Thinking of Caesar, Grammar, and How Conservatives Behave

Tags

conservatives, G. Julius Caesar, Grammar, latin, Life, philosophy

I have been thinking on a phrase that Caesar used in his De Bello Gallico for a while now. Perhaps I am just overthinking it (yes, it happens) but I really like how the sentence speaks to his battle tactics.

Caesari omnia uno tempore erant agenda.
To Caesar, all things had to be done at a single time.
Para César, todas las cosas debian de haber sido hechas en un sólo momento.

The composition of the sentence, which flows quite well in the Latin, needs all sorts of prepositions and complex participles to make it work in English and Spanish. I could render it in English somewhat all-encompassing-like (how’s that for an adverb) without losing a lot of the meaning but, surprisingly, the Spanish gave me a lot of trouble. The verb to be, usually smooth in the Spanish, was somewhat awkward here, perhaps due to the language’s aversion to participles. Who knows.

The cool thing about this bit of writing, is that Caesar is talking about himself in the third person. Caesari is Caesar himself, in the Dative. Not only is he third person, but he makes himself the Indirect Object of the sentence (and the verb). Humility? I doubt it. Rather, he was expressing his opinion about a fact that he had experienced, and that all should consider, especially since he knew first hand. Sometimes will will construct something like ‘to me, it seems the best…’ In that sense, we are placing ourselves as an indirect actor, allowing the real subject of the sentence to come through in hopes that we can carry a point. So, what is our subject, if not almighty Caesar? Everything.

No, literally, omnia is the subject of the sentence. This little word in the nominative case and neuter gendered (I am not a fan of the neuters because they like to make you think they are direct objects – accusatives – when they aren’t) literally means ‘all things.’ ‘Everything’ as the subject seems almost fallacious. After all, no one can like ‘every kind of food,’ or ‘every person,’ or even ‘every good thing;’ but the use of the expression brings Caesar’s mind to us in an interesting way. The guy loved his extremes. Believe or not, conservatives tend to be far more all encompassing in their statements than liberals or democrats (ya, I just went there), and therefore use more words like ‘every,’ ‘always,’ ‘never,’ or ‘none’ more often than the aforementioned people. Why? Conservatism is pretty close to an ‘all or nothing’ sort of philosophy. In other words, conservatives are like the Sith.

The bad guys are conservatives? Well, sure; but hey, you didn’t think the Jedi weren’t liberals, right? Freedom for all races, rights for all creatures, nature(force)-lovers…

It is no wander that Obi Wan Kenobi’s answer to Darth Vader in Episode III is “Only the Sith deal in absolutes.” After all, “you are either with me or against me” is quite a conservative statement to make. Things are black and white when extremes are applied – ask any conservative. Caesar is doing the same thing here by separating ‘all or nothing.’ By saying ‘all things’ Caesar forces the reader to take into account everything they think about when they ponder Roman issues, culture, and ideals. In writing this to the senate at Rome, which is what Caesar was doing, he was challenging their changing beliefs, because he had won in Germany and that gave him the right, therefore he was in the know of life, right? Well…

Uno tempore is an Ablative of Time in Which, ya, that exists. This ablative set the reader into a time, a single dot of time in which the action of the sentence happens. Why choose to write it here? Well, Caesar, like the Romans, was a Subject-Object-Verb kinda guy. We, English speakers, are a Verb-Subject-Object people. We say ‘The Dog Runs to me’ because that’s how we like our sentences, and we don’t really have a way to express the same idea in any other way. If I were to say ‘The Dog me runs’ people would wonder if you got run over by some Great Dane or something. Romans didn’t care as much for word order, because the ‘to’ in the sentence was embedded into their dative case. Equally, here, instead of using a preposition, such as ‘in,’ the position and spelling of Uno tempore tells us that ‘one time’ is the time in which the action happens. Fun!

But here’s the kicker: erant agenda is a construction made up of an imperfect verb and a participle. Verbs are awesome little things that tell you when things are happening, which tend to be useful – usually. In English, because we conjugate little, we need aiding verbs to tell us time. ‘I eat’ is a present, ‘I was eating’ is a past, ‘I will eat’ is a future. Caesar’s Latin modifies the verb proper to give us meaning. The verb mutates something like this:

I eat – eato
I will eat – eatebo
I was eating – eatebam

I have left the verb roots in English to give you an idea of what is added. You may say, ‘aha, there are too words there!’ And you would be right. Because prepositions can act as nouns, the verb is complimented by one. Erant literally means ‘they were being’ in the imperfect past. Here is Caesar being a Sith again. The imperfect past denotes an action that begun in the past and is still taking place. Thus, he is saying that since he begun to do things this way, he has always done things this way. ‘Things never change.’ Conservative much? Just in case you think I’m going crazy, take a look at agenda. Yes, we get our word agenda from this. The participle literally means ‘to be done’ or ‘about to be done.’ Future participles, such as this one, also carry a sense of duty (ought to be done) with them. The more accurate translation would be ‘ought to be done’ or ‘has to be done.’ Remember that famous phrase from Cato: “Carthago delenda est”? Same thing. Carthage ought to be destroyed, and Caesar’s being ‘ought to be done.’ Literally, the Roman Imperator (general, here, not Emperor) was saying that ‘to Caesar, all things ought to be done that were [being done] at a single moment.’

I just love that. To do things at that level of preparation, considering how massive Caesar’s army was, is impressive enough. To picture conservative Caesar writing to the senate of Rome telling them their indecision was shameful and that, in order to save the city, they too ought to do things within a single moment, is just impressive. But to understand that to Caesar life was but a moment in which all that could be done should be done in order to leave behind the greatest memory possible of oneself, giving meaning to the phrase alea iacta est, is just mind-blowing. Caesar stopped for no one (not just a phrase in Spaceballs, apparently), rather he understood the importance of carpe diem, and seized indeed. Maybe the Romans got tired of the guy because he didn’t give them a moment’s respite. Yet again, who does business on March 15th anyway?

Valete amicos!

Disclaimer: as much fun as it is to judge Caesar’s character on a single phrase, you probably shouldn’t compare him to a Sith Lord Conservative whilst amongst friends. Actually, don’t compare your conservative friends to the Sith either… come to think of it, don’t compare anyone to siths, they may think you are being mean.

Advertisements

Thinking on Poetry, Catullus, Living and Loving

Tags

Catullus, claudia metelli celeris, Lesbians, lesbos, Life, philosophy, Poetry, Sappho

A dangerous subject, poetry, since the cultural aspects of metaphor tend to be lost to time when reading it; although, perhaps, we should give it a try none the less:

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
…
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.

Let us live, my Lesbia, and also love,
…
Give me kisses a thousand, thereafter a hundred,
Then another thousand, next a second hundred,
thereafter yet another thousand, next a hundred.

One can almost imagine Catullus raising his hand to the sky as he speaks to the thousands, then bringing it down again, upon his face, to speak of the hundreds. The poet speaks of heaven and hell, of the best and the worst, the high and the low. The dichotomy plays on a certain idea, that even the worst is the best when Lesbia is around to kiss him. It is clear what Catullus wants, basia mille is his whole purpose, he even demands it, for Da is a Present Active Imperative verb, characterized for the dropping of the s in das, the regular Present Active Indicative. Why is Catullus so demanding? Well, it is Catullus. As far as we know, he never spoke to his Lesbia (a pseudonym for the girl he supposedly loved), or spent some time having an affair and she dumped him in the end. It is perhaps in this light that he expresses his frustration, demanding kisses he will never get again. In other parts of this particular poem, Catullus also speaks of the rumors of old men, and how Lesbia and him should just ignore them and enjoy each other. This poem is definitely a precursor to what we will see in the Medieval and Renaissance periods with poetry: lots of longing, lots of kiss-asking, and suffering, lots of suffering, for another.

In regards to the name Lesbia, there are quite a few theories. One of them is that the girl – and if it is Rome and she is not married she would be no more than fourteen – or married woman he is after had relationships with other women. The reference there of course is another poet, much more ancient than Catullus, Sappho of Lesbos (Lesbos is an island in the north-eastern Aegean). Another theory is that Sappho proper, who also wrote of the beauty of women and her passion for them is the one Catullus is referencing because she was an inspiration to him – if you have ever wondered where the word ‘lesbian’ came from, now you have an answer. A third theory is that the woman was named Lesbia because in Ancient Greek women from Lesbos (Lesbians) were renowned for their fellatio skills. Any theory is as good as the next for, in the end, we just don’t know.

As for me, I think Lesbia was Claudia Metelli Celeris, and her name was encoded to avoid the public finding out about their encounters; Cicero seems to me to make some good points in regards to who Lesbia was in one of his speeches.

So vivamus atque amemus, reader. Let us live and let us love. Let us long for and seek after love, for there is something Catullus said that affects us all. Whether one kiss or a ton, it is living and loving that makes us human the most.

Salvete!

Thinking on Moments, Reflections, and Days Lost

Tags

days, latin, Life, philosophy, Stoicism, tacitus, titus

In recognition of my extremely long post for yesterday, in Greek, I shall leave this one short and sweet. That means, of course, less than 1000 words… ok, so it won’t even be anywhere near that long.

Tacitus, arguably one of the best chroniclers and historians of Ancient Rome, took quite the pains to write, verbatim, some sayings of the Emperors. Perusing his writings, I found this by the Emperor Titus (b. 39- d.81):

Amici, diem perdidi.
Friends, I have lost the day.
Amigos, he perdido el día.

Titus, according to Tacitus, said this because whilst sitting down for dinner, he realized he had done no favors for anyone through the entire day. The historian was impressed, calling Titus’ words memorabilem illam meritoque laudatam, meritorious and praiseworthy, liable to be remembered. We always speak, and at length, of seizing the day. We dwell on how the Romans saw themselves as go-getter stoics, infallible in their logic, mighty with the sword, and who knows what else. I liked this particular quotation because, even to Tacitus, it showed a different side of the Romans and their Emperors. There sat Titus, at a table, eating dinner, hanging out with his family, friends, those most close to him (and a bunch of slaves, of course), and whoever else mattered to him. As he laughed and perhaps plotted, it occurred to him he had bestowed no favors (praestitisset) to anyone; he had presented nothing to another. He would have stopped laughing, joking, or conversing and, in the moment, when all had quieted, uttered the words. I am certain it was not long before the revelry ensued, but the impression remained.

So, reader, etiam unum diem possumus non perdere, we cannot lose even a single day. Let us seek those we love; those we care about. Let us find someone in need, a moment of pensive reflection. Let us hunt for sunsets and rainbows, waterfalls and dawns. After all, the nicest thing you can do in any given day can also be for yourself. Write that poem, that story, write that letter of love’s declaration, say you are sorry, hug someone you cared about once. Let us seize the day, so that none of them are lost to the passing of time and the unrighteous forgetting of memory.

Salvete!

Thinking of Rome, Elitism, and the Power of the People

Tags

democracy, Juvenal, latin, philosophy, rome

I have always found Juvenal and his Satire to be an accurate depiction of a civilization at the edge of collapse. Perhaps I am being a bit of a fatalist, but I cannot help comparing our times to the old, old times.

…iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli vendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses.
…in the beginning, in which we never sold suffrage, we poured out pains; although, that those who used to give at that time right to rule, power over the people, legions, all things, now he limits himself, and so much, for two things he anxiously prefers – bread and the circus.
…al principio, en el cual el voto nunca había sido vendido, nos preocupabamos; pero el que en aquel momento daba gobierno, poder sobre el pueblo, legiones, todo, ahora se limita tanto por dos cosas a las que opta, pan y circo.

Juvenal, writing during the end of the 1st century and the early 2nd, had no more quintessential words than these. I love, first and foremost, how much it takes to say the same thing in English that the Spanish and Latin can so succinctly and accurately say. That is a whole different kind of post, though; I shall remained focused today.

Writing in a Empire that had not long ago been a Republic, Juvenal satirizes the current state of the Roman citizen. It was true. Free grain and gladiatorial games had become everything that senators, princeps, and emperors, needed to control the people. Long gone were the days of the Gracchi, who sought fair grain prices. Long gone the days of Flaccus, Marius, Caesar, and the true Tribunes of the Plebs. It was that period, in particular, that Juvenal recalled, his iam pridem. Two hundred years earlier the tribunes elected by the populous were sacrosanct. The people took pains to make it so in the fifth century BCE. They had been protected, against the elitist wishes of the Patricians, by their voters. The people had given control of the senate to their representatives. Something the Patricians would have to put up with for four hundred years. It makes me wish it had all turned out for the best; that Romans had found a way to allow their upcoming Plebeians to rise beyond the glass ceiling that Rome avoided but still existed. This power of the vote, which was never sold, was the key to Roman success.

Effudit curas was Juvenal’s call to arms. In the past the citizens of Rome pured out cares, and by doing so they also poured out cures. The words are cognates for a reason. To care for something is to cure it, to bring it up from its fallen state and allow it to be better, physically and spiritually. No longer did the citizens take care of Rome, it was allowed to run rampant, unchecked, over the very people who, through their involvement, had made themselves a cure to the ills of the elite. Nam, he writes, introducing a cold and harsh reality, qui dabat; who used to give… the verb, in the Imperfect, indicates something that used to happen but, also, something that is still in the process of not happening. Rather than using a Perfect here, Juvenal is reminding his audience that this problem is just as much an ill of the current people as it was a problem of those living in the near past. ‘Those who’ can only refer to them, the people.

That the people had lost their way by virtue of being driven into the ground is obvious. They used to know what it was to give power. Imperium was key to the ancient kings, the later Consuls, and even the latter Emperors. It was the right to rule, literally expressed; the very right (ius) without which no Roman could lead other Romans. The senate granted only the rights to religious rule; without the people, there were no legitimate rulers; thus , fasces, legiones, they were omnia (all) dependent upon it.

Time, so well expressed in this quote by Juvenal, takes us from the beginning, passing through a very shady middle, and arriving at a painful end. “Now” he says, as if he stood in a theater and pointed down at the ground, using some kind of Ablative of Time in Which. He doesn’t need it. The Adverb takes care of itself. The audience is forced to see itself now, in the now. That qui comes back to haunt us, it points its ancient finger at us, shaking it in our collective faces. The Reflexive Pronoun tugs at our Roman robes, begging us to listen, for we content ourselves with just two things. Continet is a very interesting verb, it literally means ‘to limit’ as in by virtue of boundaries. When we are content, we have quite literally set a limit for ourselves in order to reach some esoteric happiness. We have betrayed, in a way, our goals and find ourselves content with whatever has been achieved. Our self-limiting is evidence of our laziness, lack of self-confidence, of trust in our capabilities and potential. We are self-contained, self-retarded. The people has limited itself, Juvenal says, to those to things with they so much and so anxiously now crave.

Panem et circenses.

In the beginning, with the murders of the Gracchi and the great supporters of the people in the 1st century were committed by the patricians, Rome had shed tears, but also revolted. In the middle, when Caesar was murdered by the elite of Rome the people cried, but the revolt was easily quenched. Then, at this juncture in time, as their supporters had been turned into advocates for the elite, the people sought neither tear nor revolution, the free bread they were being given and the entertainment for which the rich paid were enough. The people had been silenced, gradually, over two hundred years.

There is no greater exempla gratia from Rome than this, no better metaphor, no higher form of understanding passed down from father to son: If we do not come together, as a people, we will be destroyed by those who, elected by us, have taken power and advantage from our very hands.

Salvete!!

Thinking on Fingers, Hands, and Holding

Tags

ancient greek, latin, numbers, philosophy

Ten.

It is simple enough a number. I am not even sure why I begun to think of it, but it made sense to consider the differences between the English ‘ten’ and the Spanish ‘diez.’ I love words. I think they bring with them a baggage of culture and ancient thought seldom explored by scholars unless, of course, you are a philologist. Even philologists, unfortunately, are usually only experts in one language. Comparative Philology is a non-existent field that perhaps should become a bit more faddish.

So, ten, a number. My thoughts drifted, immediately, to the hands. Ten fingers make ten, of course. But then why was ‘ten’ in English and ‘diez’ in Spanish? I usually blame Proto-German for weird cognates between Spanish and English. After all, Anglo-Saxon is more Germanic (Saxon) than Latin (Anglo). Ah, makes sense. In Proto-German ‘ten’ is ‘tehun.’ However, the Spanish ‘diez’ is directly related to the Ancient Greek ‘deka,’ which is actually related to verbs like ‘hold in mind.’ As such, one would expect that ‘ten’ would be more closely related to verbs of holding as well, although in the Latin, since the Greek has obviously been taken by the Spanish-speaking crowd, alongside the French ‘dix,’ the Italians ‘dieci,’ the Portuguese ‘dez,’ etc.

In that light, we know the Romans used ‘ten’ for many things, such as ‘tenere’ (‘to hold,’ not ‘to have,’ which was ‘habere’). ‘Tenere’ is a fascinating infinitive because it implied a physical holding, with your ten fingers, supporting the theory of Roman origin. One would hold things with ‘tenere’ but have things in mind or in one’s metaphysical possession with ‘habere.’ These two verbs came together and simply became ‘to have.’ The division, however, is quite telling. There was physical possession in the Ancient world, as much as there was metaphysical possession. In other words, you could have something in your ten fingers (held) or in your mind (held as a thought of ownership). When one holds something physically, various derivatives of ‘ten’ are used. The offspring of ‘ten’ is quite varied in English:

Tend: To stretch oneself to a point in space. Interestingly, this means that one holds a certain view and therefore stretches into thought coming from that point of view. ‘Tendencies’ allow us to guess, based on the position someone else ‘holds,’ what that someone will do at a certain point in time or space.

Tendon: Officially a body part that holds together bone and muscle that is also stretched. Someone can only be stretched by vitue of the ten fingers that hold both ends of the tendon together. Holding and ten are integral parts of the meaning.

Tentative: Trying or testing. One touches what one wants to test out, with one of the ten fingers. A tentative argument is one that exposes itself to the ‘touching’ of others intellectual fingers in order to prove its own validity.

Tenure: The holding of a position. Interestingly enough one holds on to a position that is held as inviolable to someone else who, literally, cannot touch the person who holds said position.

Abstention: The act of retaining. More clearly, the act of restricting something by virtue of holding it back from another. Literally meaning ‘from touching’ one keeps his/her hands to oneself.

Tense: You name it…
1. When related to tension (of a rope, for example) it follows the same line as stretch, being made so by the ten fingers of the hand.
2. Time in which a verb takes place or, better said, how far the ten fingers of the verb stretch in time.
3. A verb indicating how much we are suffering under, say, life, fate, others, and their reach, hands, fingers, etc.

Tenet: One of ten basic rules of law or, also, what a certain organization holds as basic principles.

Tenant: One who holds position in a property by virtue of holding a contract. It is like hold to the square.

The list is quite extensive, and I am sure if we were to open a dictionary we could probably come up with many more examples. So why the Roman ‘ten’ for English speakers and the Greek ‘diez’ for the Western Europeans? It may be related to the fact that Romans actually also used ‘deka’ as a number. The Roman for ‘ten’ is ‘decem,’ after all. The difference was not in the number but, I believe, in practicality. Romans were people of facts. Numbers are relative representations of quantity. Considier that the greatest philosophers were the Greeks; to them we can ascribe most of our philosophical words such as ‘philosophy,’ ‘metaphor,’ ‘hyperbole,’ ‘premise’… The Romans were far more practical. This no-nonsense approach to Roman speech allowed for a number to use the Greek ‘deka’ for its relative value, but in common speech Latin much preferred the hands and its ten digits, a physical holding of something, in contrast of the metaphysical one. We received, in English, the German cognate ‘tehun’ but kept the Roman ideas of what ‘ten’ represented, that holding with the ten fingers idea.

A fascinating run through the number ten and its meaning. Who knew it had so much influence in English beyond numbers. Maybe we can add ‘ten’ to those documentaries that were made on ‘zero’ and ‘one.’ I will have to contact the History Channel and see if they are going to take a break from their alien stuff.

Salvete!

Thinking of G. Julius Caesar, the Race, and the End of Life

Tags

Crassus, G. Julius Caesar, latin, philosophy, Pompey, rome, Socrates

Gaius Julius Caesar. Master of war. His original name probably looked something like Caius Iulius Caesares – interesting if you are into Roman Gentes. The man was assassinated in 44 BCE by members of the Roman Senate. Before that, he had become the foremost ruler of Rome, and participated in a triumvirate with none other than Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey – probably the first true Roman dictator for life) and Marcus Licinius Crassus (more than likely the richest man in history – yes, of all time). Pompey was killed in Egypt ca. 47 BCE, as Caesar pursued him, by a pharaoh no more than twelve – later, Cleopatra would have her brother and husband murdered. Crassus died in combat in the East, far from Rome. To many, their deaths are not only ironic, but also expected. Perhaps, in these words from Caesar we may find an explanation as to why:

Sed fortuna, quae plurimum potest… parvis momentis magnas rerum commutationes efficit.But Fortune, who is able to do many things… by means of small momentum it is able to effect great changes.
Pero Fortuna, la cual puede hacer muchas cosas por medio de un pequeño impulso puede entonces crear grandes cambios.

Fortune, once more, assails us. Caesar, in his De Bello Gallico, emphasizes the power of Fortune, but he also emphasizes what makes luck so powerful. It is parvus momentum (if you are wondering why it looks different it is due to the fact that in the quotation the phrase in is an Ablative form, while I repeat it in the Nominative) or, in translation, little moments. We speak of momentum as as the build-up of velocity in relation to mass. That pesky physic’s class will never go away. The bigger the mass of an object and the greater momentum it gathers, the harder it is to stop. Multiply mass (m) and velocity (v), and you end up with basic momentum. Fortuna makes use of this mathematical equation. The more popular the man is, multiplied by the speed at which he moves, is his overall speed towards the end of his life. Socrates agreed when he said “If I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago.” In other words, the more mass and gravity, the more things are attracted to you, such as danger, fortune, and enemies. Socrates thought people should simply walk through life, seeking to aid fellow citizens but not tempting fortune by overexerting. Caesar was of a different stock, so were Pompey and Crassus. They thought the duty of man was to become as massive and quick as possible, without care for overall velocity.

Consider the metaphor of the race. Every man starts at the same place, not moving. The fastest man wins, of course, but he also gets to the end faster than the others. A man who wishes to live long (enjoy the race) should not run, but walk, even slow down and stop here and there to enjoy the sights. However, both Socrates and Caesar would agree that an individual not moving along in the race is far worse than another who struggles to race to the end as quickly as possible. Life is the same. We run our race, some quickly, some slowly. Many enjoy the walking while looking around, others just cannot help it but run as fast as possible. Many people notice they are arriving to the end of the line and try to stop before it comes; however, fortune has already dictated their fate, momentum is too great, and they end the race, inevitably, amongst wailing and gnashing of teeth – and death.

What are we to do, then, to become great. Change little. It is an interesting idea, in this world of progress, that to change little may mean both success and a longer-lasting life. I am not saying not to change, nor am I promoting a utopian world in which little things happen. Rather, we must think of changing step by step, gradually, as things come in life. Caesar is not saying that change is bad, he is saying that little change can make big changes down the road. In a world like the Roman, in which there was such a thing as a cursus honorum (a list of political key-points everyone had to hit in order to become a man of honor), to skip a step by running too fast was indeed seen as over-zealousness, what the Romans called superstitio. If the word looks familiar it is because we make up our modern ‘superstition’ from it, which is nothing more than over-stating religion.

In summary, should never run faster than one can afford. To do so may grant us immediate pleasure, even higher office, but it also builds our momentum, the speed at which we race towards our own end. We may find, at the end of our lives, that we have over-stated our beliefs, over-run the race, over-acted our role but, then, as we are to heavy with position and to quick by virtue of our advancement, there will be no stopping to see the world around us. Fortune will drag us, inexorably, to our demise. All pay the debt of death, eventually; how happy we are at the end, is completely up to the way we run the race. I don’t know if Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus died with smiles on their faces, but I do know many regretted they did not get to live longer lives. They could have slowed down, but it wasn’t in them. Maybe it is not in you either, reader, what you do in life is up to you, but keep in mind the inexorable fate that awaits us all and, perhaps, while still attaining your goals, you can also slow down to gaze at the wonders around you.

Valete!

Thinking on Fortune, Heroes, and Pain

Tags

Comics, Fortune, heroes, Hubris, latin, Nemesis, Pain, Seneca, Superheroes

It has been a while since I last took a look at Seneca the Younger. It is time, after all, for the phrase we will take a look at today is most appropriate for things that catch up to us all, with the passing of time.

Iniqua raro maximis virtutibus
Fortuna parcit; nemo se tuto diu
Periculis offerre tam crebris potest;
Quem saepe transit casus, aliquando invenit.

The Unrighteous one rarely the highest of virtue,
That Fortune, spares; none without risk is long
So Frequently able to offer himself by means of danger;
He who often transits accidents, eventually invites her.

I am not familiar with Seneca’s poetry. Seneca’s work on Hercules, Heracules Furens (the Fury of Hercules – usually translated as the Madness of Hercules because fury was induced by the Furies, goddesses of revenge) is a rare example of his poetic ability. However, we are here for the Stoic belief system. How does this passage of The Fury of Hercules describe stoic ideas of life? Consider Fortuna, that “unrighteous one.” To Romans, Fortune is a goddess that blesses men. It causes them to gain power and strength, although only through the action of the individual who seeks her. The phrase from Virgil says it best:

Fortuna audaces iuvat.
Fortune aids the audacious (‘Fortune favors the bold’ is better sounding, but not quite accurate).

In Virgil’s Aeneid the main character understands that in order to make Fortune come to him, he has to behave in a way worthy of the goddess. It is clear that, to Seneca, Fortune also comes to men uninvited. In fact, Seneca states, it is rare that even the best of men is not eventually visited by Unrighteous Fortune. Fortuna is a dualistic character that harms as much as aids, at least in the minds of the Stoics. One can summon the good side of the goddess by doing virtuous things, but one can also summon the evil side by doing the opposite. In this case, Seneca states that no one can offer himself to dangerous things without falling into actual danger. Isn’t it true that sometimes we think ourselves so powerful that we actually go looking for problems? Seneca is warning that we should not offerre tam crebris (to offer [ourselves] so frequently) because fortune will eventually notice us. When we are noticed, she will come, and she will come upset that we tempted her.

In the spirit of the previous three lines of the poem, Seneca, lastly, delivers an Aesopian moral. Quem saepe transit casus, aliquando invenit. He who often passes through (transits) accidents, at some time will invite [her, an accident, problems – fill it in]. I love the idea that transit conveys here. The 3rd Person Singular verb comes from a preposition made verbial, trans. The individual is crossing through danger carelessly, seemingly unaware that even he, mighty one, can fall to the clutches of Unrighteous Fortune. What is interesting as well, as this individual, high and mighty, probably knows, is that it was Fortune herself who brought power and riches to him, not himself. What do you think will happen next? More fortune? Are you really so stuck up that you don’t see you will upset the balance of blessings and curses? Of course! Often, after fortune strikes, misfortune happens; we just tend to forget that. The individual thus tempting fortune is doubly wrong for, having been blessed by the goddess, he is seeking further blessings when he should not. Carelessly transiting the scene of an accident may cause you to become accidented (made that word up) yourself. The fact is emphasized by Invenit, which is quite self-explanatory. The verb, quite literally, means ‘to invite.’ It is a preposition (in) alongside a verb (venio – to come). You make fortune come in, and in forcing her, you end up with her bad side.

There is the Stoic in Seneca; who while speaking of Hercules and his might sees nothing more than a life of pain inflicted upon the super-human because of his overbearing confidence. Fortune has blessed you, warns Seneca, do not tempt it further with your carelessness. The Ancient Greek idea of this system was a bit more elegant. If you showed overbearing pride (ὑβρις – hubris), righteous anger (νέμεσις – nemesis) would come to get you. When Hercules murdered his family, it was the ἐρυνες that pursued him, the goddesses of revenge that drove men mad. However, what we have all come to know and love is not the Latin form of the idea, but the Greek one. Why? Consider this, when a comic book hero attempts to restore balance to the world as it was mandated by the gods, revealing his overbearing pride, what happens to him? He gets a nemesis. Heroes are always plagued by their guilt and ghosts of things they had done (or not done) before, such as saving his uncle in the case of Spiderman, his parents in the case of Batman, his planet in the case of Superman, etc. Also, heroes are blessed by fortune with money, superpowers, a will to win. Why would then they tempt fortune further by using it to combat crime? It cannot be avoided, fortune deals as she sees fit. To tempt her by walking in dangerous circles will only attract her bad side. To the Greeks, a hero was a person who tempted fortune by helping others. Remember Prometheus? He had everything that he wanted, he was actually a god, and then threw all that away for us little humans. Who saved him? Hercules! There is no end to this hero-cycle in Greek mythology.

So despite the Roman idea of nemesis, we love superhero stories. We love to see the conflicted Bruce Wayne use his immense fortune to overcome all odds. We love to see Superman use his superpowers to save humanity time and time again despite the fact that his nemesis knows exactly how to kill him. Why? Because stoic common sense dictates these people (and extraterrestrials) should not care about us lowly beings. Hercules should not have cared about saving Prometheus, he was basically a god himself. However, the humanity of heroes brings them back. Back to the poor, the suffering, and the needy. Their heroism is built upon the fact that they could have ignored the world and live happy and fruitful lives, but they chose not to. To Seneca, that may have been madness; we think of it as heroism. Nothing says hero more than a man or woman who could live in peace at home, surrounded by family and friends, and who instead chooses to go to war in service of country. Heroes are those who choose to forsake their blessings to bless the lives of others. However, do not despair, Seneca wasn’t actually against heroism in the Greek way, he was merely stating that if you want to be a hero, you should expect more pain that happiness. That is what made Hercules a hero. We should be aware, Seneca says, that if we walk amidst dangers we will run into them eventually, and have to suffer for a while.

Be a hero, you most definitely can; but do remember: when you are in the midst of suffering, you are doing so for the sake of someone else, because you chose to step into that role. Remember that your pain is the result of someone else’s healing thanks to your determination to help. No one said heroism was painless. No one said heroism was easy. Everyone agreed that heroes suffer most.

Valete!

Thinking on Seneca (the Elder), Movies, and the End of all Things

Tags

300 (film), Braveheart (film), latin, Olympian Odes, Pindar, Seneca the Elder, Starship Troopers (film), Stoicism

I must admit, I was going to to post something on Seneca the Younger, but I was drawn back to his father, the rhetorician Seneca the Elder. As I read up on some quotes, I found the most simplistic sentence I have almost ever read, in Latin.

Nihil infinitum est.
No thing is without end.
Ninguna cosa es infinita.

When I translate, I try to convey the sense of what is actually being said. I think that is why I end up with translations that are longer than the Latin. I mean, in Ancient Greek, you are pretty much out of luck with that. There is so much packed into so little you will run into space issues. The Latin, however, is much more practical, much more interesting that way. Romans do not like to exert their language, their pragmatism was renowned. Think not only of a Roman now, but of a Roman Stoic. These people were the ultimate pragmatists. Here is the father of Seneca (the philosopher), saying something as simple and forgettable as the fact that all things end. Maybe I read too much, and I find myself remembering so many things from other writers that find the phrase just too good to pass up.

Pindar once wrote:
“Since all men are compelled to die, why should anyone sit stewing an inglorious old age in the darkness, with no share of any fine deeds? As for me, on this contest I will take my stand. May you grant a welcome achievement.” (Olympian 1.84-6).

I could not avoid hearing the war cries of soldiers as they marched on to war. The contest, as Pindar puts it, is the culmination of the training and preparation people do when bad things come their way. Why avoid it? Both writers agree it is foolish to run away from something because we may get hurt doing it, we are all dying anyway.

Leonidas, Spartan king supposedly once said (if you watched “300”):
“You there, Ephialtes. May you  live forever.”

The phrase is awesome. In Spartan culture, to die for the polis was the greatest achievement a Spartan could attain. Even if a warrior had lived honorably, suffered many wounds in battle, and became the greatest citizen of Sparta, if he died not in battle he was not given a grave marker. Consider this, Leonidas (the phrase is not ancient, and it is probably original to the film) curses Ephialtes to never die. He will never be given even the honor of dying, let alone the honor of a good death. In this statement, Leonidas is not only recognizing the value of those things which end, or the value of a death facing the challenge of sport, he is also epitomizing the courage necessary to do these things when death is the end result.

Another film. William Wallace says, in “Braveheart”:
“Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you’ll live… at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”

Movie speeches or not, Seneca the Elder’s quote is held up to the light by all of these ideas. Things end, after all. All things end. If so, reader, why not end them well? Face that fear, put down that enemy of your conscience, seek the freedom that comes from facing problems now, in the present, instead of letting them bounce around in your brain. In the end, and despite my better nature, for I could really just run through examples ad infinitum, I will leave you with one last movie quote. One last push, if you will. And remember, the fact that nothing is endless should not make you rush towards your end, by any means; nor go around unprepared. Rather the contrary is true: you prepare, you train and think about that test, that challenge, that problem, even if it is not visible yet. When it comes, because you were stoically prepared, things will be more like just another day at the office than a problem. You will overcome by reflex. Oh no! Just thought of another quote; we will have to part with two.

Bruce Lee (the martial artist and movie star who also had a bachelor’s in Philosophy) said, in “Enter the Dragon”:
“A good fight should be like a small play, but played seriously. A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract. When he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit. It hits all by itself.”

Here’s to something done so much that your body no longer acts, by reacts. It is not a conscious action, but a reaction of the body to circumstances already experienced through mock up scenarios and training. The good are good because they practice; you can do that all on your own, natural talent or not. So work hard, reader, and work hard now. Now, that final quote I promised; from the guys who spend their whole life training to react as the enemy acts. Those guys who, in actual life, know of death while doing their job better than the rest of us, and can say this while charging up the battlefield and know exactly what Seneca meant:

“Starship Troopers”. Jean Rasczak and Johnny Rico:
“Come on you apes, you wanna live forever?“

Thinking on Books, Freedom, and Liberty

Tags

Ancient Greece, E pluribus unum, Founding Fathers, Freedom, John Adams, latin, Liberty, Responsibility, rome, United States, US Coins

You may be thinking, reader, that I have extrapolated the power of books from some philosophical read and given them power over life and death. Certainly, freedom and liberty are a matter of life and death to many of us. Allow me to set your mind at ease by giving you the Latin of the noun, adjective, and noun I have just given you.

Liber, liber, libertas.

Indeed, the root in Latin is the very same. Well, I should not say that. Latin nouns can be expressed in twelve different spellings depending on their singularity, plurality, and case represented in a sentence. Our root comes from the Genitive, the second case singular, in which case the roots are ‘liber, libr, and libertat’; however, jump with me into this bandwagon of Nominatives cases, reader. I promise it will be a grand wild ride. If you are not familiar with Latin, either way, what I have just said is only confusing, might as well ignore it.

Consider this completely-made-up phrase:

Liber liber libertas est.
The free book is free.
El libro libre es libre.

It is interesting that the same thing happens in Spanish. Libre, like Liber, denotes a state in which something is free of attachment, such as payment. Thus, a book can be free in the sense that it does not cost us anything. Also, as in the Latin, book as ‘libro’ denotes a sense of liberty by the person who wrote. To write, one needs time. When time is not spent on anything else, it becomes free time; thus, when one uses free time to write something the result is a liberty, that is, a book. In English, we preserve this concept by saying ‘I took the liberty of…’. We Think of ‘taking the liberty’ as something we do when we are free. In reality, we take liberties because having the spare time, we choose to waste it doing something only we can do; whether it is writing a book, helping someone else, or promoting a cause not our own. In other words, free time is productive time spent on something we have the freedom to enjoy. Similarly, to read what was produced by someone else and their free time is a freedom only those with freedom from other responsibilities can enjoy.

Freedom is all that matters. Freedom is what grants possibility, opens up worlds, and gives time for leisure in Ancient Rome. However, ‘liber’ is something else entirely, to the Romans. ‘Liber’ is freedom in responsibility. I have written about responsibility at least in four of my posts in this blog, here, here, here, and here; yet, I am surprised at the fact I had not defined Liberty as of today. Let’s take a look at that before we continue – pick up a US quarter, if you have it, and take a look at its obverse side.

John Adams, first Vice President and second President of the United Sates once said “The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.” John Adams was more of a Classicist than myself. Here, he ties Liberty to duty. In other words, his duty was to enjoy his liberty in the pursuit of “the sciences of government” so that his children would have the liberty (duty) to learn to feed the country, and his children’s children the liberty to educate it. Duty, as law, must be respected, and our freedom spent within the studies of what is dutiful for us to pursue.  John Adams was not thinking of freedom when he spoke of liberty, he was thinking of duty and responsibility within the law. The fascination of the Founding Fathers with Rome and Roman values should not be taken at my word, of course, simply look at that quarter again, this time at its reverse side.

“E pluribus unum” is what you will see in every coin. What is that mean? You may wonder. If American historians have done their job, any US citizen will know the Latin statement means ‘out from many, one.’ The statement is not only representative of the US melting pot, but also of the Roman Empire itself. Rome was quite renowned for bringing many cultures under its system of government through acculturation. Arguably, when Rome failed to assimilate one of the people they had conquered, the Empire crumbled. You may remember the northern Germans and Teutoburg forest in 9 AD. Of course, many other things brought about this collapse, but assimilation of foreign cultures was the main engine of an expansive empire, and it remains so today as well.

Thus, freedom in the Roman context, and the North American, is liberty, not freedom per se. Responsibility is part of the make up of Rome, indeed, it is ingrained into its culture ad nauseam. It is no wonder the Founding Fathers identified themselves with the Romans. You may see that Romans used the word ‘freedom’ to refer to a man, therefore they must have thought freedom was possible. Well, sure it was, but a free man, even when used to describe someone who had free time, meant that said man had said freedom because he had first and foremost fulfilled his duties. Liberty, thus, was what happened when all duties had been fulfilled – take a look at duty here. A man was held down my his duty as a slave was held down by his/her master. Only when the master decreed it, was one at liberty. The Romans saw themselves in this way.

Here we are, then; Books, Freedom, and Liberty. Responsibility, obedience to the laws, and duty, linked together for the purpose of granting men vision, hope, and potential. When you next hold a quarter, or virtually any other US coin for that matter, do not think only of the Founding Fathers, think also of the Romans; think of how books, freedom, and liberty are inextricably linked. Consider, reader, all the great men and women who have come before, the giants on whose shoulders we stand now. Fortunately, the metaphor does not only apply to men of history or science, it applies to all of us, together. It applies to our liberties. We all, wherever we are, come from a long line of imperfect human beings who sought to invest upon us the right to liberty, leisure, and duty.

Valete!

Thinking on Cicero, Something he Said, and Something he Didn’t

Tags

Cicero, latin, Life, M. Brutus, philosophy, Stoicism

Latin Tuesday, and Cicero comes calling, or knocking, whatever your favorite metaphor is. Although, it is interesting that ‘one comes knocking,’ for the action of knocking implies that one is not coming, but standing still, at door or another obstacle, seeking entrance. Hence, to come knocking is a factual impossibility. Oh well, on to Latin.

Prima enim sequentem honestum est in secundis tertiisque consistere.
Anyone following [after] the first thing (place) is an honest man to be unaffected in second and third.
Toda persona persiguiendo el primer puesto es honesta al no ser afectada por la segundo o tercero.

I found this quotation today, by Cicero. It was striking to me, because a Roman was claiming that while aiming for the Sun it was okay to end up at the moon or the top of a mountain. I thought, well, how strange that was. Of course, I went looking for the original. My source stated (a rare thing these days) that Cicero had written this statement in his Ad M. Brutus. I have never read the work, so who knows, right? I had some issues finding the work online, but I finally came across Paradoxa Stoicorum ad M. Brutum. I had to laugh. Cicero was demonstrating the paradoxes of stoicism to his buddy M. Brutus (yep, the guy who participated in the assassination of Julius Caesar). In his introduction to the work, Cicero is demonstrating a major flaw of Stoicism. If we are to be content with what we obtain, he argues, then those aiming for the first position are honest men if they remain the same when not achieving it, ending second or third, and are unmoved by their failure to sadness or discontent. According to the stoics, one should stand strong despite the fate handed them by Fortune. This, argued Cicero, could be detrimental to Romans, because if one is to be content with what one is given (passive tense – a big no-no for the doer culture of Rome) then why should one try to do anything at all? This is the argument Cicero argues against in the fifty-three sections after his introduction. Whoops, we made something sempiternal when it was not meant to be.

The exact phrasing of the quotation does not exist in the work (there may be another work for Brutus out there I am not aware of), but it is fascinating that we would take such a concept and epitomize it in our time. What does that say about our culture? Are we settling for second or third place and, therefore, saying to ourselves that it is okay to fail in order to protect our sensitivities from the harsh realities of this world? I think so. Failure is a hard thing, it is a common thing as well. We will fail in life, that much is clear. I think stoicism sought to protect people by telling them that circumstances are what they are, and there is nothing we can do about that. However, what Cicero is missing is that the Stoic understood that. Stoicism wasn’t about the okayness of failing, it was about the persistent need to try. The stoics understood that failure was part of life, and yet they kept at it, because multiple failures would eventually lead to success.

I think Cicero, here (I can’t believe I am about to say this), falls victim to the age-old argument that if someone is okay after a major catastrophe in his or her life, then they must not care. Wrong. Couldn’t be more wrong.  Of course, I would have to read the rest of the work to find out if Cicero is actually right or wrong, but it is common in our day to minimize the grief or pain of others because they don’t seem to be suffering. We have lost the capability to emphasize, and in sympathizing, we do so only after the person has crumbled. A sad time for humanity indeed.

No. Pain can be internalized, suffering can be dealt with, that does not mean we have given up, settled, or surrendered; or that we feel nothing, for that matter. Poor Cicero here, victim to paraphrasing, seems to oppose the view that settling is a good thing. He, in fact, argues the opposite. Settling = Bad. Further, if the Stoics believe it, he says, they are wrong. Cicero’s conclusion is far more telling than his introduction if we are trying to divine the exactness of his meaning:

Soli enim possident res et fructuosas et sempiternas solique, quod est proprium divitiarum, contenti sunt rebus suis.
Only those men (who are rich – said int he previous sentence) are able to enjoy the things both fruitful and long-lasting (sempiternal), which are property of wealth, they are to be made content by their own things.

Those who seek, find. Only those who find are made content by the things they reap. In the end, it is the doing that matters – phew! I thought I would have to delete some posts. In this way, not only the rich can be considered rich, but also the poor who, if they have sought and found happiness in their position, can be considered rich (sed etiam inopes ac pauperes existinandi sunt). So do, reader; if you fail, keep doing. Never give in. Time will compensate you for your actions, the world is an extremely fair place, so is time and nature. Only if you feel satiated by the filling but not fulfilling second place of life will you fall victim to failure. Fail we will, but only in failing to learn from failure and settling do we truly become failures ourselves.

Valete!