Category: Roman

On Moderation – Seneca

Synopsis:

In letter #5, Seneca examines a middle-road of moderation for philosophers vis-à-vis human action. According to Seneca, moderation ought to project externally via an exemplary lifestyle which embraces a synthesis of individual and public virtues.

Excerpts:

“The mere title of philosophy, however modestly worn, is invidious enough; what if we should begin to except ourselves from the ordinary uses of mankind?… Our endeavor must be to make our way of life better than the crowd’s, not contrary to it; else we shall turn from us and repel the people we wish to improve.

“This I hold is the correct mode: life should be steered between good mores and public mores; men should respect our way of life, but they should find it recognizable.

“Will there be no distinction between us and them? A very great distinction. Anyone who looks closely will realize that we are unlike the crowd. Anyone who enters our home will admire us rather than our furniture.

“Beasts avoid the dangers which confront them, and when they have avoided them they stand at ease; we are tormented alike by the future and the past. Our superiority brings us much distress; memory recalls the torment of fear, foresight anticipates it. No one confines his misery to the present.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters, W.W. Norton.

Diplomacy and War in Livy – Niccolo Machiavelli

Synopsis:

Niccolo Machiavelli’s discourses on Titus Livy’s history of Rome offers a full spectrum examination of Roman statecraft. In book two, Machiavelli submits his analysis of war and diplomacy vis-à-vis Rome’s interaction with its allies – as well as enemies. Proximity, clarity, and swift resolve are features recognized as desirable for an ally.

Excerpts:

“Leagues made with rulers who lack either the means to help because they are too far away, or the power to help because they are disorganized or for other reasons, bring rather repute than assistance to those who trust in them.

“The advice which Hannibal gave to Antiochus, when this monarch was contemplating a war with the Romans. The Romans, he argued, could only be beaten in Italy, for others might there be able to avail themselves of their arms, their riches and their allies… he ended by saying that Antiochus had better first try to take Rome before attacking the empire, and Italy before attacking the other provinces.

“The Cimbri broke up a Roman army in Germany, and the Romans had no way to repair their defeat. But, when the Cimbri arrived in Italy, and against them the Romans could bring all their forces to bear, they were undone.

“I say again that a ruler who has his people well armed and equipped for war, should always wait at home to wage war with a powerful and dangerous enemy, and should not go out to meet him; but that one who has ill-armed subjects and a country unused to war should always meet the enemy as far away from home as he can.

“Slow and tardy decisions are no less harmful than are ambiguous decisions, especially when the point at issue is whether support is to be given to an ally; for by such slowness nobody benefits and to oneself it does harm.

*All excerpts have been taken from Machiavelli: The Discourses, Penguin Books Ltd.

Old Age – Seneca

Synopsis:

In letter #12, Seneca wrestles with the idea of aging. On balance, Seneca decides aging is a positive good – but only for those who recognize it.

Excerpts:

“In the first place, old and young alike should have death before their eyes; we are not summoned in the order of our birth registration. In the second place, no one is so old that he cannot legitimately hope for one day more, and one day is a stage of life.

“Every day must therefore be ordered as if it were the last in the series, as if it filled our measure and closed our life.

“What he did out of perverted motives we should do out of good, and as we retire to our beds we should say, cheerfully and contentedly, ‘I have lived; I have finished the course Fortune set me.’

“We should welcome old age and love it; it is full of pleasure if you know how to use it. Fruit tastes best when its season is ending; a boy is handsomest at boyhood’s close; and it is the last drink which brings the toper delight, the one that submerges him and polishes off his jag. Every pleasure saves its most agreeable scene for the finale.

“Life as a whole consists of parts, with larger circles circumscribed about smaller. One circle encompasses and cinches the rest; it extends from our first day to our last.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters, W.W. Norton.

On Presentism – Augustine

Synopsis:

Augustine dedicates room in his Confessions for a discussion of the essence of God vis-à-vis time. Within such a context, Augustine analyzes how time interacts within human perception – and advances a thesis of presentism. God, Augustine decides is beyond space time – but humanity exists within a third dimensional space of three dynamic presentisms.

Excerpts:

“It will see that a long time is long only because constituted of many successive movements which cannot be simultaneously extended. In the eternal, nothing is transient, but the whole is present. But no time is wholly present. It will see that all past time is driven backwards by the future, and all future time is the consequent of the past, and all past and future are created and set on their course by that which is always present.

“You created all times and you exist before all times. Nor was there any time when time did not exist… you made time itself. No times are coeternal with you since you are permanent. If they were permanent, they would not be times.

“When a true narrative of the past is related, the memory produces not the actual events which have passed away but words conceived from images of them, which they fixed in the mind like imprints as they passed through the senses. Thus my boyhood, which is no longer, lies in past time which is no longer. But when I am recollecting and telling my story, I am looking on its image in present time, since it is still in my memory.

“What is by now evident and clear is that neither future no past exists, and it is inexact language to speak of three times – past, present, and future. Perhaps it would be exact to say: there are three times, a present of things past, a present of things present, a present of things to come. In the soul there are these three aspects of time, and I do not see them anywhere else. The present considering the past is the memory, the present considering the present is immediate awareness, the present considering the future is expectation.

“A long future is a long expectation of the future. And the past, which has no existence, is not a long period of time. A long past is a long memory of the past.

*All excerpts have been taken from Confessions, Oxford University Press.

Julius Caesar – Plutarch

Synopsis:

Plutarch’s biography of Julius Caesar examines the moral, and intellectual dimensions of Caesar’s character. Context is a pronounced component of Plutarch’s analysis – which utilizes the underlying Roman political culture of the era as a bedrock feature of the narrative. Further, Plutarch uses biographical anecdotes to advance an image of Caesar as a world historical individual.  

Excerpts:

“Sulla, without openly objecting, took measures to see that he was not elected and discussed the question of whether or not to have him put to death. When some of his advisers said that there was no point in killing a boy like him, Sulla replied that they must be lacking in intelligence if they did not see that in this boy there were many Mariuses.

“Cicero, who is thought to have been the first to have seen beneath the surface of Caesar’s political program and to have feared it as one might fear the smiling surface of the sea, and who understood how powerful a character was hidden behind Caesar’s agreeable, good-humored manners, said that, in general, he could detect in everything that Caesar planned or undertook in politics a purpose that was aiming at absolute power.

“For the cause of the civil wars was not, as most people think, the quarrel between Caesar and Pompey; it was rather their friendship, since in the first place they worked together to destroy the power of the aristocracy and only when this had been accomplished quarreled amongst themselves.

“For when Pompey, for some reason or other (possibly over caution), instead of putting the finishing stroke to his great success, retired as soon as he had driven the routed enemy inside their camp, Caesar, who was with his friends, remarked to them as he was leaving them: ‘Today the enemy would have won , if they had a commander who was a winner.’

“Brutus fancied that he heard a noise at the entrance to the tent and, looking towards the light of the lamp which was almost out, he saw a terrible figure, like a man, though unnaturally large and with a very severe expression. He was frightened at first, but, finding that this apparition just stood silently by his bed without doing or saying anything, he said: ‘Who are you?’ Then the phantom replied: ‘Brutus, I am your evil genius. You shall see me at Philippi.

*All excerpts have been taken from Fall of the Roman Republic, Penguin Books.

The Rise of Constantius III – Michael Kulikowski

Synopsis:

The elevation – and subsequent domination – of the late Roman Empire by Constantius III came about within the context of the power vacuum generated by the execution of the Roman generalissimo Stilicho. Successful in several campaigns in Spain and Gaul, Constantius for a time managed to restore Roman power-projection in both domains. Later, he shared power with Honorius as co-emperor.

Excerpts:

“Disease had rid Honorius of one of his chief tormentors, but it was a new arrival in the regime who delivered him from the still more pressing challenge of Constantine in Gaul. Flavius Constantius, who would dominate the next decade of western Roman history in much the same way that Stilicho had the last, was a native of Naissus.

“He played no documented role in the chaos before and after Stilicho’s execution, and emerges on the scene only in 410, perhaps as comes domesticorum, when he orchestrated the second fall of Olympius and had him clubbed to death. Constantius was then elevated to the magisterium utriusque militiae, senior commander of the praesental army.

“In places where the imperial superstructure was restored, as it was in much of Gaul and Spain, the period of local autonomy looked like an unfortunate interlude; in places where it was not, it was remembered as a popular revolt against Rome.

“For a very brief moment, Honorius was the sole person claiming the western throne. That was in itself a triumph at this point, but the successive proclamations in most of the western dioceses revealed a pattern of entrenched warlordism that would characterise the rest of the fifth century.

“Constantius had every reason to be well pleased. He was now clearly the dominant power in the state, and the fact that we know so little about the court factions surrounding him suggests that there was none that could challenge his predominance.

*All excerpts have been taken from Imperial Tragedy: From Constantine’s Empire to the Destruction of Roman Italy, AD 363-568, Profile Books Ltd.

Quintus Sertorius – Adrian Goldsworthy

Synopsis:

The tragic history of Quintus Sertorius seems to define the complexion of late Roman Republican politics. One of the most capable generals of the late Republican era, Sertorius opposed the dictatorship of Sulla – and formed a successful shadow Roman Senate as well as Army in Spain. Somewhat surprisingly, Sertorius was not a bitter-ender, and attempted many times to reconcile with the Sullan faction. Ultimately unbeaten in battle, Sertorius was eventually assassinated by one of his own subordinates.

Historian Adrian Goldsworthy chronicles late Republican politics in his biography of Sertorius, as well as how the Marian and Sullan factions interacted post-Marius.

Excerpts:

“The same belief in the superiority of Rome that made senators by the second century BC hold themselves the equals of any king ensured that no disappointed Roman politician sought the aid of a foreign power. Senators wanted success, but that success only counted if it was achieved at Rome.

“Roman commanders and senior subordinates were expected to lead and direct their soldiers from just behind the fighting line, a style of leadership which inevitably involved considerable risk of wounding or death. Sertorius led in an especially bold fashion, inspiring his men with his contempt for the enemy and trusting to his personal skill at arms to protect himself from any attack.

“The same drive for absolute victory which made the Romans so difficult to defeat in foreign wars ensured that their internal struggles between enemies were very rare and never proved permanent.

“Sertorius was a tragic, rather romantic, figure who had the misfortune to commit himself to the losing side in a civil war… Although a ‘new man’, he should under normal circumstances have had a highly successful career. His gifts as a leader, administrator and commander were of the highest order.

“A gifted orator and with some learning in law, he began to gain a reputation in the courts before embarking with enthusiasm on a period of military service. As mentioned in the last chapter, he managed to survive the disaster at Arausio in 105, swimming the Rhone in spite of his wounds and still managing to bring away his personal weapons.

*All excerpts have been taken from In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire, Orion Publishing Group.