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The Lion of Chaeronea

@lionofchaeronea / lionofchaeronea.tumblr.com

A blog dedicated to classical antiquity, poetry, and the visual arts. All translations of Greek and Latin are my own unless otherwise noted.
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A Presocratic's View of Godhead

One god, supreme among gods and humankind, Akin to mortals in neither form nor mind. εἷς θεός, ἔν τε θεοῖσι καὶ ἀνθρώποισι μέγιστος, οὔτι δέμας θνητοῖσιν ὁμοίιος οὐδὲ νόημα. -Xenophanes of Colophon, fr. 170 KRS
#classics#tagamemnon#Greek#Greek language#Ancient Greek#Ancient Greek language#translation#Greek translation#Ancient Greek translation#poem#poetry#poetry in translation#Xenophanes#ancient philosophy#Presocratics#couplet#dactylic hexameter#Ancient Greece#Archaic Greece
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On the Permanence of the Cosmos

Empedocles of Acragas, fr. 350 KRS (=Plutarch, Against Colotes 1111F) Note: Empedocles’ word for “coming-to-be” is physis. Though its most common meaning in classical and later Greek is simply “nature”, its root etymology expresses the idea of growth. (Plutarch cites these lines to highlight Empedocles’ unusual use of the term.) And I shall tell you something else too: Of not a single one of mortal things Is there coming-to-be, nor is there any End made up of ruinous death. But all that exists is mixing together And separation of things mixed – Which among humans is dubbed “coming-to-be”. ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω: φύσις οὐδενὸς ἔστιν ἑκάστου θνητῶν, οὐδέ τις οὐλομένη θανάτοιο τελεύτη: ἀλλὰ μόνον μῖξίς τε διάλλαξίς τε μιγέντων ἔστι, φύσις δ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖς ὀνομάζεται ἀνθρώποισι.

Cosmos, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1902

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The Impiety of the Poets

Xenophanes of Colophon, fr. 166 KRS (=Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9.193) Homer and Hesiod placed upon the gods All things that mean fault and reproach among humans: Stealing, cuckolding, deceiving each other. πάντα θεοῖς ἀνέθηκαν Ὅμηρός θ’ Ἡσίοδός τε ὅσσα παρ’ ἀνθρώποισιν ὀνείδεα καὶ ψόγος ἐστίν, κλέπτειν μοιχεύειν τε καὶ ἀλλήλους ἀπατεύειν.

Hephaestus sets a trap for his wife Aphrodite and her lover Ares. Tapestry in the Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro, Coimbra, Portugal. Photo credit: Joseolgon/Wikimedia Commons.

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The Elements of the Cosmos

Empedocles of Acragas, fr. 393 KRS (=Aristotle, Metaphysics 3.1000b6)

For it is by means of earth that we see earth; By water we see water, shining air By means of air; destructive fire By means of fire; love by means of love, And strife we see by means of baneful strife. γαίῃ μὲν γάρ...γαῖαν ὀπώπαμεν, ὕδατι δ᾽ ὕδωρ, αἰθέρι δ᾽ αἰθέρα δῖον, ἀτὰρ πυρὶ πῦρ ἀΐδηλον, στοργὴν δὲ στοργῇ, νεῖκος δέ τε νείκεϊ λυγρῷ.

Empedocles, illustration by an unknown artist from Thomas Stanley's History of Philosophy, 1655

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Current nonfiction reading is James Warren's excellent book Presocratics, part of the Ancient Philosophies series from the University of California Press. I studied the Presocratics my very first term in grad school, back when I was a stubborn twit who insisted that "philosophy has no real value"; in fact, I only took the course to fulfill a requirement. Now, all these years later, I realize how wrong I was. The Presocratic philosophers -- especially Heraclitus and Parmenides -- were men of stunning brilliance who used time-honored literary forms to express radically new, world-shattering ideas. If I had to do it all over again, they would be the subject of my doctoral dissertation, I think.

#personal#current reading#ancient philosophy#presocratics
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Epitaph for a Presocratic Philosopher

Anthologia Palatina 7.94 (author and date unknown) Here lies one who came closest to the bounds Of truth about the heavens above: Anaxagoras. ἐνθάδε, πλεῖστον ἀληθείας ἐπὶ τέρμα περήσας οὐρανίου κόσμου, κεῖται Ἀναξαγόρας.

Anaxagoras, Jusepe de Ribera, 1636

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A Presocratic Dose of Skepticism

Xenophanes, fr. 15 Diels-Kranz But if cattle and horses and lions had hands To write with and carry out the works that men do, Horses would draw their gods’ forms just like horses And cattle like cattle, and they’d make their bodies Of just the same sort that each one had his shape. ἀλλ᾽ εἰ χεῖρας ἔχον βόες <ἵπποι τ᾽> ἠὲ λέοντες ἢ γράψαι χείρεσσι καὶ ἔργα τελεῖν ἅπερ ἄνδρες, ἵπποι μέν θ᾽ ἵπποισι βόες δέ τε βουσὶν ὁμοίας καί <κε> θεῶν ἰδέας ἔγραφον καὶ σώματ᾽ ἐποίουν τοιαῦθ᾽ οἷόν περ καὐτοὶ δέμας εἶχον <ἕκαστοι>.

Xenophanes (from Thomas Stanley, The history of philosophy: containing the lives, opinions, actions and Discourses of the Philosophers of every Sect, illustrated with effigies of divers of them [1655])

#classics#tagamemnon#Greek#Ancient Greek#Greek language#Ancient Greek language#translation#Greek translation#Ancient Greek translation#poem#poetry#Xenophanes#dactylic hexameter#ancient philosophy#Ancient Greece#Presocratics#Greek philosophy#Ancient Greek philosophy
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Epitaph for a Presocratic Philosopher

Anthologia Palatina 7.94 = Diogenes Laertius (prob. 3rd cent. CE) Here lies the one who drove the farthest Toward the finish-line of truth Concerning the cosmos up above: Anaxagoras.  Ἐνθάδε πλεῖστον ἀληθείας ἐπὶ τέρμα περήσας      οὐρανίου κόσμου κεῖται Ἀναξαγόρας.

Anaxagoras, Giovan Battista Langetti, ca. 1660

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An Epitaph for Democritus

Anthologia Palatina 7.59 = Julianus Aegyptius (6th cent. CE) Receive, o blessed Pluto, Democritus, So that, though lord of those who never smile, You may claim as your lot a man who laughs. Πλούτων, δέξο, μάκαρ, Δημόκριτον, ὥς κεν ἀνάσσων     αἰὲν ἀμειδήτων καὶ γελόωντα λάχοις.

Democritus with a Skull, circle of Jan Cossiers (1600-1671)

#classics#tagamemnon#Ancient Greek#Ancient Greece#poem#poetry#translation#poetry in translation#ancient history#ancient philosophy#Democritus#Presocratics#epigram#epitaph#couplet#elegiac couplets#Julianus Aegyptius#late antiquity#Byzantine Empire#Byzantine poetry#Anthologia Palatina#Palatine Anthology#Anthologia Graeca#Greek Anthology#Jan Cossiers
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