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  • The proskynesis or bow to the king:

    Why do some people bow to others to recognize them a higher social status?

    Nowadays in our world there are a big number of monarchies, although many of them, not all, are under the rules of democracy. Although they are very different now from past times monarchies when the kings really ruled the countries, they are still accompanied by certain rituals and protocol behaviors. Among the most important rituals is perhaps the bowing or genuflection that many citizens do to the kings’ greeting or presence. For others this act is wrong, unbecoming and unsuitable as long as to bob or genuflect doesn’t fit with modern times anymore.

    This act is an ancient ritual generally related to an eastern origin. In ancient Greek they called proskynesis (προσκύνησις), word formed by “pros” (to, towards) and “kyneo” (kiss, kissing), to the greeting ritual that the Persians made their king.

    It’s Herodotus, the father of History, who lived in the V century BC, who tells us in his Stories, 1,134 the way the Persians greeted each other:

    "When two Persians meet in the street, you can know whether or not they have got the same social status, because if they have, they do not greet each other with words but by kissing each other on the mouth; if one of them has a little bit lower status, they do it by kissing each other on the cheek; but if one’s status is much less noble than the another’s, he offers reverence to him by bending down or prostrating in front of him".

    In the royal court, this greeting, which Herodotus saw in the streets, was ritualized and formalized depending also on the people’s status, so people prostrated themselves, knelt, bowed or sent him a kiss.

    Herodotus does not judge this greeting negatively, but the Greek people thought this act was humiliating because they only prostrated themselves to their gods, so they interpreted that the Persian king was worshiped as a god, although the Persians didn’t worship him as such; it was just a rite of vassalage to recognize his superiority.

    So when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire and wanted to introduce this rite in the summer of 327 BC because it was the custom of his new subjects and aimed to unify the ritual, he caused some troubles with his Greeks fellows.

    The following text of Arrian of Nicomedia, a Greek historian and philosopher of the second century of our era, is illustrative of the moment:

    (Callisthenes’s intervention: Not even to Heracles the Greek people gave him divine honors while he was alive, and even after his death, we had to wait until the god of Delphi gave us his permission to worship him as a god. Now if by being talking about this issue in a barbarous region we have to think like barbarians, I think, Alexander, I have to ask you to remember Greece, which is why you organized this expedition to annex Asia to Greece. Think carefully about the following: when you come back to Greece, are you going to force the Greeks, who are the men who most appreciate their freedom, to accept the proskynesis or will you exempt the Greeks of it, keeping it as an outrageous obligation to the Macedonians? Or maybe are you going to get over with all these honor issues at once and for all, so you get those that are proper to man from Greeks and Macedonians, and will leave rituals that are used by barbarians for when you are among barbarians?) (Anabasis of Alexander the Great, IV, 11, 7-8; ).

    We do not know exactly what happened then, although Arrian tells us that Alexander the Great exempted the Greeks, but the rite was used later by his successors; it was also imposed in the ritual of the Roman emperors, especially in the second part of the empire, known as the Low Empire or the Dominate, and somehow it has come down to us, to modern times, as we said at the beginning, as many people feel a reverential awe to kings. 

    Related to this issue is somehow the deification of kings, of Alexander himself and of the Roman emperors, which we will discuss some another time.

  • Was the dominating Julius Caesar dominated by their women?

    In the Julius Caesar’s life, many women played a very important role. But historians do not judge in the same way their influence.

    Julius Caesar played a key role in the History of Rome and, therefore, throughout all Western History. This is the reason why thousands and thousands of pages have been written about this complex character.

    In Caesar’s life many women played a major role; the women who had a relationship with him for one reason or another. The famous historian and Nobel Prize (1902) Theodor Momsen (1817-1903), author of more than 1500 titles including the famous “History of Rome”, thought that these women dominated Caesar at will.

    Julius Caesar probably had an active sex life since he was young, given the special attraction that seems to have had for women. He met a few ladies of particular relevance, which demonstrate the importance of political expediency when building relationships with families more than love. Suetonius summarizes this feature reminding the verses that his soldiers sang with little regard in the day of his triumphal parade in Rome (that day they were allowed): "Citizens, keep your wives, we bring a bald adulterer with us."

    Caesar’s mother, Aurelia, had special importance for him, since his father died soon, as well as her sisters, especially Julia Major. In 83 B.C. he married Cornelia, Cinna’s daughter, thanks to the influence of his aunt Julia, wife of Mario, after breaking the commitment made by his father with Cosucia, of an aristocratic family. In this marriage with Cornelia, Julia was born, his only legitimate child. He must have felt true love for his wife, because when the dictator Sulla demanded him to divorce, he refused and had to flee Rome for his life.

    His daughter Julia, engaged to Caepio, the uncle of Brutus, married Pompey for political reasons once he got a divorce from Mucia, who Julius Caesar himself courted (Caesar wanted to ensure relations with the powerful Gens Pompeii). Julia died in childbirth in 54 B.C., as often happened then. It must had been a tough year for Julius, because his mother Aurelia also died, who had considerable influence on him, as we said.

    In 68 B.C. Caesar married Pompeii, granddaughter of Sulla, for obvious reasons of political expediency. He separated from her in 63 B.C. because she was adulterous with the violent and conflict Publius Clodius during the women-only parties dedicated to Bona Dea. Clodius disguised as women to have access to Pompeii. This is the episode that led to the famous phrase: "Caesar's wife must not only be honest, but to seem"  based on  Plutarch, Cic. 29.7  y Plutarch, Caes. 10.6.

    In 59 B.C. he married Calpurnia, twenty years younger, looking for descendants and good relations with Lucius Calpurnius Piso, influential popular leader who with his help was appointed consul in 58 B.C. He had no descendants.

    Calpurnia was the wife who the day before the murder of her husband had a prophetic and horrible dream of the death of her husband. But this marriage could not have lasted this long if Pompey had agreed to marry Octavia, Caesar's niece, and grant himself the hand of his daughter.

    A person so powerful, attractive (known is the erotic force of power) and as sexual, in an environment so favorable as that of Rome at the dawn of the Empire, had, naturally, numerous lovers. One of the most important was Servilia, sister of Marcus Porcius Cato and mother of Marcus Junius Brutus, one Caesar’s assassins. Servilia was undoubtedly the dearest and most beloved. There is even the possibility that the real father of Brutus was Caesar, but there isn’t any proof, although at the very moment of Caesar's assassination he pronounced the famous phrase "You too, my son?", ?”, en latín “Tu quoque fili mi?” , r Suetonius says that he said on greec ” Καὶ σὺ τέκνον, kai sy teknon” (Suetonius, Iul, 82,2) . The relationship lasted from 63 B.C. to 44 B.C., year of Caesar’s death, and it seems that love was underlay.

    It is particularly interesting that several of Caesar’s lovers were the wives of political opponents. It seems as if Caesar enjoyed especially these loves because they added the superiority as a lover to the political superiority. Hence he had sex with Postumia, the wife of Sulpicius Rufus, with Lollia, the wife of Aulus Gabinius, with Mucia, second wife of Pompey who divorced from her because of this relationship, with Tertulla, wife of Crassus, the third member, along with Pompey, of the triumvirate that divided the power at the end of the Roman Republic.

    His relations with foreign women were very famous as well. For example with Eunoe, Bogud wife, king of Mauritania, of extraordinary beauty.

    But the most famous relationship was with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII Philopator. Along with the physical attraction there were undoubtedly political interests moved to control the rich Egyptian lands, granary of Rome. Cleopatra remained in Rome, in the gardens of Caesar, from September 46 to April 44 B.C. after Caesar's death. Julius Caesar wasn’t sure that he was the father of Ptolemy Caesar, known as Caesarion, but he allowed the child to carry his name. Caesarion was later murdered by order of Octavius.

    Finally, it seems clear that women from Rome and even from abroad, either by sexual or political reasons, could not reject the proposals of Caesar, so powerful; and the same happened with men, according to some authors. But it is difficult to know precisely how much is fact and how much is fiction in the biography of the character. This will be discussed in another time.

  • The satraps are people who have much power

    In some contexts the word “satrap” has a pejorative meaning, negative, derived from the great power than such position had in ancient Persia.

    The word satrap derives from the Latin satrăpa, this from the Greek σατράπης, and this last from the Avestan or Old Persian  šathrapāvan, meaning "protector of the territory."

    Currently, amongst other meanings, refers to the person who abuses power or authority of subordinates, with obvious negative and pejorative connotations in a time when freedom is a fundamental right and value of people.

    However in ancient Persia, Satrap was the governor’s name or title of a province, the viceroy who ruled on behalf of the king. They had absolute power, and often abuse of people, hence the pejorative meaning.

    Persian kings themselves distrusted the power and behavior of these "satraps" and thus created a curious figure: officials called "King’s eyes and ears", which traveled the empire and issued the reports.

    Well, accurate and reliable information always was a problem for the rulers of kingdoms and empires of great extent, because many hundreds of years later, around the year 800 AD, Charlemagne created the figure of the "missi domici " envoys of the lord, a couple of Inspectors constituted by a layman and an ecclesiastic, who roamed the Carolingian Empire.

    Today this task seems more complex but not least important, as indicated by the various centers and intelligence services of countries, or as reveal by the thousands of American diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks.

  • Overwhelming crimes

    In Greco-Roman antiquity there are several myths that tell us some overwhelming crimes.

    Men and women are beings with an enormous emotional complexity. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by absolute altruistic heroic actions, others, facts of an incomprehensible cruelty shake us. Certainly, infanticides are especially frightening, in which a crazed father or mother with an incomprehensible cold blood kill their own helpless children in what seems like an infringement of the most sacred laws of nature. It also happens now, in modern times, sometimes, but we can’t imagine what emotional lack may be the cause for these events, for these so overwhelming crimes.

    In Greco-Roman antiquity are several the myths that narrate us some of these crimes. In their intuition or deep analysis of human behavior, the ancient Greeks also approached to these horrendous acts that sometimes happen, although they used literary myths for it.

    This is the case of Philomela, daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, who was raped by Tereus, the husband of her sister Procne, mad with passion due to her beauty and insensitive to her pleas. So she could not tell it to her sister, he cut her tongue and locked her. But Philomela embroidered patiently her sad story on a cloak and, this way, she managed her sister Procne to know about Tereus's evilness. The two sisters, oh dreadful madness! planned a hideous revenge. Procne killed her own son, whose resemblance constantly reminded her to her husband, and the two sisters dismembered and cooked him for the criminal father. When he finished the meal, Tereus asked where his son was, and the crazed sisters answered him "that his son was already with him." Overwhelmed the gods themselves, they wanted to end this crime succession becoming Tereus into a hoopoe, Philomela into a swallow and Procne into a nightingale.

    Probably the most famous mythical story is certainly that one referred to Medea, daughter of Aeetes, king of Colchis, who was a sorceress. Madly in love, she helped Jason and the Argonauts in their conquest of the famous golden fleece (fleece or sheepskin), betraying her own countrymen. Jason took her and promised to make her his wife in order to thank her for her help. After many adventures, when they reached Corinth, Jason, missing his word, breaks with Medea to marry the princess Glauca, daughter of the King Creon. The sorceress Medea sends Glauca a dress as a wedding gift that sets her alight as a torch when she puts it on her shoulders. The revenge on Jason is much crueler if possible: mother and abandoned, humiliated and mad lover, she kills the two children she had had with him to make the unfaithful lover suffer.

    Medea is the title of one of the most well-known tragedies of Euripides, and since ancient times it has always been a usual topic for the different arts. There are more than a dozen operas on this subject, from Charpentier´s in 1693 to Oscar Strasnoy´s in 2000.

    Medea is also the title of a film by Pasolini in 1969; it is the famous Maria Callas who plays the mythical figure in it. In this film, Pasolini opposed the two components of ancient culture and even of human behavior, the magical and irrational world of Medea to the rational and coldly calculated world of Jason.

    Medea is still shown again and again on stages throughout Europe.

    Next, I am going to reproduce a small part of the final dialogue between Medea and Jason. Perhaps this small piece persuades the reader to read the whole text of the tragedy:
    ...
    JASON. – … Having married me and having had children with me later, jealous because of my bed affairs and my new wife, you killed them. There is no Greek woman who dared to this, and yet, I preferred to marry you instead of them – hated and fatal marriage for me-, lioness, and no-woman, naturally wilder than the Tyrrhenian Scylla …  

    MEDEA. – You were not supposed to, having dishonored my bed, lead a pleasant life, laughing at me; not the princess, or that one who sought you marriage, Creon, shouldn’t have sent me out of this land with impunity. And now, if you please, call me lioness and Scylla who lives in the Tyrrhenian land. In your heart, as I should do, I’ve hit you back.

    JASON. – You also suffer and you share my troubles too.

    MEDEA. – Know it well: the pain releases me, if there’s no joy for you.

    JASON. – Oh my children, such an evil mother you had the misfortune to have!

    MEDEA. – Oh my children, how you have died due to your father’s foolishness!

    JASON. – But it wasn’t my right hand that killed them.

    MEDEA. – But it was your outrage and your recent wedding.

    JASON. – You feel it was right to kill them because you are jealous of my bed affairs?

    MEDEA. – You think that’s a little pain for a woman?

    JASON. – If she is wise, yes, but for you it is the greatest misfortune.

    MEDEA. – (Pointing to the dead bodies). They no longer live. This will bite you.

    JASON. – They live, alas, as geniuses avengers of your head.

    MEDEA. – Gods know who started the trouble.

    JASON. – They certainly know your abominable soul.

                                            (Medea, 1336 …-1373)

  • Greek and Roman Religion drank from different sources

    All religions defend their peculiarity and uniqueness, but in reality all of them feed on the beliefs, myths and rituals existing in their environment.

    There is a theory held by many authors, certainly simplistic, that helps us to understand some of the complexity of the Greek religion and, by extension, of the Roman one. It is the theory of the two sources. During the second millennium BC waves of northern Indo-European peoples, with a pastoral and patriarchal culture, entered the southern Mediterranean peninsulas with agricultural and matriarchal culture. This mainly explains the creation and evolution of Greco-Roman religion.

    But, along with the theory of the two sources, we should certainly join the many influences of the East, of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Middle East, etc.. of an area with agricultural myths from four or five thousand years ago.

    Actually all religion is a syncretism of beliefs, rituals and myths as precisely reveals the history of religions and mythologies of the Mediterranean countries and the Middle East. So for example, the marriage of Zeus and Hera would mean the forced coexistence of an European male god with a Mediterranean mother goddess.

    In any case, compared to some unscientific ideologies that attempt to justify the Greek culture as the exclusive product of an Indo-European component as opposed to the Oriental (which is often identified with the Semitic), we have to maintain an open stance to all kinds of information, and to be critical with any present or ancient source which reproduce the topic of an exclusive Greek rationality versus the surrounding mythical thinking.

  • The first text of political thought is also provided to us by Herodotus

    The ancient Greeks theorized about the various political systems: monarchy, democracy, tyranny

    There are several forms of personal power: monarchy, royalty, tyranny…they are all different, but these three terms have many relationships with each other.

    Throughout History, the ancient Greek people not only had different political systems (monarchy, democracy, tyranny …), but often theorized about this important issue and devoted its most illustrious thinkers like Plato or Aristotle. It could not be otherwise by those who created the Philosophy, rhetoric, science, and reflected and theorized about so many things. Their reflections were by no means simple, but difficult and detailed.

    We owe to Herodotus, the "Father of History", the first text of Greek literature in defining the various forms of government, the first text of political thought. In his Histories, III, 80.1 he puts in the mouth of three Persians (King Darius and his generals Ótanes and Megabizo) the benefits and harms of the monarchy, democracy and oligarchy.

    Ótanes rejects monarchy (Greek μονος (mónos): one, and αρχειν (arjéin): government) because the monarch (king or tyrant are not delimited), who can do whatever he wants without accounting for it, develops pride, excess (ὕϐρις  hybris) and envy of those around him and hurts and kills without trial those he considers his enemies. Ótanes defends the "people's government" or isonomy (from the Greek ἰσονομία  "equality before the law”, as well of ἴσος, isos," equal "and νόμος nomos," usage, custom, law "), because the magistrates are exercised by election and issues undergo deliberation of the people.

    Megabizo rejects democracy or isonomy or government by the people because people are ignorant, insolent and impulsive. He proposes to elect a group of well-prepared persons, named the oligarchy (from the Greek ὀλιγαρχία, ολίγο = little, few and αρχειν (arjéin): government). Oligarchy is then considered as a degeneration of the aristocracy 'government of the best "(Greek ἀριστοκρατία  aristokratía, of ἄριστος aristos, excellent, and κράτος, kratos, power) and therefore it is also a tyrannical system of government.

    Darius rejects democracy because debauchery is inevitable in it; he also rejects the oligarchy because in it inevitably exist rivalries and hatreds, strife and murder against each other because they all want to occupy the head of power; so he is in favor of the monarchy, because, being a single ruler, state secrets are best kept and avoid the above problems. But this monarchy is not tyranny because it governs the people properly. This way, democracy degenerates into oligarchy and, at the same time, this last one turns into a monarchy, which is the best system, because the monarch acts as a judge between the aristocratic groups and favors the people. But even this monarch can easily become a tyrant, who takes away the freedom from his citizens.

    Lately Socrates, Plato, Aristotle deeply developed these ideas, but the first one who presents the discussion, at least the first text we know, is of the "father" Herodotus.

    Today Western world’s citizens are mostly democratic, but there isn’t shortage of voices, that are heard with some frequency, defending oligarchic systems as they consider people ignorant and easily manageable.

    It’s also interesting that still remain good number of Western monarchies, although its political function, very small, is under the rules of democracy.

    And even in many countries of the world there are monarchies, tyrannical monarchies, oligarchies and tyrannical oligarchies and in them there is no freedom for their citizens. Certainly humanity has improved, but how difficult to extend and keep freedom is.

     

    see: history had a father

     

  • Europe versus Asia: an eternal rivalry

    It is known that the Trojan War, which Homer sings in his poem “The Iliad”, was triggered because the Trojan prince Paris, visiting Greece, kidnapped the blonde Helen, wife of Menelaus, and took her to the court of his father, Priam, in Troy

    Greek peoples united under the command of Agamemnon, "shepherd of the people " (ποιμὴν  λαῶν, poimen laôn)  , and besieged the city to destroy it after ten years of struggle. This is the issue that gave rise to a literary cycle as productive in the Greek literary and artistic creation, and in the present days too because of the cultural importance of the classical world.

    Herodotus, in the beginning of his "Stories", cites several precedents of kidnap of women as the source of secular confrontation between Asia and the Greeks, between East and West: the kidnap of "Io" by Phoenicians, the kidnap of “Europe” by the Greeks, the abduction of “Medea” by Greeks ….. So this myth of kidnap has been very productive in the history of mythology and literature, in antiquity and beyond to justify the secular confrontation between East and West, between the Europe of freedom and Asia of tyranny.

    But below the literary story, there is a historical reality that explains the clashes between Greeks and Trojans in the present case as the result of competition for colonization of the Mediterranean between different peoples, as the Phoenicians.

    It is worth recalling that the Phoenicians are culturally Semitic (Phoenician and Hebrew are two languages that can understand each other) as opposite to the Indo-European Greeks. Although these nationalists concepts should be extremely relativized, because the excessive importance given to the Indo-European or Aryan component in the origins of Greece was forged in a scientific context contaminated by German nationalism.

    It isn’t inappropriate to recall how this part of the world was and still is of great geostrategic importance, and thus this is the seat of permanent conflicts until today. To the geostrategic importance now attaches its oil wealth, the source of energy and raw materials indispensable nowadays and a new point of contention.

    Read these articles as well:

    greco persian greco median wars

    history had a father

     

  • The post or post service

    The word “post”, with very few changes, refers to the post service in many countries in the world; its creation is very old.

    "Post"  derives from the Latin word "posita", used in the expression "positae mansiones", which designated the "located stops" (positae= put, placed, situated) that were set all along the Roman roads (viae)  every 25 or 30 kilometers to make the change or takeover of the horses or other animals pulling travel or merchandise carriages.

    In fact this system by changing horses in order to transmit or report messages was created by the Persian king Darius I, who reigned from year 521 to 486 BC. This monarch decided to build a road called the "royal road" which allowed messages to travel along more than 2,000 km linking the shores of the Aegean Sea with the coasts of the Persian Gulf. On this road mails could travel 160 kilometers a day.

    Neither the carriage nor the wheel was invented by the Romans, of course. But the practical Latin people did know how to build a heavy but strong carriage dedicated to the transport of people and goods. On it, it was also placed a canopy to protect passengers from the rain or the sun. These carriages were driven all along the huge and solid network of roads and highways that crossed the Empire and made easy to link every place with the capital or main city, Rome. It is in these "roads" where they built the "positae mansiones". Known is the saying "all roads lead to Rome". Roman roads are one of the strongest and most amazing contributions to the economic, political and social life throughout the Empire. Without them, neither the legions nor the goods could move quickly from one place to another. Many of their outlines still match with the large international traffic arteries. In many cases parts of these roads are even preserved. Many of those "mansiones positae" or posts resulted in many contemporary populations.

    Precisely the Spanish language keeps two meanings for the word "post", which are straightly related to its origin: "group of horses which were set on the roads with a distance of two or three leagues, so the horses, mails, etc.., could be renewed" and "house or place where the posts were" according to the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language.

    But it is also interesting that the word to name the mail or post service, I mean, the institution or service in charge of sending letters, packages or other effects between two points, in Spanish it is not only the term or word "post" (post service) but also "correos= mails" (mail service), word of unknown origin which also exists in other Romance languages: in French “courrier”, in Italian “corriere”, in Catalan “correu”. Perhaps it comes from the Provencal word "corrieu", formed from "corir = run" and "lieu = place".

    The public transport organization created by the Romans since the middle of the first century BC was a revolutionary innovation. The “Cursus Publicus”, as it was called in the administrative language, was an organization or public service for anyone’s use by paying a reasonable retribution or tax.

  • Agony

    Why do we call “agony” when the end of life of a person comes, often terrible and painful?

    With the word "agony" we mean the end of life, when a body, which is alive and able to sustain and keep itself until that moment, loses its power and begins to decompose as an organic and structured being.

    "Agony" comes from the Latin “agonia”, and this last one, at the same time, comes from the Greek “ἀγωνία “, meaning fight, combat.

    For anyone who has had the misfortune of observing a non-instantaneous death, explanation is no needed. Those who have not had this terrible experience must know that life hangs itself on to the last moment and that all the vital machinery resists in a terrible struggle to stop working and give it up. Those agonizing moments are a real fight of life against death. Unfortunately, in the end, the death always wins and it has to be accepted.

    Moreover, everything about the death, that in the ancient world and, until recently, also among us, it looked more normally for being more integrated in the life experience of the people, is now treated less directly, as we try to hide it or somehow to keep it, in hospitals or in those places called "morgues.

    Even in the medico-legal language this terrible moment is no more called "death" but "exitus", Latin word for output, exit, departure, outlet, up, way out, journey.

    The final question, however, remains the same, I mean, it’s always the eternal question: "exitus"= output/ exit, but where…?

    But the funny thing is that also the ancient people used this euphemism for "death", which should not be named, because they, like us now, were scared of it:

    For example, in

           : PELEUS: “How … is gone (dead) the only son of my only son?”

    And in Hecuba 414, of the same tragedian, Polyxena, about to be ritually sacrificed, tells his mother Hecuba:

                    "Oh, mother, oh you who gave me light! I'm already going to go down”

    Death scares us, death thrills us. It’s better not to talk about it.
     

  • The most beautiful poem in ancient literature

    For many connoisseurs and lovers of Latin literature, Virgil is the first poet due to his epic poem the “Aeneid”. The second poet would be the lyrical Horace.

    For many connoisseurs and lovers of Latin literature, Virgil is the first poet due to his epic poem the "Aeneid". The second poet would be the lyrical Horace.

    For some of these people the best poem written in Latin is precisely the Oda number 7 from the book IV by Horace. Naturally, about the likes, nothing is written; after all any artistic assessment is just a personal judgment because it is not only affected by the cold rational assessment.

    In any case a particular value should have this poem for the famous philologist, scholar and english poet Alfred Edward Housman (1859 – 1936), extraordinary professor of Latin at Cambridge from 1911 to 1936, who considered this the most beautiful poem of old literature.

    G. Highet tells in his book “The Classical Tradition. Greek and Roman influences on Western literature”, the following anecdote, related to Housman:

    In May, 1914, in the burgeoning spring, he was commenting the poem to his students at Cambridge and surprised them with a personal confession (absolutely unexpected in such a serious teacher): “This, said hastily, almost like a man who betrays a secret, is for me the most beautiful poem in ancient literature”, and he left the classroom excited. Naturally also the most serious and severe teachers have a sensitive heart.

    It is the Epicurean thought what encourages this composition. In this poem the return of spring, already heralded with irresistible force, and the succession of the seasons, warn us that everything passes; but as the years are renewed cyclically, this don’t happen to men; when our sunset comes (we don’t know when) we do not return to life, we are only dust (in the urn) and shadow (in the afterlife), not even the gods can resurrect men; so that we have to seize the moment.

    The snow is fled: the trees their leaves put on,
    The fields their green:
    Earth owns the change, and rivers lessening run
    Their banks between.
    Naked the Nymphs and Graces in the meads
    The dance essay:
    “No 'scaping death” proclaims the year, that speeds
    This sweet spring day.
    Frosts yield to zephyrs; Summer drives out Spring,
    To vanish, when
    Rich Autumn sheds his fruits; round wheels the ring,—
    Winter again!
    Yet the swift moons repair Heaven's detriment:
    We, soon as thrust
    Where good Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus went,
    What are we? dust.
    Can Hope assure you one more day to live
    From powers above?
    You rescue from your heir whate'er you give
    The self you love.
    When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed
    The grand last doom,
    Not birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst
    Torquatus' tomb.
    Not Dian's self can chaste Hippolytus
    To life recall,
    Nor Theseus free his loved Pirithous
    From Lethe's thrall.

    Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. John Conington. trans. London. George Bell and Sons. 1882.)

               
    Notes to better understand the poem:

    Graces and their sisters: are the three Graces, goddesses of beauty,
      charm and attractiveness.
    Nymphs: beautiful deities of nature, of the springs, of the rivers,
      trees, and caves.
    Zephyr: west wind, soft and fruitful that blows in Spring.
    Tullus, Ancus: Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius, two of the legendary kings of Rome, they represent the greatness of the past.
    Minos: One of the judges of the lower world, the world of the dead
    Torquatus: the person to who Horace dedicates the poem.
    Diana: is the goddess of the hunt, forests, virgin and therefore goddess of shyness
    Hippolytus: son of Theseus, his stepmother Phaedra fell in love with him and blamed him falsely, he is devotee of Diana and not of Venus
    Theseus: mythical king of Athens, friend of Pirithous, the two descended into hell in search of Persephone, but only Theseus came back with the help of Heracles.
    Lethe: one of the rivers of Hades or Hell ("lethal" derives from Lethe)

                            
                                               ===  ===  === 

    Diffugere  nives, redeunt iam gramina campis
        arboribusque comae;
    mutat terra vices et decrescentia  ripas
        flumina praetereunt;
    Gratia  cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
        ducere nuda choros.
    Inmortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum
        quae rapit hora diem.
    Frigora mitescunt zephyris, ver proterit aestas
        interitura, simul
    pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox
        bruma recurrit iners.
    Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae;
        nos ubi decidimus,
    quo pius Aeneas, quo Tullus dives et Ancus,
        pulvis et umbra sumus.
    Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae
        tempora di superi?
    Cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico
        quae dederis animo.
    Cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos
        fecerit arbitria,
    non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te
        restituet pietas;
    Infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum
        liberat Hippolytum,
    nec Lethaea valet Theseus abrumpere caro
      vincula Pirithoo.