segunda-feira, 31 de outubro de 2011




Os Dioscuros, quadro de Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978)

Os Dioscuros. Eu vi-os, numa praça de Roma, era de noite, levavam os cavalos pela mão. 
O seu olhar era oblíquo à passagem das raparigas, mas era um para o outro que sorriam.
Eugénio de Andrade, "De passagem", Memória doutro rio 
(Antologia Breve, Fundação Eugénio de Andrade, 6ªEd, Porto 1994, p.84)

domingo, 30 de outubro de 2011

A Escola da Guerra

And indeed civil war did inflict great suffering on the cities of Greece. It happened then and will forever continue to happen, as long as human nature remains the same, with more or less severity and taking different forms as dictated by each new permutation of circumstances. In peace and prospereous times both states and individuals observe a higher morality, when there is no forced descent into hardship: but war, which removes the comforts of daily life, runs a violent school and in most men brings out passions that reflect their condition.

Tucídides, Guerra do Peloponeso III.82
Oxford World's Classics, Oxford: 2009 (trad.: Martin Hammond)

A Materialidade dos Textos

Num mundo em que os nossos livros digitais estão armazenados numa cloud a-tópica, acessíveis em qualquer equipamento digital, seja no nosso smartphone, no tablet ou no e-reader, é demasiado fácil esquecermo-nos de que, na sua essência, os livros são objectos físicos. O estudante de Clássicas, porém, raramente se distrai desse facto: temos obras que nos chegaram num único manuscrito e é impossível não pensar o que seria se acaso também ele se tivesse perdido. Outras, por acidentes de percurso, não tiveram a mesma sorte: do Grande Hino Homérico a Diónisos, por exemplo, só temos fragmentos porque do único manuscrito conhecido que o continha caiu o fólio imediatamente anterior, deixando-nos apenas os dez últimos versos do poema (já no fólio seguinte). A materialidade dos textos não afecta apenas estes ou a nós, que os pretendemos hoje estudar. Encontrei no livro Direito Romano I: Introdução & Fontes de Sebastião Cruz (Coimbra, 1980, 3ª edição), no capítulo acerca dos diferentes períodos do Direito Romano, a seguinte passagem (pg. 49), elucidativa a este propósito, onde se explica como a mudança do suporte físico dos textos contribuiu para a diminuição da qualidade do Direito Romano (que estava já, no período em questão, em declínio): 
Característica geral da época post-clássica: confusão. Confusão de terminologia, confusão de conceitos, confusão de instituições; e, por vezes, até confusão de textos. Esta confusão ou Vulgarisierung verifica-se desde 230 a 395, e tanto no Ocidente como no Oriente. A confusão de textos, ou melhor, a corrupção dos livros clássicos é levada a cabo não só pela prática mas sobretudo pelas escolas, indo depois reflectir-se, tanto nas constituições imperiais, como mais tarde nas legislações romano-bárbaras. E é curioso notar, conforme observa D'Ors [Una Introducción al Estudios del Derecho, Madrid, 1963], que para a corrupção dos livros clássicos muito contribuiu, pelo menos de início, um factor material a que à primeira vista não se dá grande importância — a substituição, nos textos jurídicos, do volumen ou liber (rolo) pelo codex (código, isto é, livro composto de páginas, cosido por um dos lados, como temos hoje). Este novo formato material dos textos jurídicos introduz-se na vida do Direito (escolas, tribunais, chancelaria imperial, administração central e local, etc.), a partir do séc. III d.C. E como o uso, o manejo, do codex é muito mais fácil, mais rápido e mais cómodo que o do volumen, nos fins do séc. III e príncipios do séc. IV, faz-se uma reedição da literatura clássica em codices; mas, em geral, em vez de se transcreverem os textos fielmente, resumem-se, simplificam-se e até, por vezes, são introduzidas alterações, umas devidas a erros involuntários dos amanuenses, outras originadas pelos cortes voluntários ordenados pelos autores das reedições — estas, tantas vezes feitas apressadamente. É muito interessante observar que a substitutição do volumen pelo codex alcamçou tal importância na vida jurídica e na vida corrente que ainda hoje, quando se fala de «códigos» sem mais nada, entendem-se livros de direito.

sábado, 29 de outubro de 2011

Dois Ditos Sobre o Coração

So some thoughts and emotions are not up to us, nor are the actions performed in response to such thoughts and calculations, but as Philolaus said, some reasons are stronger than we are.
[ὥστε καὶ διάνοιαί τινες καὶ πάθη οὐκ ἐφ' ἡμῖν εἰσίν, ἢ πράξεις αἱ κατὰ τὰς τοιαύτας διανοίας καὶ λογισμούς, ἀλλ' ὥσπερ Φιλόλαος ἔφη εἶναί τινας λόγους κρείττους ἡμῶν.]

Filolau DK B16 (= Aristóteles,  Ética a Eudemo 1125a30-33)
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, Cambridge: 2010 (trad.: Daniel Graham)

É difícil lutar com o coração, pois paga-se com a alma.
χαλεπὸν θυμῷ μάχεσθαι· ψυχῆς γὰρ ὠνεῖται.

Heraclito DK B85 
Fragmentos Contextualizados. Lisboa, INCM: 2005. (trad.: Alexandre Costa)

sexta-feira, 28 de outubro de 2011

Poema de Tema Clássico

Casual Friday

I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers
Walt Whitman
tito
pompónio ático
que a sabedoria
desses teus velhos
livros gregos
ainda nos salve
da vida boa
sem justa medida

Gabriel Machado in Agio 1, Edições Artefacto, Fevereiro de 2011.

quarta-feira, 26 de outubro de 2011

All The World's A Stage

Velázquez, Ménipo (1639-41), @ Prado.
So as I contemplated these things, it seemed to me that human life resembles a great procession where Tyche choreographed and arranged each detail, giving different and varied roles to the performers. She would take one an get him up as a king, for example, putting on a tiara, granting him bodyguards and crowning his head with a diadem. But on another she would put the appearance of a slave. One person she makes beautiful, another ugly and contemptible — for the spectacle, I think, must have variety of all sorts. Often even during the procession itself she switched the roles of some, not letting them finish the procession as they had started. She forced Croesus to take up the gear of a slave and war-captive; Maeandrius (who till then marched as a slave) she re-clothed in the tyranny of Polycrates. And when the procession was over, each gave back his costume, took off his persona with his body and became just like he was before, no different from his neighbour. Then some, whenever Tyche demands the costumes back, in their ignorance grow angry as if they were being deprived of their own things and were not returning what they had borrowed for a short time. I imagine that you have often seen tragic actors changing due to the requirements of the play, now being Creons, now becoming Priams or Agamemnons; and the same man, for instance, just a moment ago played the figure of Cecrops or Erechtheus very grandly but a little later comes back out as a slave, when so ordered by the poet. When the drama ends, each takes off that gold-laced clothing, removes the mask, descends from the high tragic boots, and goes forth, a poor humble individual — no longer Agamemnon son of Atreus or Creon son of Menoeceus, but Polus son of Charicles from Sounion or Satyrus son of Theogeiton from Marathon. Such is the condition of human beings, as it seemed to me then.

Ménipo, em Luciano,  Necyomantia 16
em William Desmond, Cynics (pg. 182-3) 
Acumen, Stocksfield: 2006.

Elogio das Coisas Banais

Não é impressionante, Erixímaco, como em honra de tantos outros deuses há por aí hinos e cânticos compostos por poetas, e em honra do Amor, um deus tão antigo e poderoso, nenhum de vários poetas ilustres lhe fez sequer um encómio? Se te dignares voltar os olhos para os bons autores, vê-los-ás escrever elogios em prosa a Héracles e a outros, como o famoso Pródico; mas isto ainda não é o mais extraordinário: eu próprio já tive ocasião de ler uma obra de um certo sábio onde o sal era exaltado até às nuvens em razão da sua utilidade! E outras ninharias idênticas encontrarás a cada passo enaltecidas; em coisas comoe stas aplicam eles os seus esforços; quanto ao Amor, porém, verás que até ao dia de hoje ainda nenhum homem ousou dirigir-lhe um cântico condigno! E assim se põe de lado um deus tão poderoso...

Platão, Banquete 177a-c
Verbo, Lisboa: 1973 (trad.: Teresa Schiappa). 


Another genre appropriated by Cynic authors is the paignion or "play-piece". Among sophists, this could often take the form of an epideixis, showing off the cleverness of orators whose eloquence was so great that they could praise the unpraisable. So Gorgias worte an encomium of the adulterous Helen; Alcidamas wrote a praise of death; Polycrates composed encomia of pebbles, mice, Clytemnestra, a pot [...]. For the Cynics, the paignion became a light-hearted ditty with a satirical slant, praising the small and seemingly contemptible, poking fun at the grand and mighty. Thus Monimus wrote "Paignia mixed with hidden seriousness" (DL 6.83) and it is in this serio-comic (spoudogeloion) style that Crates wrote his "Praise of the Lentil Soup" and "Encomium of Cheapness" (euteleia). Dio Chrysostom worte a (lost) "Encomium of a Parrot" and a "Praise of a Gnat", as well as an "Encomium of Hair", which inspired the Antiochene bishop Synesius to respond centuries later with an "Encomium of Baldness", which is perhaps the harder task. Lucian wrote in "Praise of a Fly".

William Desmond, Cynics (pg. 126)
Acumen, Stocksfield: 2006

segunda-feira, 24 de outubro de 2011

O regresso à Europa de uma estátua de Afrodite

Following years of haggling over its provenance, a celebrated statue once identified as Aphrodite, has returned to Italy.

Not Again

Part of a Roman wall has collapsed at Pompeii, one year after a house there crumbled, prompting accusations that the Italian government has failed to keep promises to protect the ancient site. During heavy rain on Friday, an eight square metre section of a perimeter wall crumbled near Nola Gate. It is the latest in a series of incidents including the fall of the House of the Gladiators last November, which Unesco criticised and which led the government of Silvio Berlusconi to vow that upkeep would improve. "A year after the collapse of the House of the Gladiators nothing concrete has been done," Italy's national association of architects said in a statement. "There is a continued lack of ordinary maintenance, which is the only way to save the site. Our fear is that the coming months will see ever more frequent and serious incidents."

ler mais aqui.

domingo, 23 de outubro de 2011

A Thorough Education

I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek. I have been told that it was when I was three years old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of committing to memory what my father termed Vocables, being lists of common Greek words, with their signification in English, which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, I learnt no more than the inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and I faintly remember going through Aesop's Fables, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second. I learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under my father's tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon's Cyropaedia and Memorials of Socrates; some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and Isocrates' ad Demonicum and ad Nicoclem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theaetetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it. But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and English lexicons were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and Latin lexicon than could be made without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had to write during those years. [...] 

In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in conjunction with a younger sister, to whom I taught it as I went on, and who afterwards repeated the lessons to my father: and from this time, other sisters and brothers being successively added as pupils, a considerable part of my day's work consisted of this preparatory teaching. It was a part which I greatly disliked; the more so, as I was held responsible for the lessons of my pupils, in almost as full a sense as for my own: I however derived from this discipline the great advantage of learning more thoroughly and retaining more lastingly the things which I was set to teach: perhaps, too, the practice it afforded in explaining difficulties to others, may even at that age have been useful. In other respects, the experience of my boyhood is not favourable to the plan of teaching children by means of one another. The teaching, I am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, and I well knew that the relation between teacher and taught is not a good moral discipline to either. I went in this manner through the Latin grammar, and a considerable part of Cornelius Nepos and Caesar's Commentaries, but afterwards added to the superintendence of these lessons, much longer ones of my own. 

In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement in the Greek poet with the Iliad. After I had made some progress in this, my father put Pope's translation into my hands. It was the first English verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books in which for many years I most delighted: I think I must have read it from twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought it worth while to mention a taste apparently so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, observed that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant specimen of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys, as I should have expected both a priori and from my individual experience. Soon after this time I commenced Euclid, and somewhat later, algebra, still under my father's tuition. From my eighth to my twelfth year the Latin books which I remember reading were, the Bucolics of Virgil, and the first six books of the Aeneid; all Horace except the Epodes; the Fables of Phaedrus; the first five books of Livy (to which from my love of the subject I voluntarily added, in my hours of leisure, the remainder of the first decade); all Sallust; a considerable part of Ovid's Metamorphoses; some plays of Terence; two or three books of Lucretius; several of the Orations of Cicero, and of his writings on oratory; also his letters to Atticus, my father taking the trouble to translate to me from the French the historical explanations in Mongault's notes. 

In Greek I read the Iliad and Odyssey through; one or two plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, though by these I profited little; all Thucydides; the Hellenics of Xenophon; a great part of Demosthenes, AEschines, and Lysias; Theocritus; Anacreon; part of the Anthology; a little of Dionysius; several books of Polybius; and lastly Aristotle's Rhetoric, which, as the first expressly scientific treatise on any moral or psychological subject which I had read, and containing many of the best observations of the ancients on human nature and life, my father made me study with peculiar care, and throw the matter of it into synoptic tables. During this time, the Latin and Greek books which I continued to read with my father were chiefly such as were worth studying, not for the language merely, but also for the thoughts. This included much of the orators, and especially Demosthenes, some of whose principal orations I read several times over, and wrote out, by way of exercise, a full analysis of them. My father's comments on these orations when I read them to him were very instructive to me. He not only drew my attention to the insight they afforded into Athenian institutions, and the principles of legislation and government which they often illustrated, but pointed out the skill and art of the orator -- how everything important to his purpose was said at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his audience into the state most fitted to receive it; how he made steal into their minds, gradually and by insinuation, thoughts which, if expressed in a more direct manner would have aroused their opposition. Most of these reflections were beyond my capacity of full comprehension at the time; but they left seed behind, which geminated in due season.

At this time I also read the whole of Tacitus, Juvenal, and Quintilian. The latter, owing to his obscure style and to the scholastic details of which many parts of his treatise are made up, is little read, and seldom sufficiently appreciated. His book is a kind of encyclopaedia of the thoughts of the ancients on the whole field of education and culture; and I have retained through life many valuable ideas which I can distinctly trace to my reading of him, even at that early age. It was at this period that I read, for the first time, some of the most important dialogues of Plato, in particular the Gorgias, the Protagoras, and the Republic. There is no author to whom my father thought himself more indebted for his own mental culture, than Plato, or whom he more frequently recommended to young student. I can bear similar testimony in regard to myself. The Socratic method, of which the Platonic dialogues are the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for correcting the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the intellectus sibi permissus, the understanding which has made up all its bundles of associations under the guidance of popular phraseology. The close, searching elenchus by which the man of vague generalities is constrained either to express his meaning to himself in definite terms, or to confess that he does not know what he is talking about; the perpetual testing of all general statements by particular instances; the siege in from which is laid to the meaning of large abstract terms, by fixing upon some still larger class-name which includes that and more, and dividing down to the thing sought -- marking out its limits and definition by a series of accurately drawn distinctions between it and each of the cognate objects which are successively parted off from it -- all this, as an education for precise thinking, is inestimable, and all this, even at that age, took such hold of me that it became part of my own mind. I have felt ever since that the title of Platonist belongs by far better right to those who have been nourished in, and have endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation, than to those who are distinguished only by the adoption of certain dogmatical conclusions, drawn mostly from the least intelligible of his works, and which the character of his mind and writings makes it uncertain whether he himself regarded as anything more than poetic fancies, or philosophic conjectures. In going through Plato and Demosthenes, since I could now read these authors, as far as the language was concerned, with perfect ease.

John Stuart Mill, Autobiografia

sexta-feira, 21 de outubro de 2011

Ontem Como Hoje §2: O Poder & A Moda

Greek men wore beards, but Alexander seems to have done much to change this fashion, almost single-handedly. Alexander shaved, perhaps to reinforce his image as the new Achilles, perpetually young, energetic and beautiful. This set the fashion for Alexander's Macedonians, as well as for the Seleucids, Ptolemies, Antigonids and Greek elites who divided his empire. At around the same tame, the Roman elite also began to shave (according to Varro and Pliny), and from 300 BCE a clean face, or at least a short, tidy beard, was de rigueur among senators and equestrians. Even Aristotle surrendered to fashion (DL 5.1).

William Desmond, Cynics (pg. 81)
Acumen, Stocksfield: 2006.

Legend has it that JFK single-handedly killed the hat industry by being the first President not to wear a hat to his inauguration. While JFK did wear a hat en route to the ceremony, he removed it before addressing the crowd. The hat industry started to decline shortly after Kennedy’s promotion to the Oval Office, prompting many to believe he was the cause of death.

ler mais aqui.

quinta-feira, 20 de outubro de 2011

Ontem Como Hoje §1

He [Bíon de Borístenes] was a man of very expensive habits, and on this account he used to go from city to city, and at times he would contrive the most amazing devices. Accordingly, in Rhodes, he persuaded the sailors to put on the habiliments of philosophical students and follow him about; and then he made himself conspicuous by entering the gymnasium with this train of followers.

[ἦν τε πολυτελής· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πόλιν ἐκ πόλεως ἤμειβεν, ἐνίοτε καὶ φαντασίαν ἐπιτεχνώμενος. ἐν γοῦν Ῥόδῳ τοὺς ναύτας ἔπεισε σχολαστικὰς ἐσθῆτας ἀναλαβεῖν καὶ ἀκολουθῆσαι αὐτῷ· σὺν οἷς εἰσβάλλων εἰς τὸ γυμνάσιον περίβλεπτος ἦν]

Diógenes Laércio IV.53 (trad.: C. D. Yonge).



A ideia era mostrar as potencialidades da utilização dos quadros interactivos numa sala de aula. Sentadas em carteiras, cerca de uma dezena de crianças respondiam ao “professor” e faziam os exercícios descritos no quadro, com ajuda do rato ou de uma caneta especial que faz as vezes de giz. Só que para além da sala improvisada no Centro Cultural de Belém havia algo mais encenado. Os “alunos” eram crianças que tinham sido recrutadas por uma agência de casting: a NBP, num trabalho que rendeu 30 euros a cada um, de acordo com o relato feito por um dos miúdos à RTP. “A empresa propôs fazer a apresentação aqui no local para que pudéssemos todos perceber como funcionam [os quadros interactivos]”, explicou a ministra da Educação, sublinhando que esse era um pormenor muito pouco relevante perante o investimento hoje anunciado.

notícia (de 23.07.2007) retirada daqui.

3 novas versões e meia do the greatest most beloved poem of them all (à venda a partir deste mês)

Bloody but beautiful, is there a greater poem than the “Iliad”? Depicting a few weeks in the final year of the Greek siege of Troy, Homer’s epic glitters with bronze spears and the blazing sun. Rich with his famous similes and repeated expressions, it describes a war in which men can pause from fighting in order to speak of their family lineage in terms of “As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity”; in which Gods can yank warriors back by their hair or cover them in a cloud of mist if it is not yet their turn to die. It is both brutally realistic (once you have heard how Phereclus died by a spear through his right buttock into his bladder, you won’t forget it) and belonging to another world—as the Greek epithet for Homer, theois aoidos or “divine singer” suggests. It is no wonder that the “Iliad” is a text that people constantly turn back to, and continually translate.

Continuar a ler (e/ou a ouvir) aqui.

quarta-feira, 19 de outubro de 2011

Do Príncipio da Pressuposição da Estupidez Própria

De acordo com Anaxágoras, o sol é maior do que o Peloponeso [DK A42.8] (um avanço em relação a Heraclito, para quem o sol era do tamanho de um pé: DK B3). A afirmação sempre me pareceu uma especulação ingénua se não mesmo pateta, um exemplo cómico da ciência primitiva dos pré-socráticos. Esta é, claro, uma atitude arrogante e errada: não só o David Santos nos sensibilizou para a complexidade perdida do pensamento destes pioneiros, como Anaxágoras, em particular, não merece ser desconsiderado assim, ele que, por exemplo, avançou a primeira explicação correcta dos eclipses (DK A42.9-10) e ficou famoso por ter previsto a queda de um meteoro (DK A12 e Graham Axg 3). Ontem tive, de novo, a confirmação de que, de facto, é com grande humildade que nos devemos aproximar destes filósofos, cujas ideias, por absurdas, nomeadamente as físicas, que nos pareçam, escondem uma reflexão intensa e em tudo conforme às exigências da razão, trabalhando com sagácia os dados empíricos de que dispunham. Graças ao comentário de Graham à sua edição bilingue dos textos dos principais pré-socráticos, percebi finalmente o rationale por detrás da estranha afirmação de Anaxágoras em relação ao tamanho do sol. É bem possível que a sua tese resulte da observação do eclipse de 478 a.C., que cobriu o Peloponeso e foi também visto em Atenas. Seria natural que Anaxágoras deduzisse pela "sombra" da lua (que dizia ser tão grande como o Peloponeso: Graham Axg 41 = Plu. Sobre a Face... 932a) que o sol era maior do que a área que experimentou o eclipse total. O raciocínio é limpo e cauteloso. Efectivamente, há que partir do pressuposto, em tropeçando num qualquer fragmento mais esotérico, de que estes tipos sabiam o que estavam a dizer e sem dúvida não o estariam a afirmar sem uma boa causa. Ofereço recompensa a quem me ajudar a explicar a opinião de Heraclito.

Lisístrata no Magrebe

segunda-feira, 17 de outubro de 2011

Tertúlias Pré-Socráticas na Imprensa

Só no outro dia, fazendo uma pesquisa na net, descobri que tínhamos aparecido no i online. Bom ter surpresas destas.

Hume on Thucydides

The first page of Thucydides is, in my opinion, the commencement of real history. All preceding narrations are so intermixed with fable, that philosophers ought to abandon them, in a great measure, to the embellishment of poets and orators.

David Hume, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary II.XI.98
Liberty Fund, Indianopolis: 1985.

domingo, 16 de outubro de 2011

Livro UC da Semana

[o que nos interessa está a partir dos 01'40'': confesso que não esperava nunca ver este livro recomendado aqui]

Agora em Coimbra


A Minha Electra

As cenas são descoladas e aparentemente sem relação ou objectivo comum, no entanto, vão desvendando uma espécie de personagem misterioso. É como se houvesse uma inquietação latente naquela mulher, onde cada momento e cada lugar por onde passa tanto são acrescentados como anulados pelos que se seguem. Cada cena, cada passagem tem uma força estranha, uma vivência e uma certeza que se instala desde o primeiro gesto. As acções banais entre as cenas carregam a carga do que acabou de fazer, tornando essas acções, também elas, em cenas. É uma mulher que não pensa nem sente. Ela tortura-se, obriga-se, anula-se... Castiga-se a passar o tempo congeminando uma nova forma de agir, de estar, de se lamentar, de se preparar, de lutar,... de jamais se esquecer. Não há resignação, não há desistência, apenas por vezes uma espécie de falso e tranquilo abandono. Ela mostra sem pudor a sua força e a sua fraqueza, a sua nobreza e a sua humilhação. Ela é uma mulher assustadoramente presente na sua ausência. Os seus olhares para o exterior de si são os únicos indicativos da sua espera onde o tempo não existe. Ela nunca se expõe, apenas se dispõe. 

 Olga Roriz 24 de Novembro de 2009

sábado, 15 de outubro de 2011

Espartanos Fisiocratas

Todos os homens se veriam obrigados a trabalhar a terra se os produtos desta apenas lhes proporcionassem alimentação. [...] O agricultor, por si mesmo, apenas necessitaria da simples reprodução para viver. Mas a nação precisa que a terra produza o mais possível e que os produtos se transformem em riquezas. [...] Por muito fraca, dura e reduzida que fosse a subsistência que os hilotas forneciam aos espartanos, é certo que, se as terras de Esparta só produzissem o necessário para sustentar aqueles que as cultivavam, os espartanos teriam perecido ou teriam sido obrigados a expulsar os seus escravos e a cultivar eles próprios as suas terras; e, assim, ter-se-iam tornado eles próprios em hilotas, abandonando os exercícios de ginástica, as mesas comuns e a defesa da pátria.

François Quesnay, citado e traduzido por Avelãs Nunes in
Introdução à História da Ciência Económica e do Pensamento Económico (Coimbra, 2011: 90).

Breves Notas Sobre as Ligações §1

[ver a partir dos 04'52'']

He [Zenão] proved himself an excellent man in both philosophy and politics. At least his books are thought to be full of much wisdom. And when he wished to overthrow Nearchus the tyrant (some say Diomedon), he was arrested, as Heraclides says in his summary of Satyrus. When he was tortured to find out about his co-conspirators and the arms he brought to Lipara, he named all the tyrant's friends, wishing to make him feel deserted. Then  he had something to whisper in his ear about some people, he bit on to the tyrant's ear and did not let go until he was run through, suffering the same fate as the tyrant-slayer Aristogiton. But Demetrius says in Men With the Same Name that he bit off his nose. Antisthenes in the Successions says that after naming the tyrant's friends, he was asked by the tyrant if there was anyone else, and he said, "You are the one who has sinned against the city". To those present he said, "I am appalled at your cowardice, that for fear of the things which I suffer you would be slaves to a tyrant", and finally biting off his own tongue he spat it at him. The citizens being roused by this immediately stoned the tyrant to death.

Zenão DK A1 (= Diógenes Laércio 9.26-7) 
The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, Cambridge: 2010 (trad.: Daniel Graham).

sexta-feira, 14 de outubro de 2011

Mycenaean Tomb Discovered on Ionian Islet

Findings unearthed by archaeologists in the southern half of the Ionian islet of Meganisi, southeast of the holiday island of Lefkada, are of major scientific, historical and cultural value, experts said on Tuesday. Excavations in the region of Kefali over the past two years brought to light an untouched Mycenaean-era tomb. According to reports, there is evidence that archaeologists have in fact discovered a complex of Mycenaean tombs. The Teleboans island complex, where Meganisi belongs, are the remnants of a larger peninsula that existed in pre-Classical antiquity, according to archaeologists.

retirado daqui.

Shakespeare (Again)

quinta-feira, 13 de outubro de 2011

They Did It Again

E tudo, claro, por um preço insultuosamente baixo. O dos gregos não é bilingue* (o que se compreende pelo volume de páginas), mas ainda assim é suficiente para nos deixar roidinhos de inveja.


*agradecemos ao Miguel ter chamado a nossa atenção para o facto.

terça-feira, 11 de outubro de 2011

Alexander: how great?

In 51 BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who had reluctantly left his desk in Rome to become military governor of the province of Cilicia in southern Turkey, scored a minor victory against some local insurgents. As we know from his surviving letters, he was conscious that he was treading in the footsteps of a famous predecessor: “For a few days,” he wrote to his friend Atticus, “we were encamped in exactly the same place that Alexander occupied when he was fighting Darius at Issus”—hastily conceding that Alexander was in fact “a rather better general that you or I.”

Artigo de Mary Beard. Continuar a ler aqui.

Händel: 'Cipião' (Abertura & Marcha)

Qualcuno Che Sia Della Antichità Tanto Amatore

Both this discourse and what we have said elsewhere many times before show how greatly the mode of conduct in republics of the present differs from that in republics of ancient times. Thus, we see miraculous losses and miraculous gains every day, because when men possess little of that exceptional ability, fortune shows her power all the more; and because fortune is changeable, republics and states often change, and they will continue to change until someone rises up which is so devoted to antiquity that he will regulate fortune in such a way that she will have no cause to demonstrate, with every revolution of the sun, how powerful she can be. 

Vedesi, pertanto, e per questo discorso, e per quello che più volte abbiamo altrove detto, quanta diversità sia, dal modo del procedere delle republiche presenti, a quello delle antiche. Vedesi ancora, per questo, ogni dì, miracolose perdite e miracolosi acquisti. Perché, dove gli uomini hanno poca virtù, la fortuna mostra assai la potenza sua; e, perché la è varia, variano le republiche e gli stati spesso; e varieranno sempre, infino che non surga qualcuno che sia della antichità tanto amatore, che la regoli in modo, che la non abbia cagione di mostrare, a ogni girare di sole, quanto ella puote. 

Maquiavel, Discourses on Livy 2.30 
Oxford University Press, Oxford: 1997 (trad.: Julia & Peter Bondanella).

domingo, 9 de outubro de 2011

Plutarco, Shakespeare, Ralph Fiennes

A biografia por Plutarco, que inspirou a peça de Shakespeare, 
pode ser lida aqui, na tradução de Nuno Simões Rodrigues.