1. Cicero, On Laws, 2.4 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
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2. Cicero, On Duties, 1.77 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 1.77. Illud autem optimum est, in quod invadi solere ab improbis et invidis audio: Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi. Ut enim alios omittam, nobis rem publicam gubertibus nonne togae arma cesserunt? neque enim periculum in re publica fuit gravius umquam nec maius otium. Ita consiliis diligentiaque nostra celeriter de manibus audacissimorum civium delapsa arma ipsa ceciderunt. | 1.77. The whole truth, however, is in this verse, against which, I am told, the malicious and envious are wont to rail: "Yield, ye arms, to the toga; to civic praises, ye laurels." Not to mention other instances, did not arms yield to the toga, when I was at the helm of state? For never was the republic in more serious peril, never was peace more profound. Thus, as the result of my counsels and my vigilance, their weapons slipped suddenly from the hands of the most desperate traitors â dropped to the ground of their own accord! What achievement in war, then, was ever so great? |
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3. Cicero, Philippicae, 2.20 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
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4. Cicero, Pro Archia, 22-23, 27, 21 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 21. Mithridaticum vero bellum magnum atque difficile et in multa varietate terra marique mari terraque G versatum totum ab hoc expressum est; qui libri non modo L. Lucullum, fortissimum et clarissimum virum, verum etiam populi Romani nomen inlustrant. populus enim Romanus aperuit Lucullo imperante Pontum et regiis quondam opibus et ipsa natura et natura et Mommsen : naturae (-ra eb χς ) codd. regione regionis b χς vallatum, populi Romani exercitus eodem duce non maxima manu innumerabilis Armeniorum copias fudit, populi Romani laus est urbem amicissimam Cyzicenorum eiusdem consilio ex omni impetu regio atque atque GEeb : ac cett. : atque e Halm totius belli ore ac faucibus ereptam esse atque servatam; nostra semper feretur et praedicabitur L. Lucullo dimicante, cum interfectis ducibus depressa hostium classis est est Heumann : et codd. , incredibilis apud Tenedum pugna illa navalis, nostra sunt tropaea, nostra monumenta, nostri triumphi. quae quae G1Ee : quia cett. ( G2 ) quorum ingeniis efferuntur efferuntur Görenz : haec (hec a ς bg ) feruntur codd. : ecferuntur Stürenberg , ab eis populi Romani fama celebratur. | |
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5. Sallust, Iugurtha, 4 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
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6. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 34.19 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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7. Tacitus, Annals, 2.53-2.54, 3.23 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 2.53. The following year found Tiberius consul for a third time; Germanicus, for a second. The latter, however, entered upon that office in the Achaian town of Nicopolis, which he had reached by skirting the Illyrian coast after a visit to his brother Drusus, then resident in Dalmatia: the passage had been stormy both in the Adriatic and, later, in the Ionian Sea. He spent a few days, therefore, in refitting the fleet; while at the same time, evoking the memory of his ancestors, he viewed the gulf immortalized by the victory of Actium, together with the spoils which Augustus had consecrated, and the camp of Antony. For Augustus, as I have said, was his great-uncle, Antony his grandfather; and before his eyes lay the whole great picture of disaster and of triumph. â He next arrived at Athens; where, in deference to our treaty with an allied and time-honoured city, he made use of one lictor alone. The Greeks received him with most elaborate compliments, and, in order to temper adulation with dignity, paraded the ancient doings and sayings of their countrymen. 2.54. From Athens he visited Euboea, and crossed over to Lesbos; where Agrippina, in her last confinement, gave birth to Julia. Entering the outskirts of Asia, and the Thracian towns of Perinthus and Byzantium, he then struck through the straits of the Bosphorus and the mouth of the Euxine, eager to make the acquaintance of those ancient and storied regions, though simultaneously he brought relief to provinces outworn by internecine feud or official tyranny. On the return journey, he made an effort to visit the Samothracian Mysteries, but was met by northerly winds, and failed to make the shore. So, after an excursion to Troy and those venerable remains which attest the mutability of fortune and the origin of Rome, he skirted the Asian coast once more, and anchored off Colophon, in order to consult the oracle of the Clarian Apollo. Here it is not a prophetess, as at Delphi, but a male priest, chosen out of a restricted number of families, and in most cases imported from Miletus, who hears the number and the names of the consultants, but no more, then descends into a cavern, swallows a draught of water from a mysterious spring, and â though ignorant generally of writing and of metre â delivers his response in set verses dealing with the subject each inquirer had in mind. Rumour said that he had predicted to Germanicus his hastening fate, though in the equivocal terms which oracles affect. 3.23. In the course of the Games, which had interrupted the trial, Lepida entered the theatre with a number of women of rank; and there, weeping, wailing, invoking her ancestors and Pompey himself, whom that edifice commemorated, whose statues were standing before their eyes, she excited so much sympathy that the crowd burst into tears, with a fierce and ominous outcry against Quirinius, to whose doting years, barren bed, and petty family they were betraying a woman once destined for the bride of Lucius Caesar and the daughter-inâlaw of the deified Augustus. Then, with the torture of her slaves, came the revelation of her crimes; and the motion of Rubellius Blandus, who pressed for her formal outlawry, was carried. Drusus sided with him, though others had proposed more lenient measures. Later, as a concession to Scaurus, who had a son by her, it was decided not to confiscate her property. And now at last Tiberius disclosed that he had ascertained from Quirinius' own slaves that Lepida had attempted their master's life by poison. |
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8. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.27.2-9.27.3 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 9.27.2. Most men consider Love to be the youngest of the gods and the son of Aphrodite. But Olen the Lycian, who composed the oldest Greek hymns, says in a hymn to Eileithyia that she was the mother of Love. Later than Olen, both Pamphos and Orpheus wrote hexameter verse, and composed poems on Love, in order that they might be among those sung by the Lycomidae to accompany the ritual. I read them after conversation with a Torchbearer. of these things I will make no further mention. Hesiod, Hes. Th. 116 foll. or he who wrote the Theogony fathered on Hesiod, writes, I know, that Chaos was born first, and after Chaos, Earth, Tartarus and Love. 9.27.3. Sappho of Lesbos wrote many poems about Love, but they are not consistent. Later on Lysippus made a bronze Love for the Thespians, and previously Praxiteles one of Pentelic marble. The story of Phryne and the trick she played on Praxiteles I have related in another place. See Paus. 1.20.1 . The first to remove the image of Love, it is said, was Gaius the Roman Emperor; Claudius, they say, sent it back to Thespiae, but Nero carried it away a second time. |
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9. Strabo, Geography, 9.2.25
| 9.2.25. The Thespiae of today is by Antimachus spelled Thespeia; for there are many names of places which are used in both ways, both in the singular and in the plural, just as there are many which are used both in the masculine and in the feminine, whereas there are others which are used in either one or the other number only. Thespiae is a city near Mt. Helicon, lying somewhat to the south of it; and both it and Helicon are situated on the Crisaean Gulf. It has a seaport Creusa, also called Creusis. In the Thespian territory, in the part lying towards Helicon, is Ascre, the native city of Hesiod; it is situated on the right of Helicon, on a high and rugged place, and is about forty stadia distant from Thespiae. This city Hesiod himself has satirized in verses which allude to his father, because at an earlier time his father changed his abode to this place from the Aeolian Cyme, saying: And he settled near Helicon in a wretched village, Ascre, which is bad in winter, oppressive in summer, and pleasant at no time. Helicon is contiguous to Phocis in its northerly parts, and to a slight extent also in its westerly parts, in the region of the last harbor belonging to Phocis, the harbor which, from the fact in the case, is called Mychus (inmost depth); for, speaking generally, it is above this harbor of the Crisaean Gulf that Helicon and Ascre, and also Thespiae and its seaport Creusa, are situated. This is also considered the deepest recess of the Crisaean Gulf, and in general of the Corinthian Gulf. The length of the coastline from the harbor Mychus to Creusa is ninety stadia; and the length from Creusa as far as the promontory called Holmiae is one hundred and twenty; and hence Pagae and Oinoe, of which I have already spoken, are situated in the deepest recess of the gulf. Now Helicon, not far distant from Parnassus, rivals it both in height and in circuit; for both are rocky and covered with snow, and their circuit comprises no large extent of territory. Here are the sanctuary of the Muses and Hippu-crene and the cave of the nymphs called the Leibethrides; and from this fact one might infer that those who consecrated Helicon to the Muses were Thracians, the same who dedicated Pieris and Leibethrum and Pimpleia to the same goddesses. The Thracians used to be called Pieres, but, now that they have disappeared, the Macedonians hold these places. It has been said that Thracians once settled in this part of Boeotia, having overpowered the Boeotians, as did also Pelasgians and other barbarians. Now in earlier times Thespiae was well known because of the Eros of Praxiteles, which was sculptured by him and dedicated by Glycera the courtesan (she had received it as a gift from the artist) to the Thespians, since she was a native of the place. Now in earlier times travellers would go up to Thespeia, a city otherwise not worth seeing, to see the Eros; and at present it and Tanagra are the only Boeotian cities that still endure; but of all the rest only ruins and names are left. |
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