Tag: Polybius

The Roman Forum at night. Photo by Trey Ratcliff (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

790 words

As an American, I can relate better to Rome than to Greece, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. I have written two books on Plato. I love Greek philosophy, literature, and art. But they are not mine. I’ve just appropriated them. Like the Romans did. (more…)

Theodoros Pelecanos, Ouroboros (1478)

6,611 words

Part 1 of 7 (Part 2 here)

One of the most startling historical truths is that Europeans invented the writing of history as “a method of sorting out the true from the false,” as a conscious search for a rational explanation of the causes of events, while rendering the results of their investigations in sustained narratives of excellent prose. The other peoples of the world, including the Chinese who maintained for centuries a tradition of chronological writers, barely rose above annalistic forms of recording the deeds of rulers or the construction of genealogies devoid of reflections on historical causation. This would not have been judged a controversial view a few decades ago. (more…)

2,127 words

There is a time for us to wander.
When time is young and so are we.
The woods are greener over yonder.
The path is new, the world is free.
There is a time when leaves are fallin’.
The woods are gray, the paths are old.
The snow will come when geese are callin.’
You need a fire against the cold.
— The Dillards, “There is a Time,” 1963 (more…)