Posts by Joshua

Oh, goodness, definitely software! it's a pretty quick process.

Cassius' Preferred Bust

Top: Sketchified

Bottom: Sketchified and Vectorized

I quite like that second one, I think I might try to edit the vector file to clean it up a little while keeping the strong bold lines.

My monogramed leather keychain fob broke off a few weeks ago, and I'm looking for an alternative. Thinking about having a laser engraving done in either metal or wood, with maybe a quote on the back. This is something I've just put together as an idea. I also a vector version of the same image--I see from Cassius' post above that I'll have to compress that to a .zip to upload it, which I will certainly do if anyone is interested!

To illustrate Don's point, a little thought experiment; how many male names could I produce from the ancient world off the top of my head? Easily a hundred. How many women? Thinking now, I start to struggle after five or six. And how many of those are duly famous in their own right? Sappho...Hypatia...Cleopatra...

Wait a minute...🤔

From Don –ἀοχλησία is "freedom from disturbance"...

And ἐκκλησία is "a political or religious assembly"....

Do I detect a pun here? 🙃

Listening to this now, and very much enjoying the conversation!

Here are a few points that come to mind;

Regarding the image of seminal fluid "spreading through the limbs", I think Lucretius may be making an inference by analogy. He seems to think of this fluid as being associated with adolescent growth and sexual maturity, which of course it is–the "springtime" of life, when the streams run high with the freshets of meltwater, and the sap in the trees runs up into the limbs and oozes out the trunk. This is actually offered as one of the definitions for the word 'sap'; vigor or energy: e.g "the hot, heady days of youth when the sap was rising".

Regarding the image of "falling toward the wound", he seems to be drawing on the ancient association between Mars and Venus, war and love–the arrows of Cupid. The way that intense love, particularly when unrequited, can feel like a kind of trauma. When Romeo overhears his friends mocking him because of his obsession with Rosaline, he says (to himself and the audience) "They jest at scars who never felt a wound." But he felt the wound, deeply–and yet rather than recoil from this trauma, he found himself drawn ever closer. The connection between the young man's "spurt of fluid" and the dying soldier's gush of blood is then too easy to pass up–and certainly any ancient reader of Homer would have been accustomed to imagining such violent scenes.

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Now the son of Tydeus was in pursuit of the Cyprian goddess [Aphrodite], spear in hand, for he knew her to be feeble and not one of those goddesses that can lord it among men in battle like Athena or Enyo the waster of cities, and when at last after a long chase he caught her up, he flew at her and thrust his spear into the flesh of her delicate hand. The point tore through the ambrosial robe which the Graces had woven for her, and pierced the skin between her wrist and the palm of her hand, so that the immortal blood, or ichor, that flows in the veins of the blessed gods, came pouring from the wound...Diomedes shouted out as he left her, "Daughter of Zeus, leave war and battle alone, can you not be contented with beguiling silly women? If you meddle with fighting you will get what will make you shudder at the very name of war."

Iliad, translated by Samuel Butler

The poet W. B. Yeats was a great lover of Lucretius, and his commentary on this passage about love is often found separated from its Lucretian context; "The tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul." Our bodies touch, but we can never be close enough to satisfy the desire that love instills.

I haven't finished listening, but I am certainly enjoying it

I dislike the term "virtue-signalling", which I think is dismissive and overused, but it may have some relevance here.

What Person A says: "I think virtue is the highest good."

What Person B hears: "I am virtuous, and can be trusted to act 'morally'."

Said A. "I think pleasure is the highest good."

Heard B. "I am selfish, and plan on doing whatever I damn well please."

Now, what would I like Person B to hear?

"I'll be seeking pleasure today, if it doesn't cause too much collateral pain, or else interfere with my usual obligations; if you're not too busy, perhaps we can seek it together? How about a pleasant lunch?"

My conclusion after reading this is that my command of the source texts has seriously declined! I'm quite impressed with some of you!

If we could say for certain, for everybody and for all times and places, that:

A.) a given desire is unnatural and unnecessary, *and*

B.) That we ought not pursue unnatural and unnecessary desires,

Then we will have ipso facto established a (false) universal ethical law. Epicurus makes it plain elsewhere that there are no absolute universal ethical laws. So he cannot be saying what people think he is saying. These categories are observations to aid with the business of living, not premises to aid with the business of Logic. Maybe they're helpful, maybe they're not; from my point of view it certainly seems that they cause more confusion than anything. But one thing that is clear, or should be, is that these observations are not meant to establish by inference a series of Commandments.

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Well, I am confronted with secondary literature that all presents clear-cut answers and I am questioning some of those....

Sounds like Manuel was getting the right idea!

I came across an article the other day that heavily cited Sedley. It was highly relevant to my ongoing interest in the Epicurean geometers. I'll see if I can track it down.

https://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol14-trans/285

Actually we seem to have it in English at the same website.

That work?

Hmmm...it shows up for me, but when I switch to Incognito mode I just get a bad link. I'll try to edit the post and see what happens.

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For anyone who is not completely submerged in the spirit of our age, who feels instead like a spectator as the world goes past him, especially, from time to time, vis-à-vis the intellectual attitudes of his contemporaries — on him will Lucretius’s poem work its magic

I don't know anything more about this quote than can be found here, but it might be worth looking in to!

Ha! I suspected someone here must have seen it already. I don't spend much time on the fine-art side of things.

And if you're not familiar with the painter, this should give some hint as to his legacy!

I had not heard of this work before. It was done as an illustration for Thomas Moore's "The Epicurean". Coming from a pre-eminent English painter remembered for his haunting portrayals of the force, power, and grandeur of Nature, this piece strikes me as an uncharacteristic nod to the balance of classical harmonies. I have not read this book, but I do mention it Here.

When we studied Turner in college as part of British Romanticism, it was his nautical paintings we looked at. You can find a gallery representative of his work on the Wikipedia page.

Although it occurs to me now that I haven't even taken Lucretius into account. 🤔

Since we're on the subject, I did recently have a conversation with a young man from Texas who tells me that cow udders are a delicacy in those parts. With a decent bottle of red, one, though of modest means, might nevertheless dine like an aristocrat.

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If you miss udders and draughts of Chian wine, you will see at least sincere friends and you will hear things far sweeter than the land of the Phaeacians. But if you ever cast your eyes on me, Piso, we shall celebrate the twentieth richly instead of simply.

-Philodemus

Going from memory, I believe that bread and water (Diogenes Laertius) and a 'pot of cheese' (Usener) will round out the attested fare.