have the effrontery not to bow to their idea of God. The Romans fed Christians to the lions; the Christians dismembered those they deemed to be heretics or sorcerers or witches; Hitler sacrificed the Jews in their millions to the false god of racial purity. Millions have been burned, shot, hung, racked, poisoned, electrocuted, and torn to pieces by dogs . . . all in God’s name. ~ Anonymous,

324:Most people don't realize how sophisticated pool tables are. Yes, tables have bolts and staples on the rails but these suckers hold together mostly by gravity and by the precision of their construction. If you treat a good table right it will outlast you. Believe me. Cathedrals are built like that. There are Incan roads in the Andes that even today you couldn't work a knife between two of the cobblestones. The sewers that the Romans built in Bath were so good that they weren't replaced until the 1950's. That's the sort of thing that I can believe in. ~ Junot D az,

325:Meanwhile the Jews in the region of Cyrene had put a certain Andreas at their head and were destroying both the Romans and the Greeks. They would eat the flesh of their victims, make belts for themselves of their entrails, anoint themselves with their blood and wear their skins for clothing; many they sawed in two from the head downwards; others they gave to wild beasts, and still others they forced to fight as gladiators. In all two hundred and twenty thousand persons perished. CASSIUS DIO, ROMAN HISTORY, BK 68, CH. 32 [on the events of 115–117] ~ Elizabeth Speller,

326:When the Romans looked a little baffled, he said, "Let us suppose that certain crimes in the Constitution you are now planning carry the capital penalty. And let us then suppose that future generations of politicians shall say, 'That is not exactly what our fathers intended in that particular table of law.' or, 'They really intended such and such.' Who can then refute the politicians? Who among you would be alive to insist that indeed the old meaning was intended? In hsort, different ages would have different interpretations for their own purposes. ~ Taylor Caldwell,

327:Now we see again, under the blue heavens where the larks are singing in the hot April sky, why the Romans called the Etruscans vicious. Even in their palmy days the Romans were not exactly saints. But they thought they ought to be. They hated the phallus and the ark, because they wanted empire and dominion and, above all, riches: social gain. You cannot dance gaily to the double flute and at the same time conquer nations or rake in large sums of money. Delenda est Carthago. To the greedy man, everybody that is in the way of its greed is vice incarnate. ~ D H Lawrence,

328:The Romans never allowed a trouble spot to remain simply to avoid going to war over it, because they knew that wars don't just go away, they are only postponed to someone else's advantage. Therefore, they made war with Philip and Antiochus in Greece, in order not to have to fight them in Italy... They never went by that saying which you constantly hear from the wiseacres of our day, that time heals all things. They trusted rather their own character and prudence— knowing perfectly well that time contains the seeds of all things, good as well as bad. ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

329:The Romans never allowed a trouble spot to remain simply to avoid going to war over it, because they knew that wars don't just go away, they are only postponed to someone else's advantage. Therefore, they made war with Philip and Antiochus in Greece, in order not to have to fight them in Italy... They never went by that saying which you constantly hear from the wiseacres of our day, that time heals all things. They trusted rather their own character and prudence- knowing perfectly well that time contains the seeds of all things, good as well as bad. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli,

330:I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern. ~ John Adams,

331:We consult astrology charts like the Babylonians, try to make our children into our own image with a firm hand like the Romans, elbow others to get a breath-quickening glimpse of the queen in her ritual procession, and confess to the priests and attend church. And we wonder why, with all this power capital drawn from so many sources, we are deeply anxious about the meaning of our lives. The reason is plain enough: none of these, nor all of them taken together, represents an integrated world conception into which we fit ourselves with pure belief and trust. ~ Ernest Becker,

332:No one was ever a native of Britain. People arrived here. The Romans, the Celts, the Normans, the Saxons. Britain was always a place made of other places. And even what we think of as "modern" immigration goes quite a long way back. Well over three hundred years ago, you had Indians who came here after being recruited on ships run by the East India Company. Then came Germans and Russian Jews and Africans. But it is true that, while immigration has always been a part of English society, for a long time visibly different immigrants were treated as exotic oddities ~ Matt Haig,

333:If we can’t repair things with the Romans—well, the two sets of demigods have never gotten along. That’s why the gods kept us separate. I don’t know if we could ever belong there.” Percy didn’t want to argue, but he couldn’t let go of the hope. It felt important—not just for him, but for all the other demigods. It had to be possible to belong in two different worlds at once. After all, that’s what being a demigod was all about—not quite belonging in the mortal world or on Mount Olympus, but trying to make peace with both sides of their nature. ~ Rick Riordan,

334:One of our most important tasks will be to save future generations from a similar political fate and to maintain for ever watchful in them a knowledge of the menace of Jewry. For this reason alone it is vital that the Passion play be continued at Oberammergau; for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the times of the Romans. There one sees in Pontius Pilate a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry. ~ Adolf Hitler,

335:When Isaac Newton embarked on his great program, he encountered a fundamental lack of definition where it was most needed. He began with a semantic sleight of hand: “I do not define time, space, place, and motion, as being well known to all,” he wrote deceptively. Defining these words was his very purpose. There were no agreed standards for weights and measures. Weight and measure were themselves vague terms. Latin seemed more reliable than English, precisely because it was less worn by everyday use, but the Romans had not possessed the necessary words either. ~ James Gleick,

336:Uh, yeah,” Percy said. “The Romans aren’t big on navies. They had, like, one rowboat. Which I sank. Speaking of violent storms, you’re doing a first-rate job upstairs.” “Thank you,” said Kym. “Thing is, our ship is caught in it, and it’s kind of being ripped apart. I’m sure you didn’t mean to—” “Oh, yes, I did.” “You did.” Percy grimaced. “Well...that sucks. I don’t suppose you’d cut it out, then, if we asked nicely?” “No,” the goddess agreed. “Even now, the ship is close to sinking. I’m rather amazed it’s held together this long. Excellent workmanship.” Sparks ~ Rick Riordan,

337:Egypt was a precious possession, its fertility always one of its principal attractions to predators. The Greeks had not sought to deplete the country’s assets, but under the Romans the agricultural prosperity of Egypt diminished as its wealth, particularly its corn, was shipped back to feed the ever-increasing demands of the population in Rome. In return, the Romans did what they were good at: set their armies and engineers to improving connections and restoring and extending the crucial irrigation that brought more land into use – land which would feed Rome. ~ Elizabeth Speller,

338:Let them cease, then, to insult the Roman empire, who pretend that they are the sons of the Church; when they see that Christ, the bridegroom of the Church, sanctioned the Roman empire at the beginning and at the end of His warfare on earth. And now I think that I have made it sufficiently clear that it was by right that the Romans acquired to themselves the empire of the world. Oh happy people, oh Ausonia, how glorious hadst thou been, if either he, that weakener of thine empire, had never been born, or if his own pious intention had never deceived him? ~ Dante Alighieri,

339:There’s an idea in the science-fiction community called steam-engine time, which is what people call it when suddenly twenty or thirty different writers produce stories about the same idea. It’s called steam-engine time because nobody knows why the steam engine happened when it did. Ptolemy demonstrated the mechanics of the steam engine, and there was nothing technically stopping the Romans from building big steam engines. They had little toy steam engines, and they had enough metalworking skill to build big steam tractors. It just never occurred to them to do it. ~ James Bridle,

340:In her adult life Cleopatra would have met few people she considered her equal. To the Romans she was a stubborn, supreme exception to every rule. She remains largely incomparable: She had plenty of predecessors, few successors. With her, the age of empresses essentially came to an end. In two thousand years only one or two other women could be said to have wielded unrestricted authority over so vast a realm. Cleopatra remains nearly alone at the all-male table, in possession of a hand both flush and flawed. She got a very good deal right, and one crucial thing wrong. ~ Stacy Schiff,

341:If you tried to get to the right of me you would fall off the end of the earth because, you see, it's flat. I started out as a paleoconservative but that eventually ceased to satisfy. Paleos are comparable to the Romans of the Early Republic, but I had stopped believing in republics because they invariably degenerate into democracy, that Great Fan that everything hits sooner or later. There was only one place for me, politically and temperamentally, so I became a royalist. I believe in absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings, but other than that I'm moving left. ~ Florence King,

342:In the siege of Viminiacum, he had lost, according to his own account, his fortune and liberty; he became the slave of Onegesius; but his faithful services, against the Romans and the Acatzires, had gradually raised him to the rank of the native Huns; to whom he was attached by the domestic pledges of a new wife and several children. The spoils of war had restored and improved his private property; he was admitted to the table of his former lord; and the apostate Greek blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been the introduction to a happy and independent state; ~ Edward Gibbon,

343:Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome, early possesses the significance charged with horror which the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism. ~ Simone Weil,

344:You think this country returns our love? Nonsense! She vomits us up time and time again, sends us to hell, beats us down without mercy. With the Romans and the Greeks and the Arabs and the mosquitoes. So you think that someone here says, 'If she doesn't want me, I should go?' Someone here says 'There's no point in holding a country by force if she's been trying to get rid of you from the minute you came to her?' No. You hold on to her as hard as you can and you hope. You hope that maybe she'll finally look around and see you and say - that one. That's the one I want. ~ Ayelet Gundar Goshen,

345:The Greeks think they justly honor players, because they worship the gods who demand plays; the Romans, on the other hand, do not suffer an actor to disgrace by his name his own plebeian tribe, far less the senatorial order. And the whole of this discussion may be summed up in the following syllogism. The Greeks give us the major premise: If such gods are to be worshiped, then certainly such men may be honored. The Romans add the minor: But such men must by no means be honoured. The Christians draw the conclusion: Therefore such gods must by no means be worshiped. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,

346:The Mayan system made more sense than the Western system does. Since the Western calendar was created at a time when there was no zero, we never see a day zero, or a year zero. This apparently insignificant omission caused a great deal of trouble; it kindled the controversy over the start of the millenium. The Mayans would never have argued about whether 2000 or 2001 was the first year in the twenty-first century. But it was not the Mayans who formed our calendar; it was the Egyptians and, later, the Romans. For this reason, we are stuck with a troublesome, zero-free calendar. ~ Charles Seife,

347:Zeus, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names. ~ Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Word Book (1906), later retitled The Devil's Dictionary,

348:There was this famous clash of civilization thesis from Samuel Huntington, a political theorist. And the idea was that Western civilization is at war with Islam and maybe some of the other civilizations around the world. And I don't agree with that. But I do think there is such a thing as Western civilization. I think it starts with the Greeks and the Romans. Then it goes through the Enlightenment - or the Reformation, the Enlightenment. It goes through the scientific age. And it somewhat defines some of the cultures and mores of Europe and North America and some other countries. ~ David Brooks,

349:Even political systems follow a form of rational tinkering, when people are rational hence take the better option: the Romans got their political system by tinkering, not by “reason.” Polybius in his Histories compares the Greek legislator Lycurgus, who constructed his political system while “untaught by adversity,” to the more experiential Romans, who, a few centuries later, “have not reached it by any process of reasoning [emphasis mine], but by the discipline of many struggles and troubles, and always choosing the best by the light of the experience gained in disaster. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

350:The archaic pantheons—Norse, Egyptian, Greek—all have a god dedicated to the dark art of gossip. The book of Proverbs treats the topic thoroughly; one verse from many cautions that “a man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his tongue.” “Judge not lest you be judged” is one of the most famous phrases in the whole Bible. Several sources maintain that the Romans enshrined a goddess named “Rumor”—a winged demon with a hundred eyes and a hundred mouths who spoke only the most hurtful side of the truth. Appropriately enough, I can’t seem to confirm this. ~ Anonymous,

351:The Huns had arrived at the distant edges of the western world. To the Romans, who had never seen them, they were as frightening as earthquake and tsunami, an evil force that could barely be resisted. Historians of the time had no idea exactly where these frightening newcomers came from, but they were sure it was somewhere awful. The Roman historian Procopius insists that they were descended from witches who had sexual congress with demons, producing Huns: a “stunted, foul and puny tribe, scarcely human and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance of human speech. ~ Susan Wise Bauer,

352:The Romans did not like kings. We needed them, however. Over many generations we had evolved the pattern of living that best suited Celtic natures. Kings led noble warriors in battle that defined tribal territory and gave men a shape for their pride. Less aggressive common people farmed the land and did the labor of the tribe. Druids were responsible for the intangible essentials upon which all else depended. Man and Earth and Otherworld were thus held in balance----until the coming of Caesar, who wanted to destroy our warriors and our druids so he could make the rest of us his slaves. ~ Morgan Llywelyn,

353:The word Familia did not originally signify the ideal of our modern philistine, which is a compound of sentimentality and domestic discord. Among the Romans, in the beginning, it did not even refer to the married couple and their children, but to the slaves alone. Famulus means a household slave and familia signifies the totality of slaves belonging to one individual. The expression was invented by the romans to describe a new social organism, the head of which had under him wife and children and a number of slaves, under Roman paternal power, with power of life and death over them all. ~ Friedrich Engels,

354:So I decided a little waltzing would be very good, and it was. I plan to do all my waltzing here in the study. I have thought I might have a book ready at hand to clutch if I began to experience unusual pain, so that would have been a special recommendation from being found in my hands. That seems theatrical, on consideration, and it might have the perverse effective of burdening the book with unpleasant associations. The ones I considered, by the way, were Donne and Herbert and Barth's Epistle to the Romans and Volume II of Calvin's institutes. Which is by no means to slight volume I. ~ Marilynne Robinson,

355:The Romans of the East were not less apprehensive of the arms of Rugilas, which threatened the provinces, or even the capital. Some ecclesiastical historians have destroyed the Barbarians with lightning and pestilence; but Theodosius was reduced to the more humble expedient of stipulating an annual payment of three hundred and fifty pounds of gold, and of disguising this dishonorable tribute by the title of general, which the king of the Huns condescended to accept. The public tranquillity was frequently interrupted by the fierce impatience of the Barbarians, and the perfidious intrigues of the Byzantine court. ~ Edward Gibbon,

356:If we are to discuss the idea of God and be restricted to rational arguments, then it is probably useful to know what we are talking about when we say “God.” This turns out not to be easy. The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn’t a real god. They didn’t believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn’t believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time. ~ Carl Sagan,

357:Pliny the Elder once said that the Romans, when they couldn’t make a building beautiful, made it big. The practice continues to be popular: If we can’t do it well, we make it larger. We add dollars to our income, rooms to our houses, activities to our schedules, appointments to our calendars. And the quality of life diminishes with each addition. On the other hand, every time that we retrieve a part of our life from the crowd and respond to God’s call to us, we are that much more ourselves, more human. Every time we reject the habits of the crowd and practice the disciplines of faith, we become a little more alive. ~ Eugene H Peterson,

358:no one will have any doubt that those are laborious triflers who spend their time on useless literary problems, of whom even among the Romans there is now a great number. It was once a foible confined to the Greeks to inquire into what number of rowers Ulysses had, whether the Iliad or the Odyssey was written first, whether moreover they belong to the same author, and various other matters of this stamp, which, if you keep them to yourself, in no way pleasure your secret soul, and, if you publish them, make you seem more of a bore than a scholar. But now this vain passion for learning useless things has assailed the Romans also. ~ Seneca,

359:There can be little reasonable doubt that the enclosed oppida and territorial oppida of the Late Iron Age represent the emergence of an urban system. At many of these sites coins were minted with mint marks giving the name of the centre – Calle (Calleva), Camulo (Camulodunum) (71) and Ver (Verulamium) – and some, as we have seen, were centres for royal burial. But the most impressive evidence for their importance is that so many were developed by the Roman authorities as the urban centres of large administrative regions. The Romans had simply accepted the reality of the political and economic geography of the south-east. ~ Barry W Cunliffe,

360:A settlement existed here as early as the sixth century BC. The Romans built their fortress later. Known today as “Babylon” by the locals, it formed the foundation for the Coptic quarter and gave it its distinctive character. After the spread of Christianity in Egypt, the area of about one square mile became a Christian stronghold, home to some twenty churches and the world’s oldest surviving Christian community. Now, many centuries later, it sat at the heart of a Muslim nation. Only five of the original churches remained, but the enclave was a time warp that also preserved the country’s earliest mosque and its oldest synagogue. ~ Dan Eaton,

361:Child Of The Romans The dago shovelman sits by the railroad track Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna. A train whirls by, and men and women at tables Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils, Eat steaks running with brown gravy, Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee. The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna, Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy, And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day’s work Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars. ~ Carl Sandburg,

362:LEBEAU: Well I’m not a philosopher, but I know my mother, and that’s why I’m here. You’re like people who look at my paintings—“What does this mean, what does that mean?” Look at it, don’t ask what it means; you’re not God, you can’t tell what anything means. I’m walking down the street before, a car pulls up beside me, a man gets out and measures my nose, my ears, my mouth, the next thing I’m sitting in a police station—or whatever the hell this is here—and in the middle of Europe, the highest peak of civilization! And you know what it means? After the Romans and the Greeks and the Renaissance, and you know what this means? ~ Arthur Miller,

363:Originally, the anchor symbol was not used by those on the water, but by people on land. During the early years of Christianity, Christians were under heavy persecution by the Romans. To show their religion to other practicing Christians under the watchful eye of the ruling people, they would wear anchor jewelry or even tattoo anchors on themselves. The anchor was seen as a symbol of strength as anchors hold down ships even in the stormiest of weather. It was also a popular symbol because of its close resemblance to the cross. Anchors were also used to mark safe houses for those seeking refuge from persecution.   MyNameNecklace.com ~ L J Shen,

364:And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth…I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago…They were men enough to face the darkness…They were conquerors…They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind–as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. ~ Joseph Conrad,

365:the success of Christianity was rooted in the Roman Empire, in its territorial extent, in the mobility that it promoted, in its towns and its cultural mix. From Pliny’s Bithynia to Perpetua’s Carthage, Christianity spread from its small-scale origins in Judaea largely because of the channels of communication across the Mediterranean world that the Roman Empire had opened up and because of the movement through those channels of people, goods, books and ideas. The irony is that the only religion that the Romans ever attempted to eradicate was the one whose success their empire made possible and which grew up entirely within the Roman world. ~ Mary Beard,

366:A plaque just outside remembers June 30, 1944. That night, Nazi forces were planning to blow up the arch to slow the Allied advance. To save their treasured landmark, Volterrans ripped up the stones that pave Via Porta all’Arco and plugged the gate, managing to convince the Nazi commander that there was no need to blow up the arch. Today, all the stones are back in their places, and like silent heroes, they welcome you through the oldest standing Etruscan gate into Volterra. Locals claim this as the only surviving round arch of the Etruscan age; most experts believe this is where the Romans got the idea for using a keystone in their arches. ~ Rick Steves,

367:In your study of anatomy, did you ever learn the name of the place between the nose and the lip?” Her lips parted, and she resisted the urge to lean toward him, to force him to touch her. She answered on a whisper. “The philtrum.” He smiled. “Clever girl. It is Latin. Do you know its meaning?” “No.” “It means love potion. The Romans believed it was the most erotic place on the body. They called it Cupid’s bow, because of the way it shapes the upper lip.” As he spoke, he ran his finger along the curve of her lip, a temptation more than a touch, barely there. His voice grew softer, deeper. “They believed it was the mark of the god of love.” She ~ Sarah MacLean,

368:What the Romans could not understand was that this Jewish exceptionalism was not a matter of arrogance or pride. It was a direct commandment from a jealous God who tolerated no foreign presence in the land he had set aside for his chosen people. That is why, when the Jews first came to this land a thousand years earlier, God had decreed that they massacre every man, woman, and child they encountered, that they slaughter every ox, goat, and sheep they came across, that they burn every farm, every field, every crop, every living thing without exception so as to ensure that the land would belong solely to those who worshipped this one God and no other. ~ Reza Aslan,

369:God would bless the “pure in heart” (Ps 73:1). God’s people in the end time would “see” him. 5:9 the peacemakers. Some Judeans and Galileans believed that God would help them wage war against the Romans to establish God’s kingdom, but Jesus assigns the kingdom instead to the meek (v. 5), those who show mercy (v. 7), those who are persecuted (v. 10), and those who make peace (v. 9). 5:10 theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Ancient writers sometimes bracketed off a special section of material by starting and finishing it with the same point—here, that “the kingdom of heaven” (cf. v. 3, see also the article “Kingdom”) will be given to the righteous and humble. ~ Anonymous,

370:According to Polybius, in the first major engagement between the Carthaginians and Romans in 218 B.C. at the river Trebia the two consuls with their combined forces had an army of 16,000 legionaries and 20,000 allied infantry. The great disadvantage under which the Romans laboured—at any rate in the early phases of the war—was that the consuls were changed every year and, when the two were together, they commanded the combined force in rotation. Such a ‘democratic’ Republican procedure was almost certain to come to grief when matched against the military intelligence, command and will-power of one man—particularly when that man was a genius of warfare. ~ Ernle Bradford,

371:The two armies separated; and we are told that Pyrrhus said to one who was congratulating him on his victory, “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.” 10 For he had lost a great part of the forces with which he came, and all his friends and generals except a few; moreover, he had no others whom he could summon from home, and he saw that his allies in Italy were becoming indifferent, while the army of the Romans, as if from a fountain gushing forth indoors, was easily and speedily filled up again, and they did not lose courage in defeat, nay, their wrath gave them all the more vigour and determination for the war. ~ Plutarch,

372:Finally, this story was set in a dire time, a deadly serious time, and the world of the first-century Jew under the rule of the Romans would not have been one that easily inspired mirth. It’s more than a small anachronism that I portray Joshua having and making fun, yet somehow, I like to think that while he carried out his sacred mission, Jesus of Nazareth might have enjoyed a sense of irony and the company of a wisecracking buddy. This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyone’s faith; however, if one’s faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do. My thanks to the many people who helped in the ~ Christopher Moore,

373:Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo. I’m the…” He looked off screen and yelled: “What’s my title? Am I like admiral, or captain, or—” A girl’s voice yelled back, “Repair boy.” “Very funny, Piper,” Leo grumbled. He turned back to the parchment screen. “So yeah, I’m…ah…supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we’re gonna be sailing toward you in about, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We’d appreciate it if you’d not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you could tell the Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out.” The parchment turned blank. ~ Rick Riordan,

374:Ancient Jews had no expectation—zero expectation—that the future messiah would die and rise from the dead. That was not what the messiah was supposed to do. Whatever specific idea any Jew had about the messiah (as cosmic judge, mighty priest, powerful warrior), what they all thought was that he would be a figure of grandeur and power who would be a mighty ruler of Israel. And Jesus was certainly not that. Rather than destroying the enemy, Jesus was destroyed by the enemy—arrested, tortured, and crucified, the most painful and publicly humiliating form of death known to the Romans. Jesus, in short, was just the opposite of what Jews expected a messiah to be. ~ Bart D Ehrman,

375:The Romans were too practical-minded to appreciate Euclid; the first of them to mention him is Cicero, in whose time there was probably no Latin translation; indeed there is no record of any Latin translation before Boethius (ca. A.D. 480). The Arabs were more appreciative: a copy was given to the caliph by the Byzantine emperor about A.D. 760, and a translation into Arabic was made under Harun al Rashid, about A.D. 800. The first still extant Latin translation was made from the Arabic by Adelard of Bath in A.D. 1120. From that time on, the study of geometry gradually revived in the West; but it was not until the late Renaissance that important advances were made. ~ Anonymous,

376:But you only have fifty men. That is no longer a large enough force for an uprising.” Barabbas smirked. “But it is enough for an assassination that is carefully orchestrated to cause an uprising.” “How so?” said Demas. “The Passover is arriving. Thousands of Jews will be filling the holy city with their devotion to Yahweh and their hatred for Rome. But so too will the Herods be there. If we can assassinate the high priest and Herod, we would bring enough chaos to turn the mob mad with vengeance.” Gestas said, “But how will you gain the support of the crowds if you Jews murder your own leaders, Herodian or not?” Eleazar answered, “We will nail it on the Romans somehow. ~ Brian Godawa,

377:It’s called the moment of imminent action,” Lucas said, as the students gathered around a statue in the art museum’s central gallery. It was a piece from the first century BC, first unearthed on the island of Samos, and it depicted the Greek warrior Achilles raising his spear to deal the death blow to Hector, prince of Troy. “The Greek sculptors, and the Romans, too, were less interested in a deed that was done than they were in a deed that was about to be committed. Works like this one ask the spectator to imagine, to anticipate, and even in a way participate in, what is just about to occur. It is the moment of greatest suspense and the greatest dramatic possibility. ~ Robert Masello,

378:He pulled a spiral-bound pad labeled “Conference Notes, 2013” off the shelf. He flipped through the scribbled pages. “European rat snake! Also known colloquially as the ‘Aesculapian snake,’” he read aloud, “and widely believed to be the serpent traditionally identified with Asclepius.” “Who?” “He’s a Greek god of medicine and healing. The Romans called him Aesculapius,” he said absently, his mind beginning to turn. “Carries around a staff with a snake twirled around it.” “You mean like the FTD guy in the florist windows?” “The FTD guy—Hermes? That’s a caduceus. With two snakes. You’re breaking my heart. Have you listened to anything I’ve said in the last ten years? ~ Jordanna Max Brodsky,

379:Just 3 years of research between 2009 and 2012 witnessed a profound change in archaeological understanding of the geoglyphs of the southwestern Amazon. Previously they'd been thought to be just 750 years old; now, without any real attention being drawn to the implications, they'd become 2,000 years old. To put this in context, an error and subsequent correction on a similar scale would certainly attract a great deal of attention if it concerned Western architecture--indeed it would be like discovering that the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe such as Chartres and York Minster were not, in fact, works of the late medieval period but had actually been built by the Romans. ~ Graham Hancock,

380:To achieve decisive victory, Schlieffen fixed upon a strategy derived from Hannibal and the Battle of Cannae. The dead general who mesmerized Schlieffen had been dead a very long time. Two thousand years had passed since Hannibal’s classic double envelopment of the Romans at Cannae. Field gun and machine gun had replaced bow and arrow and slingshot, Schlieffen wrote, “but the principles of strategy remain unchanged. The enemy’s front is not the objective. The essential thing is to crush the enemy’s flanks … and complete the extermination by attack upon his rear.” Under Schlieffen, envelopment became the fetish and frontal attack the anathema of the German General Staff. ~ Barbara W Tuchman,

381:The civil wars which ensued, and which prepared the way for the establishment of monarchy in Rome, saved the Britons from that yoke which was ready to be imposed upon them. Augustus, the successor of Caesar, content with the victory obtained over the liberties of his own country, was little ambitious of acquiring fame by foreign wars; and being apprehensive lest the same unlimited extent of dominion, which had subverted the republic, might also overwhelm the empire, he recommended it to his successors never to enlarge the territories of the Romans. Tiberius, jealous of the fame which might be acquired by his generals, made this advice of Augustus a pretence for his inactivity [k]. ~ David Hume,

382:Kill most of the livestock and prepare the meat. It is getting cold now, so we have to start. We must be on the top before it snows. The men have been working on the trails. The ladders have been put up. Be strong and prepare to defend yourselves.” One day in December, as it started to snow, some three hundred men, women, and children, perhaps tipped off by a sentry that the bilagaana army was on its way, ascended to the top and pulled up their ladders and bridges. Hoping the evil might pass beneath them, they planned to dwell in silence for months—and, if necessary, make a last-ditch defense, like the doomed Jewish rebels who defied the Romans from the stone ramparts of Masada. ~ Hampton Sides,

383:How differently would the world view Christians if we focused on our own failings rather than on society’s? As I read the New Testament I am struck by how little attention it gives to the faults of the surrounding culture. Jesus and Paul say nothing about violent gladiator games or infanticide, both common practices among the Romans. In a telling passage, the apostle Paul responds fiercely to a report of incest in the Corinthian church. He urges strong action against those involved but quickly clarifies, “not at all meaning the people of this world. . . . What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ~ Philip Yancey,

384:No, my eldest brother. He was named after our father. Our parents died when the Romans first invaded, and Stephano then became the "head of the family". " She grimaced. "He and I are like oil and water. Or we were. We get along well enough now, though." She grinned. "But boy did he pitch a fit over the concubine thing. He even called in Uncle Lucian to deal with me." Harper's eyebrows rose. "I'm surprised Lucian bothered to intervene." ..."Yes, well..." Drina grimaced. "I'm afraid while I was een as a concubine, I was really playing puppet master with my lover and kind of ruling the country though him. At least until Uncle Lucian caught wind of it and came to give me hell. ~ Lynsay Sands,

385:This immense 'negative creativity' constantly nullified the real gains of the machine. The booty brought back from a successful military expedition was, economically speaking, a 'total expropriation.' But it proved to be a poor substitute, as the Romans were later to discover, for a permanent income tax derived annually from a thriving economic organization. As with the later pillage of gold from Peru and Mexico by the Spaniards, this 'easy money' must often have undermined the victor's economy. When such imperial robber-economies became prevalent and preyed on each other, they cancelled out the possibility of one-sided gain. The economic result was as irrational as the military means. ~ Lewis Mumford,

386:Hey!" said the guy in the video. "Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo. I'm the..." He looked off screen and yelled: "What's my title? Am I like admiral, or captain, or-" A girl's voice yelled back, "Repair boy." "Very funny, Piper," Leo grumbled. He turned back to the parchment screen. "So yeah, I'm...ah..supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we're gonna be sailing towards you in about, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We'd appreciate it if you'd not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you could tell the Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out! ~ Rick Riordan,

387:This disdain for science and scholarship baffled Muslim commentators, who had great respect for Ptolemy and Euclid, for Homer and Aristotle. Some had little doubt what was to blame. Once, wrote the historian al-Mas  ūdī, the ancient Greeks and the Romans had allowed the sciences to flourish; then they adopted Christianity. When they did so, they ‘effaced the signs of [learning], eliminated its traces and destroyed its paths’. 92 Science was defeated by faith. It is almost the precise opposite of the world as we see it today: the fundamentalists were not the Muslims, but the Christians; those whose minds were open, curious and generous were based in the east –and certainly not in Europe. ~ Peter Frankopan,

388:Like all Roman roads, the Appian Way (Via Appia) was a marvel of both engineering and propaganda. Construction began on the roads by digging deeply into the soil to lay a foundation of rock, covering this in turn with gravel for drainage, and finally paving with virtually indestructible flagstones over which commerce rolled and armies marched. Unlike the earlier muddy tracks around much of the Mediterranean, Roman roads were meant to endure and rarely yielded to the vagaries of topography. Unless prevented by impassable mountains or impregnable swamps, the Romans built their roads straight as an arrow across the landscape. They were in fact a sermon in stone to the world—Romans do not yield. ~ Philip Freeman,

389:In the years following Hannibal’s birth, his father Hamilcar had fought doggedly and with great skill to preserve the remnants of the Carthaginian garrisons in western Sicily. That he was finally unsuccessful was because the Romans had been quick to learn an all-important lesson—to succeed in the Mediterranean theatre it is essential to have command of the sea. In the early stages of this great war the Carthaginians, with centuries of experience behind them, had found little difficulty in trouncing the Romans in naval engagements and in harrying their coastline. But one of the Roman qualities which would greatly assist them to their successful imperial role was an ability to learn from mistakes. ~ Ernle Bradford,

390:As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings. All anti-monarchical parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form. "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's" is the scripture doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchical government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans. ~ Thomas Paine,

391:Being informed that it was not garrisoned, he tried to storm it directly he arrived, but the width of the moat and the height of the wall enabled the few defenders to repel his assault. After constructing a camp, therefore, he formed a line of mantlets and set about the usual preparations for a siege. But the next night, before his preparations were completed, the whole fugitive army of the Suessiones came crowding into the place. When they saw the mantlets rushed up to the wall, earth shovelled into the moat, and siege towers erected, they were alarmed by the impressive size of this apparatus, which had never before been seen or heard of in Gaul, and by the speed with which the Romans worked. ~ Gaius Julius Caesar,

392:Ave, Praetor Zhang!” Reyna called. “Ave, Praetor Ramírez-Arellano!” Frank said. “Let’s do this. Legion, CLOSE RANKS!” A cheer went up among the Romans as the five cohorts melded into one massive killing machine. Frank pointed his sword forward, and from the golden eagle standard, tendrils of lightning swept across the enemy, turning several hundred monsters to toast. “Legion, cuneum formate!” Reyna yelled. “Advance!” Another cheer on Jason’s right as Percy and Annabeth reunited with the forces of Camp Half-Blood. “Greeks!” Percy yelled. “Let’s, um, fight stuff!” They yelled like banshees and charged. Jason grinned. He loved the Greeks. They had no organization whatsoever, but they made up for it with enthusiasm. ~ Rick Riordan,

393:Terry Jones' Barbarians is about all those peoples whom the Romans wrote off as uncivilized, but it's also a chance to take a look at the Romans themselves from an alternative point of view – from the point of view of the people they trashed. And as such it fits into a thesis we've been banging on about in Terry Jones' Medieval Lives and in Terry's radio series The Anti-Renaissance Show. That thesis is that we've all been sold a false history of Rome that has twisted our entire understanding of our own history – glorifying (and glossing over) a long era of ruthless imperial power, celebrating it for the benefit of Renaissance tyrants and more modern empires, and wildly distorting our view of the so-called 'Middle Ages ~ Terry Jones,

394:The difficulty of learning the dead languages does not arise from any superior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but in their being dead, and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same thing with any other language when it becomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists does not understand Greek so well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecian milkmaid; and the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman or a milkmaid of the Romans; and with respect to pronunciation and idiom, not so well as the cows that she milked. It would therefore be advantageous to the state of learning to abolish the study of the dead languages, and to make learning consist, as it originally did, in scientific knowledge. ~ Thomas Paine,

395:This is so cool!" Nico said, jumping up and down in the driver's seat. "Is this really the sun? I thought Helios and Selene were the sun and moon gods. How come sometimes it's them and sometimes it's you and Artemis?" "Downsizing," Apollo said. "The Romans started it. They couldn't afford all those temple sacrifices, so they laid off Helios and Selene and folded their duties into our job descriptions. My sis got the moon. I got the sun. It was pretty annoying at first, but at least I got this cool car." "But how does it work?" Nico asked. "I thought the sun was a big fiery ball of gas!" Apollo chuckled and ruffled Nico's hair. "That rumor probably got started because Artemis used to call me a big fiery ball of gas. ~ Rick Riordan,

396:Just as nothing is more foolish than misplaced wisdom, so too, nothing is more imprudent than perverse prudence. And surely it is perverse not to adapt yourself to the prevailing circumstances, to refuse 'to do as the Romans do,' to ignore the party-goer's maxium 'take a drink or take your leave,' to insist that the play should not be a play. True prudence, on the other hand, recognizes human limitations and does not strive to leap beyond them; it is willing to run with the herd, to overlook faults tolerantly or to share them in a friendly spirit. But, they say, that is exactly what we mean by folly. (I will hardly deny it -- as long as they will reciprocate by admitting that this is exactly what is means to perform the play of life.) ~ Erasmus,

397:One of the freeman with tattoos on his cheeks and red-rimmed eyes spat. “There is no resistance since Arviragus surrendered. The coward.” I was pretending not to listen but could barely hide my shock. Arviragus? A coward? Impossible. I had met the Gaulish warrior king when I was young and he was but a prince, but I’d been awed by his bravery and skill with a sword. He would never surrender to the Romans. “He was no coward,” his companion said loudly, chewing his words through a mouthful of meat. “But he was a fool. Letting himself be taken by the Roman. I’d have fallen on my own sword first.” “Be careful how you speak!” the older man snapped, his eyes flicking to where my father, Virico, sat, gazing out over the gathered crowd. ~ Lesley Livingston,

398:For if we see that the sun, in sending forth its rays upon the earth, to generate, cherish, and invigorate its offspring, in a manner transfuses its substance into it, why should the radiance of the Spirit be less in conveying to us the communion of his flesh and blood? Wherefore the Scripture, when it speaks of our participation with Christ, refers its whole efficacy to the Spirit. Instead of many, one passage will suffice. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. 8:9-11), shows that the only way in which Christ dwells in us is by his Spirit. By this, however, he does not take away that communion of flesh and blood of which we now speak, but shows that it is owing to the Spirit alone that we possess Christ wholly, and have him abiding in us. ~ John Calvin,

399:The architecture of the Colisseum and other places of Roman entertainment are difficult to judge without recalling what purpose they served. It was here that gladiators fought to the death; that prisoners of war, convicts and Christians were devoured by as many as 5,000 wild beasts at a time; and that voctims were crucified or burned alive for the entertainment of Roman civilization. When the Romans screamed for ever more blood, artificial lakes were dug and naval battles of as many as 19,000 gladiators were staged until the water turned red with blood. The only emperors who did not throw Christians to the lions were the Christian emperors: They threw pagans to the lions with the same gusto and for the same crime-having a different religion. ~ Petr Beckmann,

400:We are all the children of Rome, without knowing it. Our months are called after Roman emperors or gods, our summer is July and August, named after Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. When you people scream fascist at us, you are referring to the rods of authority called fasces by the Romans. The idea of law written down and to be observed equally comes to us from the Romans, and our alphabet comes to us exactly from the Roman. From plumbing to the idea that surrounding someone in battle gives victory, Rome gave them to us. Rome is our common, civilized roots, so deep that many of us in the West do not even realize it unless we are educated to it. Rome is our intellectual father, and we have been living off its remnants for two thousand years. ~ Richard Sapir,

401:But there were great kingdoms in the Western Sudan waiting to be discovered. Once knowledge of these old empires resurfaced, some claimed that Jews, who had rebelled against the Romans in Cyrenaica (Libya), had migrated to the Western Sudan around A.D. 115 and built these civilizations. Another group pushed the theory that Sudanese achievements were the results of Arab invasions and the coming of Islam. Some even suggested that African accomplishments were the result of visitors from outer space. Any wild idea was more acceptable than to admit that Africans had the intellect and ingenuity to develop and control well-ordered empires. The purpose of all these erroneous theories was simply to justify slavery and attitudes of racial superiority. ~ Patricia C McKissack,

402:The Romans, accordingly, admiring the prudence and virtues of Numa, assented to all the measures which he recommended. This, however, is to be said, that the circumstance of these times being deeply tinctured with religious feeling, and of the men with whom he had to deal being rude and ignorant, gave Numa better facility to carry out his plans, as enabling him to mould his subjects readily to any new impression. And, doubtless, he who should seek at the present day to form a new commonwealth, would find the task easier among a race of simple mountaineers, than among the dwellers in cities where society is corrupt; as the sculptor can more easily carve a fair statue from a rough block, than from the block which has been badly shaped out by another. ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

403:It is written in the Bible that Mary, the wife of Joseph, received a vision in which it was foretold that a son would be born to her; she should call him Jesus, and he would deliver Israel from sin. It is most significant that the name of the Virgin should be Mary. There are important phonetic associations. The Latin word mare means the sea. Of course, the word virgin also means pure - and virgin mare means pure sea. In pagan symbolism the sea is the natural symbol of illusion, because of the reflecting quality of water. Mary is Isis, the Egyptian goddess of the Mysteries whose veil no man might lift. She is the virgin Sophia, the Mother of Adepts; she is Diana of the Ephesians, the mater deorum of the Romans; she is Istar, Astarte, Mylitt. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible,

404:The quintessential emblem of religion — and the clearest manifestation of the perversity that lies at its core — is the sacrifice of a child by a parent. Almost all religious faiths incorporate the myth of such a sacrifice, and some have actually made it real. Lucretius had in mind the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon, but he may also have been aware of the Jewish story of Abraham and Isaac and other comparable Near Eastern stories for which the Romans of his times had a growing taste. Writing around 50 BCE he could not, of course, have anticipated the great sacrifice myth that would come to dominate the Western world, but he would not have been surprised by it or by the endlessly reiterated, prominently displayed images of the bloody, murdered son. ~ Stephen Greenblatt,

405:I. Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be, Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim From Brutus his own glory--and on thee Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame: Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail Amid his cowering senate with thy name, Though thou and he were great--it will avail To thine own fame that Othos should not fail. II. 'Twill wrong thee notthou wouldst, if thou couldst feel, Abjure such envious fame--great Otho died Like thee--he sanctified his countrys steel, At once the tyrant and tyrannicide, In his own blooda deed it was to bring Tears from all menthough full of gentle pride, Such pride as from impetuous love may spring, That will not be refused its offering. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Otho ,

406:The architecture of the thugs also differs from that of normal societies. It can often be recognized by the megalomaniacal style of their public buildings and facilities. The Moscow subway is a faithful copy of the London Underground, except that its stations and corridors are filled with statues of homo sovieticus, a fictitious species that stands (or sits on a tractor), chin up, chest out, belly in, heroically gazing into the distance with a look of grim determination. The Romans had similar tastes. Their public latrines were lavishly decorated with mosaics and marbles. When a particularly elaborately decorated structure at Puteoli was dug up by archaeologists in the last century, they thought at first that they had discovered a temple; but it turned out to be a public latrine. ~ Petr Beckmann,

407:The first of the great Roman roads, the Via Salaria, Salt Road, was built to bring this salt not only to Rome but across the interior of the peninsula. This worked well in the Roman part of the Italian peninsula. But as Rome expanded, transporting salt longer distances by road became too costly. Not only did Rome want salt to be affordable for the people, but, more importantly as the Romans became ambitious empire builders, they needed it to be available for the army. The Roman army required salt for its soldiers and for its horses and livestock. At times soldiers were even paid in salt, which was the origin of the word salary and the expression “worth his salt” or “earning his salt.” In fact, the Latin word sal became the French word solde, meaning pay, which is the origin of the word, soldier. ~ Mark Kurlansky,

408:But such accounts as we have from the Romans were written in periods of panic, and the Roman could lie about his enemies with a freedom and vigour that must arouse the envy even of the modern propagandist. He could talk of Punic faith as a byword for perfidy while committing the most abominable treacheries against Carthage, and his railing accusations of systematic cruelty against this people or that were usually the prelude and excuse for some frightful massacre or enslavement or robbery on his own part. He had quite a Modern passion for self-justification. We must remember that these accounts of the savagery and frightfulness of the Huns came from a people whose chief amusement was gladiatorial shows, and whose chief method of dealing with insurrection and sedition was nailing the offender to a cross to die. ~ H G Wells,

409:Crucifixion was a punishment that Rome reserved almost exclusively for the crime of sedition. The plaque the Romans placed above Jesus’s head as he writhed in pain—“King of the Jews”—was called a titulus and, despite common perception, was not meant to be sarcastic. Every criminal who hung on a cross received a plaque declaring the specific crime for which he was being executed. Jesus’s crime, in the eyes of Rome, was striving for kingly rule (i.e., treason), the same crime for which nearly every other messianic aspirant of the time was killed. Nor did Jesus die alone. The gospels claim that on either side of Jesus hung men who in Greek are called lestai, a word often rendered into English as “thieves” but which actually means “bandits” and was the most common Roman designation for an insurrectionist or rebel. Three re ~ Reza Aslan,

410:The opinion that any Monarch receiveth his Power by Covenant, that is to say on Condition, proceedeth from want of understanding this easie truth, that Covenants being but words, and breath, have no force to oblige, contain, constrain, or protect any man, but what it has from the publique Sword; that is, from the untyed hands of that Man, or Assembly of men that hath the Soveraignty, and whose actions are avouched by them all, and performed by the strength of them all, in him united. But when an Assembly of men is made Soveraigne; then no man imagineth any such Covenant to have past in the Institution; for no man is so dull as to say, for example, the People of Rome, made a Covenant with the Romans, to hold the Soveraignty on such or such conditions; which not performed, the Romans might lawfully depose the Roman People. ~ Thomas Hobbes,

411:Consider this: Crucifixion was a punishment that Rome reserved almost exclusively for the crime of sedition. The plaque the Romans placed above Jesus’s head as he writhed in pain—“King of the Jews”—was called a titulus and, despite common perception, was not meant to be sarcastic. Every criminal who hung on a cross received a plaque declaring the specific crime for which he was being executed. Jesus’s crime, in the eyes of Rome, was striving for kingly rule (i.e., treason), the same crime for which nearly every other messianic aspirant of the time was killed. Nor did Jesus die alone. The gospels claim that on either side of Jesus hung men who in Greek are called lestai, a word often rendered into English as “thieves” but which actually means “bandits” and was the most common Roman designation for an insurrectionist or rebel. ~ Reza Aslan,

412:He looked on in silence at the proof of what Israelis already know, that their history is contrived from the bones and traditions of Palestinians. The Europeans who came knew neither hummus nor falafel but later proclaimed them authentic Jewish cuisine." They claimed the villas of Qatamon as "old Jewish homes. They had no old photographs or ancient drawings of their ancestry living on the land, loving it, and planting it. They arrived from foreign nations and uncovered coins in Palestines earth from the Canaanites, the Romans, the ottomans, then sold them as their own "ancient Jewish artifacts." They came to Jaffa and found oranges the size of watermelons and said, "Behold! The Jews are known for their oranges." But those oranges were the culmination of centuries of Palestinian farmers perfecting the art of citrus growing. ~ Susan Abulhawa,

413:In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighbourhood of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and, as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, or Allmen, to denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery.31 The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had enured to accompany the horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreat.32 ~ Edward Gibbon,

414:I know that mundane history is not of enormous interest to most Shadowhunters", he said. "But there was a time before the Nephilim. A time when Rome battled the city of Carthage, and over the course of many wars was victorious. After one of the wars, Rome demanded that Carthage pay them tribute, that Carthage abandon their army, and that the land of Carthage be sowed with salt. The historian Tacitus said of the Romans that 'they make a desert and call it peace.'" He turned to Jia. "The Carthaginians never forgot. Their hatred of Rome sparked another war in the end, and that war ended in death and slavery. That was not peace. This is not peace." ... "The Fair Folk have long hated the Nephilim for their harshness. Show them something other than harshness, and you will receive something other than hate in return! ~ Cassandra Clare,

415:Ancient [Graeco-Roman] religion was tolerant and non-sectarian. In this it was unlike ancient philosophy. The adherents of Epicurean and Stoic philosophy fought long and acrimonious feuds, as one can see by reading Lucretius. The reason for this difference between religion and philosophy is that philosophers maintained various factual propositions about the world—that it was made of 'breath' or atoms, that it was finite or infinite, and so on—whereas ancient religions only presupposed the existence of forces capable of being persuaded by prayer and sacrifice. Since Roman religion offered no dogmas about the universe, there was nothing for people to contradict or to argue about. Philosophers, on the other hand, had elaborate systems which they defended to the last detail with grotesque ingenuity. ~ R. M. Ogilvie, The Romans and Their Gods (1969), p. 3,

416:As Rome was broadly tolerant of other religions, the token act of submission and recognition of Rome and the emperor was usually performed. This degree of pragmatism was inconceivable to Judea. They had one god and he was not a Roman emperor. Almost every aspect of Roman civic life was at war with Jewish beliefs. Jewish worship of a single god brought them into immediate conflict with the tolerant paganism of Greeks and Romans. Jews could not join the Roman army because they were unable to perform military duties on the Sabbath; Romans recalled with contempt the ease with which Pompey had originally taken Jerusalem, citing the Jews’ prioritising of religious observation over self-defence. The Romans were uneasy about Jewish circumcision, echoing the abhorrence of the practice felt by the Greeks, who disliked it largely on aesthetic grounds. ~ Elizabeth Speller,

417:The Romans’ ideal was torn between heroism and glory. Both are epitomized in the instant of death. To die ‘fine death’ was their obsession: to snatch that moment, to gather - carpere - the instant of death. Tiberius died from the effort he had expended at the age of seventy-three by throwing the javelin at a boar in the arena at Circeii. The moment of death isn’t just a subject for painters. It isn’t simply the stuff of the odes and annals. The moment of death exists in the amphitheatre: human sacrifices, bullfights, denudations, tortures and carnivorous scenes. The ancient Romans had taken over the ‘sport’ associated with the figure of Phersu from the Etruscans. The populus romanus gambled on the men who would be put to death within the next hour- The jus gladii - this is the Roman Empire (the right of the sword, the right of life and death). ~ Pascal Quignard,

418:Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” the apostle Paul wrote the Romans. “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:3–4). Cyril of Jerusalem told the newly baptized that “by this action, you died and you were born, and for you the saving water was at once a grave and the womb of a mother.” Luther described baptism as the drowning of the old, sinful self which he notes “is a mighty good swimmer,” and Argentinian preacher Juan Carlos Ortiz has been known to use a startling baptismal formula: “I kill you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and I make you born into the kingdom of God to serve him and to please him.”13 ~ Rachel Held Evans,

419:The Romans formed a line of mantlets and constructed a siege terrace. When they began to erect a siege tower at some distance, the defenders on the wall at first made abusive remarks and ridiculed the idea of setting up such a huge apparatus so far away. Did those pygmy Romans, they asked, with their feeble hands and muscles, imagine that they could mount such a heavy tower on top of a wall? (All the Gauls are inclined to be contemptuous of our short stature, contrasting it with their own great height.) 31. But when they saw the tower in motion and approaching the fortress walls, the strange, unfamiliar spectacle frightened them into sending envoys to ask Caesar for peace. The envoys said they were forced to the conclusion that the Romans had divine aid in their warlike operations, since they could move up apparatus of such height at such a speed. ~ Gaius Julius Caesar,

420:since the Depression, we bankers have had the leisure and . . . solitude, you might say, to think about the future. The Civil War left us with a federal government. The Great War made us a creditor nation. As bankers, we must anticipate what changes this war will thrust upon us.” […] The old man leaned forward and took a long breath. “I see the rise of this country to a height no country has occupied, ever,” he said quietly. “Not the Romans. Not the Carolingians. Not Genghis Khan or the Tatars or Napoleon’s France. Hah! You’re all looking at me like I’ve one foot in the funny farm. How is that possible? you ask. Because our dominance won’t arise from subjugating peoples. We’ll emerge from this war victorious and unscathed, and become bankers to the world. We’ll export our dreams, our language, our culture, our way of life. And it will prove irresistible. ~ Jennifer Egan,

421:If you killl yourself, Comorra, it will wreck him. Utterly. Believe me on this one. So there you go - there's another casualty of war. And sure, in the grand scheme of things, whoop-dee-doo, who gives a crap about some dude's broken heart. But what about the not-so-grand scheme? Doesn't love count for something? Do you think all this...this carnage would have happened if the Romans hadn't taken Prasutagus away from your mother? If she hadn't been so blinded by grief maybe she would have found a way to work things out with the governor instead of goading him to war." Clare shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe two people alone in the darkness can't generate enough light to drive it back. But maybe they can be a beacon for others. A candle in the window at midnight, you know? I mean, they can at least be there for each other, right? ~ Lesley Livingston,

422:The Romans may be known for many things, but humor isn't one of them. As usual, this interpretation relies on a prima facie reading of Jesus as a man with no political ambitions whatsoever. That is nonsense. All criminals sentenced to execution received a titulus so that everyone know the crime for which they were being punished and thus be deterred from taking part in similar activity. That the wording on Jesus's titulus was likely genuine is demonstrated by Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, who notes that "if [the titulus] were invented by Christians, they would have used Christos, for early Christians would scarcely have called their Lord 'King of the Jews'."[..] the notion that a no-name Jewish peasant would have received a personal audience with the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who had probably signed a dozen execution orders that day alone, is so outlandish that it cannot be taken seriously. ~ Reza Aslan,

423:Very slowly using two fingers, Annabeth drew her dagger. Instead of dropping it, she tossed it as far as she could into the water. Octavian made a squeaking sound. "What was that for? I didn't say toss it! That could've been evidence. Or spoils of war!" Annabeth tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: Oh, silly me. Nobody who knew her would have been fooled. But Octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation. "You other two..." He pointed his blade a Hazel and Piper. "Put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus--" All around the Romans, Charleston Harbor erupted like a Las Vegas fountain putting on a show. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three Romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding Annabeth's dagger. "You dropped this," he said, totally poker-faced. ~ Rick Riordan,

424:The Romans of the East were not less apprehensive of the arms of Rugilas, which threatened the provinces, or even the capital. Some ecclesiastical historians have destroyed the Barbarians with lightning and pestilence; but Theodosius was reduced to the more humble expedient of stipulating an annual payment of three hundred and fifty pounds of gold, and of disguising this dishonorable tribute by the title of general, which the king of the Huns condescended to accept. The public tranquillity was frequently interrupted by the fierce impatience of the Barbarians, and the perfidious intrigues of the Byzantine court. Four dependent nations, among whom we may distinguish the Barbarians, disclaimed the sovereignty of the Huns; and their revolt was encouraged and protected by a Roman alliance; till the just claims, and formidable power, of Rugilas, were effectually urged by the voice of Eslaw his ambassador. ~ Edward Gibbon,

425:Very slowly using two fingers, Annabeth drew her dagger. Instead of dropping it, she tossed it as far as she could into the water. Octavian made a squeaking sound. "What was that for? I didn't say toss it! That could've been evidence. Or spoils of war!" Annabeth tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: Oh, silly me. Nobody who knew her would have been fooled. But Octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation. "You other two..." He pointed his blade a Hazel and Piper. "Put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus--" All around the Romans, Charleston Harbor erupted like a Las Vegas fountain putting on a show. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three Romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding Annabeth's dagger. "You dropped this," he said, totally poker-faced. -Heroes of Olympus ~ Rick Riordan,

426:In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant Apprehension of War has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body.” This was why republics must always hate war: Whatever happened on the battlefield, they always lost their liberty, in part if not in whole, and if the state of tension was permanent, so, too, was the loss of liberty. “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive, will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have always been the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans, it was a standing maxim to excite a war as a ruse to keep the people enslaved. Should the states separate entirely from one another, these would be the consequences,” and anyone who had been accessory to such historic consequences “could never be forgiven by their Country, nor by themselves. ~ Charles L Mee Jr,

427:Ah, the clues. There’s only one clue. Only one,” said Hortensia. Prudencia gathered her hair at the nape of her neck and drew her chair closer. “And that is . . . ?” she asked. “Harmony, of course. The Ancient Greeks’ άρμουια, the Romans’ harmonia. Herminia would explain it better, she knows so much about this sort of thing . . . Well, how to express it? I think the classical definition refers to balance in the proportions of parts of a whole. As in the sculpture of a beautiful face or body, in the manner in which you arrange flowers in a vase, combining them in ten different ways until you achieve something that satisfies your soul. As a highly qualified woman, you no doubt know that harmony comes from the Greek άρμόζω, which means ‘to fit together,’ ‘to connect.’ That’s the definitive clue, dear, the one that’ll help you solve your detective story.” Miss Prim considered this as she took a bite of apple tart. ~ Natalia Sanmart n Fenollera,

428:Natural Disasters Long ago, we had to admit, in acquisitive English the Romans knew what they were talking about when they made a negative out of lucky stars by labeling some of the deadly ones disasters, and it's in their very nature, naturally, to be disastrous, to give even their most distant inhabitants and poor dependents hell now and then. Always, inevitably, as sure as we happen to be born in the abnormal course of events, more of them show up at all the wrong times and places and occasions with bad attitudes, ready to be that cave-in, this lightning stroke, that twister, those earthquakes, tsunamis, sudden rearrangements of shores and mountains and half or whole continents, and we're expected to be theirs in sickness and health in what we've dubbed forever and a day with stars still in our eyes and a star-like core still burning under our feet. ~ David Wagoner,

429:To become—in Jung’s terms—individuated, to live as a released individual, one has to know how and when to put on and to put off the masks of one’s various life roles. ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do,’ and when at home, do not keep on the mask of the role you play in the Senate chamber. But this, finally, is not easy, since some of the masks cut deep. They include judgment and moral values. They include one’s pride, ambition, and achievement. They include one’s infatuations. It is a common thing to be overly impressed by and attached to masks, either some mask of one’s own or the mana-masks of others. The work of individuation, however, demands that one should not be compulsively affected in this way. The aim of individuation requires that one should find and then learn to live out of one’s own center, in control of one’s for and against. And this cannot be achieved by enacting and responding to any general masquerade of fixed roles. ~ Joseph Campbell,

430:Non-Greeks have used Greek letters to be scientifically precise and specific, yet the reason why Greek was chosen – and is still being chosen – is cultural. In Roman times, Greek was the language of teachers, and in art the Romans looked to the Greeks as their progenitors. In the medieval period, the two foundation languages were seen to be Latin and Greek, with Greek being the older. Early scientists were assumed to have a level of education which would include knowing the Greek letters. For the writers of fiction and the namers of new substances or new products, the key issue is connotation – that cloud of associations that runs through and around every word we say and write. Using a Greek letter lends the object, being or character a scientific identity. Because so much modern science is beyond the uninitiated, the association is not only with science but also with mystery, something that only true boffin-heads really know and understand. ~ Michael Rosen,

431:Because the Romans did in these instances what all prudent princes ought to do, who have to regard not only present troubles, but also future ones, for which they must prepare with every energy, because, when foreseen, it is easy to remedy them; but if you wait until they approach, the medicine is no longer in time because the malady has become incurable; for it happens in this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure. This it happens in affairs of state, for when the evils that arise have been foreseen (which it is only given to a wise man to see), they can be quickly redressed, but when, through not having been foreseen, they have been permitted to grow in a way that every one can see them, there is no longer a remedy ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

432:Our age is not only Jewish, but also the most 'feminine'; an age in which art represents only a sudarium of its humors; the age of the most gullible anarchism, without any understanding of the State and of justice; the age of the collectivist ethics of the species; the age in which history is viewed with the most astonishing lack of seriousness [historical materialism]; the age of capitalism and of Marxism; the age in which history, life, and science no longer mean anything, apart from economics and technology; the age when genius could be declared a form of madness, while it no longer possesses even one great artist or philosopher; the age of the least originality and its greatest pursuit; the age which can boast of being the first to have exalted eroticism, but not in order to forget oneself, the way the Romans or the Greeks did in their Bacchanalia, but in order to have the illusion of rediscovering oneself and giving substance to one’s vanity. ~ Otto Weininger,

433:Zero has had a long history. The Babylonians invented the concept of zero; the ancient Greeks debated it in lofty terms (how could something be nothing?); the ancient Indian scholar Pingala paired Zero with the numeral 1 to get double digits; and both the Mayans and the Romans made Zero a part of their numeral systems. But Zero finally found its place around AD 498, when the Indian astronomer Aryabhatta sat up in bed one morning and exclaimed, "Sthanam sthanam dasa gunam" — which translates, roughly as, "place to place in ten times in value". With that, the idea of decimal based place value notion was born. Now Zero was on a roll: It spread to the Arab world, where it flourished; crossed the Iberian Peninsula to Europe (thanks to the Spanish Moors); got some tweaking from the Italians; and eventually sailed the Atlantic to the New World, where zero ultimately found plenty of employment (together with the digit 1) in a place called Silicon Valley. ~ Dan Ariely,

434:The Roman genius, and perhaps the Roman flaw was an obsession with order. One sees it in their architecture, their literature, their laws—this fierce denial of darkness, unreason, chaos. Easy to see why the Romans, usually so tolerant of foreign religions, persecuted the Christians mercilessly—how absurd to think a common criminal had risen from the dead, how appalling that his followers celebrated him by drinking his blood. The illogic of it frightened them and they did everything they could to crush it. In fact, I think the reason they took such drastic steps was because they were not only frightened but also terribly attracted to it. Pragmatists are often strangely superstitious. For all their logic, who lived in more abject terror of the supernatural than the Romans? The Greeks were different. They had a passion for order and symmetry, much like the Romans, but they knew how foolish it was to deny the unseen world, the old gods. Emotion, darkness, barbarism. ~ Donna Tartt,

435:The 'human' sense of life, so typical of the modern West, confirms its plebeian and lower aspect. That which some were ashamed of – 'man' – others took pride in. The ancient world elevated the individual to God, made every effort to unbind him from passion, to adapt him to transcendence, with free air of heights in contemplation as well as in action; it knew traditions of non-human heroes and of men of divine blood. The Semiticised world not only deprived the 'creature' of the divine, but finally reduced God to a human figure. Bringing back to life the demonism of a Pelasgian substratum, it substituted the pure Olympian regions, vertiginous in their radiant perfection, with the terrorist viewpoints of its apocalypses, of hells, of predestination, of perdition. God was no longer the aristocratic god of the Romans, the god pf patricians, to whom one prays standing, in the light of the fire, head up high and which is carried at the head of the victorious legions [...] ~ Julius Evola,

436:That is why you don’t want the Nazarene dead. If he does have a hidden force of arms, then their uprising combined with yours will become an earthquake that begins with Jerusalem and rolls out through all of Judea and the Galilee. But if this Jesus is a fraud, then all his followers will no doubt move over to you as deliverer, and you can execute the Nazarene at your will after you take the crown from Antipas.” Gestas was proud of how inventive his simple warrior brother had become with his impromptu acting. He had encouraged the messianic aspirations of Barabbas without the cheap tactic of flattery. Gestas threw in, “And I know exactly how we can nail this on the Romans and get away with it.” Barabbas smiled, looked to Eleazar for approval, and said, “Well, it looks like you two have just saved your lives from hanging.” Barabbas thought privately that he would still have to kill this Jesus afterward, to consolidate his own power and authority as Messiah over Israel. ~ Brian Godawa,

437:What was at stake for the Romans was whether they could win in battle and then whether – by persuasion, bullying or force – they could impose their will where, when and if they chose. The style of this imperium is vividly summed up in the story of the last encounter between Antiochus Epiphanes and the Romans. The king was invading Egypt for the second time, and the Egyptians had asked the Romans for help. A Roman envoy, Gaius Popilius Laenas, was dispatched and met Antiochus outside Alexandria. After his long familiarity with the Romans, the king no doubt expected a rather civil meeting. Instead, Laenas handed him a decree of the senate instructing him to withdraw from Egypt immediately. When Antiochus asked for time to consult his advisors, Laenas picked up a stick and drew a circle in the dust around him. There was to be no stepping out of that circle before he had given his answer. Stunned, Antiochus meekly agreed to the senate’s demands. This was an empire of obedience. ~ Mary Beard,

438:This is where I go, when I go: It's a room with no windows and no doors, and walls that are thin enough for me to see and hear everything but too thick to break through. I'm there, but I'm not there. I am pounding to be let out, but nobody can hear me. This is where I go, when I go: To a country where everyone's face looks different from mine, and the language is the act of not speaking, and noise is everywhere in the air we breathe. I am doing what the Romans do in Rome; I am trying to communicate, but no one has bothered to tell me that these people cannot hear. This is where I go, when I go: Somewhere completely, unutterably orange. This is where I go, when I go: To the place where my body becomes a piano full of black keys only—the sharps and the flats, when everyone know that to play a song other people want to hear, you need some white keys. This is why I come back: To find those white keys. ~ Jodi Picoult,

439:You have not tasted servitude. There is no land beyond us and even the sea is no safe refuge when we are threatened by the Roman fleet. We are the last people on earth, and the last to be free: our very remoteness in a land known only to rumour has protected us up till this day. Today the furthest bounds of Britain lie open—and everything unknown is given an inflated worth. But now there is no people beyond us, nothing but tides and rocks and, more deadly than these, the Romans. It is no use trying to escape their arrogance by submission or good behaviour. They have pillaged the world: when the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy, if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of 'empire'. They make a desolation and call it 'peace ~ Tacitus,

440:Inscriptions and finds from other parts of Europe have confirmed his name through the variants discovered, however.  An inscription with the name Cernunnos was found at Polenza in Italy, and a variant, Cernenus at Verespatak in Rumania where he is equated with Jupiter.  Other European inscriptions include one to Deo Cernunico at Seinsel-Rëlent in Germany and a Greek inscription at Montagnac in France to Karnonos. Cernunnos is best known in modern times by association with the striking image on the Gundestrup Cauldron.  However the worship of Cernunnos, and indeed his name, came from Gaul, where there were many representations of him.  We are concerned with the British perception of the god and how he was recorded, and for these reasons the most likely representations of Cernunnos would be the unnamed bull-horned gods found around Britain. The Romans encountered Cernunnos first in Gaul, and associated him with Mercury, although Julius Caesar likened him to Dis Pater as the major god. ~ David Rankine,

441:The Romans would have had an even more urgent worry than bodysnatching: the Christians were supposedly preaching that Jesus (even if with supernatural aid) had escaped his execution, was seen rallying his followers, and then disappeared. Pilate and the Sanhedrin would not likely believe claims of his resurrection or ascension (and there is no evidence they did), but if the tomb was empty and Christ’s followers were reporting that he had continued preaching to them and was still at large, Pilate would be compelled to haul every Christian in and interrogate every possible witness in a massive manhunt for what could only be in his mind an escaped convict (not only guilty of treason against Rome for claiming to be God and king, as all the Gospels allege [Mk 15.26; Mt. 27.37; Lk. 23.38; Jn 19.19-22] but now also guilty of escaping justice). And the Sanhedrin would feel the equally compelling need to finish what they had evidently failed to accomplish the first time: finding and killing Jesus. ~ Richard C Carrier,

442:Very slowly, using only two fingers, Annabeth drew her dagger. Instead of dropping it, she tossed it as far as she could into the water. Octavian made a squeaking sound. “What was that for? I didn’t say toss it! That could’ve been evidence. Or spoils of war!” Annabeth tried for a dumb-blonde smile, like: Oh, silly me. Nobody who knew her would have been fooled. But Octavian seemed to buy it. He huffed in exasperation. “You other two…” He pointed his blade at Hazel and Piper. “Put your weapons on the dock. No funny bus—” All around the Romans, Charleston Harbor erupted like a Las Vegas fountain putting on a show. When the wall of seawater subsided, the three Romans were in the bay, spluttering and frantically trying to stay afloat in their armor. Percy stood on the dock, holding Annabeth’s dagger. “You dropped this,” he said, totally poker-faced. Annabeth threw her arms around him. “I love you!” “Guys,” Hazel interrupted. She had a little smile on her face. “We need to hurry. ~ Rick Riordan,

443:Carlovingian Dreams COUNT these reminiscences like money. The Greeks had their picnics under another name. The Romans wore glad rags and told their neighbors, 'What of it? ' The Carlovingians hauling logs on carts, they too Stuck their noses in the air and stuck their thumbs to their noses And tasted life as a symphonic dream of fresh eggs broken over a frying pan left by an uncle who killed men with spears and short swords. Count these reminiscences like money. Drift, and drift on, white ships. Sailing the free sky blue, sailing and changing and sailing, Oh, I remember in the blood of my dreams how they sang before me. Oh, they were men and women who got money for their work, money or love or dreams. Sail on, white ships. Let me have spring dreams. Let me count reminiscences like money; let me count picnics, glad rags and the great bad manners of the Carlovingians breaking fresh eggs in the copper pans of their proud uncles. ~ Carl Sandburg,

444:The Danube was flowing past him on its calm, even course from north to south, not especially blue, but wide and majestic and indubitably very beautiful. On the other side of the river rose two softly curved hills crowned by a monument and a walled fortress. Houses clambered only hesitantly along the sides of the hills, but farther away were other hills strewn with villas. That was the famous Buda side, then, and there you were very close to the heart of central European culture. Martin Beck let his glance roam over the panoramic view, absently listening to the wingbeats of history. There the Romans had founded their mighty settlement Aquincum, from there the Hapsburg artillery had shot Pest into ruins during the War of Liberation of 1849, and there Szalasis’ fascists and Lieutenant General Pfeffer-Wildenbruch’s SS troops had stayed for a whole month during the spring of 1945, with a meaningless heroism that invited annihilation (old fascists he had met in Sweden still spoke of it with pride). Immediately ~ Maj Sj wall,

445:In the Roman psyche the East had long been a place of danger, but also a place of plenty. The first Emperor Augustus famously said of Rome that he found a city built in brick but left it in marble – all that money had to come from somewhere. India was repeatedly described in Roman sources as a land of unimaginable wealth. Pliny the Elder complained that the Roman taste for exotic silks, perfumes and pearls consumed the city. ‘India and China [and Arabia] together drain our Empire. That is the price that our luxuries and our womankind cost us.’ It was the construction of the Via Egnatia and attendant road-systems that physically allowed Rome to expand eastwards, while the capture of Egypt intensified this magnetic pull. Rome had got the oriental bug, and Byzantium, entering into a truce with the Romans in 129 BC following the Roman victory in the Macedonian Wars that kick-started Gnaeus Egnatius’ construction of the Via Egnatia, was a critical and vital destination before all longer Asian journeys began. ~ Bettany Hughes,

446:Why should we labor this unpleasant point? Because the Book of Mormon labors it, for our special benefit. Wealth is a jealous master who will not be served halfheartedly and will suffer no rival--not even God: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." (Matthew 6:24) In return for unquestioning obedience wealth promises security, power, position, and honors, in fact anything in this world. Above all, the Nephites like the Romans saw in it a mark of superiority and would do anything to get hold of it, for to them "money answereth all things." (Ecclesiastes 10:19) "Ye do always remember your riches," cried Samuel the Lamanite, ". . .unto great swelling, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manner of iniquities." (Helaman 13:22) Along with this, of course, everyone dresses in the height of fashion, the main point being always that the proper clothes are expensive--the expression "costly apparel" occurs 14 times in the Book of Mormon. The more important wealth is, the less important it is how one gets it. ~ Hugh Nibley,

447:Tell me, Lady Philippa." He raised a hand, one finger lingering at the indentation of her upper lip, a hairsbreadth from touching her. "In your study of anatomy, did you ever learn the name of the place between the nose and the lip?" Her lips parted, and she resisted the urge to lean toward him, to force him to touch her. She answered on a whisper, "The philtrum." He smiled. "Clever girl. It is Latin. Do you know its meaning?" "No." "It means love potion. The Romans believed it was the most erotic place on the body. They called it Cupid's bow, because of the way it shapes the upper lip." As he spoke, he ran his finger along the curve of her lip, a temptation more than a touch, barely there. His voice grew softer, deeper. "They believed it was the mark of the god of love." She inhaled, low and shallow. "I did not know that." He leaned down, closer, his hand falling away. "I'd be willing to wager that there are any number of things about the human body that you do not know, my little expert. All things that I would happily teach you. ~ Sarah MacLean,

448:Unless, of course, he fears I may corrupt Aubrey. Evil communications, you know!' 'I shouldn't think you could,' she said, dispassionately considering the matter. She saw his lips quiver, and her own gravity vanished. 'Oh I don't mean that you would make the attempt! You know very well I don't! The thing is that even if you were to hold an *orgy* here the chances are he would only think it pretty tame, compared with the Romans, not to mention the Bacchae, who, from anything I discover, were precisely the sort of females one would wish a boy *not* to know about!' This view of the matter was almost too much for his self-control; it was a moment before he could command his voice enough to say: 'I promise you I won't hold any orgies which Aubrey is under my roof!' 'Oh, no, I know you would not! Though I must say,' she added, a gleam of un in her eyes, 'it would be worth it, only to see Nurse's face!' He laughed out at that, flinging back his head in whole-hearted enjoyment, gasping: 'Why, oh *why* did I never know you until now? ~ Georgette Heyer,

449:The sheer size of some of the limestome foundation blocks [at Baalbek] are the largest ever quarried on the planet, conservatively estimated at 800 to 1200 tons, and the common belief that the Romans chose to do this work on such a massive scale to 'impress the locals' is absolutely ludicrous. Nowhere else in the Roman world is there any evidence of the quarrying of blocks of this size, so we can clearly presume that they were there when the Romans first appeared, and were used as foundational material. A group of three horizontally lying giant stones which form part of the podium of the Roman Jupiter Temple of Baalbek, Lebanon, go by the name 'trilithon.' Each one of these stones is 70 feet long, 14 feet high, 10 feet thick, and weighs around 800 tons. These three stone blocks are the largest building blocks ever used by any human beings anywhere in the world. The supporting stone layer beneath features a number of stones that are still in the order of 350 tons and 35 feet wide. No one knows how these blocks were moved, cut, placed, and fit perfectly together. ~ Brien Foerster,

450:WHO WERE THE BARBARIANS? Nobody ever called themselves 'barbarians'. It's not that sort of word. It's a word used about other people. In fact, it's a term of otherness. It had been used by the Ancient Greeks to describe non-Greek people whose language they couldn't understand and who therefore seemed to babble unintelligibly: 'Ba ba ba'. The same word, Barbara, appears in Sanskrit, the language of ancient India, meaning 'stammering, gibbering' – in other words, alien. The Romans adopted the Greek word and used it to label (and usually libel) the peoples who surrounded their own world. Once the term had the might and majesty of Rome behind it, the Roman interpretation became the only one that counted, and the peoples whom they called Barbarians became forever branded – be they Spaniards, Britons, Gauls, Germans, Scythians, Persians or Syrians. And of course 'barbarian' has become a by-word for the very opposite of everything we consider civilized. In contrast to the Romans, the Barbarians were lacking in refinement, primitive, ignorant, brutal, rapacious, destructive and cruel. ~ Terry Jones,

451:To some communities over wide areas in central Italy, the Romans extended Roman citizenship. Sometimes this involved full citizen rights and privileges, including the right to vote or stand in Roman elections while also continuing to be a citizen of a local town. In other cases they offered a more limited form of rights that came to be known (self-explanatorily) as ‘citizenship without the vote’, or civitas sine suffragio. There were also people who lived on conquered territories in settlements known as colonies (coloniae). These had nothing to do with colonies in the modern sense of the word but were new (or expanded) towns usually made up of a mixture of locals and settlers from Rome. A few had full Roman citizenship status. Most had what was known as Latin rights. That was not citizenship as such but a package of rights believed to have been shared since time immemorial by the Latin towns, later formally defined as intermarriage with Romans, mutual rights to make contracts, free movement and so on. It was a halfway house between having full citizenship and being a foreigner, or hostis. ~ Mary Beard,

452:John said, “Well, centurion, you pride yourself on your righteousness. Yet you have just admitted to me that you are a lying, thieving, murderous adulterer of the heart, and you will one day stand before your Creator to face judgment for all the deeds you have done. A holy god who allows no evil, no matter how small, in his presence. Will the Law save you then? Or will it condemn you?” “You Jews and your god,” grumbled Longinus. “I have seen your elaborate sacrifices in the temple from the Antonia.” The Antonia was a Roman fortress built along the northern wall of the Jerusalem Temple in order to allow the Romans to keep an eye on Jewish religious activities. “This is why Jesus came,” said John. “Atonement. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Even the sins of repentant Roman centurions.” “I am through with your nonsense, Baptizer. If this Messiah of yours has no other secret plan than meekness, mercy, and poverty of spirit, then I fail to see how his followers think they can stand up to the might and power of Rome. You would have a better chance with the Zealots. ~ Brian Godawa,

453:He probably wanted real power, the power to direct one's environment towards a harmonious end, and not fictitious power, the power to order and be obeyed; and he must have known that he had not been able to exercise real power over Rome. It would have been easier for him if what we were told when we were young was true, and that the decay of Rome was due to immorality. Life, however, is never as simple as that, and human beings rarely so potent. There is so little difference between the extent to which any large number of people indulge in sexual intercourse, when they indulge in it without inhibitions and when they indulge in it with inhibitions, that it cannot often be a determining factor in history. The exceptional person may be an ascetic or a debauchee, but the average man finds celibacy and sexual excess equally difficult. All we know of Roman immorality teaches us that absolute power is a poison, and that the Romans, being fundamentally an inartistic people, had a taste for pornography which they often gratified in the description of individuals and families on which that poison had worked. ~ Rebecca West,

454:Annabeth didn’t mean to, but she surged forward. Percy rushed toward her at the same time. The crowd tensed. Some reached for swords that weren’t there. Percy threw his arms around her. They kissed, and for a moment nothing else mattered. An asteroid could have hit the planet and wiped out all life, and Annabeth wouldn’t have cared. Percy smelled of ocean air. His lips were salty. Seaweed Brain, she thought giddily. Percy pulled away and studied her face. “Gods, I never thought—” Annabeth grabbed his wrist and flipped him over her shoulder. He slammed into the stone pavement. Romans cried out. Some surged forward, but Reyna shouted, “Hold! Stand down!” Annabeth put her knee on Percy’s chest. She pushed her forearm against his throat. She didn’t care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest—a tumor of worry and bitterness that she’d been carrying around since last autumn. “If you ever leave me again,” she said, her eyes stinging, “I swear to all the gods—” Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth. “Consider me warned,” Percy said. ~ Rick Riordan,

455:The apostle Paul often appears in Christian thought as the one chiefly responsible for the de-Judaization of the gospel and even for the transmutation of the person of Jesus from a rabbi in the Jewish sense to a divine being in the Greek sense. Such an interpretation of Paul became almost canonical in certain schools of biblical criticism during the nineteenth century, especially that of Ferdinand Christian Baur, who saw the controversy between Paul and Peter as a conflict between the party of Peter, with its 'Judaizing' distortion of the gospel into a new law, and the party of Paul, with its universal vision of the gospel as a message about Jesus for all humanity. Very often, of course, this description of the opposition between Peter and Paul and between law and gospel was cast in the language of the opposition between Roman Catholicism (which traced its succession to Peter as the first pope) and Protestantism (which arose from Luther's interpretation of the epistles of Paul). Luther's favorite among those epistles, the letter to the Romans, became the charter for this supposed declaration of independence from Judaism. ~ Jaroslav Pelikan,

456:Roman tactics in battle were comparatively simple and, since they had proved so successful in previous wars, were used against the Carthaginians until the latter demonstrated, by a flexibility designed to match each new occasion, that what had triumphed over Latins and Greeks and Gallic tribes needed adaptation. First of all, the Roman front line would open fire with their throwing spears, following this up with a charge with their swords—somewhat akin to the musket volley and bayonet charge of later wars. If this failed to break the enemy front, the second line, passing through the first on their chess-board principle, would repeat the procedure. The veterans held as reserve could then be used if necessary, while all the time the lightly-armed infantry were skirmishing on the flanks of the enemy, aided by the cavalry. These tactics had served the Romans well in the past—and were to do so in the future—but proved inadequate to deal with a general who modified his own tactics to suit each new battlefield, and who used elements of surprise and carefully laid traps, into which the Romans more often than not were prone to blunder. ~ Ernle Bradford,

457:St. Bernard, with the sharpness of his wit and zeal, has stigmatized the vices of the rebellious people. "Who is ignorant," says the monk of Clairvaux, "of the vanity and arrogance of the Romans? a nation nursed in sedition, untractable, and scorning to obey, unless they are too feeble to resist. When they promise to serve, they aspire to reign; if they swear allegiance, they watch the opportunity of revolt; yet they vent their discontent in loud clamors, if your doors, or your counsels, are shut against them. Dexterous in mischief, they have never learned the science of doing good. Odious to earth and heaven, impious to God, seditious among themselves, jealous of their neighbors, inhuman to strangers, they love no one, by no one are they beloved; and while they wish to inspire fear, they live in base and continual apprehension. They will not submit; they know not how to govern faithless to their superiors, intolerable to their equals, ungrateful to their benefactors, and alike impudent in their demands and their refusals. Lofty in promise, poor in execution; adulation and calumny, perfidy and treason, are the familiar arts of their policy ~ Edward Gibbon,

458:Zorba Sings Zorba is singing He dances He drinks wine He sings again Plays on the santoori With his hand on the shoulder of the twilight hour Zorba sings He drinks wine He sings again Inhaling the scent Of the night's breast He drinks Zorba is dancing Smeared all over With the fresh hue of the dawn Zorba drinks He frisks and pranks With the different wines Of the different isles Zorba sings Plays on the santoori Athens is singing Sparta is singing Lesbos is singing Delphi too is singing All the islands Are dancing The Mediterranean Is drinking wine Climbing over the waves The little breeze swims Zorba is singing No colour of virtue No stain of sin Zorba sings 51 Gone are the Turks Gone are the Romans Gone are the Persians Gone are the Germans Who will come next Is not known Whoever comes We shall drive him out We shall keep To the path of truth Crying so, possessed, Zorba sings When it grows dark He plays on the santoori He dances He drinks wine Zorba is singing ~ Ayyappa Paniker,

459:We can envisage society as founded in a contract only if we see its members as capable of the free and responsible choice that a contract requires. But only in certain circumstances will human beings develop into rational choosers, capable of undertaking obligations and honouring promises, and oriented towards one another in a posture of responsibility. In the course of acquiring this posture towards others, people acquire obligations of quite another kind – obligations to parents, to family, to place and community, upon all of which they have depended for the nurture without which the human animal cannot develop into the human person. Those obligations are not obligations of justice, such as arise from the free dealings of human adults. The Romans knew them as obligations of piety (pietas), meaning that they stem from the natural gratitude towards what is given, a gratitude that we spontaneously direct to the gods. Today we are reluctant to provide these obligations with such a theological backing, though it is important to see that, for religious believers, unchosen obligations are not only vital to the building from below of a durable social order, but also properly owed to God. ~ Roger Scruton,

460:ONE SIDE OF the history of Rome is a history of politics, of war, of victory and defeat, of citizenship and of everything that went on in public between prominent men. I have outlined one dramatic version of that history, as Rome transformed from a small, unimpressive town next to the Tiber into first a local and eventually an international power base. Almost every aspect of that transformation was contested and sometimes literally fought over: the rights of the people against the senate, the questions of what liberty meant and how it was to be guaranteed, the control that was, or was not, to be exercised over conquered territory, the impact of empire, for good or bad, on traditional Roman politics and values. In the process, a version of citizenship was somehow invented that was new in the classical world. Greeks had occasionally shared citizenship, on an ad hoc basis, between two cities. But the idea that it was the norm, as the Romans insisted, to be a citizen of two places – to count two places as home – was fundamental to Roman success on the battlefield and elsewhere, and it has proved influential right up into the twenty-first century. This was a Roman revolution, and we are its heirs. ~ Mary Beard,

461:In A Township Of Asia Minor The news about the outcome of the sea-battle at Actium was of course unexpected. But there's no need for us to draft a new proclamation. The name's the only thing that has to be changed. There, in the concluding lines, instead of: "Having freed the Romans from Octavius, that disaster, that parody of a Caesar," we'll substitute: "Having freed the Romans from Antony, that disaster,..." The whole text fits very nicely. "To the most glorious victor, matchless in his military ventures, prodigious in his political operations, on whose behalf the township ardently wished for Antony's triumph,..." here, as we said, the substitution: "for Octavius Caesar's triumph, regarding it as Zeus' finest gift— to this mighty protector of the Greeks, who graciously honors Greek customs, who is beloved in every Greek domain, who clearly deserves exalted praise, and whose exploits should be recorded at length in the Greek language, in both verse and prose, in the Greek language, the vehicle of fame," et cetera, et cetera. It all fits brilliantly. ~ Constantine P. Cavafy,

462:The Romans move east from New York. They advance in your camp, and nothing can slow them down. "Nothing can slow them down," Leo mused. "I wonder..." "What?" Jason asked. Leo looked at the dwarfs. "I'll make you a deal." Akmon's eyes lit up. "Thirty percent?" "We'll leave you all the treasure," Leo said, "except the stuff that belongs to us, and the astrolabe, and this book, which we'll take back to the dude in Venice." "But he'll destroy us!" Passolos wailed. "We won't say where we got it," Leo promised. "And we won't kill you. We'll let you go free." "Uh, Leo...?" Jason asked nervously. Akmon squealed in delight. "I knew you were as smart at Hercules! I will call you Black Bottom, the Sequel!" "You, no thanks," Leo said. "But in return for us sparing your lives, you have to do something for us. I'm going to send you somewhere to steal from some people, harass them, make life hard for them any way you can. You have to follow my directions exactly. You have to swear on the River Styx." "We swear!" Passalos said. "Stealing from people is our specialty!" "I love harassment!" Akmon agreed. "Where are we going?" Leo grinned. "Ever heard of New York? ~ Rick Riordan,

463:When it grew cold enough to shut the doors, and have fire at night, first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table, then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day, and then father lined us against the wall, all in a row from Laddie down, and he pronounced words—easy ones that divided into syllables nicely, for me, harder for May, and so up until I might sit down. For Laddie, May and Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland's history, the Christian Advocate, and the Agriculturist. My, but he had them so they could spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the proper way to read them. I could do "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "Casablanca," "Gray's Elegy," or "Mark Antony's Speech," but best of all, I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl." When he was tired, if it were not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs. Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and they were pretty, and "very useful too," like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey's Second. ~ Gene Stratton Porter,

464:But the Greeks and the Romans both believed in the idea of an external daemon of creativity—a sort of house elf, if you will, who lived within the walls of your home and who sometimes aided you in your labors. The Romans had a specific term for that helpful house elf. They called it your genius—your guardian deity, the conduit of your inspiration. Which is to say, the Romans didn’t believe that an exceptionally gifted person was a genius; they believed that an exceptionally gifted person had a genius. It’s a subtle but important distinction (being vs. having) and, I think, it’s a wise psychological construct. The idea of an external genius helps to keep the artist’s ego in check, distancing him somewhat from the burden of taking either full credit or full blame for the outcome of his work. If your work is successful, in other words, you are obliged to thank your external genius for the help, thus holding you back from total narcissism. And if your work fails, it’s not entirely your fault. You can say, “Hey, don’t look at me—my genius didn’t show up today!” Either way, the vulnerable human ego is protected. Protected from the corrupting influence of praise. Protected from the corrosive effects of shame. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,

465:his novel is set in the period of Roman history called the Decadence, which began about 160 AD, a distinction it richly deserved: social distinctions had become lax; the bureaucracy was increasingly corrupt, due in large part to the privatizing of most of the civil service; the nobility were competing in luxury and excess, and were rarely held accountable for their overindulgence, either legally or politically; the Emperors were more often than not puppets for powerful families and influential plutocrats; maintenance of Roman roads, the most successful communication routes in the ancient world, was reduced or abandoned even as the Romans strength, now filled their ranks with client-nation soldiers and gave high rank positions to mercenaries; the standards of education and language-use had declined and the quality of linguistic communication and literary expression were eroding; public entertainments, from the arena to the stage, were violent, sensationalistic, and debauched. The attempt to maintain a society of laws was giving way to one of political and commercial influence, and all the while the gulf between rich and poor was widening, and the legal rights of women and slaves were diminishing steadily. ~ Chelsea Quinn Yarbro,

466:Our way would seem quite familiar to the Romans, more by far than the Greek way. Socrates in the Symposium, when Alcibiades challenged him to drink two quarts of wine, could have done so or not as he chose, but the diners-out of Horace's day had no such freedom. He speaks often of the master of the drinking, who was always appointed to dictate how much each man was to drink. Very many unseemly dinner parties must have paved the way for that regulation. A Roman in his cups would've been hard to handle, surly, quarrelsome, dangerous. No doubt there had been banquets without number which had ended in fights, broken furniture, injuries, deaths. Pass a law then, the invariable Roman remedy, to keep drunkenness within bounds. Of course it worked both ways: everybody was obliged to empty the same number of glasses and the temperate man had to drink a great deal more than he wanted, but whenever laws are brought in to regulate the majority who have not abused their liberty for the sake of the minority who have, just such results come to pass. Indeed, any attempt to establish a uniform average in that stubbornly individual phenomenon, human nature, will have only one result that can be foretold with certainty: it will press hardest on the best. ~ Edith Hamilton,

467:And what thoughts or memories, would you guess, were passing through my mind on this extraordinary occasion? Was I thinking of the Sibyl's prophecy, of the omen of the wolf-cub, of Pollio's advice, or of Briseis's dream? Of my grandfather and liberty? Of my grandfather and liberty? Of my three Imperial predecessors, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, their lives and deaths? Of the great danger I was still in from the conspirators, and from the Senate, and from the Gaurds battalions at the Camp? Of Messalina and our unborn child? Of my grandmother Livia and my promise to deify her if I ever became Emperor? Of Postumus and Germanicus? Of Agrippina and Nero? Of Camilla? No, you would never guess what was passing through my mind. But I shall be frank and tell you what it was, though the confession is a shameful one. I was thinking, 'So, I'm Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now. Public recitals to large audiences. And good books too, thirty-five years' hard work in them. It wont be unfair. Pollio used to get attentive audiences by giving expensive dinners. He was a very sound historian, and the last of the Romans. My history of Carthage is full of amusing anecdotes. I'm sure that they'll enjoy it. ~ Robert Graves,

468:In the thirty-third year of the reign of Augustus, a Jewish rebel named Judas the Galilean rose up and led a revolt against Rome. The Roman governor had ordered a census of Judea in order to increase their taxes. Judas and a fellow Pharisee, Zadok, were driven by a holy zeal for the Law of God and used as their model of inspiration the Maccabean revolt of a hundred and seventy years earlier. Jews had a particular animosity toward censuses because they felt it was an encroachment upon Yahweh’s right to number his people and upon his ownership of the land. Judas considered armed rebellion the only option for faithful Jews and even started a slogan, “No king but God.” “Caesar” was Latin for emperor or universal king. Such slogans were therefore a denial of the emperor’s universal rule. And for Romans, such insurrection would not be tolerated. Judas gained two thousand followers, but was ultimately defeated in Sepphoris when the Romans sacked the city. They crucified all the rebels on poles along the thoroughfares of Galilee as a warning sign for the disobedient. The Imperial legions were not known for respecting innocent civilians and killed too many of them as collateral damage in their frenzied retribution. Demas’s parents were among the victims of this barbarous atrocity. ~ Brian Godawa,

469:Again starting with an unusual Y-chromosome, they noticed its occurrence in a related set of surnames that were linked to branches of the Ui Neill, the clan that had held the High Kingship at Tara, and had expelled the Dál Riata to Argyll. The Ui Neill equivalent of Somerled was Niall Noigiallach, better known as Niall of the Nine Hostages, who lived in the second half of the fourth century AD. This was a time when the Romans were beginning to withdraw from mainland Britain. According to legend, Niall raided and harassed western Britain and specialized in capturing and then ransoming high-ranking hostages, hence his soubriquet. His most famous captive was one Succat, who went on to become St Patrick. Niall’s military exploits carried him over the sea to Scotland, where he fought the Picts who were trying to retake the recent Irish colonies of Dalriada. It was during a raid even further afield, in France, that an arrow from the bow of an Irish rival killed Niall on the banks of the River Loire in AD 405. Niall was succeeded in the High Kingship by his nephew, Dathi, his father’s brother’s son. This was typical of the Gaelic tradition of derbhfine, the rules of inheritance that chose the new king from among the direct male relatives of the old. This served to ensure the patrilineal inheritance of the High Kingship itself ~ Bryan Sykes,

470:The Displeasure Of Selefkidis Dimitrios Selefkidis was displeased to learn that a Ptolemy had reached Italy in such a squalid state: poorly dressed and on foot, only three or four slaves. This way their dynasty will become a joke, the laughter of Rome. Selefkidis of course knows that basically even now they've become something like servants to the Romans; he also knows that the Romans give and take away their thrones arbitrarily, as they please. But they should maintain a certain dignity at least in their appearance; they shouldn't forget that they are still kings, are still (alas) called kings. This is why Dimitrios Selefkidis was displeased; and right away he offered Ptolemy purple robes, a magnificent diadem, precious jewels, numerous servants and retainers, his most expensive horses, so that he might present himself at Rome as he should, as an Alexandrian Greek monarch. But Ptolemy, who'd come to beg, knew his business and refused it all: he didn't have the slightest need for these luxuries. Shabbily dressed, humble, he entered Rome, put himself up in the house of a minor artisan, and then presented himself as a poor, ill-fated creature to the Senate in order to make his begging more effective. ~ Constantine P. Cavafy,

471:The Roman general wanted to spare Archimedes, because he was so valuable—sort of like the Einstein of the ancient world—but some stupid Roman soldier killed him.” “There you go again,” Hazel muttered. “Stupid and Roman don’t always go together, Leo.” Frank grunted agreement. “How do you know all this, anyway?” he demanded. “Is there a Spanish tour guide around here?” “No, man,” Leo said. “You can’t be a demigod who’s into building stuff and not know about Archimedes. The guy was seriously elite. He calculated the value of pi. He did all this math stuff we still use for engineering. He invented a hydraulic screw that could move water through pipes.” Hazel scowled. “A hydraulic screw. Excuse me for not knowing about that awesome achievement.” “He also built a death ray made of mirrors that could burn enemy ships,” Leo said. “Is that awesome enough for you?” “I saw something about that on TV,” Frank admitted. “They proved it didn’t work.” “Ah, that’s just because modern mortals don’t know how to use Celestial bronze,” Leo said. “That’s the key. Archimedes also invented a massive claw that could swing on a crane and pluck enemy ships out of the water.” “Okay, that’s cool,” Frank admitted. “I love grabber-arm games.” “Well, there you go,” Leo said. “Anyway, all his inventions weren’t enough. The Romans destroyed his city. Archimedes was killed. ~ Rick Riordan,

472:Rome was not the first state of organized gangsterdom, nor was it the last; but it was the only one that managed to bamboozle posterity into an almost universal admiration. Few rational men admire the Huns, the Nazis or the Soviets; but for centuries, schoolboys have been expected to read Julius Caesar's militaristic drivel ("We inflicted heavy losses upon the enemy, our own casualties being very light") and Cato's revolting incitements to war. They have been led to believe that the Romans had attained an advanced level in the sciences, the arts, law, architecture, engineering and everything else. It is my opinion that the alleged Roman achievements are largely a myth; and I feel it is time for this myth to be debunked a little. What the Romans excelled in was bullying, bludgeoning, butchering and blood baths. Like the Soviet Empire, the Roman Empire enslaved peoples whose cultural level was far above their own. They not only ruthlessly vandalized their countries, but they also looted them, stealing their art treasures, abducting their scientists and copying their technical know-how, which the Romans' barren society was rarely able to improve on. No wonder, then, that Rome was filled with great works of art. But the light of culture which Rome is supposed to have emanated was a borrowed light: borrowed from the Greeks and the other peoples that the Roman militarists had enslaved. ~ Petr Beckmann,

473:The Prince who establishes himself in a Province whose laws and language differ from those of his own people, ought also to make himself the head and protector of his feebler neighbours, and endeavour to weaken the stronger, and must see that by no accident shall any other stranger as powerful as himself find an entrance there. For it will always happen that some such person will be called in by those of the Province who are discontented either through ambition or fear; as we see of old the Romans brought into Greece by the Aetolians, and in every other country that they entered, invited there by its inhabitants. And the usual course of things is that so soon as a formidable stranger enters a Province, all the weaker powers side with him, moved thereto by the ill-will they bear towards him who has hitherto kept them in subjection. So that in respect of these lesser powers, no trouble is needed to gain them over, for at once, together, and of their own accord, they throw in their lot with the government of the stranger. The new Prince, therefore, has only to see that they do not increase too much in strength, and with his own forces, aided by their good will, can easily subdue any who are powerful, so as to remain supreme in the Province. He who does not manage this matter well, will soon lose whatever he has gained, and while he retains it will find in it endless troubles and annoyances. ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

474:AUGUSTINE. (Ep. 199, 46.) But that this preaching the Gospel of the kingdom in all the world was accomplished by the Apostles, we have not any certain evidence, to prove. There are numberless barbarous nations in Africa, among whom the Gospel is not even yet preached, as it is easy to learn from the prisoners who are brought from thence. But it cannot be said that these have no part in the promise of God. For God promised with an oath not the Romans only, but all nations to the seed of Abraham. But in whatever nation there is yet no Church established, it must needs be that there should be one, not that all the people should believe; for how then should that be fulfilled, Ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake, unless there be in all nations those who hate and those; who are hated? That preaching therefore was not accomplished by the Apostles, while as yet there were nations among whom it had not begun to be fulfilled. The words of the Apostle also, Their sound hath gone out into all the world, though expressed as of time past, are meant to apply to something future, not yet completed; as the Prophet, whose words he quotes, said that the Gospel bore fruit and grew in the whole world (Ps. 19:4.), to shew thereby to what extent its growth should come. If then we know not when it shall be that the whole world shall be filled with the Gospel, undoubtedly we know not when the end shall be; but it shall not be before such time. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas,

475:HOW ENGLISH BECAME A DOUBLE LANGUAGE After the Romans conquered England in the first century AD, they hired German and Scandinavian mercenaries from Anglia and Saxony to help fend off pirates and put down rebellions by the native Picts and Celts. When the Roman Empire abandoned England in 410 AD, more Anglo-Saxons migrated to the island, marginalizing the Gallic-speaking Celts, wiping out the Latin of the Romans, and imposing their Germanic tongue throughout England. But 600 years later Latin came back this roundabout way: In 911 AD Danish Vikings conquered territory along the north coast of France and named it after themselves, Normandy, land of the Norsemen. After 150 years of marriage to French women, these Danes spoke what their mothers spoke, a thousand-year-old French dialect of Latin. In 1066 King Wilhelm of Normandy (a.k.a. William the Conqueror) led his armies across the English Channel and defeated the English king. With that victory, French came to England. Throughout history, foreign conquests usually erase native languages. But England was the exception. For some mysterious reason, the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons and the Latinate French of the Normans merged. As a result, the vocabulary of what became modern English doubled. English has at least two words for everything. Compare, for example, the Germanic-rooted words “fire,” “hand,” “tip,” “ham,” and “flow” to the French-derived words “flame,” “palm,” “point,” “pork,” and “fluid. ~ Robert McKee,

476:From the beginning of the nineteenth century until Hiroshima, strategic thought was dominated by post-Napoleonic, Clausewitzian notions, and these notions have pervaded the thinking of many whose primary interests are far from removed from military matters. In their crude, popularized form, these ideas stress a particular form of war, conflicts between nationalities; they stress the primacy and desirability of offensive warfare in pursuit of decisive results (thus inspiring an aversion to defensive strategies); and they imply a sharp distinction between the state of peace and the state of war. Finally, these ideas accord primacy to the active use of military force, as opposed to the use of images of force, for the purposes of diplomatic coercion. Only since 1945 has the emergence of new technologies of mass destruction invalidated the fundamental assumptions of the Clausewitzian approach to grand strategy. We, like the Romans, face the prospect not of decisive conflict, but of a permanent state of war, albeit limited. We, like the Romans, must actively protect an advanced society against a variety of threats rather than concentrate on destroying the forces of our enemies in battle. Above all, the nature of modern weapons requires that we avoid their use while nevertheless striving to exploit their full diplomatic potential. The revolutionary implications of these fundamental changes are as yet only dimly understood. It is not surprising, therefore, that even contemporary research on Roman military history is still pervaded by an anachronistic strategic outlook. ~ Edward N Luttwak,

477:With the term vita activa, I propose to designate three fundamental human activities: labor, work, and action. They are fundamental because each corresponds to one of the basic conditions under which life on earth has been given to man. Labor is the activity which corresponds to the biological process of the human body, whose spontaneous growth, metabolism, and eventual decay are bound to the vital necessities produced and fed into the life process by labor. The human condition of labor is life itself. Work is the activity which corresponds to the unnaturalness of human existence, which is not imbedded in, and whose mortality is not compensated by, the species’ ever-recurring life cycle. Work provides an “artificial” world of things, distinctly different from all natural surroundings. Within its borders each individual life is housed, while this world itself is meant to outlast and transcend them all. The human condition of work is worldliness. Action, the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter, corresponds to the human condition of plurality, to the fact that men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world. While all aspects of the human condition are somehow related to politics, this plurality is specifically the condition—not only the conditio sine qua non, but the conditio per quam—of all political life. Thus the language of the Romans, perhaps the most political people we have known, used the words “to live” and “to be among men” (inter homines esse) or “to die” and “to cease to be among men” (inter homines esse desinere) as synonyms. ~ Hannah Arendt,

478:The most wonderful thing of all about the cross is that it reveals the love of God to us. It is not surprising that Paul should say to the Romans, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How do we see the love of God in the cross? Ah, says the modern man, I see it in this way, that though man rejected and murdered the Son of God, God in His love still says, "All right, I still forgive you. Though you have done that to My Son, I still forgive you." Yes, that is part of it, but it is the smallest part of it. That is not the real love of God. God was not a passive spectator of the death of His Son. That is how the moderns put it - that God in heaven looked down upon it all, saw men killing His own Son, and said, "All right, I will still forgive you." But it was not we who brought God's Son to the cross. It was God. It was the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of God. If you really want to know what the love of God means, read what Paul wrote to the Romans: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." God condemned sin in the flesh of His own Son. This is the love of God. Read again Isaiah 53, that wonderful prophecy of what happened on Calvary's hill. You notice how he goes on repeating it: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows... it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." These are the terms. And they are nothing but a plain, factual description of what happened on the cross. ~ D Martyn Lloyd Jones,

479:The same effort to conserve force was also evident in war, at the tactical level. The ideal Roman general was not a figure in the heroic style, leading his troops in a reckless charge to victory or death. He would rather advance in a slow and carefully prepared march, building supply roads behind him and fortified camps each night in order to avoid the unpredictable risks of rapid maneuver. He preferred to let the enemy retreat into fortified positions rather than accept the inevitable losses of open warfare, and he would wait to starve out the enemy in a prolonged siege rather than suffer great casualties in taking the fortifications by storm. Overcoming the spirit of a culture still infused with Greek martial ideals (that most reckless of men, Alexander the Great, was actually an object of worship in many Roman households), the great generals of Rome were noted for their extreme caution. It is precisely this aspect of Roman tactics (in addition to the heavy reliance on combat engineering) that explains the relentless quality of Roman armies on the move, as well as their peculiar resilience in adversity: the Romans won their victories slowly, but they were very hard to defeat. Just as the Romans had apparently no need of a Clausewitz to subject their military energies to the discipline of political goals, it seems that they had no need of modern analytical techniques either. Innocent of the science of systems analysis, the Romans nevertheless designed and built large and complex security systems that successfully integrated troop deployments, fixed defenses, road networks, and signaling links in a coherent whole. ~ Edward N Luttwak,

480:In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith recalls a story from Plutarch’s Lives that may shed light on my friend’s inability to quit his job. It’s the story of Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, a region of Greece. Pyrrhus is planning an attack on Rome. His trusted adviser, Cineas—Smith him calls the king’s “favorite”—thinks it’s a bad idea. Cineas is an impressive guy, a brilliant wordsmith and negotiator whom the king often uses to represent himself. But even though he has the trust and ear of the king, it’s usually not a great idea to tell the king he’s making a mistake, even when you’re a favorite of his, so Cineas takes a roundabout approach. Here’s how Cineas begins in Plutarch’s version: “The Romans, sir, are reported to be great warriors and conquerors of many warlike nations; if God permits us to overcome them, how should we use our victory?” Well, says Pyrrhus, once we conquer Rome, we’ll be able to subdue all of Italy. And then what? asks Cineas. Sicily would be conquered next. And then what? asks Cineas. Libya and Carthage would be next to fall. And then what? asks Cineas. Then all of Greece, says the king. And what shall we do then? asks Cineas. Pyrrhus answers, smiling: “We will live at our ease, my dear friend, and drink all day, and divert ourselves with pleasant conversation.”   Then Cineas brings down the hammer on the king: “And what hinders Your Majesty from doing so now?” We have all the tools of contentment at hand already. You don’t have to conquer Italy to enjoy the fundamental pleasures of life. Stay human and subdue the rat within. Life’s not a race. It’s a journey to savor and enjoy. Ambition—the relentless desire for more—can eat you up. ~ Russ Roberts,

481:In fact, Hinduisms pervading influence seems to go much earlier than Christianity. American mathematician, A. Seindenberg, has for example shown that the Sulbasutras, the ancient Vedic science of mathematics, constitute the source of mathematics in the Antic world, from Babylon to Greece : the arithmetic equations of the Sulbasutras he writes, were used in the observation of the triangle by the Babylonians, as well as in the edification of Egyptian pyramids, in particular the funeral altar in form of pyramid known in the vedic world as smasana-cit (Seindenberg 1978: 329). In astronomy too, the "Indus" (from the valley of the Indus) have left a universal legacy, determining for instance the dates of solstices, as noted by 18th century French astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly : the movement of stars which was calculated by Hindus 4500 years ago, does not differ even by a minute from the tables which we are using today". And he concludes: "the Hindu systems of astronomy are much more ancient than those of the Egyptians - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge . There is also no doubt that the Greeks heavily borrowed from the "Indus". Danielou notes that the Greek cult of Dionysos, which later became Bacchus with the Romans, is a branch of Shivaism : Greeks spoke of India as the sacred territory of Dionysos and even historians of Alexander the Great identified the Indian Shiva with Dionysos and mention the dates and legends of the Puranas . French philosopher and Le Monde journalist Jean-Paul Droit, recently wrote in his book "The Forgetfulness of India" that the Greeks loved so much Indian philosophy, that Demetrios Galianos had even translated the Bhagavad Gita . ~ Fran ois Gautier,

482:Mithras is a Persian light and warrior god adopted by the Roman army as their tutelary deity.  His name means “Friend”.  Mithras was the emissary of Ahura Mazda, the supreme power of good, who battled Ahriman, the supreme evil.  Mithras slew the divine bull to release its life-giving blood into the earth, and creatures that served Ahriman like scorpions and serpents tried to stop this happening. Mithras was often depicted with a pointed cap, and a number of reliefs show him in the act of slaying the bull.  As a solar god he was directly equated to Sol Invictus by the Romans, as can be seen from inscriptions.[469]  Twelve inscriptions to him have been found to date.[470] There were seven grades in the Mithraic mysteries, which were only open to free men.  The Mithraic cult was highly tolerant of other deities, as is evidences by depictions of other gods in the shrines.  Also as the soldier god, priesthoods were known to bring their statues to the Mithraea (temples) for protection when danger threatened. The Mithraea were usually small, and have preserved their mysteries to an extent as little writing remains from them.  A relief from Housesteads (Northumberland) shows Mithras bearing a sword and spear rising from an egg, surrounded by a hoop depicting the signs of the zodiac.  A silver amulet found at St Albans similarly depicts Mithras rising from a pile of stones.  More commonly images on altars showed him sacrificing a bull, such as at Rudchester (Northumberland), Carrawburgh (Northumberland) and the London Mithraeum.  There are now five known Mithraea in Britain, those at Caernarvon, Carrawburgh, Housesteads, London and Rudchester.  Of these all were purely military apart from the London Mithraea.  ~ David Rankine,

483:For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousand-fold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival; and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken: the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous condition of things. First concord was weakened, and destroyed by fierce and bloody seditions; then followed, by a concatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, which brought in their train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and cruel proscription and plunder, that those Romans who, in the days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of rule, which with other vices existed among the Romans in more unmitigated intensity than among any other people, after it had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,

484:Darius The poet Phernazis is composing the important part of his epic poem. How Darius, son of Hystaspes, assumed the kingdom of the Persians. (From him is descended our glorious king Mithridates, Dionysus and Eupator). But here philosophy is needed; he must analyze the sentiments that Darius must have had: maybe arrogance and drunkenness; but no -- rather like an understanding of the vanity of grandeurs. The poet contemplates the matter deeply. But he is interrupted by his servant who enters running, and announces the portendous news. The war with the Romans has begun. The bulk of our army has crossed the borders. The poet is speechless. What a disaster! No time now for our glorious king Mithridates, Dionysus and Eupator, to occupy himself with greek poems. In the midst of a war -- imagine, greek poems. Phernazis is impatient. Misfortune! Just when he was positive that with "Darius" he would distinguish himself, and shut the mouths of his critics, the envious ones, for good. What a delay, what a delay to his plans. And if it were only a delay, it would still be all right. But it yet remains to be seen if we have any security at Amisus. It is not a strongly fortified city. The Romans are the most horrible enemies. Can we hold against them we Cappadocians? It is possible at all? It is possible to pit ourselves against the legions? Mighty Gods, protectors of Asia, help us.-But in all his turmoil and trouble, 34 the poetic idea too comes and goes persistently-the most probable, surely, is arrogance and drunkenness; Darius must have felt arrogance and drunkenness. ~ Constantine P. Cavafy,

485:The division of Europe into a number of independent states, connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies. The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in rome and the senate, or to were out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen bank of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive. "Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror. ~ Edward Gibbon,

486:The Sublician is the oldest of our bridges, although it has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The very name refers to the heavy timbers of which it was once built, but the present bridge is of stone. For many generations it was the only bridge over the Tiber at Rome, because the Etruscans lived on the other bank, and Rome was strong enough to defend only one bridge at a time. The most famous story concerning the bridge is the one about Horatius Cocles, who is said to have held off the army of Lars Porsena single-handed while the Romans dismantled the bridge behind him. There are several versions of this celebrated tale. In one of them, Horatius is simply the point man of a wedge of Romans. In another, he held the bridge with two companions, who fell at his side before the bridge was destroyed. In a third, Horatius held the bridge alone right from the first. Personally, I think only the first version has any truth to it. I have been in many battles and skirmishes and played a heroic part in none of them. But I have seen last-ditch stands and delaying actions in plenty, and I have never seen a place, however narrow, that could be defended against an army by a single man for more than a minute or so. No matter how strong and skillful you are, while one man engages you, somebody else can always thrust a spear over the rim of your shield. And then there are the arrows and sling-stones that always fly about in such profusion when men thirst for one another’s blood. Supposedly, when the bridge was destroyed, Horatius somehow found leisure to address a prayer to Tiberinus, god of the river, and leaped in fully armed and swam across to great applause, to be rewarded richly by the citizenry. Another version has him drowning, which is what usually happens when a man in armor finds himself in deep water. ~ John Maddox Roberts,

487:Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset, There must be one (which, I am not sure) That I by now have walked for the last time Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws, Sets up a secret and unwavering scale for all the shadows, dreams, and forms Woven into the texture of this life. If there is a limit to all things and a measure And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness, Who will tell us to whom in this house We without knowing it have said farewell? Through the dawning window night withdraws And among the stacked books which throw Irregular shadows on the dim table, There must be one which I will never read. There is in the South more than one worn gate, With its cement urns and planted cactus, Which is already forbidden to my entry, Inaccessible, as in a lithograph. There is a door you have closed forever And some mirror is expecting you in vain; To you the crossroads seem wide open, Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus. There is among all your memories one Which has now been lost beyond recall. You will not be seen going down to that fountain Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon. You will never recapture what the Persian Said in his language woven with birds and roses, When, in the sunset, before the light disperses, You wish to give words to unforgettable things. And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake, All that vast yesterday over which today I bend? They will be as lost as Carthage, Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt. At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent Murmur of crowds milling and fading away; They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by; Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,

488:Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset, There must be one (which, I am not sure) That I by now have walked for the last time Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws, Sets up a secret and unwavering scale for all the shadows, dreams, and forms Woven into the texture of this life. If there is a limit to all things and a measure And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness, Who will tell us to whom in this house We without knowing it have said farewell? Through the dawning window night withdraws And among the stacked books which throw Irregular shadows on the dim table, There must be one which I will never read. There is in the South more than one worn gate, With its cement urns and planted cactus, Which is already forbidden to my entry, Inaccessible, as in a lithograph. There is a door you have closed forever And some mirror is expecting you in vain; To you the crossroads seem wide open, Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus. There is among all your memories one Which has now been lost beyond recall. You will not be seen going down to that fountain Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon. You will never recapture what the Persian Said in his language woven with birds and roses, When, in the sunset, before the light disperses, You wish to give words to unforgettable things. And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake, All that vast yesterday over which today I bend? They will be as lost as Carthage, Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt. At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent Murmur of crowds milling and fading away; They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by; Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, Limits ,

489:The emergence of society—the rise of housekeeping, its activities, problems, and organizational devices—from the shadowy interior of the household into the light of the public sphere, has not only blurred the old borderline between private and political, it has also changed almost beyond recognition the meaning of the two terms and their significance for the life of the individual and the citizen. Not only would we not agree with the Greeks that a life spent in the privacy of “one’s own” (idion), outside the world of the common, is “idiotic” by definition, or with the Romans to whom privacy offered but a temporary refuge from the business of the res publica; we call private today a sphere of intimacy whose beginnings we may be able to trace back to late Roman, though hardly to any period of Greek antiquity, but whose peculiar manifoldness and variety were certainly unknown to any period prior to the modern age. This is not merely a matter of shifted emphasis. In ancient feeling the privative trait of privacy, indicated in the word itself, was all-important; it meant literally a state of being deprived of something, and even of the highest and most human of man’s capacities. A man who lived only a private life, who like the slave was not permitted to enter the public realm, or like the barbarian had chosen not to establish such a realm, was not fully human. We no longer think primarily of deprivation when we use the word “privacy,” and this is partly due to the enormous enrichment of the private sphere through modern individualism. However, it seems even more important that modern privacy is at least as sharply opposed to the social realm—unknown to the ancients who considered its content a private matter—as it is to the political, properly speaking. The decisive historical fact is that modern privacy in its most relevant function, to shelter the intimate, was discovered as the opposite not of the political sphere but of the social, to which it is therefore more closely and authentically related. The ~ Hannah Arendt,

490:Then there is Roman engineering: the Roman roads, aqueducts, the Colosseum. Warfare, alas, has always been beneficial to engineering. Yet there are unmistakeable trends in the engineering of the gamgster states. In a healthy society, engineering design gets smarter and smarter; in gangster states, it gets bigger and bigger. In World War II, the democracies produced radar and split the atom; German basic research was far behind in these fields and devoted its efforts to projects like lenses so bog they could burn Britain, and bells so big that their sound would be lethal. (The lenses never got off the drawing board, and the bells, by the end of the war, would kill mice in a bath tub.) Roman engineering, too, was void of all subtlety. Roman roads ran absolutely straight; when they came to a mountain, they ran over the top of the mountain as pigheadedly as one of Stalin's frontal assaults. Greek soldiers used to adapt their camps to the terrain; but the Roman army, at the end of a days' march, would invariably set up exactly the same camp, no matter whether in the Alps or in Egypt. If the terrain did not correspond to the one and only model decreed by the military bureaucracy, so much the worse for the terrain; it was dug up until it fitted inti the Roman Empire. The Roman aqueducts were bigger than those that had been used centuries earlier in the ancient world; but they were administered with extremely poor knowledge of hydraulics. Long after Heron of Alexandria (1st Century A.D.) had designed water clocks, water turbines and two-cylinder water pumps, and had written works on these subjects, the Romans were still describing the performance of their aqueducts in terms of the quinaria, a measure of the cross-section of the flow, as if the volume of the flow did not also depend on its velocity. The same unit was used in charging users of large pipes tapping the aqueduct; the Roman engineers failed to realize that doubling the cross-section would more than double the flow of water. Heron could never have blundered like this. ~ Petr Beckmann,

491:Excellence itself, aretē as the Greeks, virtus as the Romans would have called it, has always been assigned to the public realm where one could excel, could distinguish oneself from all others. Every activity performed in public can attain an excellence never matched in privacy; for excellence, by definition, the presence of others is always required, and this presence needs the formality of the public, constituted by one’s peers, it cannot be the casual, familiar presence of one’s equals or inferiors.40 Not even the social realm—though it made excellence anonymous, emphasized the progress of mankind rather than the achievements of men, and changed the content of the public realm beyond recognition—has been able altogether to annihilate the connection between public performance and excellence. While we have become excellent in the laboring we perform in public, our capacity for action and speech has lost much of its former quality since the rise of the social realm banished these into the sphere of the intimate and the private. This curious discrepancy has not escaped public notice, where it is usually blamed upon an assumed time lag between our technical capacities and our general humanistic development or between the physical sciences, which change and control nature, and the social sciences, which do not yet know how to change and control society. Quite apart from other fallacies of the argument which have been pointed out so frequently that we need not repeat them, this criticism concerns only a possible change in the psychology of human beings—their so-called behavior patterns—not a change of the world they move in. And this psychological interpretation, for which the absence or presence of a public realm is as irrelevant as any tangible, worldly reality, seems rather doubtful in view of the fact that no activity can become excellent if the world does not provide a proper space for its exercise. Neither education nor ingenuity nor talent can replace the constituent elements of the public realm, which make it the proper place for human excellence. 7 ~ Hannah Arendt,

492:The Latin Church, which I constantly find myself admiring, despite its occasional astounding imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it the fact that religion is not a syllogism, but a poem. It is accused by Protestant dervishes of withholding the Bible from the people. To some extent this is true; to some extent the church is wise; again to the same extent it is prosperous. ... Rome indeed has not only preserved the original poetry of Christianity; it has also made capital additions to that poetry -- for example, the poetry of the saints, of Mary, and of the liturgy itself. A solemn high mass is a thousand times as impressive, to a man with any genuine religious sense in him, as the most powerful sermon ever roared under the big top by Presbyterian auctioneer of God. In the face of such overwhelming beauty it is not necessary to belabor the faithful with logic; they are better convinced by letting them alone. Preaching is not an essential part of the Latin ceremonial. It was very little employed in the early church, and I am convinced that good effects would flow from abandoning it today, or, at all events, reducing it to a few sentences, more or less formal. In the United States the Latin brethren have been seduced by the example of the Protestants, who commonly transform an act of worship into a puerile intellectual exercise; instead of approaching God in fear and wonder these Protestants settle back in their pews, cross their legs, and listen to an ignoramus try to prove that he is a better theologian than the Pope. This folly the Romans now slide into. Their clergy begin to grow argumentative, doctrinaire, ridiculous. It is a pity. A bishop in his robes, playing his part in the solemn ceremonial of the mass, is a dignified spectacle; the same bishop, bawling against Darwin half an hour later, is seen to be simply an elderly Irishman with a bald head, the son of a respectable police sergeant in South Bend, Ind. Let the reverend fathers go back to Bach. If they keep on spoiling poetry and spouting ideas, the day will come when some extra-bombastic deacon will astound humanity and insult God by proposing to translate the liturgy into American, that all the faithful may be convinced by it. ~ H L Mencken,

493:Someone who doesn’t know. There are lots of people who don’t, in other countries.” “If they come here, you’d think they’d learn,” she said. “It’s stupid to go somewhere and wander around offending their gods and people.” “He was Roman,” I said. Dion snorted. “Which means he didn’t care.” We looked at him, and he went on. “That’s what my father says. He says the Romans don’t care anything for the customs of other people, and that they don’t even want other people to worship their own gods. That the worst thing that can happen to a people is to come under Roman rule.” “Why would you care who your subjects worship?” Cleopatra said practically. “As long as they pay their taxes and don’t rebel? I mean, most people worship Isis and Serapis at least some, but if they don’t it’s not like there’s anything bad that happens to them.” “Like the Jews,” I said, thinking of the most prominent group that didn’t worship Isis and Serapis. Jews had been in Alexandria forever, but there never had been any kind of problem with them. Dion nodded. He looked very serious. “Since Rome annexed Judea four years ago, lots and lots more Jews have come to Alexandria. Haven’t you noticed?” I hadn’t, but didn’t say so. I didn’t know a huge amount about Judea, truth to tell, though of course I knew about Queen Salome, who had only died seven years before and had been the most powerful queen in generations. Since her death, her country had fallen into all kinds of disarray. “The Roman Pompeius Magnus even went into the Temple, into the Holy of Holies,” Dion said. “It was his way of showing that he could do whatever he wanted.” That was serious, I thought. Almost all temples had an inner sanctum, where no one but priests were allowed. It was horribly blasphemous for anyone else to go in, and it certainly would never have occurred to Auletes to do it, even in the temples of our own gods. And it’s always a bad idea to offend other people’s gods. You never knew what might happen. Cleopatra must have been thinking the same thing. “What happened?” she asked. Dion shrugged. “Jews hate Pompeius. And lots and lots have come to Alexandria since then, bringing their money and their crafts.” “And so their economy is hurt and ours benefits, ~ Jo Graham,

494:Archaic societies have lasted so long because they know nothing of the desire to innovate, to grovel before ever-new simulacra. If you change images with each generation, you cannot anticipate historical longevity. Classical Greece and modern Europe typify civilisations stricken by a precocious death, following a greed for metamorphosis and an excessive consumption of gods, and of the surrogates for gods. Ancient China and Egypt wallowed for millennia in a magnificent sclerosis. As did African societies, before contact with the West. They too are threatened, because they have adopted another rhythm. Having lost the monopoly on stagnation, they grow increasingly frantic and will inevitably topple like their models, like those feverish civilisations incapable of lasting more than a dozen centuries. In the future, the peoples who accede to hegemony will enjoy it even less: history in slow motion has inexorably been replaced by history out of breath. Who can help regretting the pharaohs and their Chinese colleagues? Institutions, societies, civilisations differ in duration and significance, yet all are subject to one and the same law, which decrees that the invincible impulse, the factor of their rise, must sag and settle after a certain time, this decadence corresponding to a slackening of that energiser which is . . . delirium. Compared with periods of expansion, of dementia really, those of decline seem sane and are so, are too much so—which makes them almost as deadly as the others. A nation that has fulfilled itself, that has expended its talents and exploited the last resources of its genius, expiates such success by producing nothing thereafter. It has done its duty, it aspires to vegetate, but to its cost it will not have the latitude to do so. When the Romans—or what remained of them—sought repose, the Barbarians got under way, en masse. We read in a history of the invasions that the German tribes serving in the Empire’s army and administration assumed Latin names until the middle of the fifth century. After which, Germanic names became a requirement. Exhausted, in retreat on every front, the masters were no longer feared, no longer respected. What was the use of bearing their names? “A fatal somnolence reigned everywhere,” observed Salvian, bittersweet censor of the ancient deliquescence in its final stages. ~ Emil M Cioran,

495:It's a queer thing is a man's soul. It is the whole of him. Which means it is the unknown him, as well as the known. It seems to me just funny, professors and Benjamins fixing the functions of the soul. Why, the soul of man is a vast forest, and all Benjamin intended was a neat back garden. And we've all got to fit into his kitchen garden scheme of things. Hail Columbia ! The soul of man is a dark forest. The Hercynian Wood that scared the Romans so, and out of which came the white- skinned hordes of the next civilization. Who knows what will come out of the soul of man? The soul of man is a dark vast forest, with wild life in it. Think of Benjamin fencing it off! Oh, but Benjamin fenced a little tract that he called the soul of man, and proceeded to get it into cultivation. Providence, forsooth! And they think that bit of barbed wire is going to keep us in pound for ever? More fools they. ... Man is a moral animal. All right. I am a moral animal. And I'm going to remain such. I'm not going to be turned into a virtuous little automaton as Benjamin would have me. 'This is good, that is bad. Turn the little handle and let the good tap flow,' saith Benjamin, and all America with him. 'But first of all extirpate those savages who are always turning on the bad tap.' I am a moral animal. But I am not a moral machine. I don't work with a little set of handles or levers. The Temperance- silence-order- resolution-frugality-industry-sincerity - justice- moderation-cleanliness-tranquillity-chastity-humility keyboard is not going to get me going. I'm really not just an automatic piano with a moral Benjamin getting tunes out of me. Here's my creed, against Benjamin's. This is what I believe: 'That I am I.' ' That my soul is a dark forest.' 'That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.' 'Thatgods, strange gods, come forth f rom the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.' ' That I must have the courage to let them come and go.' ' That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.' There is my creed. He who runs may read. He who prefers to crawl, or to go by gasoline, can call it rot. ~ D H Lawrence,

496:Then someone else appeared from the crowd, and Annabeth's vision tunneled. Percy smiled at her-that sarcastic, troublemaker's smile that had annoyed her for years but eventually had become endearing. His sea-green eyes were as gorgeous as she remembered. His dark hair was swept to one side, like he'd just come from a walk on the beach. He looked even better than he had six months ago-tanner and taller, leaner and more muscular. Annabeth was to stunned to move. She felt that if she got any closer to him, all the molecules in her body might combust. She'd secretly had a crush on him sonar they were twelve years old. Last summer, she'd fallen for him hard. They'd been a happy couple together for four months-and then he'd disappeared. During their separation, something had happened to Annabeth's feelings. They'd grown painfully intense-like she'd been forced to withdraw from a life-saving medication. Now she wasn't sure which was more excruciating-living with that horrible absence, or being with him again... Annabeth didn't mean to, but she surged forward. Percy rushed toward her at the same time. The crowds tensed. Some reach d for swords that weren't there. Percy threw his arms around her. They kissed, and for a moment nothing else mattered. An asteroid could have hit the planet and wiped out all life, Annabeth wouldn't have cared. Percy smelled of ocean air. His lips were salty. Seaweed Brain, she thought giddily. Percy pulled away and studied her face. "Gods, I never thought-" Annabeth grabbed his wrist and flipped him over her shoulder. He slammed into the stone pavement. Romans cried out. Some surged forward, but Reyna shouted, "Hold! Stand down!" Annabeth put her knee on Percy's chest. She pushed her forearm against his throat. She didn't care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest-a tumor of worry and bitterness that she'd been carrying around since last autumn. "Of you ever leave me again," she said, her eyes stinging, "I swear to all the gods-" Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth. "Consider me warned," Percy said. "I missed you, too." Annabeth rose and helped him to his feet. She wanted to kiss him again SO badly, but she managed to restrain herself. Jason cleared his throat. "So, yeah…It's good to be back…" "And this is Annabeth," Jason said. "Uh, normally she doesn't judo-flip people. ~ Rick Riordan,

497:claque, aka canned laughter It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s nothing new under the sun (a heavenly body, by the way, that some Indian ascetics stare at till they go blind). I knew that some things had a history—the Constitution, rhythm and blues, Canada—but it’s the odd little things that surprise me with their storied past. This first struck me when I was reading about anesthetics and I learned that, in the early 1840s, it became fashionable to hold parties where guests would inhale nitrous oxide out of bladders. In other words, Whip-it parties! We held the exact same kind of parties in high school. We’d buy fourteen cans of Reddi-Wip and suck on them till we had successfully obliterated a couple of million neurons and face-planted on my friend Andy’s couch. And we thought we were so cutting edge. And now, I learn about claque, which is essentially a highbrow French word for canned laughter. Canned laughter was invented long before Lucille Ball stuffed chocolates in her face or Ralph Kramden threatened his wife with extreme violence. It goes back to the 4th century B.C., when Greek playwrights hired bands of helpers to laugh at their comedies in order to influence the judges. The Romans also stacked the audience, but they were apparently more interested in applause than chuckles: Nero—emperor and wannabe musician—employed a group of five thousand knights and soldiers to accompany him on his concert tours. But the golden age of canned laughter came in 19th-century France. Almost every theater in France was forced to hire a band called a claque—from claquer, “to clap.” The influential claque leaders, called the chefs de claque, got a monthly payment from the actors. And the brilliant innovation they came up with was specialization. Each claque member had his or her own important job to perform: There were the rieurs, who laughed loudly during comedies. There were the bisseurs, who shouted for encores. There were the commissaires, who would elbow their neighbors and say, “This is the good part.” And my favorite of all, the pleureuses, women who were paid good francs to weep at the sad parts of tragedies. I love this idea. I’m not sure why the networks never thought of canned crying. You’d be watching an ER episode, and a softball player would come in with a bat splinter through his forehead, and you’d hear a little whimper in the background, turning into a wave of sobs. Julie already has trouble keeping her cheeks dry, seeing as she cried during the Joe Millionaire finale. If they added canned crying, she’d be a mess. ~ A J Jacobs,

498:Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things— the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood. ~ Herman Melville,

499:Religion, with its metaphysical error of absolute guilt, dominated the broadest, the cosmic realm. From there, it infiltrated the subordinate realms of biological, social and moral existence with its errors of the absolute and inherited guilt. Humanity, split up into millions of factions, groups, nations and states, lacerated itself with mutual accusations. "The Greeks are to blame," the Romans said, and "The Romans are to blame," the Greeks said. So they warred against one another. "The ancient Jewish priests are to blame," the early Christians shouted. "The Christians have preached the wrong Messiah," the Jews shouted and crucified the harmless Jesus. "The Muslims and Turks and Huns are guilty," the crusaders screamed. "The witches and heretics are to blame," the later Christians howled for centuries, murdering, hanging, torturing and burning heretics. It remains to investigate the sources from which the Jesus legend derives its grandeur, emotional power and perseverance. Let us continue to stay outside this St. Vitus dance. The longer we look around, the crazier it seems. Hundreds of minor patriarchs, self-proclaimed kings and princes, accused one another of this or that sin and made war, scorched the land, brought famine and epidemics to the populations. Later, this became known as "history." And the historians did not doubt the rationality of this history. Gradually the common people appeared on the scene. "The Queen is to blame," the people's representatives shouted, and beheaded the Queen. Howling, the populace danced around the guillotine. From the ranks of the people arose Napoleon. "The Austrians, the Prussians, the Russians are to blame," it was now said. "Napoleon is to blame," came the reply. "The machines are to blame!" the weavers screamed, and "The lumpenproletariat is to blame," sounded back. "The Monarchy is to blame, long live the Constitution!" the burgers shouted. "The middle classes and the Constitution are to blame; wipe them out; long live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat," the proletarian dictators shout, and "The Russians are to blame," is hurled back. "Germany is to blame," the Japanese and the Italians shouted in 1915. "England is to blame," the fathers of the proletarians shouted in 1939. And "Germany is to blame," the self-same fathers shouted in 1942. "Italy, Germany and Japan are to blame," it was said in 1940. It is only by keeping strictly outside this inferno that one can be amazed that the human animal continues to shriek "Guilty!" without doubting its own sanity, without even once asking about the origin of this guilt. Such mass psychoses have an origin and a function. Only human beings who are forced to hide something catastrophic are capable of erring so consistently and punishing so relentlessly any attempt at clarifying such errors. ~ Wilhelm Reich,

500:At the end of this Sabbath encounter with the religious leaders Mark records a remarkable sentence that sums up one of the main themes of the New Testament, “Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.” The Herodians were the supporters of Herod, the nastiest of the corrupt kings who ruled Israel, representing the Roman occupying power and its political system. In any country that the Romans conquered, they set up rulers. And wherever the Romans went, they brought along the culture of Greece—Greek philosophy, the Greek approach to sex and the body, the Greek approach to truth. Conquered societies like Israel felt assaulted by these immoral, cosmopolitan, pagan values. In these countries there were cultural resistance movements; and in Israel that was the Pharisees. They put all their emphasis on living by the teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures and putting up big hedges around themselves to prevent contamination by the pagans. See what was going on? The Herodians were moving with the times, while the Pharisees upheld traditional virtues. The Pharisees believed their society was being overwhelmed with pluralism and paganism, and they were calling for a return to traditional moral values. These two groups had been longtime enemies of each other—but now they agree: They have to get rid of Jesus. These two groups were not used to cooperating, but now they do. In fact, the Pharisees, the religious people, take the lead in doing so. That’s why I say this sentence hints at one of the main themes of the New Testament. The gospel of Jesus Christ is an offense to both religion and irreligion. It can’t be co-opted by either moralism or relativism. The “traditional values” approach to life is moral conformity—the approach taken by the Pharisees. It is that you must lead a very, very good life. The progressive approach, embodied in the Herodians, is self-discovery—you have to decide what is right or wrong for you. And according to the Bible, both of these are ways of being your own savior and lord. Both are hostile to the message of Jesus. And not only that, both lead to self-righteousness. The moralist says, “The good people are in and the bad people are out—and of course we’re the good ones.” The self-discovery person says, “Oh, no, the progressive, open-minded people are in and the judgmental bigots are out—and of course we’re the open-minded ones.” In Western cosmopolitan culture there’s an enormous amount of self-righteousness about self-righteousness. We progressive urbanites are so much better than people who think they’re better than other people. We disdain those religious, moralistic types who look down on others. Do you see the irony, how the way of self-discovery leads to as much superiority and self-righteousness as religion does? The gospel does not say, “the good are in and the bad are out,” nor “the open-minded are in and the judgmental are out.” The gospel says the humble are in and the proud are out. The gospel says the people who know they’re not better, not more open-minded, not more moral than anyone else, are in, and the people who think they’re on the right side of the divide are most in danger. ~ Timothy J Keller,

501:Bob,” she said, “offerings burned in the mortal world appear on this altar, right?” Bob frowned uncomfortably, like he wasn’t ready for a pop quiz. “Yes?” “So what happens if I burn something on the altar here?” “Uh…” “That’s all right,” Annabeth said. “You don’t know. Nobody knows, because it’s never been done.” There was a chance, she thought, just the slimmest chance that an offering burned on this altar might appear at Camp Half-Blood. Doubtful, but if it did work… “Annabeth?” Percy said again. “You’re planning something. You’ve got that I’m-planning-something look.” “I don’t have an I’m-planning-something look.” “Yeah, you totally do. Your eyebrows knit and your lips press together and—” “Do you have a pen?” she asked him. “You’re kidding, right?” He brought out Riptide. “Yes, but can you actually write with it?” “I—I don’t know,” he admitted. “Never tried.” He uncapped the pen. As usual, it sprang into a full-sized sword. Annabeth had watched him do this hundreds of times. Normally when he fought, Percy simply discarded the cap. It always appeared in his pocket later, as needed. When he touched the cap to the point of the sword, it would turn back into a ballpoint pen. “What if you touch the cap to the other end of the sword?” Annabeth said. “Like where you’d put the cap if you were actually going to write with the pen.” “Uh…” Percy looked doubtful, but he touched the cap to the hilt of the sword. Riptide shrank back into a ballpoint pen, but now the writing point was exposed. “May I?” Annabeth plucked it from his hand. She flattened the napkin against the altar and began to write. Riptide’s ink glowed Celestial bronze. “What are you doing?” Percy asked. “Sending a message,” Annabeth said. “I just hope Rachel gets it.” “Rachel?” Percy asked. “You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?” “That’s the one.” Annabeth suppressed a smile. Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes. Annabeth finished her note and folded the napkin. On the outside, she wrote: Connor, Give this to Rachel. Not a prank. Don’t be a moron. Love, Annabeth She took a deep breath. She was asking Rachel Dare to do something ridiculously dangerous, but it was the only way she could think of to communicate with the Romans—the only way that might avoid bloodshed. “Now I just need to burn it,” she said. “Anybody got a match?” The point of Bob’s spear shot from his broom handle. It sparked against the altar and erupted in silvery fire. “Uh, thanks.” Annabeth lit the napkin and set it on the altar. She watched it crumble to ash and wondered if she was crazy. Could the smoke really make it out of Tartarus? “We should go now,” Bob advised. “Really, really go. Before we are killed.” Annabeth stared at the wall of blackness in front of them. Somewhere in there was a lady who dispensed a Death Mist that might hide them from monsters—a plan recommended by a Titan, one of their bitterest enemies. Another dose of weirdness to explode her brain. “Right,” she said. “I’m ready.” ANNABETH LITERALLY STUMBLED over the second Titan. ~ Rick Riordan,

502:The great self-limitation practiced by man for ten centuries yielded, between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, the whole flower of the so-called "Renaissance." The root, usually, does not resemble the fruit in appearance, but there is an undeniable connection between the root's strength and juiciness and the beauty and taste of the fruit. The Middle Ages, it seems, have nothing in common with the Renaissance and are opposite to it in every way; nonetheless, all the abundance and ebullience of human energies during the Renaissance were based not at all on the supposedly "renascent" classical world, nor on the imitated Plato and Virgil, nor on manuscripts torn from the basements of old monasteries, but precisely on those monasteries, on those stern Franciscians and cruel Dominicans, on Saints Bonaventure, Anselm of Canterbury, and Bernard of Clairvaux. The Middle Ages were a great repository of human energies: in the medieval man's asceticism, self-abnegation, and contempt for his own beauty, his own energies, and his own mind, these energies, this heart, and this mind were stored up until the right time. The Renaissance was the epoch of the discovery of this trove: the thin layer of soil covering it was suddenly thrown aside, and to the amazement of following centuries dazzling, incalculable treasures glittered there; yesterday's pauper and wretched beggar, who only knew how to stand on crossroads and bellow psalms in an inharmonious voice, suddenly started to bloom with poetry, strength, beauty, and intelligence. Whence came all this? From the ancient world, which had exhausted its vital powers? From moldy parchments? But did Plato really write his dialogues with the same keen enjoyment with which Marsilio Ficino annotated them? And did the Romans, when reading the Greeks, really experience the same emotions as Petrarch, when, for ignorance of Greek, he could only move his precious manuscripts from place to place, kiss them now and then, and gaze sadly at their incomprehensible text? All these manuscripts, in convenient and accurate editions, lie before us too: why don't they lead us to a "renascence" among us? Why didn't the Greeks bring about a "renascence" in Rome? And why didn't Greco-Roman literature produce anything similar to the Italian Renaissance in Gaul and Africa from the second to the fourth century? The secret of the Renaissance of the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries does not lie in ancient literature: this literature was only the spade that threw the soil off the treasures buried underneath; the secret lies in the treasures themselves; in the fact that between the fourth and fourteenth centuries, under the influence of the strict ascetic ideal of mortifying the flesh and restraining the impulses of his spirit, man only stored up his energies and expended nothing. During this great thousand-year silence his soul matured for The Divine Comedy; during this forced closing of eyes to the world - an interesting, albeit sinful world-Galileo was maturing, Copernicus, and the school of careful experimentation founded by Bacon; during the struggle with the Moors the talents of Velasquez and Murillo were forged; and in the prayers of the thousand years leading up to the sixteenth century the Madonna images of that century were drawn, images to which we are able to pray but which no one is able to imitate. ("On Symbolists And Decadents") ~ Vasily Rozanov,

503:Richborough Castle THESE three grey walls are still stout and strong, Though the fourth wide wall has crumbled away Where the sea swept by when the land was young, And the great waves thundered along the bay, Under the sailing seagull's feather, Wildly white in the stormy weather, And, murmuring ever a restless song, Shone, crumpled green, on a sunny day. Through eighteen hundred years of our time, With their storms and sieges, these walls have stood, Till the cliff that the waves once strove to climb Is left in a meadow solitude; And now no sea-gulls' nests are there, But ash-trees and thorns make the cliff-side fair, And the green of the leaves, and the white of the lime, And the red of the berries is sweet and good. Over the walls, whence eagle-eyed The Romans looked for the coming foes, Swift keen-tongued snakes now curl and glide Where the heavy weight of the ivy grows. Oh, hand that builded, oh, scheming brain, So long made one with the dust again, Your old cement and your walls abide, But stronger than they are the ivy and rose! How the whole dear world is golden and green With the marshy meadows, the dimpled wheat, The hot strong sunshine, the ivy's sheen, And the high white lights on the shiny beet. See the far blue line--the retreating sea! It is good to be here, it is good to be; Whatever life is, or whatever has been, To be now--to be here, is nothing but sweet! 211 There's an underground passage here, they say, Here is the entrance with green set round; You must stoop your head in this low-roofed way, Leave day, light candles--pass underground. Here, under the fields, it is damp and cold, And whatever secret the place may hold It has held it closely for many a day, And will hold it for more in its hush profound. Down here, last year, so the gossips tell, Some archæological learned bore Went chipping with hammer and chisel as well To chip his way to the secret's core-Shut away from the sun and the browning wheat, The whitening barley, the purple beet-In the dark with the damp, the earthy smell, While the days burned through that return no more. Oh, fool! not to see that the green of the trees, The blue of the sky and the blue of the sea, The placid pasture, the baby breeze, And the outspread meadows' tranquillity, With eyes to see them, are more than worth The whole of the secrets of musty earth. What secret outweighs such delights as these, Or pays one lost moment's felicity? Are we wise, we two, when we try to pierce To the heart of things, to our own hearts' heart, To learn the secret springs of the years, And what that is of which we are part? Free will--the Absolute--matter--mind-Ah, we came like the wind and we go like the wind! Would solving life's mysteries dry our tears, Or absolute knowledge heal souls that smart? And meantime one might lose what I'd die to keep-- 212 The power to delight in a day like this, In the brown wings' whir, and the faint-bell'd sheep, In the million things that the millions miss. And, think, had it happened one's in-turned eyes Had missed the gateway of Paradise, Had one questioned of dreams till one fell asleep, Having never dreamed, oh, my Dream, of your kiss! ~ Edith Nesbit,

504:The Battle Of The Summer Islands : Canto 1 What fruits they have, and how heaven smiles Upon those late-discovered isles. Aid me, Bellona, while the dreadful fight Betwixt a nation and two whales I write. Seas stained with gore I sing, adventurous toil, And how these monsters did disarm an isle. Bermudas, walled with rocks, who does not know? That happy island where huge lemons grow, And orange trees, which golden fruit do bear, The Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair; Where shining pearl, coral, and many a pound, On the rich shore, of ambergris is found. The lofty cedar, which to heaven aspires, The prince of trees, is fuel for their fires; The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn, For incense might on sacred altars burn; Their private roofs on odorous timber borne, Such as might palaces for kings adorn. The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield, With leaves as ample as the broadest shield, Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs They sit, carousing where their liquor grows. Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow, Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show, With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil. The naked rocks are not unfruitful there, But, at some constant seasons, every year Their barren tops with luscious food abound, And with the eggs of various fowls are crowned. Tobacco is the worst of things which they To English landlords, as their tribute, pay. Such is the mold, that the blest tenant feeds On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds. With candied plantains, and the juicy pine, On choicer melons, and sweet grapes, they dine, And with potatoes fat their wanton swine. 24 Nature these cates with such a lavish hand Pours out among them, that our coarser land Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return, Which not for warmth but ornament is worn; For the kind spring, which but salutes us here, Inhabits there, and courts them all the year. Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same tress live; At once they promise what at once they give. So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, None sickly lives, or dies before his time. Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursed To show how all things were created first. The tardy plants in our cold orchards placed Reserve their fruit for the next age's taste. There a small grain in some few months will be A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree. The palma-christi, and the fair papaw, Now but a seed, preventing nature's law, In half the circle of the hasty year Project a shade, and lovely fruit do wear. And as their trees, in our dull region set, But faintly grow, and no perfection get, So in this northern tract our hoarser throats Utter unripe and ill-constrained notes, Where the supporter of the poets' style, Phoebus, on them eternally does smile. Oh! how I long my careless limbs to lay Under the plantain's shade, and all the day With amorous airs my fancy entertain, Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein! No passion there in my free breast should move, None but the sweet and best of passions, love. There while I sing, if gentle love be by, That tunes my lute, and winds the strings so high, With the sweet sound of Sacharissa's name I'll make the listening savages grow tame But while I do these pleasing dreams indite, I am diverted from the promised fight. ~ Edmund Waller,

505:The Sumerian pantheon was headed by an "Olympian Circle" of twelve, for each of these supreme gods had to have a celestial counterpart, one of the twelve members of the Solar System. Indeed, the names of the gods and their planets were one and the same (except when a variety of epithets were used to describe the planet or the god's attributes). Heading the pantheon was the ruler of Nibiru, ANU whose name was synonymous with "Heaven," for he resided on Nibiru. His spouse, also a member of the Twelve, was called ANTU. Included in this group were the two principal sons of ANU: E.A ("Whose House Is Water"), Anu's Firstborn but not by Antu; and EN.LIL ("Lord of the Command") who was the Heir Apparent because his mother was Antu, a half sister of Anu. Ea was also called in Sumerian texts EN.KI ("Lord Earth"), for he had led the first mission of the Anunnaki from Nibiru to Earth and established on Earth their first colonies in the E.DIN ("Home of the Righteous Ones")—the biblical Eden. His mission was to obtain gold, for which Earth was a unique source. Not for ornamentation or because of vanity, but as away to save the atmosphere of Nibiru by suspending gold dust in that planet's stratosphere. As recorded in the Sumerian texts (and related by us in The 12th Planet and subsequent books of The Earth Chronicles), Enlil was sent to Earth to take over the command when the initial extraction methods used by Enki proved unsatisfactory. This laid the groundwork for an ongoing feud between the two half brothers and their descendants, a feud that led to Wars of the Gods; it ended with a peace treaty worked out by their sister Ninti (thereafter renamed Ninharsag). The inhabited Earth was divided between the warring clans. The three sons of Enlil—Ninurta, Sin, Adad—together with Sin's twin children, Shamash (the Sun) and Ishtar (Venus), were given the lands of Shem and Japhet, the lands of the Semites and Indo-Europeans: Sin (the Moon) lowland Mesopotamia; Ninurta, ("Enlil's Warrior," Mars) the highlands of Elam and Assyria; Adad ("The Thunderer," Mercury) Asia Minor (the land of the Hittites) and Lebanon. Ishtar was granted dominion as the goddess of the Indus Valley civilization; Shamash was given command of the spaceport in the Sinai peninsula. This division, which did not go uncontested, gave Enki and his sons the lands of Ham—the brown/black people—of Africa: the civilization of the Nile Valley and the gold mines of southern and western Africa—a vital and cherished prize. A great scientist and metallurgist, Enki's Egyptian name was Ptah ("The Developer"; a title that translated into Hephaestus by the Greeks and Vulcan by the Romans). He shared the continent with his sons; among them was the firstborn MAR.DUK ("Son of the Bright Mound") whom the Egyptians called Ra, and NIN.GISH.ZI.DA ("Lord of the Tree of Life") whom the Egyptians called Thoth (Hermes to the Greeks)—a god of secret knowledge including astronomy, mathematics, and the building of pyramids. It was the knowledge imparted by this pantheon, the needs of the gods who had come to Earth, and the leadership of Thoth, that directed the African Olmecs and the bearded Near Easterners to the other side of the world. And having arrived in Mesoamerica on the Gulf coast—just as the Spaniards, aided by the same sea currents, did millennia later—they cut across the Mesoamerican isthmus at its narrowest neck and—just like the Spaniards due to the same geography—sailed down from the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica southward, to the lands of Central America and beyond. For that is where the gold was, in Spanish times and before. ~ Zecharia Sitchin,

506:The sensational event of the ancient world was the mobilisation of the underworld against the established order. This enterprise of Christianity had no more to do with religion than Marxist socialism has to do with the solution of the social problem. The notions represented by Jewish Christianity were strictly unthinkable to Roman brains. The ancient world had a liking for clarity. Scientific research was encouraged there. The gods, for the Romans, were familiar images. It is some what difficult to know whether they had any exact idea of the Beyond. For them, eternal life was personified in living beings, and it consisted in a perpetual renewal. Those were conceptions fairly close to those which were current amongst the Japanese and Chinese at the time when the Swastika made its appearance amongst them. It was necessary for the Jew to appear on the scene and introduce that mad conception of a life that continues into an alleged Beyond! It enables one to regard life as a thing that is negligible here below—since it will flourish later, when it no longer exists. Under cover of a religion, the Jew has introduced intolerance in a sphere in which tolerance formerly prevailed. Amongst the Romans, the cult of the sovereign intelligence was associated with the modesty of a humanity that knew its limits, to the point of consecrating altars to the unknown god. The Jew who fraudulently introduced Christianity into the ancient world—in order to ruin it—re-opened the same breach in modern times, this time taking as his pretext the social question. It's the same sleight-of-hand as before. Just as Saul was changed into St. Paul, Mardochai became Karl Marx. Peace can result only from a natural order. The condition of this order is that there is a hierarchy amongst nations. The most capable nations must necessarily take the lead. In this order, the subordinate nations get the greater profit, being protected by the more capable nations. It is Jewry that always destroys this order. It constantly provokes the revolt of the weak against the strong, of bestiality against intelligence, of quantity against quality. It took fourteen centuries for Christianity to reach the peak of savagery and stupidity. We would therefore be wrong to sin by excess of confidence and proclaim our definite victory over Bolshevism. The more we render the Jew incapable of harming us, the more we shall protect ourselves from this danger. The Jew plays in nature the rôle of a catalysing element. A people that is rid of its Jews returns spontaneously to the natural order. In 1925 I wrote in Mein Kampf (and also in an unpublished work) that world Jewry saw in Japan an opponent beyond its reach. The racial instinct is so developed amongst the Japanese therefore compelled to act from outside. It would be to the considered interests of England and the United States to come to an understanding with Japan, but the Jew will strive to prevent such an understanding. I gave this warning in vain. A question arises. Does the Jew act consciously and by calculation, or is he driven on by his instinct? I cannot answer that question. The intellectual élite of Europe (whether professors of faculties, high officials, or whatever else) never understood anything of this problem. The élite has been stuffed with false ideas, and on these it lives. It propagates a science that causes the greatest possible damage. Stunted men have the philosophy of stunted men. They love neither strength nor health, and they regard weakness and sickness as supreme values. Since it's the function that creates the organ, entrust the world for a few centuries to a German professor—and you'll soon have a mankind of cretins, made up of men with big heads set upon meagre bodies. ~ Adolf Hitler,

507:The Passion Of Our Lady For the past three days she had been wandering, and following. She followed the people. She followed the events. She seemed to be following a funeral. But it was a living man’s funeral.— She followed like a follower. Like a servant. Like a weeper at a Roman funeral.— As if it had been her only occupation. To weep.— That is what he had done to his mother. Since the day when he had begun his mission.— You saw her everywhere. With the people and a little apart from the people. Under the porticoes, under the arcades, in drafty places. In the temples, in the palaces. In the streets. In the yards and in the back-yards. And she had also gone up to Calvary. She too had climbed up Calvary. A very steep hill. And she did not even feel that she was walking. She did not even feel that her feet were carrying her.— She too had gone up her Calvary. She too had gone up and up In the general confusion, lagging a little behind ... She wept and wept under a big linen veil. A big blue veil... A little faded.— She wept as it will never be granted to a woman to weep. As it will never be asked Of a woman to weep on this earth. Never at any time.— What was very strange was that everyone respected her. People greatly respect the parents of the condemned. They even said: Poor woman. And at the same time they struck at her son. Because man is like that.— The world is like that. Men are what they are and you never can change them. She did not know that, on the contrary, he had come to change man. That he had come to change the world. She followed and wept. Everybody respected her. Everybody pitied her. They said: Poor woman. Because they weren’t perhaps really bad. They weren’t bad at heart. They fulfilled the Scriptures.— They honored, respected and admired her grief. They didn’t make her go away, they pushed her back only a little with special attentions Because she was the mother of the condemned. They thought: It’s the family of the condemned. They even said so in a low voice. They said it among themselves With a secret admiration.— She followed and wept, and didn’t understand very well. But she understood quite well that the government was against her boy. And that is a very bad business.— She understood that all the governments were together against her boy. The government of the Jews and the government of the Romans. The government of judges and the government of priests. The government of soldiers and the government of parsons. He could never get out of it. Certainly not.— What was strange was that all derision was heaped on him. Not on her at all.— There was only respect for her. For her grief.— They didn’t insult her. On the contrary. People even refrained from looking at her too much. All the more to respect her. So she too had gone up. Gone up with everybody else. Up to the very top of the hill. Without even being aware of it. Her legs had carried her and she did not even know it. She too had made the Way of the Cross. The fourteen stations of the Way of the Cross. Were there fourteen stations? Were there really fourteen stations?— She didn’t know for sure. She couldn’t remember. Yet she had not missed one. She was sure of that. But you can always make a mistake. In moments like that your head swims. Everybody was against him. Everybody wanted him to die. It is strange. People who are not usually together. The government and the people. That was awful luck. When you have someone for you and someone against you, sometimes you can get out of it. You can scramble out of it. But he wouldn’t. Certainly he wouldn’t. When you have everyone against you. But what had he done to everyone? I’ll tell you. He had saved the world. ~ Charles Péguy,

508:The Romane Monarchy, Being The Fourth And Last, Beginninganno Mundi , 3213. prologue After some dayes of rest, my restless heart To finish what's begun, new thoughts impart, And maugre all resolves, my fancy wrought This fourth to th'other three, now might be brought: Shortness of time and inability, Will force me to a confus'd brevity. Yet in this Chaos, one shall easily spy The vast Limbs of a mighty Monarchy, What e're is found amiss take in good part, As faults proceeding from my head, not heart. Stout Romulus, Romes founder, and first King, Whom vestal Rhea to the world did bring; His Father was not Mars as some devis'd, But Æmulus in Armour all disguiz'd: Thus he deceiv'd his Neece, she might not know The double injury he then did do. Where sheperds once had Coats & sheep their folds Where Swains & rustick Peasants kept their holds, A City fair did Romulus erect, The Mistress of the World, in each respect, His brother Rhemus there by him was slain, For leaping o're the wall with some disdain. The stones at first was cemented with blood, And bloody hath it prov'd, since first it stood. This City built and Sacrifices done, A Form of Government, he next begun; A hundred Senators he likewise chose, And with the style of Patres, honoured those, His City to replenish, men he wants, Great priviledges then to all he grants; That will within those strong built walls reside, And this new gentle Government abide. Of wives there was so great a scarcity, They to their neighbours sue for a supply; But all disdain Alliance, then to make, So Romulus was forc'd this course to take: 125 Great shews he makes at Tilt and Turnament, To see these sports, the Sabins all are bent. Their daughters by the Romans then were caught, Then to recover them a Field was fought; But in the end, to final peace they come, And Sabins as one people dwelt in Rome. The Romans now more potent 'gin to grow, And Fedinates they wholly overthrow. But Romulus then comes unto his end. Some feigning to the Gods he did ascend: Others the seven and thirtyeth of his reign, Affirm, that by the Senate he was slain. Numa Pompilius. Numa Pompilius next chose they King, Held for his piety some sacred thing, To Janus he that famous Temple built: Kept shut in peace, set ope when blood was spilt; Religious Rites and Customes instituted, And Priests and Flamines likewise he deputed, Their Augurs strange, their gestures and attire, And vestal maids to keep the holy fire. The Nymph Ægeria this to him told, So to delude the people he was bold: Forty three years he rul'd with general praise, Accounted for a God in after dayes. Tullius Hostilius. Tullius Hostilius was third Roman King, Who Martial discipline in use did bring; War with the antient Albans he did wage, This strife to end six brothers did ingage. Three call'd Horatii on the Romans side, And Curiatii three Albans provide: The Romans conquer, th'other yield the day, Yet in their Compact, after false they play. The Romans sore incens'd, their General slay, And from old Alba fetch the wealth away; Of Latin Kings this was long since the Seat, But now demolished, to make Rome great. Thirty two years did Tullus reign, then dye, Left Rome in wealth, and power still growing high. Ancus Martius. Next Ancus Martius sits upon the Throne, 126 Nephew unto Pompilius dead and gone; Rome he inlarg'd, new built again the wall, Much stronger, and more beautiful withal; A stately Bridge he over Tyber made, Of Boats and Oars no more they need the aid. Fair Ostia he built this Town, it stood Close by the mouth of famous Tyber floud, Twenty four years time of his Royal race, Then unto death unwillingly gives place. Tarquinius Priscus Tarquin a Greek at Corinth born and bred, Who from his Country for Sedition fled. Is entertain'd at Rome, and in short time, By wealth and favour doth to honour climbe; He after Martius death the Kingdome had, A hundred Senators he more did add. Wars with the Latins he again renews, And Nations twelve of Tuscany subdues, To such rude triumphs as young Rome then had, Some State and splendor did this Priscus add: Thirty eight years (this stronger born) did reign, And after all, by Ancus Sons was slain. Servius Tullius. Next Servius Tullius gets into the Throne, Ascends not up By merits of his own, But by the favour and the special grace Of Tanquil late Queen, obtains the place. He ranks the people into each degree, As wealth had made them of ability; A general Muster takes, which by account, To eighty thousand Souls then did amount. Forty four years did Servius Tullius reign, And then by Tarquin Priscus Son was slain. Tarquinius Superbus the last King of the Romans Tarquin the proud, from manners called so, Sat on the Throne, when he had slain his Foe. Sextus his Son did most unworthily, Lucretia force, mirrour of Chastity: She loathed so the fact, she loath'd her life, And shed her guiltless blood with guilty knife Her Husband sore incens'd to quit this wrong, With Junius Brutus rose, and being strong, 127 The Tarquins they from Rome by force expel, In banishment perpetual to dwell; The Government they change, a new one bring, And people swear ne'r to accept of King. ~ Anne Bradstreet,

509:Spleen (Iii) Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux, Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très vieux, Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes, S'ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d'autres bêtes. Rien ne peut l'égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon, Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon. Du bouffon favori la grotesque ballade Ne distrait plus le front de ce cruel malade; Son lit fleurdelisé se transforme en tombeau, Et les dames d'atour, pour qui tout prince est beau, Ne savent plus trouver d'impudique toilette Pour tirer un souris de ce jeune squelette. Le savant qui lui fait de l'or n'a jamais pu De son être extirper l'élément corrompu, Et dans ces bains de sang qui des Romains nous viennent, Et dont sur leurs vieux jours les puissants se souviennent, II n'a su réchauffer ce cadavre hébété Où coule au lieu de sang l'eau verte du Léthé ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Spleen I am like the king of a rainy land, Wealthy but powerless, both young and very old, Who contemns the fawning manners of his tutors And is bored with his dogs and other animals. Nothing can cheer him, neither the chase nor falcons, Nor his people dying before his balcony. The ludicrous ballads of his favorite clown No longer smooth the brow of this cruel invalid; His bed, adorned with fleurs-de-lis, becomes a grave; The lady's maids, to whom every prince is handsome, No longer can find gowns shameless enough To wring a smile from this young skeleton. The alchemist who makes his gold was never able To extract from him the tainted element, And in those baths of blood come down from Roman times, And which in their old age the powerful recall, 432 He failed to warm this dazed cadaver in whose veins Flows the green water of Lethe in place of blood. — Translated by William Aggeler ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Spleen I'm like the King of some damp, rainy clime, Grown impotent and old before my time, Who scorns the bows and scrapings of his teachers And bores himself with hounds and all such creatures. Naught can amuse him, falcon, steed, or chase: No, not the mortal plight of his whole race Dying before his balcony. The tune, Sung to this tyrant by his pet buffoon, Irks him. His couch seems far more like a grave. Even the girls, for whom all kings seem brave, Can think no toilet up, nor shameless rig, To draw a smirk from this funereal prig. The sage who makes him gold, could never find The baser element that rots his mind. Even those blood-baths the old Romans knew And later thugs have imitated too, Can't warm this skeleton to deeds of slaughter, Whose only blood is Lethe's cold, green water. — Translated by Roy Campbell ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Spleen I'm like the king of a rain-country, rich but sterile, young but with an old wolf's itch, one who escapes his tutor's monologues, and kills the day in boredom with his dogs; nothing cheers him, darts, tennis, falconry, his people dying by the balcony; the bawdry of the pet hermaphrodite no longer gets him through a single night; 433 his bed of fleur-de-lys becomes a tomb; even the ladies of the court, for whom all kings are beautiful, cannot put on shameful enough dresses for this skeleton; the scholar who makes his gold cannot invent washes to cleanse the poisoned element; even in baths of blood, Rome's legacy, our tyrants' solace in senility, he cannot warm up his shot corpse, whose food is syrup-green Lethean ooze, not blood. — Translated by Robert Lowell ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------The King of the Rainy Country A rainy country this, that I am monarch of, — A rich but powerless king, worn-out while yet a boy; For whom in vain the falcon falls upon the dove; Not even his starving people's groans can give him joy; Scorning his tutors, loathing his spaniels, finding stale His favorite jester's quips, yawning at the droll tale. His bed, for all its fleurs de lis, looks like a tomb; The ladies of the court, attending him, to whom He, being a prince, is handsome, see him lying there Cold as a corpse, and lift their shoulders in despair: No garment they take off, no garter they leave on Excites the gloomy eye of this young skeleton. The royal alchemist, who makes him gold from lead, The baser element from out the royal head Cannot extract; nor can those Roman baths of blood, For some so efficacious, cure the hebetude Of him, along whose veins, where flows no blood at all, For ever the slow waters of green Lethe crawl. — Translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Spleen 434 I'm like a king of rainy lands and cold — wealthy, but impotent: still young, but old — who, scornful of his tutors' bows, prefers his hounds and boredom to such grovellers. nor stag nor falcon rouse his apathy, nor starving subjects 'neath his balcony. his favourite jester's wildest ballads now no longer clear his cruel, sickened brow; his royal bed's a coffin drowned in care, and court-ladies, to whom all kings are fair, — seeking a smile from that young skeleton — no longer find one shameless robe to don. nor can the sage who makes him gold succeed in purging him of Death's corruptive seed, nor in the baths of blood the Romans knew, wherein the agèd rich their strength renew, learn how to warm that cold numb corpse, through whose dull veins, for blood, green Lethe's waters ooze. — Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Spleen I am like the king of a rainy country, Rich, and yet powerless, young and yet most old, Who, distrustful of the bows his tutors make, Sits bored among his dogs as with his other beasts. Nothing can lift his spirits: neither hawk nor game; The dying subjects gathered to his balcony; The grotesque ballad of his best-loved fool --No more distracts him in this sickness cruel. His lilied bed is changed into a tomb; The ladies of his court all lords might love, And yet they can no longer find shameless attire To draw a smile from their young, wasted sire. The alchemist who made him gold could not Purge from his soul this corrupt element, And in a blood bath, as in ancient Rome, Remembered by the mighty in their latter days, Knew not to warm this dazzled corpse Where flows not blood but Lethe's waters green. 435 Translated by Anonymous ~ Charles Baudelaire,

510:Jubilate Agno: Fragment B, Part 4 For God has given us a language of monosyllables to prevent our clipping. For a toad enjoys a finer prospect than another creature to compensate his lack. Tho' toad I am the object of man's hate. Yet better am I than a reprobate. who has the worst of prospects. For there are stones, whose constituent particles are little toads. For the spiritual musick is as follows. For there is the thunder-stop, which is the voice of God direct. For the rest of the stops are by their rhimes. For the trumpet rhimes are sound bound, soar more and the like. For the Shawm rhimes are lawn fawn moon boon and the like. For the harp rhimes are sing ring string and the like. For the cymbal rhimes are bell well toll soul and the like. For the flute rhimes are tooth youth suit mute and the like. For the dulcimer rhimes are grace place beat heat and the like. For the Clarinet rhimes are clean seen and the like. For the Bassoon rhimes are pass, class and the like. God be gracious to Baumgarden. For the dulcimer are rather van fan and the like and grace place &c are of the bassoon. For beat heat, weep peep &c are of the pipe. For every word has its marrow in the English tongue for order and for delight. For the dissyllables such as able table &c are the fiddle rhimes. 94 For all dissyllables and some trissyllables are fiddle rhimes. For the relations of words are in pairs first. For the relations of words are sometimes in oppositions. For the relations of words are according to their distances from the pair. For there be twelve cardinal virtues the gifts of the twelve sons of Jacob. For Reuben is Great. God be gracious to Lord Falmouth. For Simeon is Valiant. God be gracious to the Duke of Somerset. For Levi is Pious. God be gracious to the Bishop of London. For Judah is Good. God be gracious to Lord Granville. For Dan is Clean -- neat, dextrous, apt, active, compact. God be gracious to Draper. For Naphtali is sublime -- God be gracious to Chesterfield. For Gad is Contemplative -- God be gracious to Lord Northampton. For Ashur is Happy -- God be gracious to George Bowes. For Issachar is strong -- God be gracious to the Duke of Dorsett. For Zabulon is Constant -- God be gracious to Lord Bath. For Joseph is Pleasant -- God be gracious to Lord Bolingbroke. For Benjamin is Wise -- God be gracious to Honeywood. For all Foundation is from God depending. For the two Universities are the Eyes of England. For Cambridge is the right and the brightest. 95 For Pembroke Hall was founded more in the Lord than any College in Cambridge. For mustard is the proper food of birds and men are bound to cultivate it for their use. For they that study the works of God are peculiarly assisted by his Spirit. For all the creatures mentiond by Pliny are somewhere or other extant to the glory of God. For Rye is food rather for fowls than men. For Rye-bread is not taken with thankfulness. For the lack of Rye may be supplied by Spelt. For languages work into one another by their bearings. For the power of some animal is predominant in every language. For the power and spirit of a CAT is in the Greek. For the sound of a cat is in the most useful preposition êáô' åõ÷çí . For the pleasantry of a cat at pranks is in the language ten thousand times over. For JACK UPON PRANCK is in the performance of gåñé together or seperate. For Clapperclaw is in the grappling of the words upon one another in all the modes of versification. For the sleekness of a Cat is in his áãëáéçöé . For the Greek is thrown from heaven and falls upon its feet. For the Greek when distracted from the line is sooner restored to rank and rallied into some form than any other. For the purring of a Cat is his ôñõæåé . For his cry is in ïõáé , which I am sorry for. 96 For the Mouse (Mus) prevails in the Latin. For Edi-mus, bibi-mus, vivi-mus -- ore-mus. For the Mouse is a creature of great personal valour. For -- this is a true case -- Cat takes female mouse from the company of male -male mouse will not depart, but stands threatning and daring. For this is as much as to challenge, if you will let her go, I will engage you, as prodigious a creature as you are. For the Mouse is of an hospitable disposition. For bravery and hospitality were said and done by the Romans rather than others. For two creatures the Bull and the Dog prevail in the English. For all the words ending in ble are in the creature. Invisi-ble, Incomprehensi-ble, ineffa-ble, A-ble. For the Greek and Latin are not dead languages, but taken up and accepted for the sake of him that spake them. For can is (canis) is cause and effect a dog. For the English is concise and strong. Dog and Bull again. For Newton's notion of colours is áëïãïò unphilosophical. For the colours are spiritual. For WHITE is the first and the best. For there are many intermediate colours, before you come to SILVER. For the next colour is a lively GREY. For the next colour is BLUE. For the next is GREEN of which there are ten thousand distinct sorts. 97 For the next is YELLOW which is more excellent than red, tho Newton makes red the prime. God be gracious to John Delap. For RED is the next working round the Orange. For Red is of sundry sorts till it deepens to BLACK. For black blooms and it is PURPLE. For purple works off to BROWN which is of ten thousand acceptable shades. For the next is PALE. God be gracious to William Whitehead. For pale works about to White again. NOW that colour is spiritual appears inasmuch as the blessing of God upon all things descends in colour. For the blessing of health upon the human face is in colour. For the blessing of God upon purity is in the Virgin's blushes. For the blessing of God in colour is on him that keeps his virgin. For I saw a blush in Staindrop Church, which was of God's own colouring. For it was the benevolence of a virgin shewn to me before the whole congregation. For the blessing of God upon the grass is in shades of Green visible to a nice observer as they light upon the surface of the earth. For the blessing of God unto perfection in all bloom and fruit is by colouring. For from hence something in the spirit may be taken off by painters. For Painting is a species of idolatry, tho' not so gross as statuary. For it is not good to look with earning upon any dead work. For by so doing something is lost in the spirit and given from life to death. 98 For BULL in the first place is the word of Almighty God. For he is a creature of infinite magnitude in the height. For there is the model of every beast of the field in the height. For they are blessed intelligences and all angels of the living God. For there are many words under Bull. For Bul the Month is under it. For Sea is under Bull. For Brook is under Bull. God be gracious to Lord Bolingbroke. For Rock is under Bull. For Bullfinch is under Bull. God be gracious to the Duke of Cleveland. For God, which always keeps his work in view has paited a Bullfinch in the heart of a stone. God be gracious to Gosling and Canterbury. For the Bluecap is under Bull. For the Humming Bird is under Bull. For Beetle is under Bull. For Toad is under bull. For Frog is under Bull, which he has a delight to look at. For the Pheasant-eyed Pink is under Bull. Blessed Jesus R4NK EL. For Bugloss is under Bull. For Bugle is under Bull. For Oxeye is under Bull. 99 For Fire is under Bull. For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him. For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way. For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness. For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer. For he rolls upon prank to work it in. For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself. For this he performs in ten degrees. For first he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean. For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there. For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore paws extended. For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood. For fifthly he washes himself. For Sixthly he rolls upon wash. For Seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat. For Eighthly he rubs himself against a post. For Ninthly he looks up for his instructions. For Tenthly he goes in quest of food. For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour. 100 For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness. For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance. For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying. For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins. For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary. For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes. For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him. For he is of the tribe of Tiger. For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger. For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses. For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation. For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat. For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon. For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit. For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt. For every family had one cat at least in the bag. For the English Cats are the best in Europe. For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede. 101 For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly. For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature. For he is tenacious of his point. For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery. For he knows that God is his Saviour. For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest. For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion. For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually -- Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat. For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better. For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat. For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick. For he is docile and can learn certain things. For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation. For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment. For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive. For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command. For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom. For he can catch the cork and toss it again. For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser. For the former is affraid of detection. 102 For the latter refuses the charge. For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business. For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly. For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services. For he killed the Icneumon-rat very pernicious by land. For his ears are so acute that they sting again. For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention. For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity. For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire. For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast. For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements. For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer. For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede. For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick. For he can swim for life. For he can creep. ~ Christopher Smart,

511:Jubilate Agno: Fragment B, Part 3 For a Man is to be looked upon in that which he excells as on a prospect. For there be twelve cardinal virtues -- three to the East -- Greatness, Valour, Piety. For there be three to the West -- Goodness, Purity and Sublimity. For there be three to the North -- Meditation, Happiness, Strength. For there be three to the South -- Constancy, Pleasantry and Wisdom. For the Argument A PRIORI is GOD in every man's CONSCIENCE. For the Argument A POSTERIORI is God before every man's eyes. For the Four and Twenty Elders of the Revelation are Four and Twenty Eternities. For their Four and Twenty Crowns are their respective Consummations. For a CHARACTER is the votes of the Worldlings, but the seal is of Almighty GOD alone. For there is no musick in flats and sharps which are not in God's natural key. For where Accusation takes the place of encouragement a man of Genius is driven to act the vices of a fool. For the Devil can set a house on fire, when the inhabitants find combustibles. For the old account of time is the true -- Decr 28th 1759-60 -- -- -For Faith as a grain of mustard seed is to believe, as I do, that an Eternity is such in respect to the power and magnitude of Almighty God. For a DREAM is a good thing from GOD. For there is a dream from the adversary which is terror. For the phenomenon of dreaming is not of one solution, but many. 81 For Eternity is like a grain of mustard as a growing body and improving spirit. For the malignancy of fire is oweing to the Devil's hiding of light, till it became visible darkness. For the Circle may be SQUARED by swelling and flattening. For the Life of God is in the body of man and his spirit in the Soul. For there was no rain in Paradise because of the delicate construction of the spiritual herbs and flowers. For the Planet Mercury is the WORD DISCERNMENT. For the Scotchman seeks for truth at the bottom of a well, the Englishman in the Heavn of Heavens. For the Planet Venus is the WORD PRUDENCE or providence. For GOD nevertheless is an extravagant BEING and generous unto loss. For there is no profit in the generation of man and the loss of millions is not worth God's tear. For this is the twelfth day of the MILLENNIUM of the MILLENNIUM foretold by the prophets -- give the glory to God ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY For the Planet Mars is the word FORTITUDE. For to worship naked in the Rain is the bravest thing for the refreshing and purifying the body. For the Planet Jupiter is the WORD DISPENSATION. For Tully says to be generous you must be first just, but the voice of Christ is distribute at all events. For Kittim is the father of the Pygmies, God be gracious to Pigg his family. For the Soul is divisible and a portion of the Spirit may be cut off from one and 82 applied to another. For NEW BREAD is the most wholesome especially if it be leaven'd with honey. For a NEW SONG also is best, if it be to the glory of God; and taken with the food like the psalms. For the Planet Saturn is the word TEMPERANCE or PATIENCE. For Jacob's Ladder are the steps of the Earth graduated hence to Paradice and thence to the throne of God. For a good wish is well but a faithful prayer is an eternal benefit. For SPICA VIRGINIS is the star that appeared to the wise men in the East and directed their way before it was yet insphered. For an IDEA is the mental vision of an object. For Lock supposes that an human creature, at a given time may be an atheist i.e. without God, by the folly of his doctrine concerning innate ideas. For it is not lawful to sell poyson in England any more than it is in Venice, the Lord restrain both the finder and receiver. For the ACCENTS are the invention of the Moabites, who learning the GREEK tongue marked the words after their own vicious pronuntiation. For the GAULS (the now-French and original Moabites) after they were subdued by Cæsar became such Grecians at Rome. For the Gaullic manuscripts fell into the hands of the inventors of printing. For all the inventions of man, which are good, are the communications of Almighty God. For all the stars have satellites, which are terms under their respective words. For tiger is a word and his satellites are Griffin, Storgis, Cat and others. For my talent is to give an Impression upon words by punching, that when the reader casts his eye upon 'em, he takes up the image from the mould which I 83 have made. For JOB was the son of Issachar and patience is the child of strength. For the Names of the DAYS, as they now stand, are foolish and abominable. For the Days are the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh. For the names of the months are false -- the Hebrew appellatives are of God. For the Time of the Lord's temptation was in early youth and imminent danger. For an equivocal generation is a generation and no generation. For putrifying matter nevertheless will yield up its life in diverse creatures and combinations of creatures. For a TOAD can dwell in the centre of a stone, because -- there are stones whose constituent life is of those creatures. For a Toad hath by means of his eye the most beautiful prospects of any other animal to make him amends for his distance from his Creator in Glory. For FAT is the fruit of benevolence, therefore it was the Lord's in the Mosaic sacrifices. For the very particular laws of Moses are the determinations of CASES that fell under his cognizance. For the Devil can make the shadow thicker by candlelight by reason of his pow'r over malignant fire. For the Romans clipped their words in the Augustan thro idleness and effeminacy and paid foreign actors for speaking them out. For when the weight and the pow'r are equivalent the prop is of none effect. For shaving of the beard was an invention of the people of Sodom to make men look like women. For the ends of the world are the accomplishment of great events, and the consummation of periods. 84 For ignorance is a sin because illumination is to be obtained by prayer. For Preferment is not from the East, West or South, but from the North, where Satan has most power. For the ministers of the Devil set the hewer of wood over the head of God's free Man. For this inverting God's good order, edifice and edification, and appointing place, where the Lord has not appointed. For the Ethiopian question is already solved in that the Blacks are the children of Cain. For the phenomenon of the horizontal moon is the truth -- she appears bigger in the horizon because she actually is so. For it was said of old 'can the Ethiopian change his skin?' the Lord has answered the question by his merit and death he shall. -For the moon is magnified in the horizon by Almighty God, and so is the Sun. For she has done her day's-work and the blessing of God upon her, and she communicates with the earth. For when she rises she has been strength'ned by the Sun, who cherishes her by night. For man is born to trouble in the body, as the sparks fly upwards in the spirit. For man is between the pinchers while his soul is shaping and purifying. For the ENGLISH are the seed of Abraham and work up to him by Joab, David, and Naphtali. God be gracious to us this day. General Fast March 14th 1760. For the Romans and the English are one people the children of the brave man who died at the altar praying for his posterity, whose death was the type of our Saviour's. For the WELCH are the children of Mephibosheth and Ziba with a mixture of David in the Jones's. 85 For the Scotch are the children of Doeg with a mixture of Cush the Benjamite, whence their innate antipathy to the English. For the IRISH are the children of Shimei and Cush with a mixture of something lower -- the Lord raise them! For the FRENCH are Moabites even the children of Lot. For the DUTCH are the children of Gog. For the Poles are the children of Magog. For the Italians are the children of Samuel and are the same as the Grecians. For the Spaniards are the children of Abishai Joab's brother, hence is the goodwill between the two nations. For the Portuguese are the children of Amman -- God be gracious to Lisbon and send good angels amongst them! For the Hottentots are the children of Gog with a Black mixture. For the Russians are the Children of Ishmael. For the Turks are the children of Esaw, which is Edom. For the Wallachians are the children of Huz. God be gracious to Elizabeth Hughes, as she was. For the Germans are the children of the Philistins even the seed of Anak. For the Prussians are the children of Goliah -- but the present, whom God bless this hour, is a Campbell of the seed of Phinees. For the Hanoverians are Hittites of the seed of Uriah. God save the king. For the Hessians are Philistines with a mixture of Judah. For the Saxons are Benjamites, men of great subtlety and Marshal Saxe was direct from Benjamin. 86 For the Danes are of the children of Zabulon. For the Venetians are the children of Mark and Romans. For the Swiss are Philistins of a particular family. God be gracious to Jonathan Tyers his family and to all the people at Vaux Hall. For the Sardinians are of the seed of David -- The Lord forward the Reformation amongst the good seed first. -For the Mogul's people are the children of Phut. For the Old Greeks and the Italians are one people, which are blessed in the gift of Mustek by reason of the song of Hannah and the care of Samuel with regard to divine melody. For the Germans and the Dutch are the children of the Goths and Vandals who did a good in destruction books written by heathen Free-Thinkers against God. For there are Americans of the children of Toi. -For the Laplanders are the children of Gomer. For the Phenomena of the Diving Bell are solved right in the schools. For NEW BREAD is the most wholesome -- God be gracious to Baker. For the English are the children of Joab, Captain of the host of Israel, who was the greatest man in the world to GIVE and to ATCHIEVE. For TEA is a blessed plant and of excellent virtue. God give the Physicians more skill and honesty! For nutmeg is exceeding wholesome and cherishing, neither does it hurt the liver. For The Lightning before death is God's illumination in the spirit for preparation and for warning. For Lavender Cotton is exceeding good for the teeth. God be gracious to Windsmore. 87 For the Fern is exceeding good and pleasant to rub the teeth. For a strong preparation of Mandragora is good for the gout. For the Bark was a communication from God and is sovereign. For the method of curing an ague by terror is exaction. For Exaction is the most accursed of all things, because it brought the Lord to the cross, his betrayers and murderers being such from their exaction. For an Ague is the terror of the body, when the blessing of God is withheld for a season. For benevolence is the best remedy in the first place and the bark in the second. For, when the nation is at war, it is better to abstain from the punishment of criminals especially, every act of human vengeance being a check to the grace of God. For the letter ל [Hebrew character lamed] which signifies GOD by himself is on the fibre of some leaf in every Tree. For ל is the grain of the human heart and on the network of the skin. For ל is in the veins of all stones both precious and common. For ל is upon every hair both of man and beast. For ל is in the grain of wood. For ל is in the ore of all metals. For ל is on the scales of all fish. For ל is on the petals of all flowers. For ל is upon on all shells. For ל is in the constituent particles of air. For ל is on the mite of the earth. 88 For ל is in the water yea in every drop. For ל is in the incomprehensible ingredients of fire. For ל is in the stars the sun and in the Moon. For ל is upon the Sapphire Vault. For the doubling of flowers is the improvement of the gardners talent. For the flowers are great blessings. For the Lord made a Nosegay in the meadow with his disciples and preached upon the lily. For the angels of God took it out of his hand and carried it to the Height. For a man cannot have publick spirit, who is void of private benevolence. For there is no Height in which there are not flowers. For flowers have great virtues for all the senses. For the flower glorifies God and the root parries the adversary. For the flowers have their angels even the words of God's Creation. For the warp and woof of flowers are worked by perpetual moving spirits. For flowers are good both for the living and the dead. For there is a language of flowers. For there is a sound reasoning upon all flowers. For elegant phrases are nothing but flowers. For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ. For flowers are medicinal. 89 For flowers are musical in ocular harmony. For the right names of flowers are yet in heaven. God make gard'ners better nomenclators. For the Poorman's nosegay is an introduction to a Prince. For it were better for the SERVICE, if only select psalms were read. For the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Songs from other scriptures, and parts of Esdras might be taken to supply the quantity. For A is the beginning of learning and the door of heaven. For B is a creature busy and bustling. For C is a sense quick and penetrating. For D is depth. For E is eternity -- such is the power of the English letters taken singly. For F is faith. For G is God -- whom I pray to be gracious to Liveware my fellow prisoner. For H is not a letter, but a spirit -- Benedicatur Jesus Christus, sic spirem! For I is identity. God be gracious to Henry Hatsell. For K is king. For L is love. God in every language. For M is musick and Hebrew מ [Hebrew character mem] is the direct figure of God's harp. For N is new. For O is open. For P is power. 90 For Q is quick. For R is right. For S is soul. For T is truth. God be gracious to Jermyn Pratt and to Harriote his Sister. For U is unity, and his right name is Uve to work it double. For W is word. For X [drawn as a backwards G and a G stuck together] is hope -- consisting of two check G -- God be gracious to Anne Hope. For Y is yea. God be gracious to Eennet and his family! For Z is zeal. For in the education of children it is necessary to watch the words, -which they pronounce with difficulty, for such are against them in their consequences. For A is awe, if pronounced full. Stand in awe and sin not. For B pronounced in the animal is bey importing authority. For C pronounced hard is ke importing to shut. For D pronounced full is day. For E is east particularly when formed little e with his eye. For F in it's secondary meaning is fair. For G in a secondary sense is good. For H is heave. For I is the organ of vision. For K is keep. 91 For L is light, and ל [Hebrew character lamed] is the line of beauty. For M is meet. For N is nay. For O is over. For P is peace. For Q is quarter. For R is rain, or thus reign, or thus rein. For S is save. For T is take. For V is veil. For W is world. For X [drawn as a backwards G and a G stuck together] beginneth not, but connects and continues. For Y is young -- the Lord direct me in the better way of going on in the Fifth year of my jeopardy June the 17th N.S. 1760. God be gracious to Dr YOUNG. For Z is zest. God give us all a relish of our duty. For Action and Speaking are one according to God and the Ancients. For the approaches of Death are by illumination. For a man cannot have Publick Spirit, who is void of private benevolence. For the order of Alamoth is first three, second six, third eighteen, fourth fifty four, and then the whole band. For the order of Sheminith is first ten, second twenty, third thirty and then the whole band. 92 For the first entrance into Heaven is by complement. For Flowers can see, and Pope's Carnations knew him. For the devil works upon damps and lowth and causes agues. For Ignorance is a sin, because illumination is to be had by prayer. For many a genius being lost at the plough is a false thought -- the divine providence is a better manager. For a man's idleness is the fruit of the adversary's diligence. For diligence is the gift of God, as well as other good things. For it is a good NOTHING in one's own eyes and in the eyes of fools. For æra in its primitive sense is but a weed amongst corn. For there is no knowing of times and seasons, in submitting them to God stands the Christian's Chronology. For Jacob's brown sheep wore the Golden fleece. For Shaving of the face was the invention of the Sodomites to make men look like women. ~ Christopher Smart,

512:The Ghost - Book I With eager search to dart the soul, Curiously vain, from pole to pole, And from the planets' wandering spheres To extort the number of our years, And whether all those years shall flow Serenely smooth, and free from woe, Or rude misfortune shall deform Our life with one continual storm; Or if the scene shall motley be. Alternate joy and misery, Is a desire which, more or less. All men must feel, though few confess. Hence, every place and every age Affords subsistence to the sage, Who, free from this world and its cares, Holds an acquaintance with the stars, From whom he gains intelligence Of things to come some ages hence, Which unto friends, at easy rates. He readily communicates. At its first rise, which all agree on, This noble science was Chaldean; That ancient people, as they fed Their flocks upon the mountain's head, Gazed on the stars, observed their motions, And suck'd in astrologic notions, Which they so eagerly pursue, As folks are apt whate'er is new, That things below at random rove, Whilst they're consulting things above; And when they now so poor were grown, That they'd no houses of their own, They made bold with their friends the stars, And prudently made use of theirs. To Egypt from Chaldee it travell'd, And Fate at Memphis was unravell'd: The exotic science soon struck root, And flourish'd into high repute. Each learned priest, oh strange to tell! 177 Could circles make, and cast a spell; Could read and write, and taught the nation The holy art of divination. Nobles themselves, for at that time Knowledge in nobles was no crime, Could talk as learned as the priest, And prophesy as much, at least. Hence all the fortune-telling crew, Whose crafty skill mars Nature's hue, Who, in vile tatters, with smirch'd face, Run up and down from place to place, To gratify their friends' desires, From Bampfield Carew, to Moll Squires, Are rightly term'd Egyptians all; Whom we, mistaking, Gypsies call. The Grecian sages borrow'd this, As they did other sciences, From fertile Egypt, though the loan They had not honesty to own. Dodona's oaks, inspired by Jove, A learned and prophetic grove, Turn'd vegetable necromancers, And to all comers gave their answers. At Delphos, to Apollo dear, All men the voice of Fate might hear; Each subtle priest on three-legg'd stool, To take in wise men, play'd the fool. A mystery, so made for gain, E'en now in fashion must remain; Enthusiasts never will let drop What brings such business to their shop; And that great saint we Whitefield call, Keeps up the humbug spiritual. Among the Romans, not a bird Without a prophecy was heard; Fortunes of empires often hung On the magician magpie's tongue, And every crow was to the state A sure interpreter of Fate. Prophets, embodied in a college (Time out of mind your seat of knowledge; For genius never fruit can bear 178 Unless it first is planted there, And solid learning never falls Without the verge of college walls) Infallible accounts would keep When it was best to watch or sleep, To eat or drink, to go or stay, And when to fight or run away; When matters were for action ripe, By looking at a double tripe; When emperors would live or die, They in an ass's skull could spy; When generals would their station keep, Or turn their backs, in hearts of sheep. In matters, whether small or great, In private families or state As amongst us, the holy seer Officiously would interfere; With pious arts and reverend skill Would bend lay bigots to his will; Would help or injure foes or friends, Just as it served his private ends. Whether in honest way of trade Traps for virginity were laid; Or if, to make their party great, Designs were form'd against the state, Regardless of the common weal, By interest led, which they call zeal, Into the scale was always thrown The will of Heaven to back their own. England--a happy land we know, Where follies naturally grow, Where without culture they arise And tower above the common size; England, a fortune-telling host, As numerous as the stars, could boast,-Matrons, who toss the cup, and see The grounds of Fate in grounds of tea, Who, versed in every modest lore, Can a lost maidenhead restore, Or, if their pupils rather choose it, Can show the readiest way to lose it; Gypsies, who every ill can cure, 179 Except the ill of being poor, Who charms 'gainst love and agues sell, Who can in hen-roost set a spell, Prepared by arts, to them best known, To catch all feet except their own, Who, as to fortune, can unlock it As easily as pick a pocket; Scotchmen, who, in their country's right, Possess the gift of second-sight, Who (when their barren heaths they quit, Sure argument of prudent wit, Which reputation to maintain, They never venture back again) By lies prophetic heap up riches, And boast the luxury of breeches. Amongst the rest, in former years, Campbell (illustrious name!) appears, Great hero of futurity, Who, blind, could every thing foresee, Who, dumb, could every thing foretell, Who, Fate with equity to sell, Always dealt out the will of Heaven According to what price was given. Of Scottish race, in Highlands born, Possess'd with native pride and scorn, He hither came, by custom led, To curse the hands which gave him bread. With want of truth, and want of sense, Amply made up by impudence (A succedaneum, which we find In common use with all mankind); Caress'd and favour'd too by those Whose heart with patriot feelings glows, Who foolishly, where'er dispersed, Still place their native country first; (For Englishmen alone have sense To give a stranger preference, Whilst modest merit of their own Is left in poverty to groan) Campbell foretold just what he would, And left the stars to make it good, On whom he had impress'd such awe, 180 His dictates current pass'd for law; Submissive, all his empire own'd; No star durst smile, when Campbell frown'd. This sage deceased,--for all must die, And Campbell's no more safe than I, No more than I can guard the heart, When Death shall hurl the fatal dart,-Succeeded, ripe in art and years, Another favourite of the spheres; Another and another came, Of equal skill, and equal fame; As white each wand, as black each gown, As long each beard, as wise each frown, In every thing so like, you'd swear Campbell himself was sitting there: To all the happy art was known, To tell our fortunes, make their own. Seated in garret,--for, you know, The nearer to the stars we go The greater we esteem his art,-Fools, curious, flock'd from every part; The rich, the poor, the maid, the married, And those who could not walk, were carried. The butler, hanging down his head, By chambermaid, or cookmaid led, Inquires, if from his friend the Moon He has advice of pilfer'd spoon. The court-bred woman of condition, (Who, to approve her disposition As much superior as her birth To those composed of common earth, With double spirit must engage In every folly of the age) The honourable arts would buy, To pack the cards, and cog a die. The hero--who, for brawn and face, May claim right honourable place Amongst the chiefs of Butcher-row: Who might, some thirty years ago, If we may be allow'd to guess At his employment by his dress, Put medicines off from cart or stage, 181 The grand Toscano of the age; Or might about the country go High-steward of a puppet-show,-Steward and stewardship most meet, For all know puppets never eat: Who would be thought (though, save the mark! That point is something in the dark) The man of honour, one like those Renown'd in story, who loved blows Better than victuals, and would fight, Merely for sport, from morn to night: Who treads like Mavors firm, whose tongue Is with the triple thunder hung, Who cries to Fear, 'Stand off--aloof,' And talks as he were cannon-proof; Would be deem'd ready, when you list, With sword and pistol, stick and fist, Careless of points, balls, bruises, knocks, At once to fence, fire, cudgel, box, But at the same time bears about, Within himself, some touch of doubt, Of prudent doubt, which hints--that fame Is nothing but an empty name; That life is rightly understood By all to be a real good; That, even in a hero's heart, Discretion is the better part; That this same honour may be won, And yet no kind of danger run-Like Drugger comes, that magic powers May ascertain his lucky hours; For at some hours the fickle dame, Whom Fortune properly we name, Who ne'er considers wrong or right, When wanted most, plays least in sight, And, like a modern court-bred jilt, Leaves her chief favourites in a tilt. Some hours there are, when from the heart Courage into some other part, No matter wherefore, makes retreat, And Fear usurps the vacant seat; Whence, planet-struck, we often find 182 Stuarts and Sackvilles of mankind. Farther, he'd know (and by his art A conjurer can that impart) Whether politer it is reckon'd To have, or not to have, a second; To drag the friends in, or alone To make the danger all their own; Whether repletion is not bad, And fighters with full stomachs mad; Whether, before he seeks the plain, It were not well to breathe a vein; Whether a gentle salivation, Consistently with reputation, Might not of precious use be found, Not to prevent, indeed, a wound, But to prevent the consequence Which oftentimes arises thence, Those fevers, which the patient urge on To gates of death, by help of surgeon; Whether a wind at east or west Is for green wounds accounted best; Whether (was he to choose) his mouth Should point towards the north or south; Whether more safely he might use, On these occasions, pumps or shoes; Whether it better is to fight By sunshine or by candlelight; Or, lest a candle should appear Too mean to shine in such a sphere, For who could of a candle tell To light a hero into hell; And, lest the sun should partial rise To dazzle one or t'other's eyes, Or one or t'other's brains to scorch, Might not Dame Luna hold a torch? These points with dignity discuss'd, And gravely fix'd,--a task which must Require no little time and pains, To make our hearts friends with our brains,-The man of war would next engage The kind assistance of the sage, Some previous method to direct, 183 Which should make these of none effect. Could he not, from the mystic school Of Art, produce some sacred rule, By which a knowledge might be got Whether men valiant were, or not; So he that challenges might write Only to those who would not fight? Or could he not some way dispense By help of which (without offence To Honour, whose nice nature's such She scarce endures the slightest touch) When he, for want of t'other rule, Mistakes his man, and, like a fool, With some vain fighting blade gets in, He fairly may get out again? Or should some demon lay a scheme To drive him to the last extreme, So that he must confess his fears, In mercy to his nose and ears, And like a prudent recreant knight, Rather do anything than fight, Could he not some expedient buy To keep his shame from public eye? For well he held,--and, men review, Nine in ten hold the maxim too,-That honour's like a maidenhead, Which, if in private brought to bed, Is none the worse, but walks the town, Ne'er lost, until the loss be known. The parson, too, (for now and then Parsons are just like other men, And here and there a grave divine Has passions such as yours and mine) Burning with holy lust to know When Fate preferment will bestow, 'Fraid of detection, not of sin, With circumspection sneaking in To conjurer, as he does to whore, Through some bye-alley or back-door, With the same caution orthodox Consults the stars, and gets a pox. The citizen, in fraud grown old, 184 Who knows no deity but gold, Worn out, and gasping now for breath, A medicine wants to keep off death; Would know, if that he cannot have, What coins are current in the grave; If, when the stocks (which, by his power, Would rise or fall in half an hour; For, though unthought of and unseen, He work'd the springs behind the screen) By his directions came about, And rose to par, he should sell out; Whether he safely might, or no, Replace it in the funds below? By all address'd, believed, and paid, Many pursued the thriving trade, And, great in reputation grown, Successive held the magic throne. Favour'd by every darling passion, The love of novelty and fashion, Ambition, avarice, lust, and pride, Riches pour'd in on every side. But when the prudent laws thought fit To curb this insolence of wit; When senates wisely had provided, Decreed, enacted, and decided, That no such vile and upstart elves Should have more knowledge than themselves; When fines and penalties were laid To stop the progress of the trade, And stars no longer could dispense, With honour, further influence; And wizards (which must be confess'd Was of more force than all the rest) No certain way to tell had got Which were informers, and which not; Affrighted sages were, perforce, Obliged to steer some other course. By various ways, these sons of Chance Their fortunes labour'd to advance, Well knowing, by unerring rules, Knaves starve not in the land of fools. Some, with high titles and degrees, 185 Which wise men borrow when they please, Without or trouble, or expense, Physicians instantly commence, And proudly boast an Equal skill With those who claim the right to kill. Others about the country roam, (For not one thought of going home) With pistol and adopted leg, Prepared at once to rob or beg. Some, the more subtle of their race, (Who felt some touch of coward grace, Who Tyburn to avoid had wit, But never fear'd deserving it) Came to their brother Smollett's aid, And carried on the critic trade. Attach'd to letters and the Muse, Some verses wrote, and some wrote news; Those each revolving month are seen, The heroes of a magazine; These, every morning, great appear In Ledger, or in Gazetteer, Spreading the falsehoods of the day, By turns for Faden and for Say. Like Swiss, their force is always laid On that side where they best are paid: Hence mighty prodigies arise, And daily monsters strike our eyes; Wonders, to propagate the trade, More strange than ever Baker made, Are hawk'd about from street to street, And fools believe, whilst liars eat. Now armies in the air engage, To fright a superstitious age; Now comets through the ether range, In governments portending change; Now rivers to the ocean fly So quick, they leave their channels dry; Now monstrous whales on Lambeth shore Drink the Thames dry, and thirst for more; And every now and then appears An Irish savage, numbering years More than those happy sages could 186 Who drew their breath before the flood; Now, to the wonder of all people, A church is left without a steeple; A steeple now is left in lurch, And mourns departure of the church, Which, borne on wings of mighty wind, Removed a furlong off we find; Now, wrath on cattle to discharge, Hailstones as deadly fall, and large, As those which were on Egypt sent, At once their crime and punishment; Or those which, as the prophet writes, Fell on the necks of Amorites, When, struck with wonder and amaze, The sun, suspended, stay'd to gaze, And, from her duty longer kept, In Ajalon his sister slept. But if such things no more engage The taste of a politer age, To help them out in time of need Another Tofts must rabbits breed: Each pregnant female trembling hears, And, overcome with spleen and fears, Consults her faithful glass no more, But, madly bounding o'er the floor, Feels hairs all o'er her body grow, By Fancy turn'd into a doe. Now, to promote their private ends, Nature her usual course suspends, And varies from the stated plan Observed e'er since the world began. Bodies--which foolishly we thought, By Custom's servile maxims taught, Needed a regular supply, And without nourishment must die-With craving appetites, and sense Of hunger easily dispense, And, pliant to their wondrous skill, Are taught, like watches, to stand still, Uninjured, for a month or more, Then go on as they did before. The novel takes, the tale succeeds, 187 Amply supplies its author's needs, And Betty Canning is at least, With Gascoyne's help, a six months' feast. Whilst, in contempt of all our pains, The tyrant Superstition reigns Imperious in the heart of man, And warps his thoughts from Nature's plan; Whilst fond Credulity, who ne'er The weight of wholesome doubts could bear, To Reason and herself unjust, Takes all things blindly upon trust; Whilst Curiosity, whose rage No mercy shows to sex or age, Must be indulged at the expense Of judgment, truth, and common sense, Impostures cannot but prevail; And when old miracles grow stale, Jugglers will still the art pursue, And entertain the world with new. For them, obedient to their will, And trembling at their mighty skill, Sad spirits, summon'd from the tomb, Glide, glaring ghastly, through the gloom; In all the usual pomp of storms, In horrid customary forms, A wolf, a bear, a horse, an ape, As Fear and Fancy give them shape, Tormented with despair and pain, They roar, they yell, and clank the chain. Folly and Guilt (for Guilt, howe'er The face of Courage it may wear, Is still a coward at the heart) At fear-created phantoms start. The priest--that very word implies That he's both innocent and wise-Yet fears to travel in the dark, Unless escorted by his clerk. But let not every bungler deem Too lightly of so deep a scheme; For reputation of the art, Each ghost must act a proper part, Observe Decorum's needful grace, 188 And keep the laws of Time and Place; Must change, with happy variation, His manners with his situation; What in the country might pass down, Would be impertinent in town. No spirit of discretion here Can think of breeding awe and fear; 'Twill serve the purpose more by half To make the congregation laugh. We want no ensigns of surprise, Locks stiff with gore, and saucer eyes; Give us an entertaining sprite, Gentle, familiar, and polite, One who appears in such a form As might an holy hermit warm, Or who on former schemes refines, And only talks by sounds and signs, Who will not to the eye appear, But pays her visits to the ear, And knocks so gently, 't would not fright A lady in the darkest night. Such is our Fanny, whose good-will, Which cannot in the grave lie still, Brings her on earth to entertain Her friends and lovers in Cock-lane. ~ Charles Churchill,

513:Amours De Voyage, Canto Ii Is it illusion? or does there a spirit from perfecter ages, Here, even yet, amid loss, change, and corruption abide? Does there a spirit we know not, though seek, though we find, comprehend not, Here to entice and confuse, tempt and evade us, abide? Lives in the exquisite grace of the column disjointed and single, Haunts the rude masses of brick garlanded gaily with vine, E'en in the turret fantastic surviving that springs from the ruin, E'en in the people itself? is it illusion or not? Is it illusion or not that attracteth the pilgrim transalpine, Brings him a dullard and dunce hither to pry and to stare? Is it illusion or not that allures the barbarian stranger, Brings him with gold to the shrine, brings him in arms to the gate? I. Claude to Eustace. What do the people say, and what does the government do?--you Ask, and I know not at all. Yet fortune will favour your hopes; and I, who avoided it all, am fated, it seems, to describe it. I, who nor meddle nor make in politics,--I who sincerely Put not my trust in leagues nor any suffrage by ballot, Never predicted Parisian millenniums, never beheld a New Jerusalem coming down dressed like a bride out of heaven Right on the Place de la Concorde,--I, nevertheless, let me say it, Could in my soul of souls, this day, with the Gaul at the gates shed One true tear for thee, thou poor little Roman Republic; What, with the German restored, with Sicily safe to the Bourbon, Not leave one poor corner for native Italian exertion? France, it is foully done! and you, poor foolish England,-You, who a twelvemonth ago said nations must choose for themselves, you Could not, of course, interfere,--you, now, when a nation has chosen---Pardon this folly! The Times will, of course, have announced the occasion, Told you the news of to-day; and although it was slightly in error When it proclaimed as a fact the Apollo was sold to a Yankee, You may believe when it tells you the French are at Civita Vecchia. 16 II. Claude to Eustace. Dulce it is, and decorum, no doubt, for the country to fall,--to Offer one's blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the Cause; yet Still, individual culture is also something, and no man Finds quite distinct the assurance that he of all others is called on, Or would be justified even, in taking away from the world that Precious creature, himself. Nature sent him here to abide here; Else why send him at all? Nature wants him still, it is likely; On the whole, we are meant to look after ourselves; it is certain Each has to eat for himself, digest for himself, and in general Care for his own dear life, and see to his own preservation; Nature's intentions, in most things uncertain, in this are decisive; Which, on the whole, I conjecture the Romans will follow, and I shall. So we cling to our rocks like limpets; Ocean may bluster, Over and under and round us; we open our shells to imbibe our Nourishment, close them again, and are safe, fulfilling the purpose Nature intended,--a wise one, of course, and a noble, we doubt not. Sweet it may be and decorous, perhaps, for the country to die; but, On the whole, we conclude the Romans won't do it, and I sha'n't. III. Claude to Eustace. Will they fight? They say so. And will the French? I can hardly, Hardly think so; and yet----He is come, they say, to Palo, He is passed from Monterone, at Santa Severa He hath laid up his guns. But the Virgin, the Daughter of Roma, She hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn,--The Daughter of Tiber, She hath shaken her head and built barricades against thee! Will they fight? I believe it. Alas! 'tis ephemeral folly, Vain and ephemeral folly, of course, compared with pictures, Statues, and antique gems!--Indeed: and yet indeed too, Yet, methought, in broad day did I dream,--tell it not in St. James's, Whisper it not in thy courts, O Christ Church!--yet did I, waking, Dream of a cadence that sings, Si tombent nos jeunes héros, la Terre en produit de nouveaux contre vous tous prêts à se battre; Dreamt of great indignations and angers transcendental, Dreamt of a sword at my side and a battle-horse underneath me. 17 IV. Claude to Eustace. Now supposing the French or the Neapolitan soldier Should by some evil chance come exploring the Maison Serny (Where the family English are all to assemble for safety), Am I prepared to lay down my life for the British female? Really, who knows? One has bowed and talked, till, little by little, All the natural heat has escaped of the chivalrous spirit. Oh, one conformed, of course; but one doesn't die for good manners, Stab or shoot, or be shot, by way of graceful attention. No, if it should be at all, it should be on the barricades there; Should I incarnadine ever this inky pacifical finger, Sooner far should it be for this vapour of Italy's freedom, Sooner far by the side of the d----d and dirty plebeians. Ah, for a child in the street I could strike; for the full-blown lady---Somehow, Eustace, alas! I have not felt the vocation. Yet these people of course will expect, as of course, my protection, Vernon in radiant arms stand forth for the lovely Georgina, And to appear, I suppose, were but common civility. Yes, and Truly I do not desire they should either be killed or offended. Oh, and of course, you will say, 'When the time comes, you will be ready.' Ah, but before it comes, am I to presume it will be so? What I cannot feel now, am I to suppose that I shall feel? Am I not free to attend for the ripe and indubious instinct? Am I forbidden to wait for the clear and lawful perception? Is it the calling of man to surrender his knowledge and insight, For the mere venture of what may, perhaps, be the virtuous action? Must we, walking our earth, discerning a little, and hoping Some plain visible task shall yet for our hands be assigned us,-Must we abandon the future for fear of omitting the present, Quit our own fireside hopes at the alien call of a neighbour, To the mere possible shadow of Deity offer the victim? And is all this, my friend, but a weak and ignoble refining, Wholly unworthy the head or the heart of Your Own Correspondent? V. Claude to Eustace. Yes, we are fighting at last, it appears. This morning as usual, Murray, as usual, in hand, I enter the Caffè Nuovo; 18 Seating myself with a sense as it were of a change in the weather, Not understanding, however, but thinking mostly of Murray, And, for to-day is their day, of the Campidoglio Marbles; Caffè-latte! I call to the waiter,--and Non c'è latte, This is the answer he makes me, and this is the sign of a battle. So I sit: and truly they seem to think any one else more Worthy than me of attention. I wait for my milkless nero, Free to observe undistracted all sorts and sizes of persons, Blending civilian and soldier in strangest costume, coming in, and Gulping in hottest haste, still standing, their coffee,--withdrawing Eagerly, jangling a sword on the steps, or jogging a musket Slung to the shoulder behind. They are fewer, moreover, than usual, Much and silenter far; and so I begin to imagine Something is really afloat. Ere I leave, the Caffe is empty, Empty too the streets, in all its length the Corso Empty, and empty I see to my right and left the Condotti. Twelve o'clock, on the Pincian Hill, with lots of English, Germans, Americans, French,--the Frenchmen, too, are protected,-So we stand in the sun, but afraid of a probable shower; So we stand and stare, and see, to the left of St. Peter's, Smoke, from the cannon, white,--but that is at intervals only,-Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. Every ten minutes, however,--in this there is no misconception,-Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo's dome, and After a space the report of a real big gun,--not the Frenchman's!-That must be doing some work. And so we watch and conjecture. Shortly, an Englishman comes, who says he has been to St. Peter's, Seen the Piazza and troops, but that is all he can tell us; So we watch and sit, and, indeed, it begins to be tiresome.-All this smoke is outside; when it has come to the inside, It will be time, perhaps, to descend and retreat to our houses. Half-past one, or two. The report of small arms frequent, Sharp and savage indeed; that cannot all be for nothing: So we watch and wonder; but guessing is tiresome, very. Weary of wondering, watching, and guessing, and gossiping idly, Down I go, and pass through the quiet streets with the knots of National Guards patrolling, and flags hanging out at the windows, English, American, Danish,--and, after offering to help an Irish family moving en masse to the Maison Serny, After endeavouring idly to minister balm to the trembling 19 Quinquagenarian fears of two lone British spinsters, Go to make sure of my dinner before the enemy enter. But by this there are signs of stragglers returning; and voices Talk, though you don't believe it, of guns and prisoners taken; And on the walls you read the first bulletin of the morning.-This is all that I saw, and all that I know of the battle. VI. Claude to Eustace. Victory! Victory!--Yes! ah, yes, thou republican Zion, Truly the kings of the earth are gathered and gone by together; Doubtless they marvelled to witness such things, were astonished, and so forth. Victory! Victory! Victory!--Ah, but it is, believe me, Easier, easier far, to intone the chant of the martyr Than to indite any paean of any victory. Death may Sometimes be noble; but life, at the best, will appear an illusion. While the great pain is upon us, it is great; when it is over, Why, it is over. The smoke of the sacrifice rises to heaven, Of a sweet savour, no doubt, to Somebody; but on the altar, Lo, there is nothing remaining but ashes and dirt and ill odour. So it stands, you perceive; the labial muscles that swelled with Vehement evolution of yesterday Marseillaises, Articulations sublime of defiance and scorning, to-day colLapse and languidly mumble, while men and women and papers Scream and re-scream to each other the chorus of Victory. Well, but I am thankful they fought, and glad that the Frenchmen were beaten. VII. Claude to Eustace. So, I have seen a man killed! An experience that, among others! Yes, I suppose I have; although I can hardly be certain, And in a court of justice could never declare I had seen it. But a man was killed, I am told, in a place where I saw Something; a man was killed, I am told, and I saw something. I was returning home from St. Peter's; Murray, as usual, Under my arm, I remember; had crossed the St. Angelo bridge; and Moving towards the Condotti, had got to the first barricade, when Gradually, thinking still of St. Peter's, I became conscious 20 Of a sensation of movement opposing me,--tendency this way (Such as one fancies may be in a stream when the wave of the tide is Coming and not yet come,--a sort of noise and retention); So I turned, and, before I turned, caught sight of stragglers Heading a crowd, it is plain, that is coming behind that corner. Looking up, I see windows filled with heads; the Piazza, Into which you remember the Ponte St. Angelo enters, Since I passed, has thickened with curious groups; and now the Crowd is coming, has turned, has crossed that last barricade, is Here at my side. In the middle they drag at something. What is it? Ha! bare swords in the air, held up? There seem to be voices Pleading and hands putting back; official, perhaps; but the swords are Many, and bare in the air. In the air? they descend; they are smiting, Hewing, chopping--At what? In the air once more upstretched? And-Is it blood that's on them? Yes, certainly blood! Of whom, then? Over whom is the cry of this furor of exultation? While they are skipping and screaming, and dancing their caps on the points of Swords and bayonets, I to the outskirts back, and ask a Mercantile-seeming bystander, 'What is it?' and he, looking always That way, makes me answer, 'A Priest, who was trying to fly to The Neapolitan army,'--and thus explains the proceeding. You didn't see the dead man? No;--I began to be doubtful; I was in black myself, and didn't know what mightn't happen,-But a National Guard close by me, outside of the hubbub, Broke his sword with slashing a broad hat covered with dust,--and Passing away from the place with Murray under my arm, and Stooping, I saw through the legs of the people the legs of a body. You are the first, do you know, to whom I have mentioned the matter. Whom should I tell it to else?--these girls?--the Heavens forbid it!-Quidnuncs at Monaldini's--Idlers upon the Pincian? If I rightly remember, it happened on that afternoon when Word of the nearer approach of a new Neapolitan army First was spread. I began to bethink me of Paris Septembers, Thought I could fancy the look of that old 'Ninety-two. On that evening Three or four, or, it may be, five, of these people were slaughtered Some declared they had, one of them, fired on a sentinel; others Say they were only escaping; a Priest, it is currently stated, Stabbed a National Guard on the very Piazza Colonna: History, Rumour of Rumours, I leave to thee to determine! But I am thankful to say the government seems to have strength to Put it down; it has vanished, at least; the place is most peaceful. Through the Trastevere walking last night, at nine of the clock, I 21 Found no sort of disorder; I crossed by the Island-bridges, So by the narrow streets to the Ponte Rotto, and onwards Thence by the Temple of Vesta, away to the great Coliseum, Which at the full of the moon is an object worthy a visit. VIII. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ----. Only think, dearest Louisa, what fearful scenes we have witnessed!-**************** George has just seen Garibaldi, dressed up in a long white cloak, on Horseback, riding by, with his mounted negro behind him: This is a man, you know, who came from America with him, Out of the woods, I suppose, and uses a lasso in fighting, Which is, I don't quite know, but a sort of noose, I imagine; This he throws on the heads of the enemy's men in a battle, Pulls them into his reach, and then most cruelly kills them: Mary does not believe, but we heard it from an Italian. Mary allows she was wrong about Mr. Claude being selfish; He was most useful and kind on the terrible thirtieth of April. Do not write here any more; we are starting directly for Florence: We should be off to-morrow, if only Papa could get horses; All have been seized everywhere for the use of this dreadful Mazzini P.S. Mary has seen thus far.--I am really so angry, Louisa,-Quite out of patience, my dearest! What can the man be intending? I am quite tired; and Mary, who might bring him to in a moment, Lets him go on as he likes, and neither will help nor dismiss him. IX. Claude to Eustace. It is most curious to see what a power a few calm words (in Merely a brief proclamation) appear to possess on the people. Order is perfect, and peace; the city is utterly tranquil; And one cannot conceive that this easy and nonchalant crowd, that Flows like a quiet stream through street and market-place, entering Shady recesses and bays of church, osteria, and caffè, Could in a moment be changed to a flood as of molten lava, 22 Boil into deadly wrath and wild homicidal delusion. Ah, 'tis an excellent race,--and even in old degradation, Under a rule that enforces to flattery, lying, and cheating, E'en under Pope and Priest, a nice and natural people. Oh, could they but be allowed this chance of redemption!--but clearly That is not likely to be. Meantime, notwithstanding all journals, Honour for once to the tongue and the pen of the eloquent writer! Honour to speech! and all honour to thee, thou noble Mazzini! X. Claude to Eustace. I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so. I am in love, you say; with those letters, of course, you would say so. I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you It is a pleasure indeed to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift, Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of thinking, Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment, Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to Step from ideas and fancies and loving sensations to those vain Conscious understandings that vex the minds of mankind. No, though she talk, it is music; her fingers desert not the keys; 'tis Song, though you hear in the song the articulate vocables sounded, Syllabled singly and sweetly the words of melodious meaning. I am in love, you say; I do not think so, exactly. XI. Claude to Eustace. There are two different kinds, I believe, of human attraction: One which simply disturbs, unsettles, and makes you uneasy, And another that poises, retains, and fixes and holds you. I have no doubt, for myself, in giving my voice for the latter. I do not wish to be moved, but growing where I was growing, There more truly to grow, to live where as yet I had languished. I do not like being moved: for the will is excited; and action Is a most dangerous thing; I tremble for something factitious, Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process; We are so prone to these things, with our terrible notions of duty. 23 XII. Claude to Eustace. Ah, let me look, let me watch, let me wait, unhurried, unprompted! Bid me not venture on aught that could alter or end what is present! Say not, Time flies, and Occasion, that never returns, is departing! Drive me not out yet, ye ill angels with fiery swords, from my Eden, Waiting, and watching, and looking! Let love be its own inspiration! Shall not a voice, if a voice there must be, from the airs that environ, Yea, from the conscious heavens, without our knowledge or effort, Break into audible words? And love be its own inspiration? XIII. Claude to Eustace. Wherefore and how I am certain, I hardly can tell; but it is so. She doesn't like me, Eustace; I think she never will like me. Is it my fault, as it is my misfortune, my ways are not her ways? Is it my fault, that my habits and modes are dissimilar wholly? 'Tis not her fault; 'tis her nature, her virtue, to misapprehend them: 'Tis not her fault; 'tis her beautiful nature, not ever to know me. Hopeless it seems,--yet I cannot, though hopeless, determine to leave it: She goes--therefore I go; she moves,--I move, not to lose her. XIV. Claude to Eustace. Oh, 'tisn't manly, of course, 'tisn't manly, this method of wooing; 'Tisn't the way very likely to win. For the woman, they tell you, Ever prefers the audacious, the wilful, the vehement hero; She has no heart for the timid, the sensitive soul; and for knowledge,-Knowledge, O ye Gods!--when did they appreciate knowledge? Wherefore should they, either? I am sure I do not desire it. Ah, and I feel too, Eustace, she cares not a tittle about me! (Care about me, indeed! and do I really expect it?) But my manner offends; my ways are wholly repugnant; Every word that I utter estranges, hurts, and repels her; Every moment of bliss that I gain, in her exquisite presence, 24 Slowly, surely, withdraws her, removes her, and severs her from me. Not that I care very much!--any way I escape from the boy's own Folly, to which I am prone, of loving where it is easy. Not that I mind very much! Why should I? I am not in love, and Am prepared, I think, if not by previous habit, Yet in the spirit beforehand for this and all that is like it; It is an easier matter for us contemplative creatures, Us upon whom the pressure of action is laid so lightly; We, discontented indeed with things in particular, idle, Sickly, complaining, by faith, in the vision of things in general, Manage to hold on our way without, like others around us, Seizing the nearest arm to comfort, help, and support us. Yet, after all, my Eustace, I know but little about it. All I can say for myself, for present alike and for past, is, Mary Trevellyn, Eustace, is certainly worth your acquaintance. You couldn't come, I suppose, as far as Florence to see her? XV. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ----. . . . . . . To-morrow we're starting for Florence, Truly rejoiced, you may guess, to escape from republican terrors; Mr. C. and Papa to escort us; we by vettura Through Siena, and Georgy to follow and join us by Leghorn. Then---- Ah, what shall I say, my dearest? I tremble in thinking! You will imagine my feelings,--the blending of hope and of sorrow. How can I bear to abandon Papa and Mamma and my Sisters? Dearest Louise, indeed it is very alarming; but, trust me Ever, whatever may change, to remain your loving Georgina. P.S. by Mary Trevellyn. . . . . . . . 'Do I like Mr. Claude any better?' I am to tell you,--and, 'Pray, is it Susan or I that attract him?' This he never has told, but Georgina could certainly ask him. All I can say for myself is, alas! that he rather repels me. There! I think him agreeable, but also a little repulsive. So be content, dear Louisa; for one satisfactory marriage Surely will do in one year for the family you would establish Neither Susan nor I shall afford you the joy of a second. 25 P.S. by Georgina Trevellyn. Mr. Claude, you must know, is behaving a little bit better; He and Papa are great friends; but he really is too shilly-shally,-So unlike George! Yet I hope that the matte is going on fairly. I shall, however, get George, before he goes, to say something. Dearest Louise, how delightful to bring young people together! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is it Florence we follow, or are we to tarry yet longer, E'en amid clamour of arms, here in the city of old, Seeking from clamour of arms in the Past and the Arts to be hidden, Vainly 'mid Arts and the Past seeking one life to forget? Ah, fair shadow, scarce seen, go forth! for anon he shall follow,-He that beheld thee, anon, whither thou leadest must go! Go, and the wise, loving Muse, she also will follow and find thee! She, should she linger in Rome, were not dissevered from thee! ~ Arthur Hugh Clough,

514:DRAMATIS PERSONAE King Charles I. Queen Henrietta. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. Lord Cottington. Lord Weston. Lord Coventry. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln. Secretary Lyttelton. Juxon. St. John. Archy, the Court Fool. Hampden. Pym. Cromwell. Cromwell's Daughter. Sir Harry Vane the younger. Leighton. Bastwick. Prynne. Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, Citizens, Pursuivants, Marshalsmen, Law Students, Judges, Clerk. Scene I. ---The Masque of the Inns of Court. A Pursuivant. Place, for the Marshal of the Masque! First Citizen. What thinkest thou of this quaint masque which turns, Like morning from the shadow of the night, The night to day, and London to a place Of peace and joy? Second Citizen.          And Hell to Heaven. Eight years are gone, And they seem hours, since in this populous street I trod on grass made green by summer's rain, For the red plague kept state within that palace Where now that vanity reigns. In nine years more The roots will be refreshed with civil blood; And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven That sin and wrongs wound, as an orphan's cry, The patience of the great Avenger's ear. A Youth. Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see, Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden By God or man;'tis like the bright procession Of skiey visions in a solemn dream From which men wake as from a Paradise, And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. If God be good, wherefore should this be evil? And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw Unseasonable poison from the flowers Which bloom so rarely in this barren world? Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present Dark as the future!. . . When Avarice and Tyranny, vigilant Fear, And open-eyed Conspiracy lie sleeping As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts Waken to worship Him who giveth joys With His own gift. Second Citizen. How young art thou in this old age of time! How green in this gray world? Canst thou discern The signs of seasons, yet perceive no hint Of change in that stage-scene in which thou art Not a spectator but an actor? or Art thou a puppet moved by [enginery]? The day that dawns in fire will die in storms, Even though the noon be calm. My travel's done, Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found My inn of lasting rest; but thou must still Be journeying on in this inclement air. Wrap thy old cloak about thy back; Nor leave the broad and plain and beaten road, Although no flowers smile on the trodden dust, For the violet paths of pleasure. This Charles the First Rose like the equinoctial sun, . . . By vapours, through whose threatening ominous veil Darting his altered influence he has gained This height of noonfrom which he must decline Amid the darkness of conflicting storms, To dank extinction and to latest night . . . There goes The apostate Strafford; he whose titles whispered aphorisms From Machiavel and Bacon: and, if Judas Had been as brazen and as bold as he First Citizen.                      That Is the Archbishop. Second Citizen.           Rather say the Pope: London will be soon his Rome: he walks As if he trod upon the heads of men: He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold; Beside him moves the Babylonian woman Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow, Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin, Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge. Third Citizen (lifting up his eyes). Good Lord! rain it down upon him! . . . Amid her ladies walks the papist queen, As if her nice feet scorned our English earth. The Canaanitish Jezebel! I would be A dog if I might tear her with my teeth! There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry, And others who make base their English breed By vile participation of their honours With papists, atheists, tyrants, and apostates. When lawyers masque 'tis time for honest men To strip the vizor from their purposes. A seasonable time for masquers this! When Englishmen and Protestants should sit . . . dust on their dishonoured heads, To avert the wrath of Him whose scourge is felt For the great sins which have drawn down from Heaven . . . and foreign overthrow. The remnant of the martyred saints in Rochefort Have been abandoned by their faithless allies To that idolatrous and adulterous torturer Lewis of France,the Palatinate is lost Enter Leighton (who has been branded in the face) and Bastwick. Canst thou be -- art thou? -- Leighton.               I was Leighton: what I am thou seest. And yet turn thine eyes, And with thy memory look on thy friend's mind, Which is unchanged, and where is written deep The sentence of my judge. Third Citizen.               Are these the marks with which Laud thinks to improve the image of his Maker Stamped on the face of man? Curses upon him, The impious tyrant! Second Citizen.           It is said besides That lewd and papist drunkards may profane The Sabbath with their... And has permitted that most heathenish custom Of dancing round a pole dressed up with wreaths On May-day. A man who thus twice crucifies his God May well...his brother.In my mind, friend, The root of all this ill is prelacy. I would cut up the root. Third Citizen.              And by what means? Second Citizen. Smiting each Bishop under the fifth rib. Third Citizen. You seem to know the vulnerable place Of these same crocodiles. Second Citizen.               I learnt it in Egyptian bondage, sir. Your worm of Nile Betrays not with its flattering tears like they; For, when they cannot kill, they whine and weep. Nor is it half so greedy of men's bodies As they of soul and all; nor does it wallow In slime as they in simony and lies And close lusts of the flesh. A Marshalsman.                 Give place, give place! You torch-bearers, advance to the great gate, And then attend the Marshal of the Masque Into the Royal presence. A Law Student.              What thinkest thou Of this quaint show of ours, my agd friend? Even now we see the redness of the torches Inflame the night to the eastward, and the clarions [Gasp?] to us on the wind's wave. It comes! And their sounds, floating hither round the pageant, Rouse up the astonished air. First Citizen. I will not think but that our country's wounds May yet be healed. The king is just and gracious, Though wicked counsels now pervert his will: These once cast off Second Citizen.            As adders cast their skins And keep their venom, so kings often change; Councils and counsellors hang on one another, Hiding the loathsome Like the base patchwork of a leper's rags. The Youth. Oh, still those dissonant thoughts!List how the music Grows on the enchanted air! And see, the torches Restlessly flashing, and the crowd divided Like waves before an admiral's prow! A Marshalsman.                     Give place To the Marshal of the Masque! A Pursuivant.                 Room for the King! The Youth. How glorious! See those thronging chariots Rolling, like painted clouds before the wind, Behind their solemn steeds: how some are shaped Like curved sea-shells dyed by the azure depths Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon; And some like cars in which the Romans climbed (Canopied by Victory's eagle-wings outspread) The CapitolianSee how gloriously The mettled horses in the torchlight stir Their gallant riders, while they check their pride, Like shapes of some diviner element Than English air, and beings nobler than The envious and admiring multitude. Second Citizen. Ay, there they are Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees, Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm, On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows, Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan, Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart. These are the lilies glorious as Solomon, Who toil not, neither do they spin,unless It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal. Here is the surfeit which to them who earn The ****rd wages of the earth, scarce leaves The tithe that will support them till they crawl Back to her cold hard bosom. Here is health Followed by grim disease, glory by shame, Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want, And England's sin by England's punishment. And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone, Lo, giving substance to my words, behold At once the sign and the thing signified A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts, Horsed upon stumbling jades, carted with dung, Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral Of this presentment, and bring up the rear Of painted pomp with misery! The Youth.                'Tis but The anti-masque, and serves as discords do In sweetest music. Who would love May flowers If they succeeded not to Winter's flaw; Or day unchanged by night; or joy itself Without the touch of sorrow? Second Citizen.                I and thou A Marshalsman. Place, give place! Scene II. A Chamber in Whitehall. Enter the King, Queen, Laud, Lord Strafford, Lord Cottington, and other Lords;Archy ; also St. John, with some Gentlemen of the Inns of Court. King. Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily accept This token of your service: your gay masque Was performed gallantly. And it shows well When subjects twine such flowers of [observance?] With the sharp thorns that deck the English crown. A gentle heart enjoys what it confers, Even as it suffers that which it inflicts, Though Justice guides the stroke. Accept my hearty thanks. Queen.              And gentlemen, Call your poor Queen your debtor. Your quaint pageant Rose on me like the figures of past years, Treading their still path back to infancy, More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept To think I was in Paris, where these shows Are well devisedsuch as I was ere yet My young heart shared a portion of the burthen, The careful weight, of this great monarchy. There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure And that which it regards, no clamour lifts Its proud interposition. In Paris ribald censurers dare not move Their poisonous tongues against these sinless sports; And his smile Warms those who bask in it, as ours would do If...Take my heart's thanks: add them, gentlemen, To those good words which, were he King of France, My royal lord would turn to golden deeds. St. John. Madam, the love of Englishmen can make The lightest favour of their lawful king Outweigh a despot's.We humbly take our leaves, Enriched by smiles which France can never buy. [Exeunt St. John and the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court. King. My Lord Archbishop, Mark you what spirit sits in St. John's eyes? Methinks it is too saucy for this presence. Archy. Yes, pray your Grace look: for, like an unsophisticated [eye] sees everything upside down, you who are wise will discern the shadow of an idiot in lawn sleeves and a rochet setting springes to catch woodcocks in haymaking time. Poor Archy, whose owl-eyes are tempered to the error of his age, and because he is a fool, and by special ordinance of God forbidden ever to see himself as he is, sees now in that deep eye a blindfold devil sitting on the ball, and weighing words out between king and subjects. One scale is full of promises, and the other full of protestations: and then another devil creeps behind the first out of the dark windings [of a] pregnant lawyer's brain, and takes the bandage from the other's eyes, and throws a sword into the left-hand scale, for all the world like my Lord Essex's there. Strafford. A rod in pickle for the Fool's back! Archy. Ay, and some are now smiling whose tears will make the brine; for the Fool sees-- Strafford. Insolent! You shall have your coat turned and be whipped out of the palace for this. Archy. When all the fools are whipped, and all the Protestant writers, while the knaves are whipping the fools ever since a thief was set to catch a thief. If all turncoats were whipped out of palaces, poor Archy would be disgraced in good company. Let the knaves whip the fools, and all the fools laugh at it. [Let the] wise and godly slit each other's noses and ears (having no need of any sense of discernment in their craft); and the knaves, to marshal them, join in a procession to Bedlam, to entreat the madmen to omit their sublime Platonic contemplations, and manage the state of England. Let all the honest men who lie [pinched?] up at the prisons or the pillories, in custody of the pursuivants of the High-Commission Court, marshal them. Enter Secretary Lyttelton, with papers. King (looking over the papers). These stiff Scots His Grace of Canterbury must take order To force under the Church's yoke.You, Wentworth, Shall be myself in Ireland, and shall add Your wisdom, gentleness, and energy, To what in me were wanting.My Lord Weston, Look that those merchants draw not without loss Their bullion from the Tower; and, on the payment Of shipmoney, take fullest compensation For violation of our royal forests, Whose limits, from neglect, have been o'ergrown With cottages and cornfields. The uttermost Farthing exact from those who claim exemption From knighthood: that which once was a reward Shall thus be made a punishment, that subjects May know how majesty can wear at will The rugged mood.My Lord of Coventry, Lay my command upon the Courts below That bail be not accepted for the prisoners Under the warrant of the Star Chamber. The people shall not find the stubbornness Of Parliament a cheap or easy method Of dealing with their rightful sovereign: And doubt not this, my Lord of Coventry, We will find time and place for fit rebuke. My Lord of Canterbury. Archy.             The fool is here. Laud. I crave permission of your Majesty To order that this insolent fellow be Chastised: he mocks the sacred character, Scoffs at the state, and-- King.               What, my Archy? He mocks and mimics all he sees and hears, Yet with a quaint and graceful licencePrithee For this once do not as Prynne would, were he Primate of England. With your Grace's leave, He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot Hung in his gilded prison from the window Of a queen's bower over the public way, Blasphemes with a bird's mind:his words, like arrows Which know no aim beyond the archer's wit, Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy. (To Archy.) Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence Ten minutes in the rain; be it your penance To bring news how the world goes there. [Exit Archy.                       Poor Archy! He weaves about himself a world of mirth Out of the wreck of ours. Laud. I take with patience, as my Master did, All scoffs permitted from above. King.                  My lord, Pray overlook these papers. Archy's words Had wings, but these have talons. Queen.                   And the lion That wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord, I see the new-born courage in your eye Armed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time, Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast. Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve, And it were better thou hadst still remained The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer; And Opportunity, that empty wolf, Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions Even to the disposition of thy purpose, And be that tempered as the Ebro's steel; And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak, Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace, And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss, As when she keeps the company of rebels, Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream Out of our worshipped state. King.                Belovd friend, God is my witness that this weight of power, Which He sets me my earthly task to wield. Under His law, is my delight and pride Only because thou lovest that and me. For a king bears the office of a God To all the under world; and to his God Alone he must deliver up his trust, Unshorn of its permitted attributes. [It seems] now as the baser elements Had mutinied against the golden sun That kindles them to harmony and quells Their self-destroying rapine. The wild million Strike at the eye that guides them; like as humours Of the distempered body that conspire Against the spirit of life throned in the heart, And thus become the prey of one another, And last of death Strafford. That which would be ambition in a subject Is duty in a sovereign; for on him, As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life, Whose safety is its strength. Degree and form, And all that makes the age of reasoning man More memorable than a beast's, depend on this-- That Right should fence itself inviolably With Power; in which respect the state of England From usurpation by the insolent commons Cries for reform. Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin The loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies Opposing factions,-- be thyself of none; And borrow gold of many, for those who lend Will serve thee till thou payest them; and thus Keep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay, Till time, and its coming generations Of nights and days unborn, bring some one chance,... Or war or pestilence or Nature's self,-- By some distemperature or terrible sign, Be as an arbiter betwixt themselves. ...Nor let your Majesty Doubt here the peril of the unseen event. How did your brother Kings, coheritors In your high interest in the subject earth, Rise past such troubles to that height of power Where now they sit, and awfully serene Smile on the trembling world? Such popular storms Philip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France, And late the German head of many bodies, And every petty lord of Italy, Quelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorer Or feebler? or art thou who wield'st her power Tamer than they? or shall this island be-- [Girdled] by its inviolable waters To the world present and the world to come Sole pattern of extinguished monarchy? Not if thou dost as I would have thee do. King. Your words shall be my deeds: You speak the image of my thought. My friend (If Kings can have a friend, I call thee so), Beyond the large commission which [belongs] Under the great seal of the realm, take this: And, for some obvious reasons, let there be No seal on it, except my kingly word And honour as I am a gentleman. Be -- as thou art within my heart and mind-- Another self, here and in Ireland: Do what thou judgest well, take amplest licence, And stick not even at questionable means. Hear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wall Between thee and this world thine enemy That hates thee, for thou lovest me. Strafford.                     I own No friend but thee, no enemies but thine: Thy lightest thought is my eternal law. How weak, how short, is life to pay King.                     Peace, peace. Thou ow'st me nothing yet.               (To Laud.) My lord, what say Those papers? Laud. Your Majesty has ever interposed, In lenity towards your native soil, Between the heavy vengeance of the Church And Scotland. Mark the consequence of warming This brood of northern vipers in your bosom. The rabble, instructed no doubt By Loudon, Lindsay, Hume, and false Argyll (For the waves never menace heaven until Scourged by the wind's invisible tyranny), Have in the very temple of the Lord Done outrage to His chosen ministers. They scorn the liturgy of the Holy Church, Refuse to obey her canons, and deny The apostolic power with which the Spirit Has filled its elect vessels, even from him Who held the keys with power to loose and bind, To him who now pleads in this royal presence. Let ample powers and new instructions be Sent to the High Commissioners in Scotland. To death, imprisonment, and confiscation, Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred Of the offender, add the brand of infamy, Add mutilation: and if this suffice not, Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst They may lick up that scum of schismatics. I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring What we possess, still prate of Christian peace, As if those dreadful arbitrating messengers Which play the part of God 'twixt right and wrong, Should be let loose against the innocent sleep Of templed cities and the smiling fields, For some poor argument of policy Which touches our own profit or our pride (Where it indeed were Christian charity To turn the cheek even to the smiter's hand): And, when our great Redeemer, when our God, When He who gave, accepted, and retained Himself in propitiation of our sins, Is scorned in His immediate ministry, With hazard of the inestimable loss Of all the truth and discipline which is Salvation to the extremest generation Of men innumerable, they talk of peace! Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now: For, by that Christ who came to bring a sword, Not peace, upon the earth, and gave command To His disciples at the Passover That each should sell his robe and buy a sword, Once strip that minister of naked wrath, And it shall never sleep in peace again Till Scotland bend or break. King.                My Lord Archbishop, Do what thou wilt and what thou canst in this. Thy earthly even as thy heavenly King Gives thee large power in his unquiet realm. But we want money, and my mind misgives me That for so great an enterprise, as yet, We are unfurnished. Strafford.           Yet it may not long Rest on our wills. Cottington.           The expenses Of gathering shipmoney, and of distraining For every petty rate (for we encounter A desperate opposition inch by inch In every warehouse and on every farm), Have swallowed up the gross sum of the imposts; So that, though felt as a most grievous scourge Upon the land, they stand us in small stead As touches the receipt. Strafford.             'Tis a conclusion Most arithmetical: and thence you infer Perhaps the assembling of a parliament. Now, if a man should call his dearest enemies To sit in licensed judgement on his life, His Majesty might wisely take that course. [Aside to Cottington. It is enough to expect from these lean imposts That they perform the office of a scourge, Without more profit. (Aloud.) Fines and confiscations, And a forced loan from the refractory city, Will fill our coffers: and the golden love Of loyal gentlemen and noble friends For the worshipped father of our common country, With contributions from the catholics, Will make Rebellion pale in our excess. Be these the expedients until time and wisdom Shall frame a settled state of government. Laud. And weak expedients they! Have we not drained All, till the...which seemed A mine exhaustless? Strafford.           And the love which is, If loyal hearts could turn their blood to gold. Laud. Both now grow barren: and I speak it not As loving parliaments, which, as they have been In the right hand of bold bad mighty kings The scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate. Methinks they scarcely can deserve our fear. Strafford. Oh! my dear liege, take back the wealth thou gavest: With that, take all I held, but as in trust For thee, of mine inheritance: leave me but This unprovided body for thy service, And a mind dedicated to no care Except thy safety:-- but assemble not A parliament. Hundreds will bring, like me, Their fortunes, as they would their blood, before-- King. No! thou who judgest them art but one. Alas! We should be too much out of love with Heaven, Did this vile world show many such as thee, Thou perfect, just, and honourable man! Never shall it be said that Charles of England Stripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns; Nor will he so much misbecome his throne As to impoverish those who most adorn And best defend it. That you urge, dear Strafford, Inclines me rather-- Queen.            To a parliament? Is this thy firmness? and thou wilt preside Over a knot of . . . censurers, To the unswearing of thy best resolves, And choose the worst, when the worst comes too soon? Plight not the worst before the worst must come. Oh, wilt thou smile whilst our ribald foes, Dressed in their own usurped authority, Sharpen their tongues on Henrietta's fame? It is enough! Thou lovest me no more! [Weeps. King. Oh, Henrietta! [They talk apart. Cottington (to Laud).        Money we have none: And all the expedients of my Lord of Strafford Will scarcely meet the arrears. Laud.                  Without delay An army must be sent into the north; Followed by a Commission of the Church, With amplest power to quench in fire and blood, And tears and terror, and the pity of hell, The intenser wrath of Heresy. God will give Victory; and victory over Scotland give The lion England tamed into our hands. That will lend power, and power bring gold. Cottington.                    Meanwhile We must begin first where your Grace leaves off. Gold must give power, or Laud.               I am not averse From the assembling of a parliament. Strong actions and smooth words might teach them soon The lesson to obey. And are they not A bubble fashioned by the monarch's mouth, The birth of one light breath? If they serve no purpose, A word dissolves them. Strafford.             The engine of parliaments Might be deferred until I can bring over The Irish regiments: they will serve to assure The issue of the war against the Scots. And, this game won -- which if lost, all is lost-- Gather these chosen leaders of the rebels, And call them, if you will, a parliament. King. Oh, be our feet still tardy to shed blood, Guilty though it may be! I would still spare The stubborn country of my birth, and ward From countenances which I loved in youth The wrathful Church's lacerating hand. (To Laud.) Have you o'erlooked the other articles? [Re-enter Archy. Laud. Hazlerig, Hampden, Pym, young Harry Vane, Cromwell, and other rebels of less note, Intend to sail with the next favouring wind For the Plantations. Archy.            Where they think to found A commonwealth like Gonzalo's in the play, Gynaecocoenic and pantisocratic. King. What's that, sirrah? Archy.            New devil's politics. Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths: Lucifer was the first republican. Will you hear Merlin's prophecy, how three [posts?] 'In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full, Shall sail round the world, and come back again: Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull, And come back again when the moon is at full:' When, in spite of the Church, They will hear homilies of whatever length Or form they please. [Cottington?] So please your Majesty to sign this order For their detention. Archy. If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases had secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man? King. If fear were made for kings, the Fool mocks wisely; But in this case --(writing.) Here, my lord, take the warrant, And see it duly executed forthwith.-- That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished. [Exeunt all but King, Queen, and Archy. Archy. Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud who would reduce a verdict of 'guilty, death,' by famine, if it were impregnable by compositionall impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays. Queen. Is the rain over, sirrah? King.               When it rains And the sun shines, 'twill rain again to-morrow: And therefore never smile till you've done crying. Archy. But 'tis all over now: like the April anger of woman, the gentle sky has wept itself serene. Queen. What news abroad? how looks the world this morning? Archy. Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There's a rainbow in the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for 'A rainbow in the morning Is the shepherd's warning;' and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast. King. The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy; and the shepherd, the wolves for their watchdogs. Queen. But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more. Archy. Ay, the salt-water one: but that of tears and blood must yet come down, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.-- The rainbow hung over the city with all its shops,...and churches, from north to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the masonry of heaven like a balance in which the angel that distributes the coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in the lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the meanest feet. Queen. Who taught you this trash, sirrah? Archy. A torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt.-- But for the rainbow. It moved as the sun moved, and...until the top of the Tower...of a cloud through its left-hand tip, and Lambeth Palace look as dark as a rock before the other. Methought I saw a crown figured upon one tip, and a mitre on the other. So, as I had heard treasures were found where the rainbow quenches its points upon the earth, I set off, and at the Tower -- But I shall not tell your Majesty what I found close to the closet-window on which the rainbow had glimmered. King. Speak: I will make my Fool my conscience. Archy. Then conscience is a fool.I saw there a cat caught in a rat-trap. I heard the rats squeak behind the wainscots: it seemed to me that the very mice were consulting on the manner of her death. Queen. Archy is shrewd and bitter. Archy. Like the season, So blow the winds.But at the other end of the rainbow, where the gray rain was tempered along the grass and leaves by a tender interfusion of violet and gold in the meadows beyond Lambeth, what think you that I found instead of a mitre? King. Vane's wits perhaps. Archy. Something as vain. I saw a gross vapour hovering in a stinking ditch over the carcass of a dead ****, some rotten rags, and broken dishesthe wrecks of what once administered to the stuffing-out and the ornament of a worm of worms. His Grace of Canterbury expects to enter the New Jerusalem some Palm Sunday in triumph on the ghost of this ****. Queen. Enough, enough! Go desire Lady Jane She place my lute, together with the music Mari received last week from Italy, In my boudoir, and [Exit Archy. King.           I'll go in. Queen.                  My beloved lord, Have you not noted that the Fool of late Has lost his careless mirth, and that his words Sound like the echoes of our saddest fears? What can it mean? I should be loth to think Some factious slave had tutored him. King.                  Oh, no! He is but Occasion's pupil. Partly 'tis That our minds piece the vacant intervals Of his wild words with their own fashioning, As in the imagery of summer clouds, Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts: And partly, that the terrors of the time Are sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits; And in the lightest and the least, may best Be seen the current of the coming wind. Queen. Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts. Come, I will sing to you; let us go try These airs from Italy; and, as we pass The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio Shall hangthe Virgin Mother With her child, born the King of heaven and earth, Whose reign is men's salvation. And you shall see A cradled miniature of yourself asleep, Stamped on the heart by never-erring love; Liker than any Vandyke ever made, A pattern to the unborn age of thee, Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow, Did I not think that after we were dead Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that The cares we waste upon our heavy crown Would make it light and glorious as a wreath Of Heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow. King. Dear Henrietta! Scene III. The Star Chamber. Laud, Juxon, Strafford, and others, as Judges. Prynne as a Prisoner, and thenBastwick. Laud. Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick: let the clerk Recite his sentence. Clerk.           'That he pay five thousand Pounds to the king, lose both his ears, be branded With red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead, And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle During the pleasure of the Court.' Laud.                   Prisoner, If you have aught to say wherefore this sentence Should not be put into effect, now speak. Juxon. If you have aught to plead in mitigation, Speak. Bastwick.    Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I Were an invader of the royal power, A public scorner of the word of God, Profane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious, Impious in heart and in tyrannic act, Void of wit, honesty, and temperance; If Satan were my lord, as theirs,our God Pattern of all I should avoid to do; Were I an enemy of my God and King And of good men, as ye are;I should merit Your fearful state and gilt prosperity, Which, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall turn To cowls and robes of everlasting fire. But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not The only earthly favour ye can yield, Or I think worth acceptance at your hands, Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment. . . . even as my Master did, Until Heaven's kingdom shall descend on earth, Or earth be like a shadow in the light Of Heaven absorbedsome few tumultuous years Will pass, and leave no wreck of what opposes His will whose will is power. Laud. Officer, take the prisoner from the bar, And be his tongue slit for his insolence. Bastwick. While this hand holds a pen Laud.                 Be his hands-- Juxon.                       Stop! Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can speak No terror, would interpret, being dumb, Heaven's thunder to our harm;... And hands, which now write only their own shame, With bleeding stumps might sign our blood away. Laud. Much more such 'mercy' among men would be, Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I Could suffer what I would inflict. [Exit Bastwick guarded.                   Bring up The Lord Bishop of Lincoln.                 (To Strafford.) Know you not That, in distraining for ten thousand pounds Upon his books and furniture at Lincoln, Were found these scandalous and seditious letters Sent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled? I speak it not as touching this poor person; But of the office which should make it holy, Were it as vile as it was ever spotless. Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes His Majesty, if I misinterpret not. Enter Bishop Williams guarded. Strafford. 'Twere politic and just that Williams taste The bitter fruit of his connection with The schismatics. But you, my Lord Archbishop, Who owed your first promotion to his favour, Who grew beneath his smile Laud.                Would therefore beg The office of his judge from this High Court, That it shall seem, even as it is, that I, In my assumption of this sacred robe, Have put aside all worldly preference, All sense of all distinction of all persons, All thoughts but of the service of the Church. Bishop of Lincoln! Williams.           Peace, proud hierarch! I know my sentence, and I own it just. Thou wilt repay me less than I deserve, In stretching to the utmost. . . Scene IV. --Hampden, Pym, Cromwell, his Daughter, and young Sir Harry Vane. Hampden. England, farewell! thou, who hast been my cradle, Shalt never be my dungeon or my grave! I held what I inherited in thee As pawn for that inheritance of freedom Which thou hast sold for thy despoiler's smile: How can I call thee England, or my country? Does the wind hold? Vane.           The vanes sit steady Upon the Abbey towers. The silver lightnings Of the evening star, spite of the city's smoke, Tell that the north wind reigns in the upper air. Mark too that flock of fleecy-wingd clouds Sailing athwart St. Margaret's. Hampden.                  Hail, fleet herald Of tempest! that rude pilot who shall guide Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee, Beyond the shot of tyranny, Beyond the webs of that swoln spider . . . Beyond the curses, calumnies, and [lies?] Of atheist priests! . . . And thou Fair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic, Athwart its zones of tempest and of calm, Bright as the path to a belovd home, Oh, light us to the isles of the evening land! Like floating Edens cradled in the glimmer Of sunset, through the distant mist of years Touched by departing hope, they gleam! lone regions, Where Power's poor dupes and victims yet have never Propitiated the savage fear of kings With purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew Is yet unstained with tears of those who wake To weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns; Whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo Of formal blasphemies; nor impious rites Wrest man's free worship, from the God who loves, To the poor worm who envies us His love! Receive, thou young....of Paradise, These exiles from the old and sinful world!.... This glorious clime, this firmament, whose lights Dart mitigated influence through their veil Of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth; This vaporous horizon, whose dim round Is bastioned by the circumfluous sea, Repelling invasion from the sacred towers, Presses upon me like a dungeon's grate, A low dark roof, a damp and narrow wall. The boundless universe Becomes a cell too narrow for the soul That owns no master; while the loathliest ward Of this wide prison, England, is a nest Of cradling peace built on the mountain tops, To which the eagle spirits of the free, Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn the storm Of time, and gaze upon the light of truth, Return to brood on thoughts that cannot die And cannot be repelled. Like eaglets floating in the heaven of time, They soar above their quarry, and shall stoop Through palaces and temples thunderproof. SCENE V Archy. I'll go live under the ivy that overgrows the terrace, and count the tears shed on its old [roots?] as the [wind?] plays the song of 'A widow bird sate mourning Upon a wintry bough.' [Sings] Heigho! the lark and the owl! One flies the morning, and one lulls the night:-- Only the nightingale, poor fond soul, Sings like the fool through darkness and light. 'A widow bird sate mourning for her love Upon a wintry bough; The frozen wind crept on above, The freezing stream below. 'There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground, And little motion in the air Except the mill-wheel's sound.' Charles the First was designed in 1818, begun towards the close of 1819, resumed in January, and finally laid aside by June, 1822. It was published in part in the Posthumous Poems, 1824, and printed, in its present form (with the addition of some 530 lines), by Mr. William Michael Rossetti, 1870. 1. Archy, the court fool of Charles I, is both an unacknowledged prophet and, as King Charles claims, a weaver of "a world of mirth out of the wreck of ours."    ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charles The First ,

515: Book VIII: The Book of the Gods So on the earth the seed that was sown of the centuries ripened; Europe and Asia, met on their borders, clashed in the Troad. All over earth men wept and bled and laboured, world-wide Sowing Fate with their deeds and had other fruit than they hoped for, Out of desires and their passionate griefs and fleeting enjoyments Weaving a tapestry fit for the gods to admire, who in silence Joy, by the cloud and the sunbeam veiled, and men know not their movers. They in the glens of Olympus, they by the waters of Ida Or in their temples worshipped in vain or with heart-strings of mortals Sated their vast desire and enjoying the world and each other Sported free and unscourged; for the earth was their prey and their playground. But from his luminous deep domain, from his estate of azure Zeus looked forth; he beheld the earth in its flowering greenness Spread like an emerald dream that the eyes have enthroned in the sunlight, Heard the symphonies old of the ocean recalling the ages Lost and dead from its marches salt and unharvested furrows, Felt in the pregnant hour the unborn hearts of the future. Troubled kingdoms of men he beheld, the hind in the furrow, Lords of the glebe and the serf subdued to the yoke of his fortunes, Slavegirls tending the fire and herdsmen driving the cattle, Artisans labouring long for a little hire in mens cities, Labour long and the meagre reward for a toil that is priceless. Kings in their seats august or marching swift with their armies Founded ruthlessly brittle empires. Merchant and toiler Patiently heaped up our transient wealth like the ants in their hillock. And to preserve it all, to protect this dust that must perish, Hurting the eternal soul and maiming heaven for some metal Judges condemned their brothers to chains and to death and to torment, Criminals scourgers of crime, for so are these ant-heaps founded, Punishing sin by a worse affront to our crucified natures. All the uncertainty, all the mistaking, all the delusion Naked were to his gaze; in the moonlit orchards there wandered Lovers dreaming of love that endurestill the moment of treason; Helped by the anxious joy of their kindred supported their anguish Women with travail racked for the child who shall rack them with sorrow. Hopes that were confident, fates that sprang dire from the seed of a moment, Yearning that claimed all time for its date and all life for its fuel, All that we wonder at gazing back when the passion has fallen, Labour blind and vain expense and sacrifice wasted, These he beheld with a heart unshaken; to each side he studied Seas of confused attempt and the strife and the din and the crying. All things he pierced in us gazing down with his eyelids immortal, Lids on which sleep dare not settle, the Father of men on his creatures; Nor by the cloud and the mist was obscured which baffles our eyeballs, But he distinguished our source and saw to the end of our labour. He in the animal racked knew the god that is slowly delivered; Therefore his heart rejoiced. Not alone the mind in its trouble God beholds, but the spirit behind that has joy of the torture. Might not our human gaze on the smoke of a furnace, the burning Red, intolerable, anguish of ore that is fused in the hell-heat, Shrink and yearn for coolness and peace and condemn all the labour? Rather look to the purity coming, the steel in its beauty, Rather rejoice with the master who stands in his gladness accepting Heat of the glorious god and the fruitful pain of the iron. Last the eternal gaze was fixed on Troy and the armies Marching swift to the shock. It beheld the might of Achilles Helmed and armed, knew all the craft in the brain of Odysseus, Saw Deiphobus stern in his car and the fates of Aeneas, Greece of her heroes empty, Troy enringed by her slayers, Paris a setting star and the beauty of Penthesilea. These things he saw delighted; the heart that contains all our ages Blessed our toil and grew full of its fruits, as the Artist eternal Watched his vehement drama staged twixt the sea and the mountains, Phrased in the clamour and glitter of arms and closed by the firebrand, Act itself out in blood and in passions fierce on the Troad. Yet as a father his children, who sits in the peace of his study Hearing the noise of his brood and pleased with their play and their quarrels, So he beheld our mortal race. Then, turned from the armies, Into his mind he gazed where Time is reflected and, conscient, Knew the iron knot of our human fates in their warfare. Calm he arose and left our earth for his limitless kingdoms. Far from this lower blue and high in the death-scorning spaces Lifted oer mortal mind where Time and Space are but figures Lightly imagined by Thought divine in her luminous stillness, Zeus has his palace high and there he has stabled his war-car. Thence he descends to our mortal realms; where the heights of our mountains Meet with the divine air, he touches and enters our regions. Now he ascended back to his natural realms and their rapture, There where all life is bliss and each feeling an ecstasy mastered. Thence his eagle Thought with its flashing pinions extended Winged through the world to the gods, and they came at the call, they ascended Up from their play and their calm and their works through the infinite azure. Some from our mortal domains in grove or by far-flowing river Cool from the winds of the earth or quivering with perishable fragrance Came, or our laughter they bore and the song of the sea in their paces. Some from the heavens above us arrived, our vital dominions Whence we draw breath; for there all things have life, the stone like the ilex, Clay of those realms like the children of men and the brood of the giants. There Enceladus groans oppressed and draws strength from his anguish Under a living Aetna and flames that have joy of his entrails. Fiercely he groans and rejoices expecting the end of his foemen Hastened by every pang and counts long Time by his writhings. There in the champaigns unending battle the gods and the giants, There in eternal groves the lovers have pleasure for ever, There are the faery climes and there are the wonderful pastures. Some from a marvellous Paradise hundred-realmed in its musings, Million-ecstasied, climbed like flames that in silence aspire Windless, erect in a motionless dream, yet ascending for ever. All grew aware of the will divine and were drawn to the Father. Grandiose, calm in her gait, imperious, awing the regions, Hera came in her pride, the spouse of Zeus and his sister. As at her birth from the foam of the spaces white Aphrodite Rose in the cloud of her golden hair like the moon in its halo. Aegis-bearing Athene, shielded and helmeted, answered Rushing the call and the heavens thrilled with the joy of her footsteps Dumbly repeating her name, as insulted and trampled by beauty Thrill might the soul of a lover and cry out the name of its tyrant. Others there were as mighty; for Artemis, archeress ancient, Came on her sandals lightning-tasselled. Up the vast incline Shaking the world with the force of his advent thundered Poseidon; Space grew full of his stride and his cry. Immortal Apollo Shone and his silver clang was heard with alarm in our kingdoms. Ares impetuous eyes looked forth from a cloud-drift of splendour; Themis steps appeared and Ananke, the mystic Erinnys; Nor was Hephaestus flaming strength from his father divided. Even the ancient Dis to arrive dim-featured, eternal, Seemed; but his rays are the shades and his voice is the call of the silence. Into the courts divine they crowded, radiant, burning, Perfect in utter grace and light. The joy of their spirits Calls to eternal Time and the glories of Space are his answer: Thence were these bright worlds born and persist by the throb of their heart-beats. Not in the forms that mortals have seen when assisted they scatter Mists of this earthly dust from their eyes in their moments of greatness Shone those unaging Powers; nor as in our centuries radiant Mortal-seeming bodies they wore when they mixed with our nations. Then the long youth of the world had not faded still out of our natures, Flowers and the sunlight were felt and the earth was glad like a mother. Then for a human delight they were masked in this denser vesture Earth desires for her bliss, thin veils, for the god through them glimmered. Quick were mens days with the throng of the brilliant presences near them: Gods from the wood and the valley, gods from the obvious wayside, Gods on the secret hills leaped out from their light on the mortal. Oft in the haunt and the grove they met with our kind and their touches Seized and subjected our clay to the greatness of passions supernal, Grasping the earthly virgin and forcing heaven on this death-dust. Glorifying human beauty Apollo roamed in our regions Clymene when he pursued or yearned in vain for Marpessa; Glorifying earth with a human-seeming face of the beauty Brought from her heavenly climes Aphrodite mixed with Anchises. Glimpsed in the wilds were the Satyrs, seen in the woodlands the Graces, Dryad and Naiad in river and forest, Oreads haunting Glens and the mountain-glades where they played with the manes of our lions Glimmered on death-claimed eyes; for the gods then were near us and clasped us, Heaven leaned down in love with our clay and yearned to its transience. But we have coarsened in heart and in mood; we have turned in our natures Nearer our poorer kindred; leaned to the ant and the ferret. Sight we have darkened with sense and power we have stifled with labour, Likened in mood to the things we gaze at and are in our vestures: Therefore we toil unhelped; we are left to our weakness and blindness. Not in those veils now they rose to their skies, but like loose-fitting mantles Dropped in the vestibules huge of their vigorous realms that besiege us All that reminded of earth; then clothed with raiment of swiftness Straight they went quivering up in a glory like fire or the storm-blast. Even those natural vestures of puissance they leave when they enter Minds more subtle fields and agree with its limitless regions Peopled by creatures of bliss and forms more true than earths shadows, Mind that pure from this density, throned in her splendours immortal Looks up at Light and suffers bliss from ineffable kingdoms Where beyond Mind and its rays is the gleam of a glory supernal: There our sun cannot shine and our moon has no place for her lustres, There our lightnings flash not, nor fire of these spaces is suffered. They with bodies impalpable here to our touch and our seeing, But for a higher delight, to a brighter sense, with more sweetness Palpable there and visible, thrilled with a lordlier joyance, Came to the courts of Zeus and his heavens sang to their footsteps. Harmonies flowed through the blissful coils of the kingdoms of rapture. Then by his mighty equals surrounded the Thunderer regnant Veiled his thought in sound that was heard in their souls as they listened. Veiled are the high gods always lest there should dawn on the mortal Light too great from the skies and men to their destiny clear-eyed Walk unsustained like the gods; then Night and Dawn were defeated And of their masks the deities robbed would be slaves to their subjects. Children of Immortality, gods who are joyous for ever, Rapture is ours and eternity measures our lives by his aeons. For we desireless toil who have joy in the fall as the triumph, Knowledge eternal possessing we work for an end that is destined Long already beyond by the Will of which Time is the courser. Therefore death cannot alter our lives nor pain our enjoyment. But in the world of mortals twilight is lord of its creatures. Nothing they perfectly see, but all things seek and imagine, Out of the clod who have come and would climb from their mire to our heavens. Yet are the heavenly seats not easy even for the chosen: Rough and remote is that path; that ascent is too hard for the death-bound. Hard are Gods terms and few can meet them of men who are mortal. Mind resists; their breath is a clog; by their tools they are hampered, Blindly mistaking the throb of their mortal desires for our guidance. How shall they win in their earth to our skies who are clay and a life-wind, But that their hearts we invade? Our shocks on their lives come incessant, Ease discourage and penetrate coarseness; sternness celestial Forces their souls towards the skies and their bodies by anguish are sifted. We in the mortal wake an immortal strength by our tortures And by the flame of our lightnings choose out the vessels of godhead. This is the nature of earth that to blows she responds and by scourgings Travails excited; pain is the bed of her blossoms of pleasure. Earth that was wakened by pain to life and by hunger to thinking Left to her joys rests inert and content with her gains and her station. But for the unbearable whips of the gods back soon to her matter She would go glad and the goal would be missed and the aeons be wasted. But for the god in their breasts unsatisfied, but for his spurrings Soon would the hero turn beast and the sage reel back to the savage; Man from his difficult heights would recoil and be mud in the earth-mud. This by pain we prevent; we compel his feet to the journey. But in their minds to impression made subject, by forms of things captured Blind is the thought and presumptuous the hope and they swerve from our goading; Blinded are human hearts by desire and fear and possession, Darkened is knowledge on earth by hope the helper of mortals. Now too from earth and her children voices of anger and weeping Beat at our thrones; tis the grief and the wrath of fate-stricken creatures, Mortals struggling with destiny, hearts that are slaves to their sorrow. We unmoved by the cry will fulfil our unvarying purpose. Troy shall fall at last and the ancient ages shall perish. You who are lovers of Ilion turn from the moans of her people, Chase from your hearts their prayers, blow back from your nostrils the incense. Let not one nation resist by its glory the good of the ages. Twilight thickens over man and he moves to his winter of darkness. Troy that displaced with her force and her arms the luminous ancients, Sinks in her turn by the ruder strength of the half-savage Achaians. They to the Hellene shall yield and the Hellene fall by the Roman. Rome too shall not endure, but by strengths ill-shaped shall be broken, Nations formed in the ice and mist, confused and crude-hearted. So shall the darker and ruder always prevail oer the brilliant Till in its turn to a ruder and darker it falls and is shattered. So shall mankind make speed to destroy what twas mighty creating. Ever since knowledge failed and the ancient ecstasy slackened, Light has been helper to death and darkness increases the victor. So shall it last till the fallen ages return to their greatness. For if the twilight be helped not, night oer the world cannot darken; Night forbidden how shall a greater dawn be effected? Gods of the light who know and resist that the doomed may have succour, Always then shall desire and passion strive with Ananke? Conquer the cry of your heart-strings that man too may conquer his sorrow, Stilled in his yearnings. Cease, O ye gods, from the joy of rebellion. Open the eye of the soul, admit the voice of the Silence. So in the courts of Heaven august the Thunderer puissant Spoke to his sons in their souls and they heard him, mighty in silence. Then to her brother divine the white-armed passionless Hera: Zeus, we remember; thy sons forget, Apollo and Ares. Hera, queen of the heavens, they forget not, but choose to be mindless. This is the greatness of gods that they know and can put back the knowledge; Doing the work they have chosen they turn not for fruit nor for failure, Griefless they walk to their goal and strain not their eyes towards the ending. Light that they have they can lose with a smile, not as souls in the darkness Clutch at every beam and mistake their one ray for all splendour. All things are by Time and the Will eternal that moves us, And for each birth its hour is set in the night or the dawning. There is an hour for knowledge, an hour to forget and to labour. Great Cronion ceased and high in the heavenly silence Rose in their midst the voice of the loud impetuous Ares Sounding far in the luminous fields of his soul as with thunder. Father, we know and we have not forgotten. This is our godhead, Still to strive and never to yield to the evil that conquers. I will not dwell with the Greeks nor aid them save forced by Ananke And because lives of the great and the blood of the strong are my portion. This too thou knowest, our nature enjoys in mankind its fulfilment. War is my nature and greatness and hardness, the necks of the vanquished; Force is my soul and strength is my bosom; I shout in the battle Breaking cities like toys and the nations are playthings of Ares: Hither and thither I shove them and throw down or range on my table. Constancy most I love, nobility, virtue and courage; Fugitive hearts I abhor and the nature fickle as sea-foam. Now if the ancient spirit of Titan battle is over, Tros fights no more on the earth, nor now Heracles tramples and struggles, Bane of the hydra or slaying the Centaurs oer Pelion driven, Now if the earth no more must be shaken by Titan horsehooves, Since to a pettier framework all things are fitted consenting, Yet will I dwell not in Greece nor favour the nurslings of Pallas. I will await the sons of my loins and the teats of the she-wolf, Consuls browed like the cliffs and plebeians stern of the wolf-brood, Senates of kings and armies of granite that grow by disaster; Such be the nation august that is fit for the favour of Ares! They shall fulfil me and honour my mother, imperial Hera. Then with an iron march they shall move to their world-wide dominion, Through the long centuries rule and at last because earth is impatient, Slowly with haughtiness perish compelled by mortalitys transience Leaving a Roman memory stamped on the ages of weakness. But to his son far-sounding the Father high of the Immortals: So let it be since such is the will in thee, mightiest Ares; Thou shalt till sunset prevail, O war-god, fighting for Troya. So he decreed and the soul of the Warrior sternly consented. He from his seats arose and down on the summits of Ida Flaming through Space in his cloud in a headlong glory descended, Prone like a thunderbolt flaming down from the hand of the Father. Thence in his chariot drawn by living fire and by swiftness, Thundered down to earths plains the mighty impetuous Ares. Far where Deiphobus stern was labouring stark and outnumbered Smiting the Achaian myriads back on the right of the carnage, Over the hosts in his car he stood and darkened the Argives. But in the courts divine the Thunderer spoke to his children: Ares resisting a present Fate for the hope of the future, Gods, has gone forth from us. Choose thou thy paths, O my daughter, More than thy brother assailed by the night that darkens oer creatures. Choose the silence in heaven or choose the struggle mid mortals, Golden joy of the worlds, O thou roseate white Aphrodite. Then with her starry eyes and bosom of bliss from the immortals Glowing and rosy-limbed cried the wonderful white Aphrodite, Drawing her fingers like flowers through the flowing gold of her tresses, Calm, discontented, her perfect mouth like a rose of resistance Chidingly budded gainst Fate, a charm to their senses enamoured. Well do I know thou hast given my world to Hera and Pallas. What though my temples shall stand in Paphos and island Cythera And though the Greek be a priest for my thoughts and a lyre for my singing, Beauty pursuing and light through the figures of grace and of rhythm, Forms shall he mould for mens eyes that the earth has forgotten and mourns for, Mould even the workings of Pallas to commune with Paphias sweetness, Mould Hephaestus craft in the gaze of the gold Aphrodite, Only my form he pursues that I wear for a mortal enchantment, He to whom now thou givest the world, the Ionian, the Hellene, But for my might is unfit which Babylon worshipped and Sidon Palely received from the past in images faint of the gladness Once that was known by the children of men when the thrill of their members Was but the immortal joy of the spirit overflowing their bodies, Wine-cups of Gods desire; but their clay from my natural greatness Falters betrayed to pain, their delight they have turned into ashes. Nor to my peaks shall he rise and the perfect fruit of my promptings, There where the senses swoon but the heart is delivered by rapture: Never my touch can cling to his soul nor reply from his heart-strings. Once could my godhead surprise all the stars with the seas of its rapture; Once the world in its orbit danced to a marvellous rhythm. Men in their limits, gods in their amplitudes answered my calling; Life was moved by a chant of delight that sang from the spaces, Sang from the Soul of the Vast, its rapture clasping its creatures. Sweetly agreed my fire with their soil and their hearts were as altars. Pure were its crests; twas not dulled with earth, twas not lost in the hazes Then when the sons of earth and the daughters of heaven together Met on lone mountain peaks or, linked on wild beach and green meadow, Twining embraced. For I danced on Taygetus peaks and oer Ida Naked and loosing my golden hair like a nimbus of glory Oer a deep-ecstasied earth that was drunk with my roses and whiteness. There was no shrinking nor veil in our old Saturnian kingdoms. Equals were heaven and earth, twin gods on the lap of Dione. Now shall my waning greatness perish and pass out of Nature. For though the Romans, my children, shall grasp at the strength of their mother, They shall not hold the god, but lose in unsatisfied orgies Yet what the earth has kept of my joy, my glory, my puissance, Who shall but drink for a troubled hour in the dusk of the sunset Dregs of my wine Pandemian missing the Uranian sweetness. So shall the night descend on the greatness and rapture of living; Creeds that refuse shall persuade the world to revolt from its mother. Pallas adorers shall loa the me and Heras scorn me for lowness; Beauty shall pass from mens work and delight from their play and their labour; Earth restored to the Cyclops shall shrink from the gold Aphrodite. So shall I live diminished, owned but by beasts in the forest, Birds of the air and the gods in their heavens, but disgraced in the mortal. Then to the discontented rosy-mouthed Aphrodite Zeus replied, the Father divine: O goddess Astarte, What are these thoughts thou hast suffered to wing from thy rose-mouth immortal? Bees that sting and delight are the words from thy lips, Cytherea. Art thou not womb of the world and from thee are the thronging of creatures? And didst thou cease the worlds too would cease and the aeons be ended. Suffer my Greeks; accept who accept thee, O gold Dionaean. They in the works of their craft and their dreams shall enthrone thee for ever, Building thee temples in Paphos and Eryx and island Cythera, Building the fane more enduring and bright of thy golden ideal. Even if natures of men could renounce thee and God do without thee, Rose of love and sea of delight, O my child Aphrodite, Still wouldst thou live in the worship they gave thee protected from fading, Splendidly statued and shrined in mens works and mens thoughts, Cytherea. Pleased and blushing with bliss of her praise and the thought of her empire Answered, as cries a harp in heaven, the gold Aphrodite: Father, I know and I spoke but to hear from another my praises. I am the womb of the world and the cause of this teeming of creatures, And if discouraged I ceased, Gods world would lose heart and would perish. How will you do then without me your works of wisdom and greatness, Hera, queen of heaven, and thou, O my sister Athene? Yes, I shall reign and endure though the pride of my workings be conquered. What though no second Helen find a second Paris, Lost though their glories of form to the earth, though their confident gladness Pass from a race misled and forgetting the sap that it sprang from, They are eternal in man in the worship of beauty and rapture. Ever while earth is embraced by the sun and hot with his kisses And while a Will supernal works through the passions of Nature, Me shall men seek with my light or their darkness, sweetly or crudely, Cold on the ice of the north or warm in the heats of the southland, Slowly enduring my touch or with violence rapidly burning. I am the sweetness of living, I am the touch of the Master. Love shall die bound to my stake like a victim adorned as for bridal, Life shall be bathed in my flames and be purified gold or be ashes. I, Aphrodite, shall move the world for ever and ever. Yet now since most to me, Father of all, the ages arriving, Hostile, rebuke my heart and turn from my joy and my sweetness, I will resist and not yield, nor care what I do, so I conquer. Often I curbed my mood for your sakes and was gracious and kindly, Often I lay at Heras feet and obeyed her commandments Tranquil and proud or oercome by a honeyed and ancient compulsion Fawned on thy pureness and served thy behests, O my sister Pallas. Deep was the love that united us, happy the wrestle and clasping; Love divided, Love united, Love was our mover. But since you now overbear and would scourge me and chain and control me, War I declare on you all, O my Father and brothers and sisters. Henceforth I do my will as the joy in me prompts or the anger. Ranging the earth with my beauty and passion and golden enjoyments All whom I can, I will bind; I will drive at the bliss of my workings, Whether mens hearts are seized by the joy or seized by the torture. Most I will plague your men, your worshippers and in my malice Break up your works with confusion divine, O my mother and sister; Then shall you fume and resist and be helpless and pine with my torments. Yet will I never relent but always be sweet and malignant, Cruel and tyrannous, hurtful and subtle, a charm and a torture. Thou too, O father Zeus, shalt always be vexed with my doings; Called in each moment to judge thou shalt chafe at our cry and our quarrels, Often grope for thy thunderbolt, often frown magisterial Joining in vain thy awful brows oer thy turbulent children. Yet in thy wrath recall my might and my wickedness, Father; Hurt me not then too much lest the world and thyself too should suffer. Save, O my Father, life and grace and the charm of the senses; Love preserve lest the heart of the world grow dulled and forsaken. Smiling her smile immortal of love and of mirth and of malice White Aphrodite arose in her loveliness armed for the conflict. Golden and careless and joyous she went like a wild bird that winging Flits from bough to bough and resumes its chant interrupted. Love where her white feet trod bloomed up like a flower from the spaces; Mad round her touches billowed incessantly laughter and rapture. Thrilled with her feet was the bosom of Space, for her amorous motion Floated, a flower on the wave of her bliss or swayed like the lightning. Rich as a summer fruit and fresh as Springs blossoms her body Gleaming and blushing, veiled and bare and with ecstasy smiting Burned out rosy and white through her happy ambrosial raiment, Golden-tressed and a charm, her bosom a fragrance and peril. So was she framed to the gaze as she came from the seats of the Mighty, So embodied she visits the hearts of men and their dwellings And in her breathing tenement laughs at the eyes that can see her. Swift-footed down to the Troad she hastened thrilling the earth-gods. There with ambrosial secrecy veiled, admiring the heroes Strong and beautiful, might of the warring and glory of armour, Over her son Aeneas she stood, his guard in the battle. But in the courts divine the Thunderer spoke mid his children: Thou for a day and a night and another day and a nightfall, White Aphrodite, prevail; oer thee too the night is extended. She has gone forth who made men like gods in their glory and gladness. Now in the darkness coming all beauty must wane or be tarnished; Joy shall fade and mighty Love grow fickle and fretful; Even as a child that is scared in the night, he shall shake in his chambers. Yet shall a portion be kept for these, Ares and white Aphrodite. Thou whom already thy Pythoness bears not, torn by thy advent, Caverned already who sittest in Delphi knowing thy future, What wilt thou do with the veil and the night, O burning Apollo? Then from the orb of his glory unbearable save to immortals Bright and austere replied the beautiful mystic Apollo: Zeus, I know that I fade; already the night is around me. Dusk she extends her reign and obscures my lightnings with error. Therefore my prophets mislead mens hearts to the ruin appointed, Therefore Cassandra cries in vain to her sire and her brothers. All I endure I foresee and the strength in me waits for its coming; All I foresee I approve; for I know what is willed, O Cronion. Yet is the fierce strength wroth in my breast at the need of approval And for the human race fierce pity works in my bosom; Wroth is my splendid heart with the cowering knowledge of mortals, Wroth are my burning eyes with the purblind vision of reason. I will go forth from your seats and descend to the night among mortals There to guard the flame and the mystery; vast in my moments Rare and sublime to sound like a sea against Time and its limits, Cry like a spirit in pain in the hearts of the priest and the poet, Cry against limits set and disorder sanities bounded. Jealous for truth to the end my might shall prevail and for ever Shatter the moulds that men make to imprison their limitless spirits. Dire, overpowering the brain I shall speak out my oracles splendid. Then in their ages of barren light or lucidity fruitful Whenso the clear gods think they have conquered earth and its mortals, Hidden God from all eyes, they shall wake from their dream and recoiling Still they shall find in their paths the fallen and darkened Apollo. So he spoke, repressing his dreadful might in his bosom, And from their high seats passed, his soul august and resplendent Drawn to the anguish of men and the fierce terrestrial labour. Down he dropped with a roar of light invading the regions, And in his fierce and burning spirit intense and uplifted Sure of his luminous truth and careless for weakness of mortals Flaming oppressed the earth with his dire intolerant beauty. Over the summits descending that slept in the silence of heaven, He through the spaces angrily drew towards the tramp and the shouting Over the speeding of Xanthus and over the pastures of Troya. Clang of his argent bow was the wrath restrained of the mighty, Stern was his pace like Fates; so he came to the warfare of mortals And behind Paris strong and inactive waited Gods moment Knowing what should arrive, nor disturbed like men by their hopings. But in the courts of Heaven Zeus to his brother immortal Turned like a menaced king on his counsellor smiling augustly: Seest thou, Poseidon, this sign that great gods revolting have left us, Follow their hearts and strive with Ananke? Yet though they struggle, Thou and I will do our will with the world, O earth-shaker. Answered to Zeus the besieger of earth, the voice of the waters: This is our strength and our right, for we are the kings and the masters. Too much pity has been and yielding of Heaven to mortals. I will go down with my chariot drawn by my thunder-maned coursers Into the battle and thrust down Troy with my hand to the silence, Even though she cling round the snowy knees of our child Aphrodite Or with Apollos sun take refuge from Night and her shadows. I will not pity her pain, who am ruthless even as my surges. Brother, thou knowest, O Zeus, that I am a king and a trader; For on my paths I receive earths skill and her merchandise gather, Traffic richly in pearls and bear the swift ships on my bosom. Blue are my waves and they call mens hearts to wealth and adventure. Lured by the shifting surges they launch their delight and their treasures Trusting the toil of years to the perilous moments of Ocean. Huge mans soul in its petty frame goes wrestling with Nature Over her vasts and his fragile ships between my horizons Buffeting death in his solitudes labour through swell and through storm-blast Bound for each land with her sons and watched for by eyes in each haven. I from Tyre up to Gades trace on my billows their trade-routes And on my vast and spuming Atlantic suffer their rudders. Carthage and Greece are my children, the marts of the world are my term-posts. Who then deserves the earth if not he who enriches and fosters? But thou hast favoured thy sons, O Zeus; O Hera, earths sceptres Still were denied me and kept for strong Ares and brilliant Apollo. Now all your will shall be done, so you give me the earth for my nations. Gold shall make men like gods and bind their thoughts into oneness; Peace I will build with gold and heaven with the pearls of my caverns. Smiling replied to his brothers craft the mighty Cronion: Lord of the boundless seas, Poseidon, soul of the surges, Well thou knowest that earth shall be seized as a booth for the trader. Rome nor Greece nor France can drive back Carthage for ever. Always each birth of the silence attaining the field and the movement Takes from Time its reign; for it came for its throne and its godhead. So too shall Mammon take and his sons their hour from the ages. Yet is the flame and the dust last end of the silk and the iron, And at their end the king and the prophet shall govern the nations. Even as Troy, so shall Babylon flame up to heaven for the spoiler Wailed by the merchant afar as he sees the red glow from the ocean. Up from the seats of the Mighty the Earth-shaker rose. His raiment Round him purple and dominant rippled and murmured and whispered, Whispered of argosies sunk and the pearls and the Nereids playing, Murmured of azure solitudes, sounded of storm and the death-wail. Even as the march of his waters so was the pace of the sea-god Flowing on endless through Time; with the glittering symbol of empire Crowned were his fatal brows; in his grasp was the wrath of the trident, Tripled force, life-shattering, brutal, imperial, sombre. Resonant, surging, vast in the pomp of his clamorous greatness Proud and victorious he came to his home in the far-spuming waters. Even as a soul from the heights of thought plunges back into living, So he plunged like a rock through the foam; for it falls from a mountain Overpeering the waves in some silence of desolate waters Left to the wind and the sea-gull where Ocean alone with the ages Dreams of the calm of the skies or tosses its spray to the wind-gods, Tosses for ever its foam in the solitude huge of its longings Far from the homes and the noises of men. So the dark-browed Poseidon Came to his coral halls and the sapphire stables of Nereus Ever where champ their bits the harnessed steeds of the Ocean Watched by foam-white girls in the caverns of still Amphitrite. There was his chariot yoked by the Tritons, drawn by his coursers Born of the fleeing sea-spray and shod with the northwind who journey Black like the front of the storm and clothed with their manes as with thunder. This now rose from its depths to the upper tumults of Ocean Bearing the awful brows and the mighty form of the sea-god And from the roar of the surges fast oer the giant margin Came remembering the storm and the swiftness wide towards the Troad. So among men he arrived to the clamorous labours of Ares, Close by the stern Diomedes stood and frowned oer the battle. He for the Trojan slaughter chose for his mace and his sword-edge Iron Tydeus son and the adamant heart of young Pyrrhus. But in the courts divine the Father high of the immortals Turned in his heart to the brilliant offspring born of his musings, She who tranquil observes and judges her father and all things. What shall I say to the thought that is calm in thy breasts, O Athene? Have I not given thee earth for thy portion, throned thee and armoured, Darkened Cypris smile, dimmed Heras son and Latonas? Swift in thy silent ambition, proud in thy radiant sternness, Girl, thou shalt rule with the Greek and the Saxon, the Frank and the Roman. Worker and fighter and builder and thinker, light of the reason, Men shall leave all temples to crowd in thy courts, O Athene. Go then and do my will, prepare mans tribes for their fullness. But with her high clear smile on him answered the mighty Athene, Wisely and soberly, tenderly smiled she chiding her father Even as a mother might rail at her child when he hides and dissembles: Zeus, I see and I am not deceived by thy words in my spirit. We but build forms for thy thought while thou smilest down high oer our toiling; Even as men are we tools for thee, who are thy children and dear ones. All this life is thy sport and thou workst like a boy at his engines Making a toil of the game and a play of the serious labour. Then to that play thou callest us wearing a sombre visage, This consulting, that to our wills confiding, O Ruler; Choosing thy helpers, hastened by those whom thou lurest to oppose thee Guile thou usest with gods as with mortals, scheming, deceiving, And at the wrath and the love thou hast prompted laughest in secret. So we two who are sisters and enemies, lovers and rivals, Fondled and baffled in turn obey thy will and thy cunning, I, thy girl of war, and the rosy-white Aphrodite. Always we served but thy pleasure since our immortal beginnings, Always each other we helped by our play and our wrestlings and quarrels. This too I know that I pass preparing the paths of Apollo And at the end as his sister and slave and bride I must sojourn Rapt to his courts of mystic light and unbearable brilliance. Was I not ever condemned since my birth from the toil of thy musings Seized like a lyre in my body to sob and to laugh out his music, Shake as a leaf in his fierceness and leap as a flame in his splendours! So must I dwell overpowered and so must I labour subjected Robbed of my loneliness pure and coerced in my radiant freedom, Now whose clearness and pride are the sovereign joy of thy creatures. Such the reward that thou keepst for my labour obedient always. Yet I work and I do thy will, for tis mine, O my father. Proud of her ruthless lust of thought and action and battle, Swift-footed rose the daughter of Zeus from her sessions immortal: Breasts of the morning unveiled in a purity awful and candid, Head of the mighty Dawn, the goddess Pallas Athene! Strong and rapacious she swooped on the world as her prey and her booty Down from the courts of the Mighty descending, darting on Ida. Dire she descended, a god in her reason, a child in her longings, Joy and woe to the world that is given to the whims of the child-god Greedy for rule and play and the minds of men and their doings! So with her aegis scattering light oer the heads of the nations Shining-eyed in her boyish beauty severe and attractive Came to the fields of the Troad, came to the fateful warfare, Veiled, the goddess calm and pure in her luminous raiment Zoned with beauty and strength. Rejoicing, spurring the fighters Close oer Odysseus she stood and clear-eyed governed the battle. Zeus to Hephaestus next, the Cyclopean toiler Turned, Hephaestus the strong-souled, priest and king and a bond-slave, Servant of men in their homes and their workshops, servant of Nature, He who has built these worlds and kindles the fire for a mortal. Thou, my son, art obedient always. Wisdom is with thee, Therefore thou knowst and obeyest. Submission is wisdom and knowledge; He who is blind revolts and he who is limited struggles: Strife is not for the infinite; wisdom observes to accomplish. Troy and her sons and her works are thy food today, O Hephaestus. And to his father the Toiler answered, the silent Seer: Yes, I obey thee, my Father, and That which than thou is more mighty; Even as thou obeyest by rule, so I by my labour. Now must I heap the furnace, now must I toil at the smithy, I who have flamed on the altar of sacrifice helping the sages. I am the Cyclops, the lamester, who once was pure and a high-priest. Holy the pomp of my flames ascendant from pyre and from altar Robed mens souls for their heavens and my smoke was a pillar to Nature. Though I have burned in the sight of the sage and the heart of the hero, Now is no nobler hymn for my ear than the clanging of metal, Breath of human greed and the dolorous pant of the engines. Still I repine not, but toil; for to toil I was yoked by my Maker. I am your servant, O Gods, and his of whom you are servants. But to the toiler Zeus replied, to the servant of creatures: What is the thought thou hast uttered betrayed by thy speech, O Hephaestus? True is it earth shall grow as a smithy, the smoke of the furnace Fill mens eyes and their souls shall be stunned with the clang of the hammers; Yet in the end there is rest on the peak of a labour accomplished. Nor shall the might of the thinker be quelled by that iron oppression, Nor shall the soul of the warrior despair in the darkness triumphant; For when the night shall be deepest, dawn shall increase on the mountains And in the heart of the worst the best shall be born by my wisdom. Pallas thy sister shall guard mans knowledge fighting the earth-smoke. Thou too art mighty to live through the clamour even as Apollo. Work then, endure; expect from the Silence an end and thy wages. So King Hephaestus arose and passed from the courts of his father; Down upon earth he came with his lame omnipotent motion; And with uneven steps absorbed and silent the Master Worked employed mid the wheels of the cars as a smith in his smithy, But it was death and bale that he forged, not the bronze and the iron. Stark, like a fire obscured by its smoke, through the spear-casts he laboured Helping Ajax war and the Theban and Phocian fighters. Zeus to his grandiose helper next, who proved and unmoving, Calm in her greatness waited the mighty comm and of her husband: Hera, sister and spouse, what my will is thou knowest, O consort. One are our blood and our hearts, nor the thought for the words of the speaker Waits, but each other we know and ourselves and the Vast and the heavens, Life and all between and all beyond and the ages. That which Space not knows nor Time, we have known, O my sister. Therefore our souls are one soul and our minds become mirrors of oneness. Go then and do my will, O thou mighty one, burning down Troya. Silent she rose from the seats of the Blissful, Hera majestic, And with her flowing garment and mystical zone through the spaces Haloed came like the moon on an evening of luminous silence Down upon Ida descending, a snow-white swan on the greenness, Down upon Ida the mystic haunted by footsteps immortal Ever since out of the Ocean it rose and lived gazing towards heaven. There on a peak of the mountains alone with the sea and the azure Voiceless and mighty she paused like a thought on the summits of being Clasped by all heaven; the winds at play in her gust-scattered raiment Sported insulting her gracious strength with their turbulent sweetness, Played with their mother and queen; but she stood absorbed and unheeding, Mute, with her sandalled foot for a moment thrilling the grasses, Dumbly adored by a soul in the mountains, a thought in the rivers, Roared to loud by her lions. The voice of the cataracts falling Entered her soul profound and it heard eternitys rumour. Silent its gaze immense contained the wheeling of aeons. Huge-winged through Time flew her thought and its grandiose vast revolutions Turned and returned. So musing her timeless creative spirit, Master of Time, its instrument, grieflessly hastening forward Parted with greatnesses dead and summoned new strengths from their stables; Maned they came to her call and filled with their pacings the future. Calm, with the vision satisfied, thrilled by the grandeurs within her, Down in a billow of whiteness and gold and delicate raiment Gliding the daughter of Heaven came to the earth that received her Glad of the tread divine and bright with her more than with sunbeams. King Agamemnon she found and smiling on Spartas levies Mixed unseen with the far-glinting spears of haughty Mycenae. Then to the Mighty who tranquil abode and august in his regions Zeus, while his gaze over many forms and high-seated godheads Passed like a swift-fleeing eagle over the peaks and the glaciers When to his eyrie he flies alone through the vastness and silence: Artemis, child of my loins and you, O legioned immortals, All you have heard. Descend, O ye gods, to your sovereign stations, Labour rejoicing whose task is joy and your bliss is creation; Shrink from no act that Necessity asks from your luminous natures. Thee I have given no part in the years that come, O my daughter, Huntress swift of the worlds who with purity all things pursuest. Yet not less is thy portion intended than theirs who oerpass thee: Helped are the souls that wait more than strengths soon fulfilled and exhausted. Archeress, brilliance, wait thine hour from the speed of the ages. So they departed, Artemis leading lightning-tasselled. Ancient Themis remained and awful Dis and Ananke. Then mid these last of the gods who shall stand when all others have perished, Zeus to the Silence obscure under iron brows of that goddess, Griefless, unveiled was her visage, dire and unmoved and eternal: Thou and I, O Dis, remain and our sister Ananke. That which the joyous hearts of our children, radiant heaven-moths Flitting mid flowers of sense for the honey of thought have not captured, That which Poseidon forgets mid the pomp and the roar of his waters, We three keep in our hearts. By the Light that I watch for unsleeping, By thy tremendous consent to the silence and darkness, O Hades, By her delight renounced and the prayers and the worship of mortals Making herself as an engine of God without bowels or vision, Yet in that engine are only heart-beats, yet is her riddle Only Love that is veiled and pity that suffers and slaughters, We three are free from ourselves, O Dis, and free from each other. Do then, O King of the Night, observe then with Time for thy servant Not my behest, but What she and thou and I are for ever. Mute the Darkness sat like a soul unmoved through the aeons, Then came a voice from the silence of Dis, from the night there came wisdom. Yes, I have chosen and that which I chose I endure, O Cronion, Though to the courts of the gods I come as a threat and a shadow, Even though none to their counsels call me, none to their pastime, None companions me willingly; even thy daughter, my consort, Trembling whom once from our sister Demeter I plucked like a blossom Torn from Sicilian fields, while Fate reluctant, consenting, Bowed her head, lives but by her gasps of the sun and the azure; Stretched are her hands to the light and she seeks for the clasp of her mother. I, I am Night and her reign and that of which Night is a symbol. All to me comes, even thou shalt come to me, brilliant Cronion. All here exists by me whom all walk fearing and shunning; He who shuns not, He am I and thou and Ananke. All things I take to my bosom that Life may be swift in her voyage; For out of death is Life and not by birth and her motions And behind Night is light and not in the sun and his splendours. Troy to the Night I will gather a wreath for my shadows, O grower. So in his arrogance dire the vast invincible Death-god Triumphing passed out of heaven with Themis and silent Ananke. Zeus alone in the spheres of his bliss, in his kingdoms of brilliance Sat divine and alarmed; for even the gods in their heavens Scarce shall live who have gazed on the unveiled face of Ananke, Heard the accents dire of the Darkness that waits for the ages. Awful and dull grew his eyes and mighty and still grew his members. Back from his nature he drew to the passionless peaks of the spirit, Throned where it dwells for ever uplifted and silent and changeless Far beyond living and death, beyond Nature and ending of Nature. There for a while he dwelt veiled, protected from Dis and his greatness; Then to the works of the world he returned and the joy of his musings. Life and the blaze of the mighty soul that he was of Gods making Dawned again in the heavenly eyes and the majestied semblance. Comforted heaven he beheld, to the green of the earth was attracted. But through this Space unreal, but through these worlds that are shadows Went the awful Three. None saw them pass, none felt them. Only in the heavens was a tread as of death, in the air was a winter, Earth oppressed moaned long like a woman striving with anguish. Ida saw them not, but her grim lions cowered in their caverns, Ceased for a while on her slopes the eternal laughter of fountains. Over the ancient ramparts of Dardanus high-roofed city Darkening her victor domes and her gardens of life and its sweetness Silent they came. Unseen and unheard was the dreadful arrival. Troy and her gods dreamed secure in the moment flattered by sunlight. Dim to the citadel high they arrived and their silence invaded Pallas marble shrine where stern and white in her beauty, Armed on her pedestal, trampling the prostrate image of darkness Mighty Athenes statue guarded imperial Troya. Dim and vast they entered in. Then through all the great city Huge a rushing sound was heard from her gardens and places And in their musings her seers as they strove with night and with error And in the fane of Apollo Laocoon torn by his visions Heard aghast the voice of Troys deities fleeing from Troya, Saw the flaming lords of her households drive in a death-rout Forth from her ancient halls and their noble familiar sessions. Ghosts of her splendid centuries wailed on the wings of the doom-blast. Moaning the Dryads fled and her Naiads passed from Scamander Leaving the world to deities dumb of the clod and the earth-smoke, And from their tombs and their shrines the shadowy Ancestors faded. Filled was the air with their troops and the sound of a vast lamentation. Wailing they went, lamenting mortalitys ages of greatness, Ruthless Anankes deeds and the mortal conquests of Hades. Then in the fane Palladian the shuddering priests of Athene Entered the darkened shrine and saw on the suffering marble Shattered Athenes mighty statue prostrate as conquered, But on its pedestal rose oer the unhurt image of darkness Awful shapes, a Trinity dim and dire unto mortals. Dumb they fell down on the earth and the life-breath was slain in their bosoms. And in the noon there was night. And Apollo passed out of Troya. *** ~ Sri Aurobindo, 8 - The Book of the Gods ,

516:BOOK THE FOURTH The Story of Alcithoe and her Sisters Yet still Alcithoe perverse remains, And Bacchus still, and all his rites, disdains. Too rash, and madly bold, she bids him prove Himself a God, nor owns the son of Jove. Her sisters too unanimous agree, Faithful associates in impiety. Be this a solemn feast, the priest had said; Be, with each mistress, unemploy'd each maid. With skins of beasts your tender limbs enclose, And with an ivy-crown adorn your brows, The leafy Thyrsus high in triumph bear, And give your locks to wanton in the air. These rites profan'd, the holy seer foreshow'd A mourning people, and a vengeful God. Matrons and pious wives obedience show, Distaffs, and wooll, half spun, away they throw: Then incense burn, and, Bacchus, thee adore, Or lov'st thou Nyseus, or Lyaeus more? O! doubly got, O! doubly born, they sung, Thou mighty Bromius, hail, from light'ning sprung! Hail, Thyon, Eleleus! each name is thine: Or, listen parent of the genial vine! Iachus! Evan! loudly they repeat, And not one Grecian attri bute forget, Which to thy praise, great Deity, belong, Stil'd justly Liber in the Roman song. Eternity of youth is thine! enjoy Years roul'd on years, yet still a blooming boy. In Heav'n thou shin'st with a superior grace; Conceal thy horns, and 'tis a virgin's face. Thou taught'st the tawny Indian to obey, And Ganges, smoothly flowing, own'd thy sway. Lycurgus, Pentheus, equally profane, By thy just vengeance equally were slain. By thee the Tuscans, who conspir'd to keep Thee captive, plung'd, and cut with finns the deep. With painted reins, all-glitt'ring from afar, The spotted lynxes proudly draw thy car. Around, the Bacchae, and the satyrs throng; Behind, Silenus, drunk, lags slow along: On his dull ass he nods from side to side, Forbears to fall, yet half forgets to ride. Still at thy near approach, applauses loud Are heard, with yellings of the female crowd. Timbrels, and boxen pipes, with mingled cries, Swell up in sounds confus'd, and rend the skies. Come, Bacchus, come propitious, all implore, And act thy sacred orgies o'er and o'er. But Mineus' daughters, while these rites were pay'd, At home, impertinently busie, stay'd. Their wicked tasks they ply with various art, And thro' the loom the sliding shuttle dart; Or at the fire to comb the wooll they stand, Or twirl the spindle with a dext'rous hand. Guilty themselves, they force the guiltless in; Their maids, who share the labour, share the sin. At last one sister cries, who nimbly knew To draw nice threads, and winde the finest clue, While others idly rove, and Gods revere, Their fancy'd Gods! they know not who, or where; Let us, whom Pallas taught her better arts, Still working, cheer with mirthful chat our hearts, And to deceive the time, let me prevail With each by turns to tell some antique tale. She said: her sisters lik'd the humour well, And smiling, bad her the first story tell. But she a-while profoundly seem'd to muse, Perplex'd amid variety to chuse: And knew not, whether she should first relate The poor Dircetis, and her wond'rous fate. The Palestines believe it to a man, And show the lake, in which her scales began. Or if she rather should the daughter sing, Who in the hoary verge of life took wing; Who soar'd from Earth, and dwelt in tow'rs on high, And now a dove she flits along the sky. Or how lewd Nais, when her lust was cloy'd, To fishes turn'd the youths, she had enjoy'd, By pow'rful verse, and herbs; effect most strange! At last the changer shar'd herself the change. Or how the tree, which once white berries bore, Still crimson bears, since stain'd with crimson gore. The tree was new; she likes it, and begins To tell the tale, and as she tells, she spins. The Story of Pyramus and Thisbe In Babylon, where first her queen, for state Rais'd walls of brick magnificently great, Liv'd Pyramus, and Thisbe, lovely pair! He found no eastern youth his equal there, And she beyond the fairest nymph was fair. A closer neighbourhood was never known, Tho' two the houses, yet the roof was one. Acquaintance grew, th' acquaintance they improve To friendship, friendship ripen'd into love: Love had been crown'd, but impotently mad, What parents could not hinder, they forbad. For with fierce flames young Pyramus still burn'd, And grateful Thisbe flames as fierce return'd. Aloud in words their thoughts they dare not break, But silent stand; and silent looks can speak. The fire of love the more it is supprest, The more it glows, and rages in the breast. When the division-wall was built, a chink Was left, the cement unobserv'd to shrink. So slight the cranny, that it still had been For centuries unclos'd, because unseen. But oh! what thing so small, so secret lies, Which scapes, if form'd for love, a lover's eyes? Ev'n in this narrow chink they quickly found A friendly passage for a trackless sound. Safely they told their sorrows, and their joys, In whisper'd murmurs, and a dying noise, By turns to catch each other's breath they strove, And suck'd in all the balmy breeze of love. Oft as on diff'rent sides they stood, they cry'd, Malicious wall, thus lovers to divide! Suppose, thou should'st a-while to us give place To lock, and fasten in a close embrace: But if too much to grant so sweet a bliss, Indulge at least the pleasure of a kiss. We scorn ingratitude: to thee, we know, This safe conveyance of our minds we owe. Thus they their vain petition did renew 'Till night, and then they softly sigh'd adieu. But first they strove to kiss, and that was all; Their kisses dy'd untasted on the wall. Soon as the morn had o'er the stars prevail'd, And warm'd by Phoebus, flow'rs their dews exhal'd, The lovers to their well-known place return, Alike they suffer, and alike they mourn. At last their parents they resolve to cheat (If to deceive in love be call'd deceit), To steal by night from home, and thence unknown To seek the fields, and quit th' unfaithful town. But, to prevent their wand'ring in the dark, They both agree to fix upon a mark; A mark, that could not their designs expose: The tomb of Ninus was the mark they chose. There they might rest secure beneath the shade, Which boughs, with snowy fruit encumber'd, made: A wide-spread mulberry its rise had took Just on the margin of a gurgling brook. Impatient for the friendly dusk they stay; And chide the slowness of departing day; In western seas down sunk at last the light, From western seas up-rose the shades of night. The loving Thisbe ev'n prevents the hour, With cautious silence she unlocks the door, And veils her face, and marching thro' the gloom Swiftly arrives at th' assignation-tomb. For still the fearful sex can fearless prove; Boldly they act, if spirited by love. When lo! a lioness rush'd o'er the plain, Grimly besmear'd with blood of oxen slain: And what to the dire sight new horrors brought, To slake her thirst the neighb'ring spring she sought. Which, by the moon, when trembling Thisbe spies, Wing'd with her fear, swift, as the wind, she flies; And in a cave recovers from her fright, But drop'd her veil, confounded in her flight. When sated with repeated draughts, again The queen of beasts scour'd back along the plain, She found the veil, and mouthing it all o'er, With bloody jaws the lifeless prey she tore. The youth, who could not cheat his guards so soon, Late came, and noted by the glimm'ring moon Some savage feet, new printed on the ground, His cheeks turn'd pale, his limbs no vigour found; But when, advancing on, the veil he spied Distain'd with blood, and ghastly torn, he cried, One night shall death to two young lovers give, But she deserv'd unnumber'd years to live! 'Tis I am guilty, I have thee betray'd, Who came not early, as my charming maid. Whatever slew thee, I the cause remain, I nam'd, and fix'd the place where thou wast slain. Ye lions from your neighb'ring dens repair, Pity the wretch, this impious body tear! But cowards thus for death can idly cry; The brave still have it in their pow'r to die. Then to th' appointed tree he hastes away, The veil first gather'd, tho' all rent it lay: The veil all rent yet still it self endears, He kist, and kissing, wash'd it with his tears. Tho' rich (he cry'd) with many a precious stain, Still from my blood a deeper tincture gain. Then in his breast his shining sword he drown'd, And fell supine, extended on the ground. As out again the blade lie dying drew, Out spun the blood, and streaming upwards flew. So if a conduit-pipe e'er burst you saw, Swift spring the gushing waters thro' the flaw: Then spouting in a bow, they rise on high, And a new fountain plays amid the sky. The berries, stain'd with blood, began to show A dark complexion, and forgot their snow; While fatten'd with the flowing gore, the root Was doom'd for ever to a purple fruit. Mean-time poor Thisbe fear'd, so long she stay'd, Her lover might suspect a perjur'd maid. Her fright scarce o'er, she strove the youth to find With ardent eyes, which spoke an ardent mind. Already in his arms, she hears him sigh At her destruction, which was once so nigh. The tomb, the tree, but not the fruit she knew, The fruit she doubted for its alter'd hue. Still as she doubts, her eyes a body found Quiv'ring in death, and gasping on the ground. She started back, the red her cheeks forsook, And ev'ry nerve with thrilling horrors shook. So trembles the smooth surface of the seas, If brush'd o'er gently with a rising breeze. But when her view her bleeding love confest, She shriek'd, she tore her hair, she beat her breast. She rais'd the body, and embrac'd it round, And bath'd with tears unfeign'd the gaping wound. Then her warm lips to the cold face apply'd, And is it thus, ah! thus we meet, she cry'd! My Pyramus! whence sprung thy cruel fate? My Pyramus!- ah! speak, ere 'tis too late. I, thy own Thisbe, but one word implore, One word thy Thisbe never ask'd before. At Thisbe's name, awak'd, he open'd wide His dying eyes; with dying eyes he try'd On her to dwell, but clos'd them slow, and dy'd. The fatal cause was now at last explor'd, Her veil she knew, and saw his sheathless sword: From thy own hand thy ruin thou hast found, She said, but love first taught that hand to wound, Ev'n I for thee as bold a hand can show, And love, which shall as true direct the blow. I will against the woman's weakness strive, And never thee, lamented youth, survive. The world may say, I caus'd, alas! thy death, But saw thee breathless, and resign'd my breath. Fate, tho' it conquers, shall no triumph gain, Fate, that divides us, still divides in vain. Now, both our cruel parents, hear my pray'r; My pray'r to offer for us both I dare; Oh! see our ashes in one urn confin'd, Whom love at first, and fate at last has join'd. The bliss, you envy'd, is not our request; Lovers, when dead, may sure together rest. Thou, tree, where now one lifeless lump is laid, Ere-long o'er two shalt cast a friendly shade. Still let our loves from thee be understood, Still witness in thy purple fruit our blood. She spoke, and in her bosom plung'd the sword, All warm and reeking from its slaughter'd lord. The pray'r, which dying Thisbe had preferr'd, Both Gods, and parents, with compassion heard. The whiteness of the mulberry soon fled, And rip'ning, sadden'd in a dusky red: While both their parents their lost children mourn, And mix their ashes in one golden urn. Thus did the melancholy tale conclude, And a short, silent interval ensu'd. The next in birth unloos'd her artful tongue, And drew attentive all the sister-throng. The Story of Leucothoe and the Sun The Sun, the source of light, by beauty's pow'r Once am'rous grew; then hear the Sun's amour. Venus, and Mars, with his far-piercing eyes This God first spy'd; this God first all things spies. Stung at the sight, and swift on mischief bent, To haughty Juno's shapeless son he went: The Goddess, and her God gallant betray'd, And told the cuckold, where their pranks were play'd. Poor Vulcan soon desir'd to hear no more, He drop'd his hammer, and he shook all o'er: Then courage takes, and full of vengeful ire He heaves the bellows, and blows fierce the fire: From liquid brass, tho' sure, yet subtile snares He forms, and next a wond'rous net prepares, Drawn with such curious art, so nicely sly, Unseen the mashes cheat the searching eye. Not half so thin their webs the spiders weave, Which the most wary, buzzing prey deceive. These chains, obedient to the touch, he spread In secret foldings o'er the conscious bed: The conscious bed again was quickly prest By the fond pair, in lawless raptures blest. Mars wonder'd at his Cytherea's charms, More fast than ever lock'd within her arms. While Vulcan th' iv'ry doors unbarr'd with care, Then call'd the Gods to view the sportive pair: The Gods throng'd in, and saw in open day, Where Mars, and beauty's queen, all naked, lay. O! shameful sight, if shameful that we name, Which Gods with envy view'd, and could not blame; But, for the pleasure, wish'd to bear the shame. Each Deity, with laughter tir'd, departs, Yet all still laugh'd at Vulcan in their hearts. Thro' Heav'n the news of this surprizal run, But Venus did not thus forget the Sun. He, who stol'n transports idly had betray'd, By a betrayer was in kind repay'd. What now avails, great God, thy piercing blaze, That youth, and beauty, and those golden rays? Thou, who can'st warm this universe alone, Feel'st now a warmth more pow'rful than thy own: And those bright eyes, which all things should survey, Know not from fair Leucothoe to stray. The lamp of light, for human good design'd, Is to one virgin niggardly confin'd. Sometimes too early rise thy eastern beams, Sometimes too late they set in western streams: 'Tis then her beauty thy swift course delays, And gives to winter skies long summer days. Now in thy face thy love-sick mind appears, And spreads thro' impious nations empty fears: For when thy beamless head is wrapt in night, Poor mortals tremble in despair of light. 'Tis not the moon, that o'er thee casts a veil 'Tis love alone, which makes thy looks so pale. Leucothoe is grown thy only care, Not Phaeton's fair mother now is fair. The youthful Rhodos moves no tender thought, And beauteous Porsa is at last forgot. Fond Clytie, scorn'd, yet lov'd, and sought thy bed, Ev'n then thy heart for other virgins bled. Leucothoe has all thy soul possest, And chas'd each rival passion from thy breast. To this bright nymph Eurynome gave birth In the blest confines of the spicy Earth. Excelling others, she herself beheld By her own blooming daughter far excell'd. The sire was Orchamus, whose vast command, The sev'nth from Belus, rul'd the Persian Land. Deep in cool vales, beneath th' Hesperian sky, For the Sun's fiery steeds the pastures lye. Ambrosia there they eat, and thence they gain New vigour, and their daily toils sustain. While thus on heav'nly food the coursers fed, And night, around, her gloomy empire spread, The God assum'd the mother's shape and air, And pass'd, unheeded, to his darling fair. Close by a lamp, with maids encompass'd round, The royal spinster, full employ'd, he found: Then cry'd, A-while from work, my daughter, rest; And, like a mother, scarce her lips he prest. Servants retire!- nor secrets dare to hear, Intrusted only to a daughter's ear. They swift obey'd: not one, suspicious, thought The secret, which their mistress would be taught. Then he: since now no witnesses are near, Behold! the God, who guides the various year! The world's vast eye, of light the source serene, Who all things sees, by whom are all things seen. Believe me, nymph! (for I the truth have show'd) Thy charms have pow'r to charm so great a God. Confus'd, she heard him his soft passion tell, And on the floor, untwirl'd, the spindle fell: Still from the sweet confusion some new grace Blush'd out by stealth, and languish'd in her face. The lover, now inflam'd, himself put on, And out at once the God, all-radiant, shone. The virgin startled at his alter'd form, Too weak to bear a God's impetuous storm: No more against the dazling youth she strove, But silent yielded, and indulg'd his love. This Clytie knew, and knew she was undone, Whose soul was fix'd, and doated on the Sun. She rag'd to think on her neglected charms, And Phoebus, panting in another's arms. With envious madness fir'd, she flies in haste, And tells the king, his daughter was unchaste. The king, incens'd to hear his honour stain'd, No more the father nor the man retain'd. In vain she stretch'd her arms, and turn'd her eyes To her lov'd God, th' enlightner of the skies. In vain she own'd it was a crime, yet still It was a crime not acted by her will. The brutal sire stood deaf to ev'ry pray'r, And deep in Earth entomb'd alive the fair. What Phoebus could do, was by Phoebus done: Full on her grave with pointed beams he shone: To pointed beams the gaping Earth gave way; Had the nymph eyes, her eyes had seen the day, But lifeless now, yet lovely still, she lay. Not more the God wept, when the world was fir'd, And in the wreck his blooming boy expir'd. The vital flame he strives to light again, And warm the frozen blood in ev'ry vein: But since resistless Fates deny'd that pow'r, On the cold nymph he rain'd a nectar show'r. Ah! undeserving thus (he said) to die, Yet still in odours thou shalt reach the sky. The body soon dissolv'd, and all around Perfum'd with heav'nly fragrancies the ground, A sacrifice for Gods up-rose from thence, A sweet, delightful tree of frankincense. The Transformation of Clytie Tho' guilty Clytie thus the sun betray'd, By too much passion she was guilty made. Excess of love begot excess of grief, Grief fondly bad her hence to hope relief. But angry Phoebus hears, unmov'd, her sighs, And scornful from her loath'd embraces flies. All day, all night, in trackless wilds, alone She pin'd, and taught the list'ning rocks her moan. On the bare earth she lies, her bosom bare, Loose her attire, dishevel'd is her hair. Nine times the morn unbarr'd the gates of light, As oft were spread th' alternate shades of night, So long no sustenance the mourner knew, Unless she drunk her tears, or suck'd the dew. She turn'd about, but rose not from the ground, Turn'd to the Sun, still as he roul'd his round: On his bright face hung her desiring eyes, 'Till fix'd to Earth, she strove in vain to rise. Her looks their paleness in a flow'r retain'd, But here, and there, some purple streaks they gain'd. Still the lov'd object the fond leafs pursue, Still move their root, the moving Sun to view, And in the Heliotrope the nymph is true. The sisters heard these wonders with surprise, But part receiv'd them as romantick lies; And pertly rally'd, that they could not see In Pow'rs divine so vast an energy. Part own'd, true Gods such miracles might do, But own'd not Bacchus, one among the true. At last a common, just request they make, And beg Alcithoe her turn to take. I will (she said) and please you, if I can. Then shot her shuttle swift, and thus began. The fate of Daphnis is a fate too known, Whom an enamour'd nymph transform'd to stone, Because she fear'd another nymph might see The lovely youth, and love as much as she: So strange the madness is of jealousie! Nor shall I tell, what changes Scython made, And how he walk'd a man, or tripp'd a maid. You too would peevish frown, and patience want To hear, how Celmis grew an adamant. He once was dear to Jove, and saw of old Jove, when a child; but what he saw, he told. Crocus, and Smilax may be turn'd to flow'rs, And the Curetes spring from bounteous show'rs; I pass a hundred legends stale, as these, And with sweet novelty your taste will please. The Story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus How Salmacis, with weak enfeebling streams Softens the body, and unnerves the limbs, And what the secret cause, shall here be shown; The cause is secret, but th' effect is known. The Naids nurst an infant heretofore, That Cytherea once to Hermes bore: From both th' illustrious authors of his race The child was nam'd, nor was it hard to trace Both the bright parents thro' the infant's face. When fifteen years in Ida's cool retreat The boy had told, he left his native seat, And sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil: The pleasure lessen'd the attending toil, With eager steps the Lycian fields he crost, A river here he view'd so lovely bright, It shew'd the bottom in a fairer light, Nor kept a sand conceal'd from human sight. The stream produc'd nor slimy ooze, nor weeds, Nor miry rushes, nor the spiky reeds; But dealt enriching moisture all around, The fruitful banks with chearful verdure crown'd, And kept the spring eternal on the ground. A nymph presides, not practis'd in the chace, Nor skilful at the bow, nor at the race; Of all the blue-ey'd daughters of the main, The only stranger to Diana's train: Her sisters often, as 'tis said, wou'd cry, "Fie Salmacis: what, always idle! fie. Or take thy quiver, or thy arrows seize, And mix the toils of hunting with thy ease." Nor quiver she nor arrows e'er wou'd seize, Nor mix the toils of hunting with her ease. But oft would ba the her in the chrystal tide, Oft with a comb her dewy locks divide; Now in the limpid streams she views her face, And drest her image in the floating glass: On beds of leaves she now repos'd her limbs, Now gather'd flow'rs that grew about her streams, And then by chance was gathering, as he stood To view the boy, and long'd for what she view'd. Fain wou'd she meet the youth with hasty feet, She fain wou'd meet him, but refus'd to meet Before her looks were set with nicest care, And well deserv'd to be reputed fair. "Bright youth," she cries, "whom all thy features prove A God, and, if a God, the God of love; But if a mortal, blest thy nurse's breast, Blest are thy parents, and thy sisters blest: But oh how blest! how more than blest thy bride, Ally'd in bliss, if any yet ally'd. If so, let mine the stoln enjoyments be; If not, behold a willing bride in me." The boy knew nought of love, and toucht with shame, He strove, and blusht, but still the blush became: In rising blushes still fresh beauties rose; The sunny side of fruit such blushes shows, And such the moon, when all her silver white Turns in eclipses to a ruddy light. The nymph still begs, if not a nobler bliss, A cold salute at least, a sister's kiss: And now prepares to take the lovely boy Between her arms. He, innocently coy, Replies, "Or leave me to my self alone, You rude uncivil nymph, or I'll be gone." "Fair stranger then," says she, "it shall be so"; And, for she fear'd his threats, she feign'd to go: But hid within a covert's neighbouring green, She kept him still in sight, herself unseen. The boy now fancies all the danger o'er, And innocently sports about the shore, Playful and wanton to the stream he trips, And dips his foot, and shivers as he dips. The coolness pleas'd him, and with eager haste His airy garments on the banks he cast; His godlike features, and his heav'nly hue, And all his beauties were expos'd to view. His naked limbs the nymph with rapture spies, While hotter passions in her bosom rise, Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes. She longs, she burns to clasp him in her arms, And looks, and sighs, and kindles at his charms. Now all undrest upon the banks he stood, And clapt his sides, and leapt into the flood: His lovely limbs the silver waves divide, His limbs appear more lovely through the tide; As lillies shut within a chrystal case, Receive a glossy lustre from the glass. He's mine, he's all my own, the Naid cries, And flings off all, and after him she flies. And now she fastens on him as he swims, And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs. The more the boy resisted, and was coy, The more she clipt, and kist the strugling boy. So when the wrigling snake is snatcht on high In Eagle's claws, and hisses in the sky, Around the foe his twirling tail he flings, And twists her legs, and wriths about her wings. The restless boy still obstinately strove To free himself, and still refus'd her love. Amidst his limbs she kept her limbs intwin'd, "And why, coy youth," she cries, "why thus unkind! Oh may the Gods thus keep us ever join'd! Oh may we never, never part again!" So pray'd the nymph, nor did she pray in vain: For now she finds him, as his limbs she prest, Grow nearer still, and nearer to her breast; 'Till, piercing each the other's flesh, they run Together, and incorporate in one: Last in one face are both their faces join'd, As when the stock and grafted twig combin'd Shoot up the same, and wear a common rind: Both bodies in a single body mix, A single body with a double sex. The boy, thus lost in woman, now survey'd The river's guilty stream, and thus he pray'd. (He pray'd, but wonder'd at his softer tone, Surpriz'd to hear a voice but half his own.) You parent-Gods, whose heav'nly names I bear, Hear your Hermaphrodite, and grant my pray'r; Oh grant, that whomsoe'er these streams contain, If man he enter'd, he may rise again Supple, unsinew'd, and but half a man! The heav'nly parents answer'd from on high, Their two-shap'd son, the double votary Then gave a secret virtue to the flood, And ting'd its source to make his wishes good. Alcithoe and her Sisters transform'd to Bats But Mineus' daughters still their tasks pursue, To wickedness most obstinately true: At Bacchus still they laugh, when all around, Unseen, the timbrels hoarse were heard to sound. Saffron and myrrh their fragrant odours shed, And now the present deity they dread. Strange to relate! Here ivy first was seen, Along the distaff crept the wond'rous green. Then sudden-springing vines began to bloom, And the soft tendrils curl'd around the loom: While purple clusters, dangling from on high, Ting'd the wrought purple with a second die. Now from the skies was shot a doubtful light, The day declining to the bounds of night. The fabrick's firm foundations shake all o'er, False tigers rage, and figur'd lions roar. Torches, aloft, seem blazing in the air, And angry flashes of red light'nings glare. To dark recesses, the dire sight to shun, Swift the pale sisters in confusion run. Their arms were lost in pinions, as they fled, And subtle films each slender limb o'er-spread. Their alter'd forms their senses soon reveal'd; Their forms, how alter'd, darkness still conceal'd. Close to the roof each, wond'ring, upwards springs, Born on unknown, transparent, plumeless wings. They strove for words; their little bodies found No words, but murmur'd in a fainting sound. In towns, not woods, the sooty bats delight, And, never, 'till the dusk, begin their flight; 'Till Vesper rises with his ev'ning flame; From whom the Romans have deriv'd their name. The Transformation of Ino and Melicerta to Sea-Gods The pow'r of Bacchus now o'er Thebes had flown: With awful rev'rence soon the God they own. Proud Ino, all around the wonder tells, And on her nephew deity still dwells. Of num'rous sisters, she alone yet knew No grief, but grief, which she from sisters drew. Imperial Juno saw her with disdain, Vain in her offspring, in her consort vain, Who rul'd the trembling Thebans with a nod, But saw her vainest in her foster-God. Could then (she cry'd) a bastard-boy have pow'r To make a mother her own son devour? Could he the Tuscan crew to fishes change, And now three sisters damn to forms so strange? Yet shall the wife of Jove find no relief? Shall she, still unreveng'd, disclose her grief? Have I the mighty freedom to complain? Is that my pow'r? is that to ease my pain? A foe has taught me vengeance; and who ought To scorn that vengeance, which a foe has taught? What sure destruction frantick rage can throw, The gaping wounds of slaughter'd Pentheus show. Why should not Ino, fir'd with madness, stray, Like her mad sisters her own kindred slay? Why, she not follow, where they lead the way? Down a steep, yawning cave, where yews display'd In arches meet, and lend a baleful shade, Thro' silent labyrinths a passage lies To mournful regions, and infernal skies. Here Styx exhales its noisome clouds, and here, The fun'ral rites once paid, all souls appear. Stiff cold, and horror with a ghastly face And staring eyes, infest the dreary place. Ghosts, new-arriv'd, and strangers to these plains, Know not the palace, where grim Pluto reigns. They journey doubtful, nor the road can tell, Which leads to the metropolis of Hell. A thousand avenues those tow'rs command, A thousand gates for ever open stand. As all the rivers, disembogu'd, find room For all their waters in old Ocean's womb: So this vast city worlds of shades receives, And space for millions still of worlds she leaves. Th' unbody'd spectres freely rove, and show Whate'er they lov'd on Earth, they love below. The lawyers still, or right, or wrong, support, The courtiers smoothly glide to Pluto's court. Still airy heroes thoughts of glory fire, Still the dead poet strings his deathless lyre, And lovers still with fancy'd darts expire. The Queen of Heaven, to gratify her hate, And sooth immortal wrath, forgets her state. Down from the realms of day, to realms of night, The Goddess swift precipitates her flight. At Hell arriv'd, the noise Hell's porter heard, Th' enormous dog his triple head up-rear'd: Thrice from three grizly throats he howl'd profound, Then suppliant couch'd, and stretch'd along the ground. The trembling threshold, which Saturnia prest, The weight of such divinity confest. Before a lofty, adamantine gate, Which clos'd a tow'r of brass, the Furies sate: Mis-shapen forms, tremendous to the sight, Th' implacable foul daughters of the night. A sounding whip each bloody sister shakes, Or from her tresses combs the curling snakes. But now great Juno's majesty was known; Thro' the thick gloom, all heav'nly bright, she shone: The hideous monsters their obedience show'd, And rising from their seats, submissive bow'd. This is the place of woe, here groan the dead; Huge Tityus o'er nine acres here is spread. Fruitful for pain th' immortal liver breeds, Still grows, and still th' insatiate vulture feeds. Poor Tantalus to taste the water tries, But from his lips the faithless water flies: Then thinks the bending tree he can command, The tree starts backwards, and eludes his hand. The labour too of Sisyphus is vain, Up the steep mount he heaves the stone with pain, Down from the summet rouls the stone again. The Belides their leaky vessels still Are ever filling, and yet never fill: Doom'd to this punishment for blood they shed, For bridegrooms slaughter'd in the bridal bed. Stretch'd on the rolling wheel Ixion lies; Himself he follows, and himself he flies. Ixion, tortur'd, Juno sternly ey'd, Then turn'd, and toiling Sisyphus espy'd: And why (she said) so wretched is the fate Of him, whose brother proudly reigns in state? Yet still my altars unador'd have been By Athamas, and his presumptuous queen. What caus'd her hate, the Goddess thus confest, What caus'd her journey now was more than guest. That hate, relentless, its revenge did want, And that revenge the Furies soon could grant: They could the glory of proud Thebes efface, And hide in ruin the Cadmean race. For this she largely promises, entreats, And to intreaties adds imperial threats. Then fell Tisiphone with rage was stung, And from her mouth th' untwisted serpents flung. To gain this trifling boon, there is no need (She cry'd) in formal speeches to proceed. Whatever thou command'st to do, is done; Believe it finish'd, tho' not yet begun. But from these melancholly seats repair To happier mansions, and to purer air. She spoke: the Goddess, darting upwards, flies, And joyous re-ascends her native skies: Nor enter'd there, till 'round her Iris threw Ambrosial sweets, and pour'd celestial dew. The faithful Fury, guiltless of delays, With cruel haste the dire comm and obeys. Girt in a bloody gown, a torch she shakes, And round her neck twines speckled wreaths of snakes. Fear, and dismay, and agonizing pain, With frantick rage, compleat her loveless train. To Thebes her flight she sped, and Hell forsook; At her approach the Theban turrets shook: The sun shrunk back, thick clouds the day o'er-cast, And springing greens were wither'd as she past. Now, dismal yellings heard, strange spectres seen, Confound as much the monarch as the queen. In vain to quit the palace they prepar'd, Tisiphone was there, and kept the ward. She wide extended her unfriendly arms, And all the Fury lavish'd all her harms. Part of her tresses loudly hiss, and part Spread poyson, as their forky tongues they dart. Then from her middle locks two snakes she drew, Whose merit from superior mischief grew: Th' envenom'd ruin, thrown with spiteful care, Clung to the bosoms of the hapless pair. The hapless pair soon with wild thoughts were fir'd, And madness, by a thousand ways inspir'd. 'Tis true, th' unwounded body still was sound, But 'twas the soul which felt the deadly wound. Nor did th' unsated monster here give o'er, But dealt of plagues a fresh, unnumber'd store. Each baneful juice too well she understood, Foam, churn'd by Cerberus, and Hydra's blood. Hot hemlock, and cold aconite she chose, Delighted in variety of woes. Whatever can untune th' harmonious soul, And its mild, reas'ning faculties controul, Give false ideas, raise desires profane, And whirl in eddies the tumultuous brain, Mix'd with curs'd art, she direfully around Thro' all their nerves diffus'd the sad compound. Then toss'd her torch in circles still the same, Improv'd their rage, and added flame to flame. The grinning Fury her own conquest spy'd, And to her rueful shades return'd with pride, And threw th' exhausted, useless snakes aside. Now Athamas cries out, his reason fled, Here, fellow-hunters, let the toils be spread. I saw a lioness, in quest of food, With her two young, run roaring in this wood. Again the fancy'd savages were seen, As thro' his palace still he chac'd his queen; Then tore Learchus from her breast: the child Stretch'd little arms, and on its father smil'd: A father now no more, who now begun Around his head to whirl his giddy son, And, quite insensible to Nature's call, The helpless infant flung against the wall. The same mad poyson in the mother wrought, Young Melicerta in her arms she caught, And with disorder'd tresses, howling, flies, O! Bacchus, Evoe, Bacchus! loud she cries. The name of Bacchus Juno laugh'd to hear, And said, Thy foster-God has cost thee dear. A rock there stood, whose side the beating waves Had long consum'd, and hollow'd into caves. The head shot forwards in a bending steep, And cast a dreadful covert o'er the deep. The wretched Ino, on destruction bent, Climb'd up the cliff; such strength her fury lent: Thence with her guiltless boy, who wept in vain, At one bold spring she plung'd into the main. Her neice's fate touch'd Cytherea's breast, And in soft sounds she Neptune thus addrest: Great God of waters, whose extended sway Is next to his, whom Heav'n and Earth obey: Let not the suit of Venus thee displease, Pity the floaters on th' Ionian seas. Encrease thy Subject-Gods, nor yet disdain To add my kindred to that glorious train. If from the sea I may such honours claim, If 'tis desert, that from the sea I came, As Grecian poets artfully have sung, And in the name confest, from whence I sprung. Pleas'd Neptune nodded his assent, and free Both soon became from frail mortality. He gave them form, and majesty divine, And bad them glide along the foamy brine. For Melicerta is Palaemon known, And Ino once, Leucothoe is grown. The Transformation of the Theban Matrons The Theban matrons their lov'd queen pursu'd, And tracing to the rock, her footsteps view'd. Too certain of her fate, they rend the skies With piteous shrieks, and lamentable cries. All beat their breasts, and Juno all upbraid, Who still remember'd a deluded maid: Who, still revengeful for one stol'n embrace, Thus wreak'd her hate on the Cadmean race. This Juno heard: And shall such elfs, she cry'd, Dispute my justice, or my pow'r deride? You too shall feel my wrath not idly spent; A Goddess never for insults was meant. She, who lov'd most, and who most lov'd had been, Said, Not the waves shall part me from my queen. She strove to plunge into the roaring flood; Fix'd to the stone, a stone her self she stood. This, on her breast would fain her blows repeat, Her stiffen'd hands refus'd her breast to beat. That, stretch'd her arms unto the seas; in vain Her arms she labour'd to unstretch again. To tear her comely locks another try'd, Both comely locks, and fingers petryfi'd. Part thus; but Juno with a softer mind Part doom'd to mix among the feather'd kind. Transform'd, the name of Theban birds they keep, And skim the surface of that fatal deep. Cadmus and his Queen transform'd to Serpents Mean-time, the wretched Cadmus mourns, nor knows, That they who mortal fell, immortal rose. With a long series of new ills opprest, He droops, and all the man forsakes his breast. Strange prodigies confound his frighted eyes; From the fair city, which he rais'd, he flies: As if misfortune not pursu'd his race, But only hung o'er that devoted place. Resolv'd by sea to seek some distant land, At last he safely gain'd th' Illyrian strand. Chearless himself, his consort still he chears, Hoary, and loaden'd both with woes and years. Then to recount past sorrows they begin, And trace them to the gloomy origin. That serpent sure was hallow'd, Cadmus cry'd, Which once my spear transfix'd with foolish pride; When the big teeth, a seed before unknown, By me along the wond'ring glebe were sown, And sprouting armies by themselves o'erthrown. If thence the wrath of Heav'n on me is bent, May Heav'n conclude it with one sad event; To an extended serpent change the man: And while he spoke, the wish'd-for change began. His skin with sea-green spots was vary'd 'round, And on his belly prone he prest the ground. He glitter'd soon with many a golden scale, And his shrunk legs clos'd in a spiry tail. Arms yet remain'd, remaining arms he spread To his lov'd wife, and human tears yet shed. Come, my Harmonia, come, thy face recline Down to my face; still touch, what still is mine. O! let these hands, while hands, be gently prest, While yet the serpent has not all possest. More he had spoke, but strove to speak in vain, The forky tongue refus'd to tell his pain, And learn'd in hissings only to complain. Then shriek'd Harmonia, Stay, my Cadmus, stay, Glide not in such a monstrous shape away! Destruction, like impetuous waves, rouls on. Where are thy feet, thy legs, thy shoulders gone? Chang'd is thy visage, chang'd is all thy frame; Cadmus is only Cadmus now in name. Ye Gods, my Cadmus to himself restore, Or me like him transform; I ask no more. The husband-serpent show'd he still had thought, With wonted fondness an embrace he sought; Play'd 'round her neck in many a harmless twist, And lick'd that bosom, which, a man, he kist. The lookers-on (for lookers-on there were) Shock'd at the sight, half-dy'd away with fear. The transformation was again renew'd, And, like the husband, chang'd the wife they view'd. Both, serpents now, with fold involv'd in fold, To the next covert amicably roul'd. There curl'd they lie, or wave along the green, Fearless see men, by men are fearless seen, Still mild, and conscious what they once have been. The Story of Perseus Yet tho' this harsh, inglorious fate they found, Each in the deathless grandson liv'd renown'd. Thro' conquer'd India Bacchus nobly rode, And Greece with temples hail'd the conqu'ring God. In Argos only proud Acrisius reign'd, Who all the consecrated rites profan'd. Audacious wretch! thus Bacchus to deny, And the great Thunderer's great son defie! Nor him alone: thy daughter vainly strove, Brave Perseus of celestial stem to prove, And her self pregnant by a golden Jove. Yet this was true, and truth in time prevails; Acrisius now his unbelief bewails. His former thought, an impious thought he found, And both the heroe, and the God were own'd. He saw, already one in Heav'n was plac'd, And one with more than mortal triumphs grac'd, The victor Perseus with the Gorgon-head, O'er Libyan sands his airy journey sped. The gory drops distill'd, as swift he flew, And from each drop envenom'd serpents grew, The mischiefs brooded on the barren plains, And still th' unhappy fruitfulness remains. Atlas transform'd to a Mountain Thence Perseus, like a cloud, by storms was driv'n, Thro' all th' expanse beneath the cope of Heaven. The jarring winds unable to controul, He saw the southern, and the northern pole: And eastward thrice, and westward thrice was whirl'd, And from the skies survey'd the nether world. But when grey ev'ning show'd the verge of night, He fear'd in darkness to pursue his flight. He pois'd his pinions, and forgot to soar, And sinking, clos'd them on th' Hesperian shore: Then beg'd to rest, 'till Lucifer begun To wake the morn, the morn to wake the sun. Here Atlas reign'd, of more than human size, And in his kingdom the world's limit lies. Here Titan bids his weary'd coursers sleep, And cools the burning axle in the deep. The mighty monarch, uncontrol'd, alone, His sceptre sways: no neighb'ring states are known. A thousand flocks on shady mountains fed, A thousand herds o'er grassy plains were spread. Here wond'rous trees their shining stores unfold, Their shining stores too wond'rous to be told, Their leafs, their branches, and their apples, gold. Then Perseus the gigantick prince addrest, Humbly implor'd a hospitable rest. If bold exploits thy admiration fire, He said, I fancy, mine thou wilt admire. Or if the glory of a race can move, Not mean my glory, for I spring from Jove. At this confession Atlas ghastly star'd, Mindful of what an oracle declar'd, That the dark womb of Time conceal'd a day, Which should, disclos'd, the bloomy gold betray: All should at once be ravish'd from his eyes, And Jove's own progeny enjoy the prize. For this, the fruit he loftily immur'd, And a fierce dragon the strait pass secur'd. For this, all strangers he forbad to land, And drove them from th' inhospitable strand. To Perseus then: Fly quickly, fly this coast, Nor falsly dare thy acts and race to boast. In vain the heroe for one night entreats, Threat'ning he storms, and next adds force to threats. By strength not Perseus could himself defend, For who in strength with Atlas could contend? But since short rest to me thou wilt not give, A gift of endless rest from me receive, He said, and backward turn'd, no more conceal'd The present, and Medusa's head reveal'd. Soon the high Atlas a high mountain stood, His locks, and beard became a leafy wood. His hands, and shoulders, into ridges went, The summit-head still crown'd the steep ascent. His bones a solid, rocky hardness gain'd: He, thus immensely grown (as fate ordain'd), The stars, the Heav'ns, and all the Gods sustain'd. Andromeda rescu'd from the Sea Monster Now Aeolus had with strong chains confin'd, And deep imprison'd e'vry blust'ring wind, The rising Phospher with a purple light Did sluggish mortals to new toils invite. His feet again the valiant Perseus plumes, And his keen sabre in his hand resumes: Then nobly spurns the ground, and upwards springs, And cuts the liquid air with sounding wings. O'er various seas, and various lands he past, 'Till Aethiopia's shore appear'd at last. Andromeda was there, doom'd to attone By her own ruin follies not her own: And if injustice in a God can be, Such was the Libyan God's unjust decree. Chain'd to a rock she stood; young Perseus stay'd His rapid flight, to view the beauteous maid. So sweet her frame, so exquisitely fine, She seem'd a statue by a hand divine, Had not the wind her waving tresses show'd, And down her cheeks the melting sorrows flow'd. Her faultless form the heroe's bosom fires; The more he looks, the more he still admires. Th' admirer almost had forgot to fly, And swift descended, flutt'ring from on high. O! Virgin, worthy no such chains to prove, But pleasing chains in the soft folds of love; Thy country, and thy name (he said) disclose, And give a true rehearsal of thy woes. A quick reply her bashfulness refus'd, To the free converse of a man unus'd. Her rising blushes had concealment found From her spread hands, but that her hands were bound. She acted to her full extent of pow'r, And bath'd her face with a fresh, silent show'r. But by degrees in innocence grown bold, Her name, her country, and her birth she told: And how she suffer'd for her mother's pride, Who with the Nereids once in beauty vy'd. Part yet untold, the seas began to roar, And mounting billows tumbled to the shore. Above the waves a monster rais'd his head, His body o'er the deep was widely spread: Onward he flounc'd; aloud the virgin cries; Each parent to her shrieks in shrieks replies: But she had deepest cause to rend the skies. Weeping, to her they cling; no sign appears Of help, they only lend their helpless tears. Too long you vent your sorrows, Perseus said, Short is the hour, and swift the time of aid, In me the son of thund'ring Jove behold, Got in a kindly show'r of fruitful gold. Medusa's snaky head is now my prey, And thro' the clouds I boldly wing my way. If such desert be worthy of esteem, And, if your daughter I from death redeem, Shall she be mine? Shall it not then be thought, A bride, so lovely, was too cheaply bought? For her my arms I willingly employ, If I may beauties, which I save, enjoy. The parents eagerly the terms embrace: For who would slight such terms in such a case? Nor her alone they promise, but beside, The dowry of a kingdom with the bride. As well-rigg'd gallies, which slaves, sweating, row, With their sharp beaks the whiten'd ocean plough; So when the monster mov'd, still at his back The furrow'd waters left a foamy track. Now to the rock he was advanc'd so nigh, Whirl'd from a sling a stone the space would fly. Then bounding, upwards the brave Perseus sprung, And in mid air on hov'ring pinions hung. His shadow quickly floated on the main; The monster could not his wild rage restrain, But at the floating shadow leap'd in vain. As when Jove's bird, a speckl'd serpent spies, Which in the shine of Phoebus basking lies, Unseen, he souses down, and bears away, Truss'd from behind, the vainly-hissing prey. To writh his neck the labour nought avails, Too deep th' imperial talons pierce his scales. Thus the wing'd heroe now descends, now soars, And at his pleasure the vast monster gores. Full in his back, swift stooping from above, The crooked sabre to its hilt he drove. The monster rag'd, impatient of the pain, First bounded high, and then sunk low again. Now, like a savage boar, when chaf'd with wounds, And bay'd with opening mouths of hungry hounds, He on the foe turns with collected might, Who still eludes him with an airy flight; And wheeling round, the scaly armour tries Of his thick sides; his thinner tall now plies: 'Till from repeated strokes out gush'd a flood, And the waves redden'd with the streaming blood. At last the dropping wings, befoam'd all o'er, With flaggy heaviness their master bore: A rock he spy'd, whose humble head was low, Bare at an ebb, but cover'd at a flow. A ridgy hold, he, thither flying, gain'd, And with one hand his bending weight sustain'd; With th' other, vig'rous blows he dealt around, And the home-thrusts the expiring monster own'd. In deaf'ning shouts the glad applauses rise, And peal on peal runs ratling thro' the skies. The saviour-youth the royal pair confess, And with heav'd hands their daughter's bridegroom bless. The beauteous bride moves on, now loos'd from chains, The cause, and sweet reward of all the heroe's pains, Mean-time, on shore triumphant Perseus stood, And purg'd his hands, smear'd with the monster's blood: Then in the windings of a sandy bed Compos'd Medusa's execrable head. But to prevent the roughness, leafs he threw, And young, green twigs, which soft in waters grew, There soft, and full of sap; but here, when lay'd, Touch'd by the head, that softness soon decay'd. The wonted flexibility quite gone, The tender scyons harden'd into stone. Fresh, juicy twigs, surpriz'd, the Nereids brought, Fresh, juicy twigs the same contagion caught. The nymphs the petrifying seeds still keep, And propagate the wonder thro' the deep. The pliant sprays of coral yet declare Their stiff'ning Nature, when expos'd to air. Those sprays, which did, like bending osiers, move, Snatch'd from their element, obdurate prove, And shrubs beneath the waves, grow stones above. The great immortals grateful Perseus prais'd, And to three Pow'rs three turfy altars rais'd. To Hermes this; and that he did assign To Pallas: the mid honours, Jove, were thine, He hastes for Pallas a white cow to cull, A calf for Hermes, but for Jove a bull. Then seiz'd the prize of his victorious fight, Andromeda, and claim'd the nuptial rite. Andromeda alone he greatly sought, The dowry kingdom was not worth his thought. Pleas'd Hymen now his golden torch displays; With rich oblations fragrant altars blaze, Sweet wreaths of choicest flow'rs are hung on high, And cloudless pleasure smiles in ev'ry eye. The melting musick melting thoughts inspires, And warbling songsters aid the warbling lyres. The palace opens wide in pompous state, And by his peers surrounded, Cepheus sate. A feast was serv'd, fit for a king to give, And fit for God-like heroes to receive. The banquet ended, the gay, chearful bowl Mov'd round, and brighten'd, and enlarg'd each soul. Then Perseus ask'd, what customs there obtain'd, And by what laws the people were restrain'd. Which told; the teller a like freedom takes, And to the warrior his petition makes, To know, what arts had won Medusa's snakes. The Story of Medusa's Head The heroe with his just request complies, Shows, how a vale beneath cold Atlas lies, Where, with aspiring mountains fenc'd around, He the two daughters of old Phorcus found. Fate had one common eye to both assign'd, Each saw by turns, and each by turns was blind. But while one strove to lend her sister sight, He stretch'd his hand, and stole their mutual light, And left both eyeless, both involv'd in night. Thro' devious wilds, and trackless woods he past, And at the Gorgon-seats arriv'd at last: But as he journey'd, pensive he survey'd, What wasteful havock dire Medusa made. Here, stood still breathing statues, men before; There, rampant lions seem'd in stone to roar. Nor did he, yet affrighted, quit the field, But in the mirror of his polish'd shield Reflected saw Medusa slumbers take, And not one serpent by good chance awake. Then backward an unerring blow he sped, And from her body lop'd at once her head. The gore prolifick prov'd; with sudden force Sprung Pegasus, and wing'd his airy course. The Heav'n-born warrior faithfully went on, And told the num'rous dangers which he run. What subject seas, what lands he had in view, And nigh what stars th' advent'rous heroe flew. At last he silent sate; the list'ning throng Sigh'd at the pause of his delightful tongue. Some beg'd to know, why this alone should wear, Of all the sisters, such destructive hair. Great Perseus then: With me you shall prevail, Worth the relation, to relate a tale. Medusa once had charms; to gain her love A rival crowd of envious lovers strove. They, who have seen her, own, they ne'er did trace More moving features in a sweeter face. Yet above all, her length of hair, they own, In golden ringlets wav'd, and graceful shone. Her Neptune saw, and with such beauties fir'd, Resolv'd to compass, what his soul desir'd. In chaste Minerva's fane, he, lustful, stay'd, And seiz'd, and rifled the young, blushing maid. The bashful Goddess turn'd her eyes away, Nor durst such bold impurity survey; But on the ravish'd virgin vengeance takes, Her shining hair is chang'd to hissing snakes. These in her Aegis Pallas joys to bear, The hissing snakes her foes more sure ensnare, Than they did lovers once, when shining hair. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ Ovid, BOOK THE FOURTH ,

517:The Third Monarchy, Being The Grecian, Beginning Under Alexander The Great In The 112. Olympiad. Great Alexander was wise Philips son, He to Amyntas, Kings of Macedon; The cruel proud Olympias was his Mother, She to Epirus warlike King was daughter. This Prince (his father by Pausanias slain) The twenty first of's age began to reign. Great were the Gifts of nature which he had, His education much to those did adde: By art and nature both he was made fit, To 'complish that which long before was writ. The very day of his Nativity To ground was burnt Dianaes Temple high: An Omen to their near approaching woe, Whose glory to the earth this king did throw. His Rule to Greece he scorn'd should be confin'd, The Universe scarce bound his proud vast mind. This is the He-Goat which from Grecia came, That ran in Choler on the Persian Ram, That brake his horns, that threw him on the ground To save him from his might no man was found: Philip on this great Conquest had an eye, But death did terminate those thoughts so high. The Greeks had chose him Captain General, Which honour to his Son did now befall. (For as Worlds Monarch now we speak not on, But as the King of little Macedon) Restless both day and night his heart then was, His high resolves which way to bring to pass; Yet for a while in Greece is forc'd to stay, Which makes each moment seem more then a day. Thebes and stiff Athens both 'gainst him rebel, Their mutinies by valour doth he quell. This done against both right and natures Laws, His kinsmen put to death, who gave no cause; That no rebellion in in his absence be, Nor making Title unto Sovereignty. And all whom he suspects or fears will climbe, 129 Now taste of death least they deserv'd in time, Nor wonder is t if he in blood begin, For Cruelty was his parental sin, Thus eased now of troubles and of fears, Next spring his course to Asia he steers; Leavs Sage Antipater, at home to sway, And through the Hellispont his Ships made way. Coming to Land, his dart on shore he throws, Then with alacrity he after goes; And with a bount'ous heart and courage brave, His little wealth among his Souldiers gave. And being ask'd what for himself was left, Reply'd, enough, sith only hope he kept. Thirty two thousand made up his Foot force, To which were joyn'd five thousand goodly horse. Then on he marcht, in's way he view'd old Troy, And on Achilles tomb with wondrous joy He offer'd, and for good success did pray To him, his Mothers Ancestors, (men say) When news of Alexander came to Court, To scorn at him Darius had good sport; Sends him a frothy and contemptuous Letter, Stiles him disloyal servant, and no better; Reproves him for his proud audacity To lift his hand 'gainst such a Monarchy. Then to's Lieftenant he in Asia sends That he be ta'ne alive, for he intends To whip him well with rods, and so to bring That boy so mallipert before the King. Ah! fond vain man, whose pen ere while In lower terms was taught a higher stile. To River Granick Alexander hyes Which in Phrygia near Propontike lyes. The Persians ready for encounter stand, And strive to keep his men from off the land; Those banks so steep the Greeks yet scramble up, And beat the coward Persians from the top, And twenty thousand of their lives bereave, Who in their backs did all their wounds receive. This victory did Alexander gain, With loss of thirty four of his there slain; Then Sardis he, and Ephesus did gain, 130 VVhere stood of late, Diana's wondrous Phane, And by Parmenio (of renowned Fame,) Miletus and Pamphilia overcame. Hallicarnassus and Pisidia He for his Master takes with Lycia. Next Alexander marcht towards the black Sea, And easily takes old Gordium in his way; Of Ass ear'd Midas, once the Regal Seat, VVhose touch turn'd all to gold, yea even his meat VVhere the Prophetick knot he cuts in twain, VVhich who so doth, must Lord of all remain. Now news of Memnon's death (the Kings Viceroy) To Alexanders heart's no little joy, For in that Peer, more valour did abide, Then in Darius multitude beside: In's stead, was Arses plac'd, but durst not stay, Yet set one in his room, and ran away; His substitute as fearfull as his master, Runs after two, and leaves all to Disaster. Then Alexander all Cilicia takes, No stroke for it he struck, their hearts so quakes. To Greece he thirty thousand talents sends, To raise more Force to further his intends: Then o're he goes Darius now to meet, Who came with thousand thousands at his feet. Though some there be (perhaps) more likely write He but four hundred thousand had to fight, The rest Attendants, which made up no less, Both Sexes there was almost numberless. For this wise King had brought to see the sport, With him the greatest Ladyes of the Court, His mother, his beauteous Queen and daughters, It seems to see the Macedonian slaughters. Its much beyond my time and little art, To shew how great Darius plaid his part; The splendor and the pomp he marched in, For since the world was no such Pageant seen. Sure 'twas a goodly sight there to behold, The Persians clad in silk, and glistering gold, The stately horses trapt, the lances gilt, As if addrest now all to run a tilt. The holy fire was borne before the host, 131 (For Sun and Fire the Persians worship most) The Priests in their strange habit follow after, An object, not so much of fear as laughter. The King sate in a chariot made of gold, With crown and Robes most glorious to behold, And o're his head his golden Gods on high, Support a party coloured Canopy. A number of spare horses next were led, Lest he should need them in his Chariots stead; But those that saw him in this state to lye, Suppos'd he neither meant to fight nor flye. He fifteen hundred had like women drest; For thus to fright the Greeks he judg'd was best. Their golden ornaments how to set forth, Would ask more time then was their bodies worth Great Sysigambis she brought up the Reer, Then such a world of waggons did appear, Like several houses moving upon wheels, As if she'd drawn whole Shushan at her heels: This brave Virago to the King was mother, And as much good she did as any other. Now lest this gold, and all this goodly stuff Had not been spoyle and booty rich enough A thousand mules and Camels ready wait Loaden with gold, with jewels and with plate: For sure Darius thought at the first sight, The Greeks would all adore, but none would fight But when both Armies met, he might behold That valour was more worth then pearls or gold, And that his wealth serv'd but for baits to 'lure To make his overthrow more fierce and sure. The Greeks came on and with a gallant grace Let fly their arrows in the Persians face. The cowards feeling this sharp stinging charge Most basely ran, and left their king at large: Who from his golden coach is glad to 'light, And cast away his crown for swifter flight: Of late like some immoveable he lay, Now finds both legs and horse to run away. Two hundred thousand men that day were slain, And forty thousand prisoners also tane, Besides the Queens and Ladies of the court, 132 If Curtius be true in his report. The Regal Ornaments were lost, the treasure Divided at the Macedonians pleasure; Yet all this grief, this loss, this overthrow, Was but beginning of his future woe. The royal Captives brought to Alexander T'ward them demean'd himself like a Commander For though their beauties were unparaled, Conquer'd himself now he had conquered, Preserv'd their honour, us'd them bounteously, Commands no man should doe them injury: And this to Alexander is more fame Then that the Persian King he overcame. Two hundred eighty Greeks he lost in fight, By too much heat, not wounds (as authors write) No sooner had this Victor won the field, But all Phenicia to his pleasure yield, Of which the Goverment he doth commit Unto Parmenio of all most fit. Darius now less lofty then before, To Alexander writes he would restore Those mournfull Ladies from Captivity, For whom he offers him a ransome high: But down his haughty stomach could not bring, To give this Conquerour the Stile of King. This Letter Alexander doth disdain, And in short terms sends this reply again, A King he was, and that not only so, But of Darius King, as he should know. Next Alexander unto Tyre doth goe, His valour and his victoryes they know: To gain his love the Tyrians intend, Therefore a crown and great Provision send, Their present he receives with thankfullness, Desires to offer unto Hercules, Protector of their town, by whom defended, And from whom he lineally descended. But they accept not this in any wise, Lest he intend more fraud then sacrifice, Sent word that Hercules his temple stood In the old town, (which then lay like a wood) With this reply he was so deep enrag'd, 133 To win the town, his honour he ingag'd: And now as Babels King did once before, He leaves not till he made the sea firm shore, But far less time and cost he did expend, The former Ruines forwarded his end: Moreover had a Navy at command, The other by his men fetcht all by land. In seven months time he took that wealthy town, Whose glory now a second time's brought down. Two thousand of the chief he crucifi'd, Eight thousand by the sword then also di'd, And thirteen thousand Gally slaves he made, And thus the Tyrians for mistrust were paid. The rule of this he to Philotas gave Who was the son of that Parmenio brave. Cilicia to Socrates doth give, For now's the time Captains like Kings may live. Zidon he on Ephestion bestowes; (For that which freely comes, as freely goes) He scorns to have one worse then had the other, So gives his little Lordship to another. Ephestion having chief command of th'Fleet, At Gaza now must Alexander meet. Darius finding troubles still increase, By his Ambassadors now sues for peace, And layes before great Alexanders eyes The dangers difficultyes like to rise, First at Euphrates what he's like to 'bide, And then at Tygris and Araxis side, These he may scape, and if he so desire, A league of friendship make firm and entire. His eldest daughter he in mariage profers, And a most princely dowry with her offers. All those rich Kingdomes large that do abide Betwixt the Hellespont and Halys side. But he with scorn his courtesie rejects, And the distressed King no whit respects, Tells him, these proffers great, in truth were none For all he offers now was but his own. But quoth Parmenio that brave Commander, Was I as great, as is great Alexander, Darius offers I would not reject, 134 But th'kingdomes and the Lady soon accept. To which proud Alexander made reply, And so if I Parmenio was, would I. He now to Gaza goes, and there doth meet, His Favorite Ephestion with his Fleet, Where valiant Betis stoutly keeps the town, (A loyal Subject to Darius Crown) For more repulse the Grecians here abide Then in the Persian Monarchy beside; And by these walls so many men were slain, That Greece was forc'd to yield supply again. But yet this well defended Town was taken, For 'twas decree'd, that Empire should be shaken; Thus Betis ta'en had holes bor'd through his feet, And by command was drawn through every street To imitate Achilles in his shame, Who did the like to Hector (of more fame) What hast thou lost thy magnimity, Can Alexander deal thus cruelly? Sith valour with Heroicks is renown'd, Though in an Enemy it should be found; If of thy future fame thou hadst regard, Why didst not heap up honours and reward? From Gaza to Jerusalem he goes, But in no hostile way, (as I suppose) Him in his Priestly Robes high Jaddus meets, Whom with great reverence Alexander greets; The Priest shews him good Daniel's Prophesy, How he should overthrow this Monarchy, By which he was so much encouraged, No future dangers he did ever dread. From thence to fruitful Egypt marcht with speed, Where happily in's wars he did succeed; To see how fast he gain'd was no small wonder, For in few dayes he brought that Kingdome under. Then to the Phane of Jupiter he went, To be install'd a God, was his intent. The Pagan Priest through hire, or else mistake, The Son of Jupiter did streight him make: He Diobolical must needs remain, That his humanity will not retain. Thence back to Egypt goes, and in few dayes; 135 Fair Alexandria from the ground doth raise; Then setling all things in less Asia; In Syria, Egypt, and Phenicia, Unto Euphrates marcht and overgoes, For no man's there his Army to oppose; Had Betis now been there but with his band, Great Alexander had been kept from Land. But as the King, so is the multitude, And now of valour both are destitute. Yet he (poor prince) another Host doth muster, Of Persians, Scythians, Indians in a cluster; Men but in shape and name, of valour none Most fit, to blunt the Swords of Macedon. Two hundred fifty thousand by account, Of Horse and Foot his Army did amount; For in his multitudes his trust still lay, But on their fortitude he had small stay; Yet had some hope that on the spacious plain, His numbers might the victory obtain. About this time Darius beautious Queen, Who had sore travail and much sorrow seen, Now bids the world adue, with pain being spent, Whose death her Lord full sadly did lament. Great Alexander mourns as well as he, The more because not set at liberty; When this sad news (at first Darius hears, Some injury was offered he fears: But when inform'd how royally the King, Had used her, and hers, in every thing, He prays the immortal Gods they would reward Great Alexander for this good regard; And if they down his Monarchy will throw, Let them on him this dignity bestow. And now for peace he sues as once before, And offers all he did and Kingdomes more; His eldest daughter for his princely bride, (Nor was such match in all the world beside) And all those Countryes which (betwixt) did lye Phanisian Sea, and great Euphrates high: With fertile Egypt and rich Syria, And all those Kingdomes in less Asia. With thirty thousand Talents to be paid, 136 For the Queen Mother, and the royal maid; And till all this be well perform'd, and sure, Ochus his Son for Hostage should endure. To this stout Alexander gives no ear, No though Parmenio plead, yet will not hear; Which had he done. (perhaps) his fame he'd kept, Nor Infamy had wak'd, when he had slept, For his unlimited prosperity Him boundless made in vice and Cruelty. Thus to Darius he writes back again, The Firmament, two Suns cannot contain. Two Monarchyes on Earth cannot abide, Nor yet two Monarchs in one world reside; The afflicted King finding him set to jar, Prepares against to morrow, for the war, Parmenio, Alexander, wisht that night, To force his Camp, so vanquish them by flight. For tumult in the night doth cause most dread, And weakness of a Foe is covered, But he disdain'd to steal a victory: The Sun should witness of his valour be, And careless in his bed, next morne he lyes, By Captains twice is call'd before hee'l rise, The Armyes joyn'd a while, the Persians fight, And spilt the Greeks some bloud before their flight But long they stood not e're they're forc'd to run, So made an end, As soon as well begun. Forty five thousand Alexander had, But is not known what slaughter here was made, Some write th'other had a million, some more, But Quintus Curtius as before. At Arbela this victory was gain'd, Together with the Town also obtain'd; Darius stript of all to Media came, Accompan'ed with sorrow, fear, and shame, At Arbela left his Ornaments and Treasure, Which Alexander deals as suits his pleasure. This conqueror to Babylon then goes, Is entertain'd with joy and pompous showes, With showrs of flours the streets along are strown, And incense burnt the silver Altars on. The glory of the Castle he admires, 137 The strong Foundation and the lofty Spires, In this, a world of gold and Treasure lay, Which in few hours was carried all away. With greedy eyes he views this City round, Whose fame throughout the world was so renownd And to possess he counts no little bliss The towres and bowres of proud Semiramis, Though worne by time, and rac'd by foes full sore, Yet old foundations shew'd and somewhat more. With all the pleasures that on earth are found, This city did abundantly abound, Where four and thirty dayes he now did stay, And gave himself to banqueting and play: He and his souldiers wax effeminate, And former discipline begin to hate. Whilst revelling at Babylon he lyes, Antipater from Greece sends fresh supplyes. He then to Shushan goes with his new bands, But needs no force, tis rendred to his hands. He likewise here a world of treasure found; For 'twas the seat of Persian Kings renownd. Here stood the royal Houses of delight, Where Kings have shown their glory wealth and might The sumptuous palace of Queen Esther here, And of good Mordicai, her kinsman dear, Those purple hangings, mixt with green and white Those beds of gold, and couches of delight. And furniture the richest in all lands, Now fall into the Macedonians hands. From Shushan to Persipolis he goes, Which news doth still augment Darius woes. In his approach the governour sends word, For his receipt with joy they all accord, With open gates the wealthy town did stand, And all in it was at his high command. Of all the Cities that on earth was found, None like to this in riches did abound: Though Babylon was rich and Shushan too Yet to compare with this they might not doe: Here lay the bulk of all those precious things That did pertain unto the Persian Kings: For when the souldiers rifled had their pleasure, 138 And taken money plate and golden treasure, Statues some gold, and silver numberless, Yet after all, as storyes do express The share of Alexander did amount To an hundred thousand talents by account. Here of his own he sets a Garison, (As first at Shushan and at Babylon) On their old Governours titles he laid, But on their faithfulness he never staid, Their place gave to his Captains (as was just) For such revolters false, what King can trust? The riches and the pleasures of this town Now makes this King his virtues all to drown, That wallowing in all licentiousness, In pride and cruelty to high excess. Being inflam'd with wine upon a season, Filled with madness, and quite void of reason, He at a bold proud strumpets leud desire, Commands to set this goodly town on fire. Parmenio wise intreats him to desist And layes before his eyes if he persist His fames dishonour, loss unto his state, And just procuring of the Persians hate: But deaf to reason, bent to have his will, Those stately streets with raging flame did fill. Then to Darius he directs his way, Who was retir'd as far as Media, And there with sorrows, fears & cares surrounded Had now his army fourth and last compounded. Which forty thousand made, but his intent Was these in Bactria soon to augment: But hearing Alexander was so near, Thought now this once to try his fortunes here, And rather chose an honourable death, Then still with infamy to draw his breath: But Bessus false, who was his chief Commander Perswades him not to fight with Alexander. With sage advice he sets before his eyes The little hope of profit like to rise: If when he'd multitudes the day he lost, Then with so few, how likely to be crost. This counsel for his safety he pretended, 139 But to deliver him to's foe intended. Next day this treason to Darius known Transported sore with grief and passion, Grinding his teeth, and plucking off his hair, Sate overwhelm'd with sorrow and dispair: Then bids his servant Artabasus true, Look to himself, and leave him to that crew, Who was of hopes and comforts quite bereft, And by his guard and Servitors all left. Straight Bessus comes, & with his trait'rous hands Layes hold on's Lord, and binding him with bands Throws him into a Cart, covered with hides, Who wanting means t'resist these wrongs abides, Then draws the cart along with chains of gold, In more despight the thraled prince to hold, And thus t'ward Alexander on he goes, Great recompence for this, he did propose: But some detesting this his wicked fact, To Alexander flyes and tells this act, Who doubling of his march, posts on amain, Darius from that traitors hands to gain. Bessus gets knowledg his disloyalty Had Alexanders wrath incensed high, Whose army now was almost within sight, His hopes being dasht prepares himself for flight: Unto Darius first he brings a horse, And bids him save himself by speedy course: The wofull King his courtesie refuses, Whom thus the execrable wretch abuses, By throwing darts gave him his mortal wound, Then slew his Servants that were faithfull found, Yea wounds the beasts that drew him unto death, And leaves him thus to gasp out his last breath. Bessus his partner in this tragedy, Was the false Governour of Media. This done, they with their host soon speed away, To hide themselves remote in Bactria. Darius bath'd in blood, sends out his groans, Invokes the heav'ns and earth to hear his moans: His lost felicity did grieve him sore, But this unheard of treachery much more: But above all, that neither Ear nor Eye 140 Should hear nor see his dying misery; As thus he lay, Polistrates a Greek, Wearied with his long march, did water seek, So chanc'd these bloudy Horses to espy, Whose wounds had made their skins of purple dye To them repairs then looking in the Cart, Finds poor Darius pierced to the heart, Who not a little chear'd to have some eye, The witness of this horrid Tragedy; Prays him to Alexander to commend The just revenge of this his woful end: And not to pardon such disloyalty, Of Treason, Murther, and base Cruelty. If not, because Darius thus did pray, Yet that succeeding Kings in safety may Their lives enjoy, their Crowns and dignity, And not by Traitors hands untimely dye. He also sends his humble thankfulness, For all the Kingly grace he did express; To's Mother, Children dear, and wife now gone. Which made their long restraint seem to be none: Praying the immortal Gods, that Sea and Land Might be subjected to his royal hand, And that his Rule as far extended be, As men the rising, setting Sun shall see, This said, the Greek for water doth intreat, To quench his thirst, and to allay his heat: Of all good things (quoth he) once in my power, I've nothing left, at this my dying hour; Thy service and compassion to reward, But Alexander will, for this regard. This said, his fainting breath did fleet away, And though a Monarch late, now lyes like clay; And thus must every Son of Adam lye, Though Gods on Earth like Sons of men they dye. Now to the East, great Alexander goes, To see if any dare his might oppose, For scarce the world or any bounds thereon, Could bound his boundless fond Ambition; Such as submits again he doth restore Their riches, and their honours he makes more, On Artabaces more then all bestow'd, 141 For his fidelity to's Master show'd. Thalestris Queen of th'Amazons now brought Her Train to Alexander, (as 'tis thought.) Though most of reading best and soundest mind, Such Country there, nor yet such people find. Then tell her errand, we had better spare To th'ignorant, her title will declare: As Alexander in his greatness grows, So dayly of his virtues doth he lose. He baseness counts, his former Clemency, And not beseeming such a dignity; His past sobriety doth also bate, As most incompatible to his State; His temperance is but a sordid thing, No wayes becoming such a mighty King; His greatness now he takes to represent His fancy'd Gods above the Firmament. And such as shew'd but reverence before, Now are commanded strictly to adore; With Persian Robes himself doth dignifie, Charging the same on his nobility, His manners habit, gestures, all did fashion After that conquer'd and luxurious Nation. His Captains that were virtuously inclin'd, Griev'd at this change of manners and of mind. The ruder sort did openly deride, His feigned Diety and foolish pride; The certainty of both comes to his Ears, But yet no notice takes of what he hears: With those of worth he still desires esteem, So heaps up gifts his credit to redeem And for the rest new wars and travails finds, That other matters might take up their minds, And hearing Bessus, makes himself a King, Intends that Traitor to his end to bring. Now that his Host from luggage might be free, And with his burthen no man burthened be; Commands forthwith each man his fardle bring, Into the market place before the King; VVhich done, sets fire upon those goodly spoyles, The recompence of travails wars and toyles. And thus unwisely in a mading fume, 142 The wealth of many Kingdomes did consume, But marvell 'tis that without mutiny, The Souldiers should let pass this injury; Nor wonder less to Readers may it bring, Here to observe the rashness of the King. Now with his Army doth he post away False Bessus to find out in Bactria: But much distrest for water in their march, The drought and heat their bodies sore did parch. At length they came to th'river Oxus brink, Where so immoderately these thirsty drink, Which more mortality to them did bring, Then all their warrs against the Persian King. Here Alexander's almost at a stand, To pass the River to the other land. For boats here's none, nor near it any wood, To make them Rafts to waft them o're the flood: But he that was resolved in his mind, Would without means some transportation find. Then from the Carriages the hides he takes, And stuffing them with straw, he bundles makes. On these together ti'd, in six dayes space, They all pass over to the other place. Had Bessus had but valour to his will, With little pain there might have kept them still: But Coward durst not fight, nor could he fly, Hated of all for's former treachery, Is by his own now bound in iron chains, A Coller of the same, his neck contains. And in this sort they rather drag then bring This Malefactor vile before the King, Who to Darius brother gives the wretch, With racks and tortures every limb to stretch. Here was of Greeks a town in Bactria, Whom Xerxes from their Country led away, These not a little joy'd, this day to see, Wherein their own had got the sov'raignty And now reviv'd, with hopes held up their head From bondage long to be Enfranchised. But Alexander puts them to the sword Without least cause from them in deed or word; Nor Sex, nor age, nor one, nor other spar'd, 143 But in his cruelty alike they shar'd: Nor reason could he give for this great wrong, But that they had forgot their mother tongue. While thus some time he spent in Bactria, And in his camp strong and securely lay, Down from the mountains twenty thousand came And there most fiercely set upon the same: Repelling these, two marks of honour got Imprinted in his leg, by arrows shot. The Bactrians against him now rebel; But he their stubborness in time doth quell. From hence he to Jaxartis River goes, Where Scythians rude his army doth oppose, And with their outcryes in an hideous sort Beset his camp, or military court, Of darts and arrows, made so little spare, They flew so thick, they seem'd to dark the air: But soon his souldiers forc'd them to a flight, Their nakedness could not endure their might. Upon this rivers bank in seventeen dayes A goodly City doth compleatly raise, Which Alexandria he doth likewise name, And sixty furlongs could but round the same. A third Supply Antipater now sent, Which did his former forces much augment; And being one hundred twenty thousand strong; He enters then the Indian Kings among: Those that submit, he gives them rule again, Such as do not, both them and theirs are slain. His warrs with sundry nations I'le omit, And also of the Mallians what is writ. His Fights, his dangers, and the hurts he had, How to submit their necks at last they're glad. To Nisa goes by Bacchus built long since, Whose feasts are celebrated by this prince; Nor had that drunken god one who would take His Liquors more devoutly for his sake. When thus ten days his brain with wine he'd soakt, And with delicious meats his palate choakt: To th'River Indus next his course he bends, Boats to prepare, Ephestion first he sends, Who coming thither long before his Lord, 144 Had to his mind made all things to accord, The vessels ready were at his command, And Omphis King of that part of the land, Through his perswasion Alexander meets, And as his Sov'raign Lord him humbly greets Fifty six Elephants he brings to's hand, And tenders him the strength of all his land; Presents himself first with a golden crown, Then eighty talents to his captains down: But Alexander made him to behold He glory sought, no silver nor no gold; His presents all with thanks he did restore, And of his own a thousand talents more. Thus all the Indian Kings to him submit, But Porus stout, who will not yeild as yet: To him doth Alexander thus declare, His pleasure is that forthwith he repair Unto his Kingdomes borders, and as due, His homage to himself as Soveraign doe: But kingly Porus this brave answer sent, That to attend him there was his intent, And come as well provided as he could, But for the rest, his sword advise him should. Great Alexander vext at this reply, Did more his valour then his crown envy, Is now resolv'd to pass Hydaspes flood, And there by force his soveraignty make good. Stout Porus on the banks doth ready stand To give him welcome when he comes to land. A potent army with him like a King, And ninety Elephants for warr did bring: Had Alexander such resistance seen On Tygris side, here now he had not been. Within this spacious River deep and wide Did here and there Isles full of trees abide. His army Alexander doth divide With Ptolemy sends part to th'other side; Porus encounters them and thinks all's there, When covertly the rest get o're else where, And whilst the first he valiantly assail'd, The last set on his back, and so prevail'd. Yet work enough here Alexander found, 145 For to the last stout Porus kept his ground: Nor was't dishonour at the length to yield, When Alexander strives to win the field. The kingly Captive 'fore the Victor's brought, In looks or gesture not abased ought, But him a Prince of an undaunted mind Did Alexander by his answers find: His fortitude his royal foe commends, Restores him and his bounds farther extends. Now eastward Alexander would goe still, But so to doe his souldiers had no will, Long with excessive travails wearied, Could by no means be farther drawn or led, Yet that his fame might to posterity Be had in everlasting memory, Doth for his Camp a greater circuit take, And for his souldiers larger Cabbins make. His mangers he erected up so high As never horse his Provender could eye. Huge bridles made, which here and there he left, Which might be found, and for great wonders kept Twelve altars then for monuments he rears, Whereon his acts and travels long appears. But doubting wearing time might these decay, And so his memory would fade away, He on the fair Hydaspes pleasant side, Two Cities built, his name might there abide, First Nicea, the next Bucephalon, Where he entomb'd his stately Stalion. His fourth and last supply was hither sent, Then down Hydaspes with his Fleet he went; Some time he after spent upon that shore, Whether Ambassadors, ninety or more, Came with submission from the Indian Kings, Bringing their presents rare, and precious things, These all he feasts in state on beds of gold, His Furniture most sumptuous to behold; His meat & drink, attendants, every thing, To th'utmost shew'd the glory of a King. With rich rewards he sent them home again, Acknowledged their Masters sovereign; Then sailing South, and coming to that shore, 146 Those obscure Nations yielded as before: A City here he built, call'd by his Name, Which could not sound too oft with too much fame Then sailing by the mouth of Indus floud, His Gallyes stuck upon the flats and mud; Which the stout Macedonians amazed sore, Depriv'd at once the use of Sail and Oar: Observing well the nature of the Tide, In those their fears they did not long abide. Passing fair Indus mouth his course he steer'd To th'coast which by Euphrates mouth appear'd; Whose inlets near unto, he winter spent, Unto his starved Souldiers small content, By hunger and by cold so many slain, That of them all the fourth did scarce remain. Thus winter, Souldiers, and provisions spent, From hence he then unto Gedrosia went. And thence he marcht into Carmania, And so at length drew near to Persia, Now through these goodly Countryes as he past, Much time in feasts and ryoting did waste; Then visits Cyrus Sepulchre in's way, Who now obscure at Passagardis lay: Upon his Monument his Robe he spread, And set his Crown on his supposed head. From hence to Babylon, some time there spent, He at the last to royal Shushan went; A wedding Feast to's Nobles then he makes, And Statyra, Darius daughter takes, Her Sister gives to his Ephestian dear, That by this match he might be yet more near; He fourscore Persian Ladies also gave, At this same time unto his Captains brave: Six thousand guests unto this Feast invites, Whose Sences all were glutted with delights. It far exceeds my mean abilities To shadow forth these short felicities, Spectators here could scarce relate the story, They were so rapt with this external glory: If an Ideal Paradise a man would frame, He might this Feast imagine by the same; To every guess a cup of gold he sends, 147 So after many dayes the Banquet ends. Now Alexanders conquests all are done, And his long Travails past and overgone; His virtues dead, buried, and quite forgot, But vice remains to his Eternal blot. 'Mongst those that of his cruelty did tast, Philotus was not least, nor yet the last, Accus'd because he did not certifie The King of treason and conspiracy: Upon suspition being apprehended, Nothing was prov'd wherein he had offended But silence, which was of such consequence, He was judg'd guilty of the same offence, But for his fathers great deserts the King His royal pardon gave for this foul thing. Yet is Phylotas unto judgment brought, Must suffer, not for what is prov'd, but thought. His master is accuser, judge and King, Who to the height doth aggravate each thing, Inveighs against his father now absent, And's brethren who for him their lives had spent. But Philotas his unpardonable crime, No merit could obliterate, or time: He did the Oracle of Jove deride, By which his Majesty was diefi'd. Philotas thus o'recharg'd with wrong and grief Sunk in despair without hope of Relief, Fain would have spoke and made his own defence, The King would give no ear, but went from thence To his malicious Foes delivers him, To wreak their spight and hate on every limb. Philotas after him sends out this cry, O Alexander, thy free clemency My foes exceeds in malice, and their hate Thy kingly word can easily terminate. Such torments great as wit could worst invent, Or flesh and life could bear, till both were spent Were now inflicted on Parmenio's son He might accuse himself, as they had done, At last he did, so they were justifi'd, And told the world, that for his guilt he di'd. But how these Captains should, or yet their master 148 Look on Parmenio, after this disaster They knew not, wherefore best now to be done, Was to dispatch the father as the son. This sound advice at heart pleas'd Alexander, Who was so much ingag'd to this Commander, As he would ne're confess, nor yet reward, Nor could his Captains bear so great regard: Wherefore at once, all these to satisfie, It was decreed Parmenio should dye: Polidamus, who seem'd Parmenio's friend To do this deed they into Media send: He walking in his garden to and fro, Fearing no harm, because he none did doe, Most wickedly was slain without least crime, (The most renowned captain of his time) This is Parmenio who so much had done For Philip dead, and his surviving son, Who from a petty King of Macedon By him was set upon the Persian throne, This that Parmenio who still overcame, Yet gave his Master the immortal fame, Who for his prudence, valour, care and trust Had this reward, most cruel and unjust. The next, who in untimely death had part, Was one of more esteem, but less desert; Clitus belov'd next to Ephestian, And in his cups his chief companion; When both were drunk, Clitus was wont to jeer, Alexander to rage, to kill, and swear; Nothing more pleasing to mad Clitus tongue, Then's Masters Godhead to defie and wrong; Nothing toucht Alexander to the quick, Like this against his Diety to kick: Both at a Feast when they had tippled well, Upon this dangerous Theam fond Clitus fell; From jest to earnest, and at last so bold, That of Parmenio's death him plainly told. Which Alexanders wrath incens'd so high, Nought but his life for this could satisfie; From one stood by he snatcht a partizan, And in a rage him through the body ran, Next day he tore his face for what he'd done, 149 And would have slain himself for Clitus gone: This pot Companion he did more bemoan, Then all the wrongs to brave Parmenio done. The next of worth that suffered after these, Was learned, virtuous, wise Calisthenes, VVho lov'd his Master more then did the rest, As did appear, in flattering him the least; In his esteem a God he could not be, Nor would adore him for a Diety: For this alone and for no other cause, Against his Sovereign, or against his Laws, He on the Rack his Limbs in pieces rent, Thus was he tortur'd till his life was spent. Of this unkingly act doth Seneca This censure pass, and not unwisely say, Of Alexander this th'eternal crime, VVhich shall not be obliterate by time. VVhich virtues fame can ne're redeem by far, Nor all felicity of his in war. VVhen e're 'tis said he thousand thousands slew, Yea, and Calisthenes to death he drew. The mighty Persian King he overcame, Yea, and he kill'd Calistthenes of fame. All Countryes, Kingdomes, Provinces, he wan From Hellispont, to th'farthest Ocean. All this he did, who knows' not to be true? But yet withal, Catisthenes he slew. From Macedon, his Empire did extend Unto the utmost bounds o' th'orient: All this he did, yea, and much more, 'tis true, But yet withal, Catisthenes he slew. Now Alexander goes to Media, Finds there the want of wise Parmenio; Here his chief favourite Ephestian dies, He celebrates his mournful obsequies: Hangs his Physitian, the Reason why He suffered, his friend Ephestian dye. This act (me-thinks) his Godhead should a shame, To punish where himself deserved blame; Or of necessity he must imply, The other was the greatest Diety. The Mules and Horses are for sorrow shorne, 150 The battlements from off the walls are torne. Of stately Ecbatane who now must shew, A rueful face in this so general woe; Twelve thousand Talents also did intend, Upon a sumptuous monument to spend: What e're he did, or thought not so content, His messenger to Jupiter he sent, That by his leave his friend Ephestion, Among the Demy Gods they might inthrone. From Media to Babylon he went, To meet him there t'Antipater he'd sent, That he might act also upon the Stage, And in a Tragedy there end his age. The Queen Olimpias bears him deadly hate, Not suffering her to meddle with the State, And by her Letters did her Son incite, This great indignity he should requite; His doing so, no whit displeas'd the King, Though to his Mother he disprov'd the thing. But now Antipater had liv'd so long, He might well dye though he had done no wrong; His service great is suddenly forgot, Or if remembred, yet regarded not: The King doth intimate 'twas his intent, His honours and his riches to augment; Of larger Provinces the rule to give, And for his Counsel near the King to live. So to be caught, Antipater's too wise, Parmenio's death's too fresh before his eyes; He was too subtil for his crafty foe. Nor by his baits could be insnared so: But his excuse with humble thanks he sends, His Age and journy long he then pretends; And pardon craves for his unwilling stay, He shews his grief, he's forc'd to disobey. Before his Answer came to Babylon, The thread of Alexanders life was spun; Poyson had put an end to's dayes ('twas thought) By Philip and Cassander to him brought, Sons to Antipater, and bearers of his Cup, Lest of such like their Father chance to sup; By others thought, and that more generally, 151 That through excessive drinking he did dye: The thirty third of's Age do all agree, This Conquerour did yield to destiny. When this sad news came to Darius Mother, She laid it more to heart, then any other, Nor meat, nor drink, nor comfort would she take, But pin'd in grief till life did her forsake; All friends she shuns, yea, banished the light, Till death inwrapt her in perpetual night. This Monarchs fame must last whilst world doth stand, And Conquests be talkt of whilest there is land; His Princely qualities had he retain'd, Unparalled for ever had remain'd. But with the world his virtues overcame, And so with black beclouded, all his fame; Wise Aristotle Tutor to his youth. Had so instructed him in moral Truth: The principles of what he then had learn'd Might to the last (when sober) be discern'd. Learning and learned men he much regarded, And curious Artist evermore rewarded: The Illiads of Homer he still kept. And under's pillow laid them when he slept. Achilles happiness he did envy, 'Cause Homer kept his acts to memory. Profusely bountifull without desert, For such as pleas'd him had both wealth and heart Cruel by nature and by custome too, As oft his acts throughout his reign doth shew: Ambitious so, that nought could satisfie, Vain, thirsting after immortality, Still fearing that his name might hap to dye, And fame not last unto eternity. This Conqueror did oft lament (tis said) There were no more worlds to be conquered. This folly great Augustus did deride, For had he had but wisdome to his pride, He would had found enough there to be done, To govern that he had already won. His thoughts are perisht, he aspires no more, Nor can he kill or save as heretofore. A God alive, him all must Idolize, 152 Now like a mortal helpless man he lyes. Of all those Kingdomes large which he had got, To his Posterity remain'd no jot; For by that hand which still revengeth bloud, None of his kindred, nor his race long stood: But as he took delight much bloud to spill, So the same cup to his, did others fill. Four of his Captains now do all divide, As Daniel before had prophysi'd. The Leopard down, the four wings 'gan to rise, The great horn broke, the less did tyranize. What troubles and contentions did ensue We may hereafter shew in season due. Aridæus. Great Alexander dead, his Armyes left, Like to that Giant of his Eye bereft; When of his monstrous bulk it was the guide, His matchless force no creature could abide. But by Ulisses having lost his sight, All men began streight to contemn his might; For aiming still amiss, his dreadful blows Did harm himself, but never reacht his Foes. Now Court and Camp all in confusion be, A King they'l have, but who, none can agree; Each Captain wisht this prize to bear away, But none so hardy found as so durst say: Great Alexander did leave Issue none, Except by Artabasus daughter one; And Roxane fair whom late he married, Was near her time to be delivered. By natures right these had enough to claim, But meaness of their mothers bar'd the same, Alledg'd by those who by their subtile Plea Had hope themselves to bear the Crown away. A Sister Alexander had, but she Claim'd not, perhaps, her Sex might hindrance be. After much tumult they at last proclaim'd His base born brother Aridæus nam'd, That so under his feeble wit and reign, Their ends they might the better still attain. This choice Perdiccas vehemently disclaim'd, And Babe unborn of Roxane he proclaim'd; 153 Some wished him to take the style of King, Because his Master gave to him his Ring, And had to him still since Ephestion di'd More then to th'rest his favour testifi'd. But he refus'd, with feigned modesty, Hoping to be elect more generally. He hold on this occasion should have laid, For second offer there was never made. 'Mongst these contentions, tumults, jealousies, Seven dayes the corps of their great master lies Untoucht, uncovered slighted and neglected, So much these princes their own ends respected: A Contemplation to astonish Kings, That he who late possest all earthly things, And yet not so content unless that he Might be esteemed for a Diety; Now lay a Spectacle to testifie, The wretchedness of mans mortality. After some time, when stirs began to calm, His body did the Egyptians embalme; His countenance so lively did appear, That for a while they durst not come so near: No sign of poyson in his intrails sound, But all his bowels coloured, well and sound. Perdiccas seeing Arideus must be King, Under his name began to rule each thing. His chief Opponent who Control'd his sway, Was Meleager whom he would take away, And by a wile he got him in his power, So took his life unworthily that hour. Using the name, and the command of th'King To authorize his acts in every thing. The princes seeing Perdiccas power and pride, For their security did now provide. Antigonus for his share Asia takes, And Ptolemy next sure of Egypt makes: Seleucus afterward held Babylon, Antipater had long rul'd Macedon. These now to govern for the king pretends, But nothing less each one himself intends. Perdiccas took no province like the rest, But held command of th'Army (which was best) 154 And had a higher project in his head, His Masters sister secretly to wed: So to the Lady, covertly he sent, (That none might know, to frustrate his intent) But Cleopatra this Suitor did deny, For Leonatus more lovely in her eye, To whom she sent a message of her mind, That if he came good welcome he should find. In these tumultuous dayes the thralled Greeks, Their Ancient Liberty afresh now seeks. And gladly would the yoke shake off, laid on Sometimes by Philip and his conquering son. The Athenians force Antipater to fly To Lamia where he shut up doth lye. To brave Craterus then he sends with speed For succours to relieve him in his need. The like of Leonatus he requires, (Which at this time well suited his desires) For to Antipater he now might goe, His Lady take in th'way, and no man know. Antiphilus the Athenian General With speed his Army doth together call; And Leonatus seeks to stop, that so He joyne not with Antipater their foe. The Athenian Army was the greater far, (Which did his Match with Cleopatra mar) For fighting still, while there did hope remain The valiant Chief amidst his foes was slain. 'Mongst all the princes of great Alexander For personage, none like to this Commander. Now to Antipater Craterus goes, Blockt up in Lamia still by his foes, Long marches through Cilicia he makes, And the remains of Leonatus takes: With them and his he into Grecia went, Antipater releas'd from prisonment: After which time the Greeks did never more Act any thing of worth, as heretofore: But under servitude their necks remain'd, Nor former liberty or glory gain'd. Now di'd about the end of th'Lamian war Demosthenes, that sweet-tongue'd Orator, 155 Who fear'd Antipater would take his life For animating the Athenian strife: To end his dayes by poison rather chose Then fall into the hands of mortal foes. Craterus and Antipater now joyne, In love and in affinity combine, Craterus doth his daughter Phila wed Their friendship might the more be strengthened. Whilst they in Macedon do thus agree, In Asia they all asunder be. Perdiccas griev'd to see the princes bold So many Kingdomes in their power to hold, Yet to regain them, how he did not know, His souldiers 'gainst those captains would not goe To suffer them go on as they begun, Was to give way himself might be undone. With Antipater to joyne he sometimes thought, That by his help, the rest might low be brought, But this again dislikes; he would remain, If not in stile, in deed a soveraign; (For all the princes of great Alexander Acknowledged for Chief that old Commander) Desires the King to goe to Macedon, Which once was of his Ancestors the throne, And by his presence there to nullifie The acts of his Vice-Roy now grown so high. Antigonus of treason first attaints, And summons him to answer his complaints. This he avoids, and ships himself and son, goes to Antipater and tells what's done. He and Craterus, both with him do joyne, And 'gainst Perdiccas all their strength combine. Brave Ptolemy, to make a fourth then sent To save himself from danger imminent. In midst of these garboyles, with wondrous state His masters funeral doth celebrate: In Alexandria his tomb he plac'd, Which eating time hath scarcely yet defac'd. Two years and more, since natures debt he paid, And yet till now at quiet was not laid. Great love did Ptolemy by this act gain, And made the souldiers on his side remain. 156 Perdiccas hears his foes are all combin'd, 'Gainst which to goe, is not resolv'd in mind. But first 'gainst Ptolemy he judg'd was best, Neer'st unto him, and farthest from the rest, Leaves Eumenes the Asian Coast to free From the invasions of the other three, And with his army unto Egypt goes Brave Ptolemy to th'utmost to oppose. Perdiccas surly cariage, and his pride Did alinate the souldiers from his side. But Ptolemy by affability His sweet demeanour and his courtesie, Did make his own, firm to his cause remain, And from the other side did dayly gain. Perdiccas in his pride did ill intreat Python of haughty mind, and courage great. Who could not brook so great indignity, But of his wrongs his friends doth certifie; The souldiers 'gainst Perdiccas they incense, Who vow to make this captain recompence, And in a rage they rush into his tent, Knock out his brains: to Ptolemy then went And offer him his honours, and his place, With stile of the Protector, him to grace. Next day into the camp came Ptolemy, And is receiv'd of all most joyfully. Their proffers he refus'd with modesty, Yields them to Python for his courtesie. With what he held he was now more content, Then by more trouble to grow eminent. Now comes there news of a great victory That Eumenes got of the other three. Had it but in Perdiccas life ariv'd, With greater joy it would have been receiv'd. Thus Ptolemy rich Egypt did retain, And Python turn'd to Asia again. Whilst Perdiccas encamp'd in Affrica, Antigonus did enter Asia, And fain would Eumenes draw to their side, But he alone most faithfull did abide: The other all had Kingdomes in their eye, But he was true to's masters family, 157 Nor could Craterus, whom he much did love. From his fidelity once make him move: Two Battles fought, and had of both the best, And brave Craterus slew among the rest: For this sad strife he poures out his complaints, And his beloved foe full sore laments. I should but snip a story into bits And his great Acts and glory much eclipse, To shew the dangers Eumenes befel, His stratagems wherein he did excel: His Policies, how he did extricate Himself from out of Lab'rinths intricate: He that at large would satisfie his mind, In Plutarchs Lives his history may find. For all that should be said, let this suffice, He was both valiant, faithfull, patient, wise. Python now chose Protector of the state, His rule Queen Euridice begins to hate, Sees Arrideus must not King it long, If once young Alexander grow more strong, But that her husband serve for supplement, To warm his seat, was never her intent. She knew her birth-right gave her Macedon, Grand-child to him who once sat on that throne Who was Perdiccas, Philips eldest brother, She daughter to his son, who had no other. Pythons commands, as oft she countermands; What he appoints, she purposely withstands. He wearied out at last would needs be gone, Resign'd his place, and so let all alone: In's room the souldiers chose Antipater, Who vext the Queen more then the other far. From Macedon to Asia he came, That he might settle matters in the same. He plac'd, displac'd, control'd rul'd as he list, And this no man durst question or resist; For all the nobles of King Alexander Their bonnets vail'd to him as chief Commander. When to his pleasure all things they had done, The King and Queen he takes to Macedon, Two sons of Alexander, and the rest, All to be order'd there as he thought best. 158 The Army to Antigonus doth leave, And Government of Asia to him gave. And thus Antipater the ground-work layes, On which Antigonus his height doth raise, Who in few years, the rest so overtops, For universal Monarchy he hopes. With Eumenes he diverse Battels fought, And by his slights to circumvent him sought: But vain it was to use his policy, 'Gainst him that all deceits could scan and try. In this Epitome too long to tell How finely Eumenes did here excell, And by the self same Traps the other laid, He to his cost was righteously repaid. But while these Chieftains doe in Asia fight, To Greece and Macedon lets turn our sight. When great Antipater the world must leave, His place to Polisperchon did bequeath, Fearing his son Cassander was unstaid, Too rash to bear that charge, if on him laid. Antigonus hearing of his decease On most part of Assyria doth seize. And Ptolemy next to incroach begins, All Syria and Phenicia he wins, Then Polisperchon 'gins to act in's place, Recalls Olimpias the Court to grace. Antipater had banish'd her from thence Into Epire for her great turbulence; This new Protector's of another mind, Thinks by her Majesty much help to find. Cassander like his Father could not see, This Polisperchons great ability, Slights his Commands, his actions he disclaims, And to be chief himself now bends his aims; Such as his Father had advanc'd to place, Or by his favours any way had grac'd Are now at the devotion of the Son, Prest to accomplish what he would have done; Besides he was the young Queens favourite, On whom (t'was thought) she set her chief delight: Unto these helps at home he seeks out more, Goes to Antigonus and doth implore, 159 By all the Bonds 'twixt him and's Father past, And for that great gift which he gave him last. By these and all to grant him some supply, To take down Polisperchon grown so high; For this Antigonus did need no spurs, Hoping to gain yet more by these new stirs, Streight furnish'd him with a sufficient aid, And so he quick returns thus well appaid, With Ships at Sea, an Army for the Land, His proud opponent hopes soon to withstand. But in his absence Polisperchon takes Such friends away as for his Interest makes By death, by prison, or by banishment, That no supply by these here might be lent, Cassander with his Host to Grecia goes, Whom Polisperchon labours to oppose; But beaten was at Sea, and foil'd at Land, Cassanders forces had the upper hand, Athens with many Towns in Greece beside, Firm (for his Fathers sake) to him abide. Whil'st hot in wars these two in Greece remain, Antigonus doth all in Asia gain; Still labours Eumenes, would with him side, But all in vain, he faithful did abide: Nor Mother could, nor Sons of Alexander, Put trust in any but in this Commander. The great ones now began to shew their mind, And act as opportunity they find. Aridæus the scorn'd and simple King, More then he bidden was could act no thing. Polisperchon for office hoping long, Thinks to inthrone the Prince when riper grown; Euridice this injury disdains, And to Cassandar of this wrong complains. Hateful the name and house of Alexander, Was to this proud vindicative Cassander; He still kept lockt within his memory, His Fathers danger, with his Family; Nor thought he that indignity was small, When Alexander knockt his head to th'wall. These with his love unto the amorous Queen, Did make him vow her servant to be seen. 160 Olimpias, Aridæus deadly hates, As all her Husbands, Children by his mates, She gave him poyson formerly ('tis thought) Which damage both to mind and body brought; She now with Polisperchon doth combine, To make the King by force his Seat resigne: And her young grand-child in his State inthrone, That under him, she might rule, all alone. For aid she goes t'Epire among her friends, The better to accomplish these her ends; Euridice hearing what she intends, In haste unto her friend Cassander sends, To leave his siege at Tegea, and with speed, To save the King and her in this their need: Then by intreaties, promises and Coyne, Some forces did procure with her to joyn. Olimpias soon enters Macedon, The Queen to meet her bravely marches on, But when her Souldiers saw their ancient Queen, Calling to mind what sometime she had been; The wife and Mother of their famous Kings, Nor darts, nor arrows, now none shoots or flings. The King and Queen seeing their destiny, To save their lives t'Amphipolis do fly; But the old Queen pursues them with her hate, And needs will have their lives as well as State: The King by extream torments had his end, And to the Queen these presents she did send; A Halter, cup of poyson, and a Sword, Bids chuse her death, such kindness she'l afford. The Queen with many a curse, and bitter check, At length yields to the Halter her fair neck; Praying that fatal day might quickly haste, On which Olimpias of the like might taste. This done the cruel Queen rests not content, 'Gainst all that lov'd Cassander she was bent; His Brethren, Kinsfolk and his chiefest friends, That fell within her reach came to their ends: Dig'd up his brother dead, 'gainst natures right, And threw his bones about to shew her spight: The Courtiers wondring at her furious mind, Wisht in Epire she had been still confin'd. 161 In Peloponesus then Cassander lay, Where hearing of this news he speeds away, With rage, and with revenge he's hurried on, To find this cruel Queen in Macedon; But being stopt, at streight Thermopoly, Sea passage gets, and lands in Thessaly: His Army he divides, sends post away, Polisperchon to hold a while in play; And with the rest Olimpias pursues, For all her cruelty, to give her dues. She with the chief o' th'Court to Pydna flyes, Well fortifi'd, (and on the Sea it lyes) There by Cassander she's blockt up so long, Untill the Famine grows exceeding strong, Her Couzen of Epire did what he might, To raise the Siege, and put her Foes to flight. Cassander is resolved there to remain, So succours and endeavours proves but vain; Fain would this wretched Queen capitulate, Her foe would give no Ear, (such is his hate) The Souldiers pinched with this scarcity, By stealth unto Cassander dayly fly; Olimpias means to hold out to the last, Expecting nothing but of death to tast: But his occasions calling him away, Gives promise for her life, so wins the day. No sooner had he got her in his hand, But made in judgement her accusers stand; And plead the blood of friends and kindreds spilt, Desiring justice might be done for guilt; And so was he acquitted of his word, For justice sake she being put to th'Sword: This was the end of this most cruel Queen, Whose fury scarcely parallel'd hath been. The daughter, sister, Mother, Wife to Kings, But Royalty no good conditions brings; To Husbands death ('tis thought) she gave consent, The murtherer she did so much lament: With Garlands crown'd his head, bemoan'd his fates, His Sword unto Apollo consecrates. Her Outrages too tedious to relate, How for no cause but her inveterate hate; 162 Her Husbands wives and Children after's death, Some slew, some fry'd, of others stopt the breath: Now in her Age she's forc'd to tast that Cup, Which she had others often made to sup. Now many Towns in Macedon supprest, And Pellas fain to yield among the rest; The Funerals Cassander celebrates, Of Aridæus and his Queen with State: Among their Ancestors by him they're laid, And shews of lamentation for them made. Old Thebes he then rebuilt so much of fame, And Cassandria rais'd after his name. But leave him building, others in their Urne, Let's for a while, now into Asia turn. True Eumenes endeavours by all Skill, To keep Antigonus from Shushan still; Having command o'th' Treasure he can hire, Such as no threats, nor favour could acquire. In divers Battels he had good success, Antigonus came off still honourless; When Victor oft he'd been, and so might still, Peucestes did betray him by a wile. T'Antigonus, who took his Life unjust, Because he never would forgoe his trust; Thus lost he all for his fidelity, Striving t'uphold his Masters Family. But to a period as that did haste, So Eumenes (the prop) of death must tast; All Persia now Antigonus doth gain, And Master of the Treasure sole remain: Then with Seleucus streight at odds doth fall, And he for aid to Ptolomy doth call, The Princes all begin now to envy Antigonus, he growing up so high; Fearing his force, and what might hap e're long, Enters into a Combination strong, Seleucus, Ptolemy, Cassander joynes, Lysimachus to make a fourth combines: Antigonus desirous of the Greeks, To make Cassander odious to them seeks, Sends forth his declarations near and far, And clears what cause he had to make this war, 163 Cassanders outrages at large doth tell, Shews his ambitious practises as well. The mother of their King to death he'd put, His wife and son in prison close had shut: And aiming now to make himself a king, And that some title he might seem to bring, Thessalonica he had newly wed, Daughter to Philip their renowned head: Had built and call'd a City by his name, Which none e're did, but those of royal fame: And in despight of their two famous Kings Hatefull Olinthians to Greece rebrings. Rebellious Thebes he had reedified, Which their late King in dust had damnified, Requires them therefore to take up their arms And to requite this traitor for these harms. Then Ptolemy would gain the Greeks likewise, And he declares the others injuryes: First how he held the Empire in his hands, Seleucus driven from Goverment and lands, The valiant Eumenes unjustly slain, And Lord of royal Shushan did remain; Therefore requests their help to take him down Before he wear the universal Crown. These princes at the sea soon had a fight, Where great Antigonus was put to flight: His son at Gaza likewise lost the field, So Syria to Ptolemy did yield: And Seleucus recovers Babylon, Still gaining Countryes eastward he goes on. Demetrius with Ptolemy did fight, And coming unawares, put him to flight; But bravely sends the prisoners back again, With all the spoyle and booty he had tane. Courteous as noble Ptolemy, or more, VVho at Gaza did the like to him before. Antigonus did much rejoyce, his son VVith victory, his lost repute had won. At last these princes tired out with warrs, Sought for a peace, and laid aside their jarrs: The terms of their agreement, thus express That each should hold what now he did possess, 164 Till Alexander unto age was grown, VVho then should be enstalled in the throne. This toucht Cassander sore for what he'd done, Imprisoning both the mother and the son: He sees the Greeks now favour their young Prince Whom he in durance held, now, and long since, That in few years he must be forc'd or glad, To render up such Kingdomes as he had; Resolves to quit his fears by one deed done, So puts to death the Mother and her Son. This Roxane for her beauty all commend, But for one act she did, just was her end. No sooner was great Alexander dead, But she Darius daughters murthered. Both thrown into a well to hide her blot, Perdiccas was her Partner in this plot. The heavens seem'd slow in paying her the same; But at the last the hand of vengeance came. And for that double fact which she had done, The life of her must goe, and of her son Perdiccas had before for his amiss, But by their hands who thought not once of this. Cassanders deed the princes do detest, But 'twas in shew; in heart it pleas'd them best. That he is odious to the world, they'r glad: And now they were free Lords of what they had. When this foul tragedy was past and done, Polysperchon brings the other son Call'd Hercules, and elder then his brother, (But Olimpias would prefer the other) The Greeks toucht with the murther done of late, This Orphan prince 'gan to compassionate, Begin to mutter much 'gainst proud Cassander, And place their hopes on th'heir of Alexander. Cassander fear'd what might of this ensue, So Polisperchon to his counsel drew, And gives Peloponesus for his hire, Who slew the prince according to desire. Thus was the race and house of Alexander Extinct by this inhumane wretch Cassander. Antigonus, for all this doth not mourn, He knows to's profit, this at last will turn, 165 But that some Title now he might pretend, To Cleopatra doth for marriage send; Lysimachus and Ptolemy the same, And lewd Cassander too, sticks not for shame: She then in Lydia at Sardis lay, Where by Embassage all these Princes pray. Choice above all, of Ptolemy she makes, With his Embassador her journy takes; Antigonus Lieutenant stayes her still, Untill he further know his Masters will: Antigonus now had a Wolf by th'Ears, To hold her still, or let her go he fears. Resolves at last the Princess should be slain, So hinders him of her, he could not gain; Her women are appointed for this deed, They for their great reward no better speed: For by command, they streight were put to death, As vile Conspirators that stopt her breath. And now he hopes, he's order'd all so well, The world must needs believe what he doth tell; Thus Philips house was quite extinguished, Except Cassanders wife who yet not dead. And by their means who thought of nothing less, Then vengeance just, against them to express; Now blood was paid with blood for what was done By cruel Father, Mother, cruel Son: Thus may we hear, and fear, and ever say, That hand is righteous still which doth repay. These Captains now the stile of Kings do take, For to their Crowns their's none can Title make; Demetrius first the royal stile assum'd, By his Example all the rest presum'd. Antigonus himself to ingratiate, Doth promise liberty to Athens State; With Arms and with provision stores them well, The better 'gainst Cassander to rebel. Demetrius thether goes, is entertain'd Not like a King, but like some God they feign'd; Most grosly base was their great Adulation, Who Incense burnt, and offered oblation: These Kings afresh fall to their wars again, Demetrius of Ptolemy doth gain. 166 'Twould be an endless Story to relate Their several Battels and their several fate, Their fights by Sea, their victories by Land, How some when down, straight got the upper hand Antigonus and Seleucus then fight Near Ephesus, each bringing all his might, And he that Conquerour shall now remain, The Lordship of all Asia shall retain; This day 'twixt these two Kings ends all the strife, For here Antigonus lost rule and life: Nor to his Son, did e're one foot remain Of those vast Kingdomes, he did sometimes gain. Demetrius with his Troops to Athens flyes, Hopes to find succours in his miseries; But they adoring in prosperity, Now shut their gates in his adversity: He sorely griev'd at this his desperate State Tryes Foes, sith friends will not compassionate. His peace he then with old Seleucus makes, Who his fair daughter Stratonica takes, Antiochus, Seleucus, dear lov'd Son, Is for this fresh young Lady quite undone; Falls so extreamly sick, all fear'd his life, Yet durst not say, he lov'd his Fathers wife, When his disease the skill'd Physitian found, His Fathers mind he wittily did sound, Who did no sooner understand the same, But willingly resign'd the beautious Dame: Cassander now must dye his race is run, And leaves the ill got Kingdomes he had won. Two Sons he left, born of King Philips daughter, Who had an end put to their dayes by slaughter; Which should succeed at variance they fell, The Mother would, the youngest might excell: The eld'st inrag'd did play the Vipers part, And with his Sword did run her through the heart: Rather then Philips race should longer live, He whom she gave his life her death shall give. This by Lysimacus was after slain, Whose daughter he not long before had ta'ne; Demetrius is call'd in by th'youngest Son, Against Lysimachus who from him won. 167 But he a Kingdome more then's friend did eye, Seaz'd upon that, and slew him traitrously. Thus Philips and Cassander's race both gone, And so falls out to be extinct in one; And though Cassander died in his bed, His Seed to be extirpt, was destined; For blood, which was decre'd that he should spill, Yet must his Children pay for Fathers ill; Jehu in killing Ahab's house did well, Yet be aveng'd must blood of Jezerel. Demetrius thus Cassander's Kingdoms gains, And now in Macedon as King he reigns; Though men and mony both he hath at will, In neither finds content if he sits still: That Seleucus holds Asia grievs him sore, Those Countryes large his Father got before. These to recover, musters all his might, And with his Son in Law will needs go fight; A mighty Navy rig'd, an Army stout, With these he hopes to turn the world about: Leaving Antigonus his eldest Son, In his long absence to rule Macedon. Demetrius with so many troubles met, As Heaven and Earth against him had been set; Disaster on disaster him pursue, His story seems a Fable more then true. At last he's taken and imprisoned Within an Isle that was with pleasures fed, Injoy'd what ere beseem'd his Royalty, Only restrained of his liberty: After three years he died, left what he'd won, In Greece unto Antigonus his Son. For his Posterity unto this day, Did ne're regain one foot in Asia; His Body Seleucus sends to his Son, Whose obsequies with wondrous pomp was done. Next di'd the brave and noble Ptolemp, Renown'd for bounty, valour, clemency, Rich Egypt left, and what else he had won, To Philadelphus his more worthy Son. Of the old Heroes, now but two remain, Seleucus and Lysimachus these twain, 168 Must needs go try their fortune and their might, And so Lysimachus was slain in fight; 'Twas no small joy unto Seleucus breast, That now he had out-lived all the rest: Possession of Europe thinks to take, And so himself the only Monarch make; Whilst with these hopes in Greece he did remain, He was by Ptolemy Ceraunus slain. The second Son of the first Ptolemy, Who for Rebellion unto him did fly; Seleucus was a Father and a friend, Yet by him had this most unworthy end. Thus with these Kingly Captains have we done, A little now how the Succession run, Antigonus, Seleucus and Cassander, With Ptolemy, reign'd after Alexander; Cassander's Sons soon after's death were slain, So three Successors only did remain: Antigonus his Kingdomes lost and life, Unto Seleucus, Author of that strife. His Son Demetrius, all Cassanders gains, And his posterity, the same retains; Demetrius Son was call'd Antigonus, And his again was nam'd Demetrius. I must let pass those many Battels fought, Betwixt those Kings, and noble Pyrrhus stout, And his Son Alexander of Epire, Whereby immortal honour they acquire; Demetrius had Philip to his Son, (Part of whose Kingdomes Titus Quintius won) Philip had Perseus, who was made a Thrale T'Emilius the Roman General; Him with his Sons in Triumph lead did he, Such riches too as Rome did never see: This of Antigonus, his Seed's the Fate, VVhose Empire was subdu'd to th'Roman State. Longer Seleucus held the royalty, In Syria by his Posterity; Antiochus Soter his Son was nam'd, To whom the old Berosus (so much fam'd,) His Book of Assurs Monarchs dedicates, Tells of their names, their wars, their riches, fates; 169 But this is perished with many more, VVhich oft we wish was extant as before. Antiochus Theos was Soter's Son, VVho a long war with Egypts King begun; The Affinityes and Wars Daniel sets forth, And calls them there the Kings of South & North, This Theos murther'd was by his lewd wife, Seleucus reign'd, when he had lost his life. A third Seleucus next sits on the Seat, And then Antiochus sirnam'd the great, VVhose large Dominions after was made small, By Scipio the Roman General; Fourth Seleucus Antiochus succeeds, And next Epiphanes whose wicked deeds, Horrid Massacres, Murthers, cruelties, Amongst the Jews we read in Machabees. Antiochus Eupater was the next, By Rebels and Impostors dayly vext; So many Princes still were murthered, The Royal Blood was nigh extinguished; Then Tygranes the great Armenian King, To take the Government was called in, Lucullus, Him, (the Roman General) Vanquish'd in fight, and took those Kingdomes all; Of Greece and Syria thus the rule did end, In Egypt next, a little time wee'l spend. First Ptolemy being dead, his famous Son Call'd Philadelphus, did possess the Throne. At Alexandria a Library did build, And with seven hundred thousand Volumes fill'd; The seventy two Interpreters did seek, They might translate the Bible into Greek. His Son was Evergetes the last Prince, That valour shew'd, virtue, or excellence, Philopater was Evergetes Son, After Epiphanes sate on the Throne; Philometor, Evergetes again, And after him, did false Lathurus reign: Then Alexander in Lathurus stead, Next Auletes, who cut off Pompeys head. To all these names, we Ptolemy must add, For since the first, they still that Title had. 170 Fair Cleopatra next, last of that race, Whom Julius Cæsar set in Royal place, She with her Paramour, Mark Anthony Held for a time, the Egyptian Monarchy, Till great Augustus had with him a fight At Actium, where his Navy's put to flight; He seeing his honour lost, his Kingdome end, Did by his Sword his life soon after send. His brave Virago Aspes sets to her Arms, To take her life, and quit her from all harms; For 'twas not death nor danger she did dread, But some disgrace in triumph to be led. Here ends at last the Grecian Monarchy, Which by the Romans had its destiny; Thus King & Kingdomes have their times & dates, Their standings, overturnings, bounds and fates: Now up, now down now chief, & then broght under, The heavn's thus rule, to fil the world with wonder The Assyrian Monarchy long time did stand, But yet the Persian got the upper hand; The Grecian them did utterly subdue, And millions were subjected unto few: The Grecian longer then the Persian stood, Then came the Roman like a raging flood; And with the torrent of his rapid course, Their Crowns their Titles, riches bears by force. The first was likened to a head of gold. Next Arms and breast of silver to behold, The third, Belly and Thighs of brass in sight, And last was Iron, which breaketh all with might; The stone out of the mountain then did rise, and smote those feet those legs, those arms & thighs Then gold, silver, brass, Iron and all the store, Became like Chaff upon the threshing Floor. The first a Lion, second was a Bear, The third a Leopard, which four wings did rear; The last more strong and dreadful then the rest, Whose Iron teeth devoured every Beast, And when he had no appetite to eat, The residue he stamped under feet; Yet shall this Lion, Bear, this Leopard, Ram, All trembling stand before the powerful Lamb. 171 With these three Monarchyes now have I done, But how the fourth, their Kingdomes from them won, And how from small beginnings it did grow, To fill the world with terrour and with woe; My tyred brain leavs to some better pen, This task befits not women like to men: For what is past, I blush, excuse to make, But humbly stand, some grave reproof to take; Pardon to crave for errours, is but vain, The Subject was too high, beyond my strain, To frame Apology for some offence, Converts our boldness into impudence: This my presumption some now to requite, Ne sutor ultra crepidum may write. The End of the Grecian Monarchy. ~ Anne Bradstreet,