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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



235
Alciphron, Letters, 2.27


nanAmpelion to Everous: The winter is very severe this year, and no one is able to go out. The snow has not only covered the earth, it has also whitened the hills and valleys. One must give up all idea of work, although it is disgraceful to remain idle. To amuse myself, I tried to look out. No sooner was my door opened than I saw, together with the falling snow, a regular flock of blackbirds and thrushes. I had some birdlime all ready prepared in a jar, and quickly smeared it over some wild pear-tree branches. The birds flung themselves upon it in swarms, and then found themselves caught by the branches. It was a treat to see them — some hanging by their wings, others by the head or claws. I picked out a couple of dozen of the fattest and plumpest amongst them, and I send them to you. Honest people ought to share one another's luck; let my ill-disposed neighbours be jealous if they please!


Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

16 results
1. Menander, Dyscolus, 111, 110 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)

2. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 17.52 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

17.52. 1.  He decided to found a great city in Egypt, and gave orders to the men left behind with this mission to build the city between the marsh and the sea. He laid out the site and traced the streets skilfully and ordered that the city should be called after him Alexandria.,2.  It was conveniently situated near the harbour of Pharos, and by selecting the right angle of the streets, Alexander made the city breathe with the etesian winds so that as these blow across a great expanse of sea, they cool the air of the town, and so he provided its inhabitants with a moderate climate and good health.,3.  Alexander also laid out the walls so that they were at once exceedingly large and marvellously strong. Lying between a great marsh and the sea, it affords by land only two approaches, both narrow and very easily blocked. In shape, it is similar to a chlamys, and it is approximately bisected by an avenue remarkable for its size and beauty. From gate to gate it runs a distance of forty furlongs; it is a plethron in width, and is bordered throughout its length with rich façades of houses and temples.,4.  Alexander gave orders to build a palace notable for its size and massiveness. And not only Alexander, but those who after him ruled Egypt down to our own time, with few exceptions have enlarged this with lavish additions.,5.  The city in general has grown so much in later times that many reckon it to be the first city of the civilized world, and it is certainly far ahead of all the rest in elegance and extent and riches and luxury.,6.  The number of its inhabitants surpasses that of those in other cities. At the time when we were in Egypt, those who kept the census returns of the population said that its free residents were more than three hundred thousand, and that the king received from the revenues of the country more than six thousand talents.,7.  However that may be, King Alexander charged certain of his Friends with the construction of Alexandria, settled all the affairs of Egypt, and returned with his army to Syria.
3. Philo of Alexandria, On The Confusion of Tongues, 63 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

63. For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such species, looking to his archetypal patterns. XV.
4. Philo of Alexandria, On The Preliminary Studies, 81 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

81. Again, she gives Hagar to him, not the first moment that he arrives in the country of the Canaanites, but after he has abode there ten years. And what the meaning of this statement is we must investigate in no careless manner. Now, at the beginning of our existence, our soul dwelt among the passions alone as its fosterbrethren, griefs, pains, fears, desires, and pleasures, which reach it through the medium of the external senses, before reason was as yet able to see good and evil, and to distinguish accurately the points wherein these things differ from one another, but while it was still wavering and hesitating, and as it were closing its eyes in profound sleep;
5. Philo of Alexandria, On Drunkenness, 31, 30 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

30. but of the father and mother the appellations are common, but their powers are different. At all events we shall speak with justice, if we say that the Creator of the universe is also the father of his creation; and that the mother was the knowledge of the Creator with whom God uniting, not as a man unites, became the father of creation. And this knowledge having received the seed of God, when the day of her travail arrived, brought forth her only and well-beloved son, perceptible by the external senses, namely this world.
6. Philo of Alexandria, On Flight And Finding, 52, 109 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

109. For Moses says that he cannot be defiled neither in respect of his father, that is, the mind, nor his mother, that is, the external sense; because, I imagine, he has received imperishable and wholly pure parents, God being his father, who is also the father of all things, and wisdom being his mother, by means of whom the universe arrived at creation;
7. Philo of Alexandria, On Dreams, 1.68 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

1.68. These things, then, being defined as a necessary preliminary, when the practiser of virtue comes to Charran, the outward sense, he does not "meet" the place, nor that place either which is filled by a mortal body; for all those who are born of the dust, and who occupy any place whatever, and who do of necessity fill some position, partake of that; nor the third and most excellent kind of place, of which it was scarcely possible for that man to form an idea who made his abode at the well which was entitled the "well of the oath," where the self-taught race, Isaac, abides, who never abandons his faith in God and his invisible comprehension of him, but who keeps to the intermediate divine word, which affords him the best suggestions, and teaches him everything which is suitable to the times.
8. Philo of Alexandria, On The Virtues, 62 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

62. Moreover, wisdom is a thing not only more ancient than my own birth, but even than the creation of the universal world; nor is it lawful nor possible for any one to decide in such a matter but God alone, and those who love wisdom with guilelessness, and sincerity and truth;
9. Philo of Alexandria, On The Contemplative Life, 35, 68, 20 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

20. but they take up their abode outside of walls, or gardens, or solitary lands, seeking for a desert place, not because of any ill-natured misanthropy to which they have learnt to devote themselves, but because of the associations with people of wholly dissimilar dispositions to which they would otherwise be compelled, and which they know to be unprofitable and mischievous. III.
10. Philo of Alexandria, Against Flaccus, 177 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)

177. no good omen ever appeared to him, everything bore a hostile appearance, every report was ill-omened, his waking was painful, his sleep fearful, his solitude resembling that of wild beasts, nevertheless the solitude of his herds was what was most pleasant to him, any dwelling in the city was his greatest affliction; his safe reproach was a solitary abiding in the fields, a dangerous, and painful, and unseemly way of life; every one who approached him, however justly, was an object of suspicion to him.
11. Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 3.1.5 (1st cent. CE

3.1.5. ἐλθὼν δὲ ἐς Κάνωβον καὶ κατὰ τὴν λίμνην τὴν Μαρίαν περιπλεύσας ἀποβαίνει, ὅτου νῦν Ἀλεξάνδρεια πόλις ᾤκισται, Ἀλεξάνδρου ἐπώνυμος. καὶ ἔδοξεν αὐτῷ ὁ χῶρος κάλλιστος κτίσαι ἐν αὐτῷ πόλιν καὶ γενέσθαι ἂν εὐδαίμονα τὴν πόλιν. πόθος οὖν λαμβάνει αὐτὸν τοῦ ἔργου, καὶ αὐτὸς τὰ σημεῖα τῇ πόλει ἔθηκεν, ἵνα τε ἀγορὰν ἐν αὐτῇ δείμασθαι ἔδει καὶ ἱερὰ ὅσα καὶ θεῶν ὧντινων, τῶν μὲν Ἑλληνικῶν, Ἴσιδος δὲ Αἰγυπτίας, καὶ τὸ τεῖχος ᾗ περιβεβλῆσθαι. καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις ἐθύετο, καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ καλὰ ἐφαίνετο.
12. New Testament, Hebrews, 11.13-11.14, 11.16 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

11.13. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 11.14. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking after a country of their own. 11.16. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
13. Alciphron, Letters, 1.15, 2.2, 2.9, 2.32, 3.11, 3.19 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

14. Longus, Daphnis And Chloe, 3.9 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

15. Lucian, The Ignorant Book-Collector, 25 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

16. Lucian, Salaried Posts In Great Houses, 30 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)



Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
alciphron Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42; Taylor and Hay, Philo of Alexandria: On the Contemplative Life: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (2020) 163
alexander the great Taylor and Hay, Philo of Alexandria: On the Contemplative Life: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (2020) 163
alexandria Taylor and Hay, Philo of Alexandria: On the Contemplative Life: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (2020) 163
ampelion Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
autocletus Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
callicomides Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
capnosphrantes Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
cnemon Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
dialogue Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
dio chrysostom Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
echo Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
enneacrounos (fountain) Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
euergus Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
farmer Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
gnathon Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
hetaera Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
horologius Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
imitation Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
iophon Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
laemocyclops Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
longus Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
lucian of samosata Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
menander Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
myrrhina Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
name Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
novel, greek novel Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
parasite Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
pepaideumenos Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
philosopher Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
pratinas Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
proverb Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
shortness Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
thrasycles Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
time (temporality) Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
timon Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42
wealth' Marquis, Epistolary Fiction in Ancient Greek Literature (2023) 42