United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This "caused laughter" and "cast a chill over the proceedings." Pliny apologises for the man, as being a little light in the head, but he is manifestly tickled all the same. It is scarcely a wonder that the Roman was glad to escape from all these formalities of "toga'd Rome" to his country seat, or to the freer life of Baiae.
To those who know Montaigne, the best notion of Seneca and Plutarch will be formed by remembering that his essays are admitted by himself to be "wholly compiled of what I have borrowed from them." The elder Pliny supplies us with extracts and summaries of the knowledge or the notions then extant, and we have writings on agriculture by Columella.
If we may credit Pliny, the Greek merchants of Egypt for some years after the discovery of the monsoon, did not venture further out to sea than was absolutely necessary, by crossing the widest part of the entry of the Persian Gulf, to reach Patala at the mouth of the Indus; but they afterwards found shorter routes, or rather stretched more to the south, so as to reach lower down on the coast of India: they also enlarged their vessels, carried cargoes of greater value, and in order to beat off the pirates, which then as at present infested this part of the Indian coast, they put on board their vessels a band of archers.
I'm as sure that I will drink wine and brandy to-night, as I am that I lie here, in spite of all the helps in creation, or out of it. So what's the use?" "Will you give me one great proof of your friendship, Pliny?" was Theodore's eager question. "I'll give you 'most anything quicker than I would any other mortal," answered Pliny, wearily.
The most prominent man in Greece for fifty years was that grammarian Philetas, who was so small and so thin that he was obliged to load his shoes with lead in order not to be blown away by the wind. There stood on the great square in Corinth a statue carved by Silanion and catalogued by Pliny; this statue represented Episthates. What did Episthates do? He invented a trip.
These great men great in natural powers and in philosophic training had seen just what the speculations of Democritus, Lucretius, Zeno, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle could do; they had indeed undermined the low superstitions of their time, but they had proved powerless to regenerate society, or even relieve the individual pessimism and despair of men like Seneca, Pliny, or Marcus Aurelius.
The literature of the Silver Age is throughout conscious of its powerlessness; and this consciousness deadens it into tame acquiescence or galls it into hysterical effort, according to the time and temperament of the author. Pliny the younger and Quintilian alone show the happily-balanced disposition of the Golden Age; but what they gain in classic finish they lose in human interest.
Pliny says, "These birds, crows and rooks, all of them keep much prattling, and are full of chat, which most men take for an unlucky sign and presage of ill-fortune." Ramesay, in his work Elminthologia , writes: "If a crow fly over the house and croak thrice, how do they fear they, or someone else in the family, shall die." The bittern is also a bird of ill omen.
Caius Cornelius Tacitus, the Historian, was living under those Emperors, who reigned from the year 54 to the year 117, of the Christian era; but the place and the date of his birth are alike uncertain, and the time of his death is not accurately known. He was a friend of the younger Pliny, who was born in the year 61; and, it is possible, they were about the same age.
We never hear of the frozen Tiber nowadays, and many remarks of the ancients as to the moist and cold climate seem strange to us. Pliny praises the chestnuts of Tarentum; I question whether the tree could survive the hot climate of to-day.
Word Of The Day