Library – Ancients – Page 26

Jacques Louis David's The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons

Cicero On Duties

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:March 13, 0044
Post category:Library - Ancients

"But when with a rational spirit you have surveyed the whole field, there is no social relation among them all more close and none more dear than that which links each one of us with our country. Parents are dear; children, relatives, friends are dear; but our country has on its own embraced all the affections of all of us together; for which what good man would hesitate to face death, if he could do her a service?" (Cicero, De Officiis 1.57).

Laurens, Jean-Adrien. Aristote. ca. 1880. Wood engraving after a painting by Jean-Baptiste-Auguste Hugues. Published in La Librairie Hachette et Cie.

Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:October 15, 0041
Post category:Library - Ancients

Thus the virtues arise in us neither by nature nor against nature. Rather we are by nature able to acquire them, and reach our complete perfection through habit. p.673

aristotle getty

Aristotle, The Politics and the Constitution of Athens

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:October 15, 0041
Post category:Library - Ancients

And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best. Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. (1252b30 - 1253a3)

plato

Plato The Republic

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:October 15, 0037
Post category:Library - Ancients

The next step, apparently, is for us to try to discover, and point out, what the failings are in cities nowadays, which stop them being run in this way, and what is the minimum change which could help a city arrive at political arrangements of this kind. Ideally a single change. Failing that, two. And failing that, as few as possible in number and as small as possible in impact. 472b p.175

Grave Stele of Ilissos (or Grave Stele of a Young Hunter). c. 340 BCE. Pentelic marble, 168 x 110 cm. Inventory no. 869. National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Plato’s Laws

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:June 20, 0036
Post category:Library - Ancients

Athenian Stranger. Tell me, Strangers, is a God or some man supposed to be the author of your laws?

SONY DSC

Plato, Crito

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:October 15, 0035
Post category:Library - Ancients

Socrates: And that the good life, the beautiful life, and the just life are the same; does that still hold, or not? p.129

Socrates by Leonidas Drosis, Athens Academy of Athens

Plato, Euthyphro

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:October 15, 0035
Post category:Library - Ancients

Euthyphro: I don't know him, Socrates. What charge does he bring against you? Socrates: What charge? A not ignoble one I think, for it is no small thing for a young man to have knowledge of such an important subject. He says he knows how our young men are corrupted and who corrupts them.

batessocrates

Plato, Apology

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:October 15, 0035
Post category:Library - Ancients

Now, the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of use goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god.

Athenian Agora

Plato, Gorgias

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:October 15, 0035
Post category:Library - Ancients

Polus: Very well, I shall. Tell me, Socrates, since you think Gorgias is confused about oratory, what do you say it is? Socrates: Are you asking me what craft I say it is? Polus: Yes, I am. Socrates: To tell you the truth, Polus, I dont think it's a craft at all.

PeloponnesianWar

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War

Post author:Laura Reagan
Post published:October 15, 0031
Post category:Library - Ancients

...since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what the can and the weak suffer what they must. 5.84 - 5.116 pp. 350-357