Ancient Television

Not too much on television in the summertime.  

Last night, on the SciFi show "Scariest Places on Earth", they explored the curse of the Roman gladiators in the coliseum.  The Roman gladiator part was actually a small part of it.  I recorded it so luckily I can fast forward through the irrelevant parts.  It's one of those shows where they take an infrared camera and follow people around in the dark as they pretend to be scared.

Tonight, at 10 PM on TCM, they're showing "Down to Earth" staring Rita Hayworth as Terpsichore, one of the nine muses.  She comes down to Earth to star in a Broadway production.  Yeah.

On Tuesday, the 22nd, the History Channel is reconstructing the seige of Troy on Ancient Discoveries at 9 PM.  I think I saw it last year, but I'm going to watch it again.  Ancient Discoveries is also exploring the underwater ruins of the ancient Roman navy.  I watched that last year too, but it wasn't nearly as interesting as it sounded.  See, the ships in the Roman navy were made of wood, and when wood is submerged in water for a long time....  Anyway.

That's all my Tivo could find.  I'll try again in August.

Quotes

It's only the women of ripe age who understand the art of love.

- Aristophanes, "The Ecclesiazusae"

Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

- Aesop, "Fables"

Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to your ability to choose, unless that is your choice.  Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to your ability to choose.  Say this to yourself with regard to everything that happens, then you will see such obstacles as hindrances to something else, but not to yourself.

- Epictetus, "Enchiridion"

But what says Zeus?  "Epictetus, had it been possible I should have made both this paltry body and this small estate of thine free and unhampered.  But as it is - let it not escape thee - this body is not thine own, but only clay cunningly compounded.

- Epictetus, "Discourses"

Peace with justice and honor is the fairest and most profitable of possesions, but with disgrace and cowardice it is the most infamous and harmful of all.

- Polybius, "Histories"

There are some who praise a man free from disease; to me no man who is poor seems free from disease but to be constantly sick.

- Sophocles, fragment

Why Classical Studies?

What, then, is the true nature of God?  Flesh?  Far from it!  Land?  Far from it!  Fame?  Far from it!  It is intelligence, knowledge, right reason.

- Epictetus, "Discourses" as taken from "The Wisdom of the Ancient Greeks" by Steven Stavropoulos

Classical studies speaks to me in a language that my soul can understand.  Of the poets and philosophers who acknowledge the existence of a soul, there seems to be a running belief that the soul is not just some lump of white light that resides in your heart, but is something that grows and acts and is acted upon.  Menanader, Epictetus, Sophocles, Plato - they speak of spiritual matters logically, believing that spirituality can and should be understood through the application of logic and reason.  More recently, P.J. O'Rourke said that many of the misunderstandings about the nature of life that young people have could be eliminated by a classical education ("Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut", pg. 201).  I look forward to obtaining this education, albeit later in life.  The works of those ancients and the society that they created laid the foundation for all civilization.  We have as much to learn from them today as the students who sat at their feet did thousands of years ago.  

Introduction

This site is a compiling of quotes from ancient Greek and Roman sources.  I became interested in Classical Studies last year.  I don't speak or read Greek, and I've only had two semesters of Latin, so all of these quotes are from English translations, references provided.