Male Graduate Students:
un-serious in terms of studies since 1931.
according to le glay et al., the emperor claudius was quite the writer--a history of rome in over 40 volumes, one of etruria in 20, and one of carthage in 8--and the last two were in greek!
surely, gil prose would be duly impressed.
there is something i forgot to mention. remember yesterday, when i mentioned the song 'eric's trip' by sonic youth?
well: today i was going through the tower of myriad boxes in my parents' basement full of stuff from my yesteryears. in one box i FOUND MY COPY OF SONIC YOUTH'S 'DAYDREAM NATION', which includes that very song.
if you think that is SWEET, you are correct.
i was delighted to come across a future passive infinitive tonight while reading book 1 of livy. yes, this all-too-rare form in 'iri' always brings joy to the heart of american youth. tonight's gem was 'dicatum iri', 'would be dedicated'.
if it's been a while since you've read livy's account of the hercules/cacus episode...well, perhaps you should turn off 'friends' and check it out.
today while reading a general history of rome, i came across a reference to dennis's dude, philodemus. it comes in a section on epicurean teaching concerning the avoidance of involvement in public affairs in the context of the emergence of the empire. i quote:
'Several testimonies to that proposition have come down to us. One of the most striking consists of fragments of a political treatise, 'The Good King according to Homer', written by Philodemus of Gadara, possibly in 45 BC, demonstrating that good kings could exist. Enlightened by wise counselors, it is the duty of the good king to be moderate, to make sure that his personal conduct conforms to the rules of morality, to show himself to be just toward men and pious toward the gods, and to see that unity and peace exist between his subjects.'
(Le Glay, Voisin, Le Bohec and Cherry [tr. Nevill])
the title of this post is neither here nor there.
still--i have have a hunch (though i am not certain) that one j. rawnsley might rather enjoy this article (which, alas!, i haven't finished reading yet).
there are several reasons why dennis's last post is sweeter than you can shake a stick at.
the first is that the quote in the title mentions a stove, which can be both a late australian philosopher and something in which to burn wood or cook dead animals.
the second is that the band whence the quote comes is called 'eric's trip', and my name is eric.
the third is that sonic youth has a song called eric's trip.
thank you.
now i must go back to doing to doritos what the romans did to carthage in the third punic war.
tomorrow i hope to learn more about romulus and remus and why homer is more interesting than the intellectual sum of the last 200 years.
For some reason I couldn't add this as a comment to Eric's blog, but it's equally appropriate here at the Campvs. It's a quote about the late Australian philosopher David Stove, by Roger Kimball at the New Criterion:
With a combination of dazzling philosophical acumen and scarifying wit, Stove does for irrationalism in Karl Popper’s philosophy of science (and that of such illustrious heirs as Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend) what the Romans did for Carthage in the Third Punic War: he assaults and destroys it utterly.
