Aulus Gellius, in Book XI, Chapter 9 of his Attic Nights, tells how the famous Greek orator Demosthenes leave buy for a good amount of money for not a speech against the Macedonian Harpalus. In the next chapter 10 gives us another version now attributed to a speech of Gaius Gracchus. But the interest of this text goes beyond the different allocation, because Gracchus reveals starkly how political speakers and advocates seek above all profit and benefit.
The thieves of it what is public
The unbearable corruption that seems to dominate all public life is about to ruin the confidence of citizens in politics. Perhaps some people think that this is an evil of modern times and that it is limited to certain societies where democracy is weaker. Nothing is further from the historical truth.
Apophthegmata , aphorisms, adages, maxims, axioms, sentences,
The Greeks were the ones who decided that knowledge and advances in knowledge should be taught to citizens and that these were to be educated in that knowledge and respect for the law. Certainly neither the Greeks nor the Romans created a public system similar to modern education, but an education system with its various stages.
Exposure of corpses
Human beings, unlike other animals, attend their dead and their corpses. This is attested since the Palaeolithic. The ways and customs of the various peoples referred to the fact of death and to treat the bodies, are many and varied. No doubt these rites are the result of confusion that causes death in all living beings; people seek immortality but man finds the decomposition of the body. It is therefore necessary to perform rites to avoid the process of decomposition . In expression of Walter Burkert, the Homo sapiens is a homo sepeliens (from Latin sepelio, burial), a man who buries his dead comrades.
Writ of habeas corpus
“Habeas corpus” is part of a broader Latin phrase: habeas corpus ad subiiciendum et recipiendum. Its literal translation would be “keep the body to put it in hand (of law) and re-take it.
Place of Care of the Soul: ψυχῆς ἰατρείον (psychés iatreíon)
Libraries are “points of care of the soul.” This is a curious phrase, full of content, and that we like. It is originated on the label that allegedly existed in the “Sacred Library” of the temple and tomb of Pharaoh Ramses. But perhaps what is really behind the famous phrase is a historical misunderstanding.
All that shines is not gold; lapis specularis
The Iberian Peninsula was rich in minerals in Antiquity. Since ancient times minerals were prospected, found and exploited by Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans.
The ancient Romans computed and digitized over two thousand years ago.
Few words are of more contemporary use than “compute, computer, and digital”. Well, “compute, computing” are Latin words meaning of course calculating, counting, computing.
Did the Romans know the sources of the Nile?
The man’s innate curiosity has led him to countless undertakings, assignments and ventures. The desire to know the world in which he lives has pushed him over and over again in voyages and explorations of the most inaccessible places.
The three wise men (the three Magi)
The birth of Jesus is celebrated in the West December 25. That birth is celebrated for a long time in Christendom and still currently in the Orthodox Church on January 6. But in the Catholic Church is celebrated now on January 6 the day of “epiphany” or manifestation of Jesus. According to the Gospel of St. Matthew 2: 1-12, some wise men came from the East to offer the newborn baby Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh. Hence comes the custom in some countries, as in Spain, of gave gifts to children on the night of January 5.