#plutarch — Public Fediverse posts

https://www.europesays.com/africa/181204/ Work by ‘lost’ philosopher referenced by Plato and Aristotle discovered in Egypt #AncientGreekPhilosopher #Aristotle #Egypt #Empedocles #NathanCarlig #philosopher #Plutarch

People have been “thinking vegan” for a long time! 🕰️ #plutarch #philosophy #philosopher

Max Dehn (1878–1952) said that Archimedes’ (c.287–212 BCE) discovery that the surface area of a sphere was four times its great circle was the one of the most beautiful results of Greek mathematics.

Archimedes himself had a high opinion of this result and two others in his two books ‘On the Sphere and the Cylinder’: that the volume and surface area of a sphere and a cylinder exactly circumscribing it are in the ratio $2 : 3$. One can add a cone fitting inside the cylinder to have ratios $1 : 2 : 3$ (see 1st attached image).

It has been suggested that Archimedes’ conjectures for these ratios may have been guided by a conscious or unconscious search for beautiful integer ratios between geometric configurations. There is no direct evidence for this motivation, but Archimedes’ work seems to exhibit a preference for small integer ratios.

According to Plutarch, Archimedes desired that his tomb should be marked by a cylinder enclosing a sphere and an inscription of the ratio of the one to the other; Cicero related how he had sought out Archimedes’ tomb and found a column just so inscribed (see 2nd attached image).

[Each day of February, I intend to post an interesting story/image/fact/anecdote related to the aesthetics of mathematics.]

1/2

#MathematicalBeauty #HistMath #Archimedes #Plutarch #Cicero #geometry #aesthetics

Plutarch could be writing today: “They exulted in monstrous insolence, and reaped from their strength a harvest of cruelty and bitterness, mastering and forcing and destroying everything that came in their path. And as for reverence and righteousness, justice and humanity, they thought that most men praised these qualities for lack of courage to do wrong and for fear of being wronged, and considered them no concern of men who were strong enough to get the upper hand.”

#Plutarch #USpol

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 15/

But when Lysander robbed them of their freedom, and handed the city over to thirty men, then, their cause being lost, their eyes were opened to the course they would not take when salvation was yet in their power.

They sorrow­fully rehearsed all their mistakes and follies, the greatest of which they considered to be their outburst of wrath against Alcibiades.

[Section 38]

#PoliticalRegret

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 14/

And it would seem that if ever a man was ruined by his own exalted reputation, that man was Alcibiades.

His continuous successes gave him such repute for unbounded daring and sagacity, that when he failed in anything, men suspected his inclination; they would not believe in his inability.

Were he only inclined to do a thing, they thought, naught could escape him.

[Section 35]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 13/

For now he had taken the city when she was almost banished from the sea, when on land she was hardly mistress of her own suburbs, and when factions raged within her walls, and had raised her up from this wretched and lowly plight, not only restoring her dominion over the sea, but actually rendering her victorious over her enemies everywhere on land.

[Section 32]

#DefeatTurnsIntoVictory
#resistance

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 12/

[Alcibiades plays double and trebble bluffs and manages to get himself installed as general of the Athenian army in Samos and external leader of the opposition group back home in Athens.]

An ordinary man, thus suddenly raised to great power by the favour of the multitude, would have been full of complaisance, thinking that he must at once gratify them in all things and oppose them in nothing, since they had made him, instead of a wandering exile, leader and general of such a fleet and of so large an armed force.

But Alcibiades, as became a great leader, felt that he must oppose them in their career of blind fury, and prevented them from making a fatal mistake.

For had they sailed off home, their enemies might at once have occupied all Ionia & the Hellespont without a battle, while Athenians were fighting Athenians and making their own city the seat of war. Such a war Alcibiades prevented.

[Section 26]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 11/

Alcibiades's versatility and surpassing cleverness were the admiration of the Barbarian [Tissaphernes], who was no straightforward man himself, but malicious and fond of evil company.

And indeed no disposition could resist and no nature escape Alcibiades, so full of grace was his daily life and conversation. Even those who feared and hated him felt a rare and winning charm in his society and presence. And thus it was that Tissaphernes, though otherwise the most ardent of the Persians in his hatred of the Hellenes, so completely surrendered to the flatteries of Alcibiades as to outdo him in reciprocal flatteries.

[Section 24]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 10/

[Alcibiades betrays, first his native Athens to Sparta, then Athens and Sparta to Persia.]

He had one power which transcended all others, and proved an implement of his chase for men: that of assimilating and adapting himself to the pursuits and lives of others, thereby assuming more violent changes than the chameleon.

In Sparta, he was all for bodily training, simplicity of life, and severity of countenance; in Ionia, for luxurious ease and pleasure; and when he was thrown with Tissaphernes the satrap, he outdid even Persian magnificence in his pomp and lavishness.

It was not that he could so easily pass entirely from one manner of man to another, nor that he actually underwent in every case a change in his real character; but when he saw that his natural manners were likely to be annoying to his associates, he was quick to assume any counterfeit exterior which might in each case be suitable for them.

[Section 23] #TheWayOfTheTraitor

"Many were they who sat in the palaestras and lounging-places mapping out in the sand the shape of Sicily and the position of Libya and Carthage."

In one single image, Plutarch lays bare how an imperialist society goes into immediate war fever, once the prospect of expansion is in the air.

Armchair generals, sitting in their lounging-places, "... mapping out in the sand the shape of Sicily and the position of Libya and Carthage."

What an image! We know this exact same phenomenon from many modern episodes, for instance from the immediate pre-war period in 1914. (The final parts of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain give a precise depiction of the intellectual reflections of the 1914 craze.)

#Plutarch #Alcibiades #WarFever #Imperialism #ArmchairGenerals

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 9/

So while Nicias was trying to divert the people from the capture of Syracuse as an undertaking too difficult for them, Alcibiades was dreaming of Carthage and Libya, and, after winning these, of at once encompassing Italy and Peloponnesus. He almost regarded Sicily as the ways and means provided for his greater war.

The young men were at once carried away on the wings of such hopes, and their elders kept recounting in their ears many wonder­ful things about the projected expedition. Many were they who sat in the palaestras and lounging-places mapping out in the sand the shape of Sicily and the position of Libya and Carthage.

Socrates the philosopher, however, and Meton the astrologer, are said to have had no hopes that any good would come to the city from this expedition.

[Section 17]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 8/

On Sicily the Athenians had cast longing eyes even while Pericles was living; and after his death they actually tried to lay hands upon it.

The lesser expeditions which they sent thither from time to time, ostensibly for the aid and comfort of their allies on the island who were being wronged by the Syracusans, they regarded merely as stepping stones to the greater expedition of conquest.

But the man who finally fanned this desire of theirs into flame, and persuaded them not to attempt the island any more in part and little by little, but to sail thither with a great armament and subdue it utterly, was Alcibiades; he persuaded the people to have great hopes, and he himself had greater aspirations still.

Such were his hopes that he regarded Sicily as a mere beginning, and not, like the rest, as an end of the expedition.

[Section 17]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 7/

But all this statecraft and eloquence and lofty purpose and cleverness was attended with great luxuriousness of life, with wanton drunkenness and lewdness, and with prodigal expenditures.

The reputable men of the city looked on all these things with loathing and indignation, and feared his contemptuous and lawless spirit. They thought such conduct as his tyrant-like and monstrous.

How the common folk felt towards him has been well set forth by Aristophanes⁠ in these words:—

"It yearns for him, and hates him too, but wants him back;"

and again, veiling a yet greater severity in his metaphor:–

"A lion is not to be reared within the state; But, once you've reared him up, consult his every mood."

[Section 16]

#WeKnowTheType

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 6/

Alcibiades once wished to see Pericles, and went to his house. But he was told that Pericles could not see him; he was studying how to render his accounts to the Athenians. "Were it not better for him," said Alcibiades, as he went away, "to study how not to render his accounts to the Athenians?"

[Section 7]

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#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 5/

He learned how great were his deficiencies and how incomplete his excellence.

[Section 6]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 4/

And he came to think that the work of Socrates was really a kind of provision of the gods for the care and salvation of youth.

Thus, by despising himself, admiring his friend, loving that friend's kindly solicitude and revering his excellence, he insensibly acquired an "image of love," as Plato says,⁠ "to match love," and all were amazed to see him eating, exercising, and tenting with Socrates,⁠ while he was harsh and stubborn with the rest of his lovers.

[Section 4]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 3/

And so it was that Alcibiades, although he was pampered from the very first, and was prevented by the companions who sought only to please him from giving ear to one who would instruct and train him, nevertheless, through the goodness of his parts, at last saw all that was in Socrates, and clave to him, putting away his rich and famous lovers.

[Section 4]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 2/

It was not long before many men of high birth clustered about him and paid him their attentions. Most of them were plainly smitten with his brilliant youthful beauty and fondly courted him.

But it was the love which Socrates had for him that bore strong testimony to the boy's native excellence and good parts. These Socrates saw radiantly manifest in his outward person, and, fearful of the influence upon him of wealth and rank and the throng of citizens, foreigners and allies who sought to preëmpt his affections by flattery and favour, he was fain to protect him, and not suffer such a fair flowering plant to cast its native fruit to perdition.

For there is no man whom Fortune so envelops and compasses about with the so‑called good things of life that he cannot be reached by the bold and caustic reasonings of philosophy, and pierced to the heart.

[Section 4]

#Plutarch #ParallelLives
#Alcibiades 1/

As a boy, Alcibiades was once hard pressed in wrestling, and to save himself from getting a fall, set his teeth in his opponent's arms, where they clutched him, and was like to have bitten through them. His adversary, letting go his hold, cried: "You bite, Alcibiades, as women do!" "Not I," said Alcibiades, "but as lions do."

[Section 2]

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Alcibiades*.html

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #PericlesAndFabius 2/

And it is just as great a failing in a general to involve himself in disaster from want of foresight, as it is to throw away an opportunity for success from want of confidence.

[Section 2]

(Continuing my journey through Plutarch's Parallel Lives.)

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #PericlesAndFabius 1/

Fabius,

whose eyes beheld many disgraceful defeats, many cruel deaths of imperators and generals,

lakes and plains and forests filled with with slain armies,

and rivers flowing with blood and slaughter to the sea,

put helping and supporting hands to the city, and by his firm and independent course,

prevented her from utter exhaustion through the disasters brought upon her by others.

[Section 1]

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Pericles+Fabius_Maximus*.html

#resistance #DefeatIsNeverFinal

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #FabiusMaximus 21/

Fabius, however, was not buried by the Romans at the public charge, but each private citizen contributed the smallest coin in his possession, not because Fabius's poverty called for their aid, but because the people felt that they were burying a father, whose death thus received honour and regard befitting his life.

[Section 27]

#respect

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #FabiusMaximus 20/

The son of Fabius, as it happened, died, and this affliction Fabius bore with equanimity, like a wise man and a good father.

[Section 24]

#SometimesTheAncientsSeemSoDistantToUs

#HowNotToMourn

Reading Plutarch's "Parallel Lives", not as a historian or a classicist, but as a 21st century political person in a time of retreat. I gain strength from these texts, a fresh perspective on how to stay morally intact and how to resist.

Re-posting one of my recent quotes here. Plutarch describes how the Romans managed to overcome the seemingly overwhelming forces of Hannibal, combining occasional attacks by Marcellus with permanent "stealthy hostility" by Fabius.

QUOTE:

"By his frequent encounters with Marcellus, whose course was like that of a swiftly-flowing river, Hannibal saw his forces shaken and swept away; while by Fabius, whose course was slow, noiseless, and unceasing in its stealthy hostility, they were imperceptibly worn away and consumed. And finally he was brought to such a pass that he was worn out with fighting Marcellus, and afraid of Fabius when not fighting."

Trump and Farage: watch out!

https://mastodonapp.uk/@the_roamer/115062541595451048

#resistance #Plutarch #ParallelLives

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #FabiusMaximus 19/

Fabius thought it hard that, whereas the trainers of horses and dogs relied upon care and intimacy and feeding rather than on goads and heavy collars for the removal of the animal's obstinacy, anger, and discontent, the commander of men should not base the most of his discipline on kindness and gentleness, but show more harshness and violence in his treatment of them than farmers in their treatment of wild fig-trees, wild pear-trees, and wild olive-trees, which they reclaim and domesticate till they bear luscious olives, pears, and figs.

[Section 20]

#LeadingThroughKindness #MangageByAppreciation #AppreciativeInquiry

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Pericles 16/

In his capacity as general, Pericles was famous above all things for his saving caution; he neither undertook of his own accord a battle involving much uncertainty or peril, nor did he envy and imitate those who took great risks, enjoyed brilliant good-fortune, and so were admired as great generals; and he was for ever saying to his fellow-citizens that, so far as lay in his power, they would remain alive forever and be immortals.

[Section 18]

#SavingLives #Caution #SunTzu #TheArtOfWar

#thegoodrulerrespectsandprotectshisfellowcitizens

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 10/

Some he readily persuaded to this course, and others, fearing his power, which was already great, and his boldness, chose to be persuaded rather than forced to agree to it.

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 9/

He visited them and tried to win them over to his project township by township and clan by clan. The common folk and the poor quickly answered to his summons; to the power­ful he promised government without a king and a democracy, in which he should only be commander in war and guardian of the laws, while in all else everyone should be on an equal footing.

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 8/

Theseus conceived a wonder­ful design, and settled all the residents of Attica in one city, thus making one people of one city out of those who up to that time had been scattered about and were not easily called together for the common interests of all.

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 7/

He picked out two young men of his acquaintance who had fresh and girlish faces, but eager and manly spirits, and changed their outward appearance by giving them warm baths and keeping them out of the sun, by arranging their hair, and by smoothing their skin and beautifying their complexions with unguents; he also taught them to imitate maidens in their speech, their dress, and their gait, and to leave no difference that could be observed.

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 6/

And verily it seems to be a grievous thing for a man to be at enmity with a city which has a language and a literature.

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 5/

And so in Epidauria, when Periphetes, who used a club as his weapon and on this account was called Club-bearer, laid hold of him and tried to stop his progress, he grappled with him and slew him. And being pleased with the club, he took it and made it his weapon and continued to use it, just as Heracles did with the lion's skin. And so Theseus carried the club to show that although it had been vanquished by him, in his own hands it was invincible.

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 4/

He thought it a dreadful and unendurable thing that his famous cousin should go out against the wicked everywhere and purge land and sea of them, while he himself ran away from the struggles which lay in his path, disgra­cing his reputed father​ by journeying like a fugitive over the sea, and bringing to his real father as proofs of his birth only sandals and a sword unstained with blood.

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 3/

And as for reverence and righteousness, justice and humanity, they thought that most men praised these qualities for lack of courage to do wrong and for fear of being wronged, and considered them no concern of men who were strong enough to get the upper hand.

#Plutarch #ParallelLives #Theseus 2/

For verily that age produced men who, in work of hand and speed of foot and vigour of body, were extraordinary and indefatigable, but they applied their powers to nothing that was fitting or useful. Nay rather, they exulted in monstrous insolence, and reaped from their strength a harvest of cruelty and bitterness, mastering and forcing and destroying everything that came in their path.

Here's the last Sadler's Lectures podcast episode in the series of nine on Plutarch's work How To Tell A Flatterer From A Friend, this one about the need to rationally moderate one's frankness of speech

https://soundcloud.com/gregorybsadler/plutarch-how-to-tell-a-flatterer-from-a-friend-moderating-frankness-of-speech
#Plutarch #Podcast #Friendship #Frankness #Criticism #Philosophy #Ethics

Here's the next Sadler's Lectures podcast episode on Plutarch's detour into discussion of frankness of speech in his How To Tell A Flatterer From A Friend. This one looks at how flatterers imitate real frankness

https://soundcloud.com/gregorybsadler/plutarch-how-to-tell-a-flatterer-from-a-friend-flatterers-imitation-of-frankness-of-speech
#Podcast #Plutarch #Frankness #Imitation #Criticism #Friendship #Ethics #Philosophy

We're getting to the end of the series of Sadler's Lectures podcast episodes on Plutarch's How To Tell A Flatterer From A Friend, and shifting topic now to frankness of speech (parrhēsia). Here's the first episode on that

https://soundcloud.com/gregorybsadler/plutarch-how-to-tell-a-flatterer-from-a-friend-friendship-and-frankness-of-speech
#Podcast #Plutarch #Frankness #Ethics #Criticism #Philosophy #Friendship

Continuing on with the series on Plutarch's great text How To Tell A Flatterer From A Friend, here's a video on his discussion of how flatterers imitate frankness of speech, a key element of friendship

https://youtu.be/caMnuljr3AA
#Video #Plutarch #Flattery #Friendship #Frankness

In How To Tell A Friend From A Flatterer, Plutarch gives a number of good reasons why friendship requires frankness of speech (parrhesia). But he spends equal time stressing that this doesn't mean anything goes in criticism! Legitimate limits and a sense of proportion are needed.

https://youtu.be/1Vz6fcfy9WA
#Video #Philosophy #Plutarch #Frankness #Criticism #Parrhesia #Friendship

Got up in front of the camera and the chalkboard to shoot this new core concept video on frankness of speech in Plutarch's How To Tell A Flatterer From A Friend. Feels good to get back to that work after the surgery, but it took it out of me a bit!

https://youtu.be/hHojlHd8B4s
#Frankness #Plutarch #Video #Friendship #Honesty #Criticism