To encourage the others

Ταύτῃ ἐν χώρῃ φρόνιμόν ἐστι ἀποκτείνειν ἐνίοτε ναύαρχον, ὅπως τοὺς ἄλλους θαρσύνῃ.

 

(Taútē en chṓrē phrónimón esti apokteínein eníote naúarchon, hópōs tous állous tharsýnē.)

 

In this country it is good to kill an Admiral from time to time, to encourage the others.

 

—Voltaire, Candide

St. Athanasius

Gloria est Sancti Athanasii quod se non tempori accomodavit; præmia est quod nunc manet cum illud tempus, more omnium temporum, decessit.

It is St. Athanasius’ glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away.

 

—C. S. Lewis

Chariot racing

Quod interesset videri potest in ludis antiquitatis: amplissimi Græci histirones fuerunt, Romani soli spectatores. Olympiæ stadium apertus est divitiis, merito, æmulationi; et athletæ, dexteritate atque celeritate prodentibus, adsequi potuerunt Diomeden ac Menelaum, equosque aurigari veloce cursu… At Senator Romanus, ac etiam civis, dignitatis consciens suæ, rubesceret ostendere aut se aut equos suos in Circo Romano. Dabantur ludi impensa Reipublicæ, magistratuum, ac imperatorum; sed frena dirigebantur manibus servilibus, et, si merces celebrati aurigæ nonnumquam superabat patroni, hoc ascribendum est luxuriæ vulgi immodicisque mercedibus indecoræ artis.

 

A material difference may be observed in the games of antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth, merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend on their personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the rapid career… But a Roman Senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would have blushed to expose his person or his horses in the circus of Rome. The games were established at the expense of the republic, the magistrates, or the emperors; but the reins were abandoned to servile hands; and if the profits of a favourite charioteer sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered as the effects of popular extravagance, and the high wages of a disgraceful profession.

 

—Edward Gibbon, De Lapsu et Ruina Imperii Romanorum (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

Gladiator

“Opportet gentes cognoscere se victas.”

“Cognosceresne, Quinti? Cognoscerem?”

 

“People should know when they’re conquered.”

“Would you, Quintus? Would I?”

 

—Gladiator

King Lear

Τὶ εἴη ἵππῳ, κυνί, ἀρουραίῳ ζωή, καί σοι οὔ πη ψυχή;

 

(Ti eíē híppō, kyní, arouraíō zōḗ, kaí soi oú pē psychḗ?)

 

Why should a horse, a dog, a rat have life, and thee no breath at all?

 

—Shakespeare, Λεῖρ Βασιλεύς  (King Lear)

Martyred on the Coast of Cornwall

Incursus apostolorum ex Hibernia videtur quidem fuisse impetum improvisum juventutis in mundum senescentem, atque etiam in Ecclesiam quæ senescere videbatur. Martyriti sunt nonnulli in litore Cornoviense, et auctor maximus de antiquitatibus Cornoviensibus mihi dixit se nullo modo credere eos martyritos esse a paganis, sed (ut jucunde ait) “a Christianis lentioribus”.

 

The rush of missionaries from Ireland, for instance, has all the air of an unexpected onslaught of young men on an old world, and even on a Church that showed signs of growing old. Some of them were martyred on the coast of Cornwall; and the chief authority on Cornish antiquities told me that he did not believe for a moment that they were martyred by heathens but (as he expressed it with some humour) “by rather slack Christians”.

 

—G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Armies

In statibus variis civitatum, conscribuntur milites dissimillimis causis. Urgentur barbari amore pugnandi; admoneantur cives reipublicæ liberæ animā pietatis; in regno cives, at quidem nobiles, notione honoris animantur; sed incolas timidos atque delicatos imperii labentis necesse est ad militiam aut prolicere spe divitiarum aut compellere metu pœnæ.

 

In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment.

 

—Edward Gibbon, De Lapsu et Ruina Imperii Romanorum (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)