“
A glorious place, a glorious age, I tell you! A very Neon renaissance - And the myths that actually touched you at that time - not Hercules, Orpheus, Ulysses and Aeneas - but Superman, Captain Marvel, and Batman.
”
”
Tom Wolfe
“
But the queen--too long she has suffered the pain of love,
hour by hour nursing the wound with her lifeblood,
consumed by the fire buried in her heart. [...]
His looks, his words, they pierce her heart and cling--
no peace, no rest for her body, love will give her none.
”
”
Virgil (The Aeneid)
“
So Aeneas pleaded, his face streaming tears.
Three times he tried to fling his arms around his neck,
three times he embraced--nothing...the phantom
sifting through his fingers,
light as wind, quick as a dream in flight.
”
”
Virgil (The Aeneid)
“
Duty bound, Aeneas, though he struggled with desire to calm and comfort her in all her pain, to speak to her and turn her mind from grief, and though he sighed his heart out, shaken still with love if her, yet took the course heaven gave him and turned back to the fleet.
”
”
Virgil (The Aeneid)
“
So ran the speech. Burdened and sick at heart,
He feigned hope in his look, and inwardly
Contained his anguish. […]
Aeneas, more than any, secretly
Mourned for them all
”
”
Virgil (The Aeneid)
“
the dank night is sweeping down from the sky
and the setting stars incline our heads to sleep.
”
”
Virgil
“
You must all swear to me that you will protect my sister and her child. If Helen and her line of daughters die, there will be nothing on Earth for me to love,” she said, her eyes falling apologetically on her son, Aeneas, for a moment before they hardened against him. He dropped his head with a wounded look, and Aphrodite turned to Hector.
“As long as my sister and her line of daughters lasts, there will be love in the world. I swear it on the River Styx. But if you let my sister die, Hector of Troy, son of Apollo, I will leave this world and take love itself away with me.
”
”
Josephine Angelini (Goddess (Starcrossed, #3))
“
By the way, don't 'weep inwardly' and get a sore throat. If you must weep, weep: a good honest howl! I suspect we - and especially, my sex - don't cry enough now-a-days. Aeneas and Hector and Beowulf, Roland and Lancelot blubbered like schoolgirls, so why shouldn't we?
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 - 1963)
“
There's a saying," Aeneas said: "Keep an eye on Greeks when they offer gifts." He spoke wryly. "Horses, particularly.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (Lavinia)
“
Aenea heard the music of the spheres. She resonated with the Void Which Binds, which resonates in turn to sentient life and thought, and then she used the almost illimitable energy of the Void to … to take the first step.
”
”
Dan Simmons (The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4))
“
The signs of the old flame, I know them well.
I pray that the earth gape deep enough to take me down
or the almighty Father blast me with one bolt to the shades,
the pale, glimmering shades in hell, the pit of night,
before I dishonor you, my conscience, break your laws.
”
”
Virgil
“
That’s what writers and artists and creators do, boy. Listen to the Void and try to hear dead folks’ thoughts. Feel their pain. The pain of living folks too. Finding a muse is just an artist or holy man’s way of getting a foot in the Void Which Binds’ front door. Aenea knew that. You should have too.
”
”
Dan Simmons (The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4))
“
I recognize the vestiges of an old flame
”
”
Virgil
“
The Julius Caesars are directly descended from the goddess Venus through her grandson Iulus, son of her son Aeneas.
”
”
Colleen McCullough (The First Man in Rome (In the Masters of Rome #1))
“
Meanwhile Aeneas the True longed to allay her grief and dispel her sufferings with kind words. yet he remained obedient to the divine command, and with many a sigh, for he was shaken to the depths by the strength of his love, returned to his ships.
”
”
Virgil (The Aeneid)
“
Aeneas' mother is a star?"
"No; a goddess."
I said cautiously, "Venus is the power that we invoke in spring, in the garden, when things begin growing. And we call the evening star Venus."
He thought it over. Perhaps having grown up in the country, among pagans like me, helped him understand my bewilderment. "So do we, he said. "But Venus also became more...With the help of the Greeks. They call her Aphrodite...There was a great poet who praised her in Latin. Delight of men and gods, he called her, dear nurturer. Under the sliding star signs she fills the ship-laden sea and the fruitful earth with her being; through her the generations are conceived and rise up to see the sun; from her the storm clouds flee; to her the earth, the skillful maker, offers flowers. The wide levels of the sea smile at her, and all the quiet sky shines and streams with light..."
It was the Venus I had prayed to, it was my prayer, though I had no such words. They filled my eyes with tears and my heart with inexpressible joy.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (Lavinia)
“
I am Aeneas, duty-bound, and known
Above high air of heaven by my fame. -AM #CymruAMbyth
”
”
Aeneas Middleton
“
Hector had no virtue?” “Of course he did. He won all his battles, till the last one.” “We all do,” Aeneas remarked.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (Lavinia)
“
Then answered her son, who turns the stars in the sky:
'What way art thou bending fate, Mother? What dost thou ask
For these thy ships? May vessels built by the hands
Of mortal men claim an immortal right?
Is Aeneas to pass, sure of the outcome, through dangers
When nothing is sure? To what god is such power allowed?
”
”
Virgil (The Aeneid)
“
I remember Aeneas’ words as I remember the poet’s words. I remember every word because they are the fabric of my life, the warp I am woven on. All my life since Aeneas’ death might seem a weaving torn out of the loom unfinished, a shapeless tangle of threads making nothing, but it is not so; for my mind returns as the shuttle returns always to the starting place, finding the pattern, going on with it. I was a spinner, not a weaver, but I have learned to weave.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (Lavinia)
“
Aenea nodded. “It’s wonderful to preserve tradition, but a healthy organism evolves … culturally and physically.
”
”
Dan Simmons (The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4))
“
This is all too important.” Aenea smiled. “It’s all too important. That’s the damned problem, isn’t it?” She turned her face back to the stars.
”
”
Dan Simmons (The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4))
“
Not even need and love can defeat fate, Lavinia. Aeneas' gift is to know his fate, what he must do, and do it. In spite of need. In spite of love.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (Lavinia)
“
I take courage,” Aeneas said. “Here too there are tears for things, and hearts are touched by the fate of all that is mortal.
”
”
Edith Hamilton (Mythology)
“
May the world near and far dread the sons of Aeneas, and if there be land that feared not Rome, may it love Rome instead.
”
”
Ovid
“
Up until relatively recently, creating original characters from scratch wasn't a major part of an author's job description. When Virgil wrote The Aeneid, he didn't invent Aeneas; Aeneas was a minor character in Homer's Odyssey whose unauthorized further adventures Virgil decided to chronicle. Shakespeare didn't invent Hamlet and King Lear; he plucked them from historical and literary sources. Writers weren't the originators of the stories they told; they were just the temporary curators of them. Real creation was something the gods did.
All that has changed. Today the way we think of creativity is dominated by Romantic notions of individual genius and originality, and late-capitalist concepts of intellectual property, under which artists are businesspeople whose creations are the commodities they have for sale.
”
”
Lev Grossman
“
He looks like he spends his day crushing warriors under the shield of Aeneas. Muscles band his arms and neck. Thick, lustrous hair falls in blue-black waves along his cheeks, his eyes a speckled tan, nestled deep. His olive skin is smooth and unmarred, except where thick stubble shades his jawline. Even his stubble looks like it could take me in a fight.
”
”
Eliot Schrefer (The Darkness Outside Us (The Darkness Outside Us, #1))
“
Aeneas comes to her court a suppliant, impoverished and momentarily timid. He is a good-looking man. If anything, his scars emphasize that. The aura of his divine failure wraps around him like a cloak. Dido feels the tender contempt of the strong for the unlucky, but this is mixed with something else, a hunger that worms through her bones and leaves them hollow, to be filled with fire.
”
”
Kij Johnson
“
Yet I feel like Theseus running madly through the coils of the labyrinth with horrors following at my heels and every twist bringing a new and dreaded sight. I dream and it pursues me I am sunk so far in horror heaped upon horror that I cannot taste wine or see the sun above. The world has ended and I don't know why I yet Live
”
”
Jo Graham (Black Ships (Numinous World, #1))
“
Fear is a false prophet and believes that what it fears is actually coming to pass. At night every trifling occurrence seems more terrible to the besieged, for on account of the darkness no man tells what he sees but always what he hears.
”
”
Onasander (Aeneas Tacticus, Asclepiodotus, and Onasander (Loeb Classical Library, No. 156))
“
She predicted the fall of Troy. She foresaw the rise of Alexander the Great. She advised Aeneas on where he should establish the colony that would one day become Rome. But did the Romans listen to all her advice, like Watch out for emperors, Don't go crazy with the gladiator stuff or Togas are not a good fashion statement? No. No, they didn't.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo, #3))
“
According to widely accepted mythology Elizabethans considered themselves descended from the Romans through another Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas.
”
”
David Bevington (The Complete Works of Shakespeare)
“
Of this trinity of classic heroes - Ulysses, Aeneas, and Achilles - Ulysses is the least obnoxious.
”
”
William A. Quayle (A Hero and Some Other Folks)
“
Arma Virumque Cano (I sing of arms and of man) -The Aeneid
”
”
Aeneas Middleton
“
One speech in't I chiefly loved.
T'was Aeneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially when he speaks of Priam's slaughter.
If it live in your memory, begin at this line
”
”
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
“
Aeneas and Hector and Beowulf and Roland and Lancelot blubbered like school-girls, so why shouldn't we?
”
”
C.S. Lewis (Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis)
“
Toward more life,” said Aenea. “Life likes life. It’s pretty much that simple. But more amazingly, nonlife likes life as well … and wants to get into it.
”
”
Dan Simmons (The Rise of Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #4))
“
Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity.” “Empathy,” Aenea said softly.
”
”
Dan Simmons (Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #3))
“
Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity.” “Empathy,” Aenea said softly. Father Glaucus turned his blind eyes in her direction. “Precisely, my dear.
”
”
Dan Simmons (Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #3))
“
Diffugere Nives
Horace, Odes, iv, 7
The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
The river to the river-bed withdraws,
And altered is the fashion of the earth.
The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear
And unapparelled in the woodland play.
The swift hour and the brief prime of the year
Say to the soul, Thou wast not born for aye.
Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of spring
Treads summer sure to die, for hard on hers
Comes autumn with his apples scattering;
Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs.
But oh, whate'er the sky-led seasons mar,
Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams;
Come we where Tullus and where Ancus are
And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams.
Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add
The morrow to the day, what tongue has told?
Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had
The fingers of no heir will ever hold.
When thou descendest once the shades among,
The stern assize and equal judgment o'er,
Not thy long lineage nor thy golden tongue,
No, nor thy righteousness, shall friend thee more.
Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,
Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;
And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chain
The love of comrades cannot take away.
”
”
A.E. Housman
“
Despairing Dido, queen of ancient Carthage, slain by her own hand as her magnificent lover Aeneas lifts anchor and sails away forever: this is one of the most haunting and permanent images of the classical world.
”
”
Thomas Cahill (How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History Book 1))
“
Why therefore should we hesitate any longer to grant to it the movement which accords naturally with its firm, rather than put the whole world in a commotion—the world whose limits we do not and cannot know? And why not admit that the appearance of daily revolution belongs to the heavens but the reality belongs to the Earth? And things are as when Aeneas said in Virgil: “ We sail out of the harbor, and the land and the cities move away.” Page 23
”
”
Nicolaus Copernicus (On The Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres (On the Shoulders of Giants))
“
Our dreams drive us so. One after another. Jasmine sprung bravely from the fertile soil of our suffering. And who can live without dreams? Who loves their brief, sweet passage? Dum vivimus, vivimus. While we live, let us live.
”
”
David B. Lentz (Bourbon Street: The Dreams of Aeneas in Dixie)
“
What indeed is more pitiful than a piteous person who has no pity for himself? I could weep over the death Dido brought upon herself out of love for Aeneas, yet I shed no tears over the death I brought upon myself by not loving you.
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
“
Show yourselves men my friends, and keep a stout heart. Think of your honour. With all men’s eyes upon you it is a shame to be a coward. He that fights and will not run may live to see another sun. He that runs and will not fight is bound to die and serves him right.
”
”
Homer (Iliad)
“
Portia we can admire because, having seen her leave her Earthly Paradise to do a good deed in this world (one notices, incidentally, that in this world she appears in disguise), we know that she is aware of her wealth as a moral responsibility, but the other inhabitants of Belmont, Bassanio, Gratiano, Lorenzo and Jessica, for all their beauty and charm, appear as frivolous members of a leisure class, whose carefree life is parasitic upon the labors of others, including usurers. When we learn that Jessica has spent fourscore ducats of her father’s money in an evening and bought a monkey with her mother’s ring, we cannot take this as a comic punishment for Shylock’s sin of avarice; her behavior seems rather an example of the opposite sin of conspicuous waste. Then, with the example in our minds of self-sacrificing love as displayed by Antonio, while we can enjoy the verbal felicity of the love duet between Lorenzo and Jessica, we cannot help noticing that the pairs of lovers they recall, Troilus and Cressida, Aeneas and Dido, Jason and Medea, are none of them examples of self-sacrifice or fidelity. […] Belmont would like to believe that men and women are either good or bad by nature, but Antonio and Shylock remind us that this is an illusion; in the real world, no hatred is totally without justification, no love totally innocent.
”
”
W.H. Auden (The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays)
“
in their supposed innocence of and opposition to empire, have become the mythic progenitors of the United States—almost as improbably as Solomon was of Ethiopia or Aeneas of Rome or his suppositious brother, Brut, of Britain. But almost everything most Americans think about the Plymouth colonists of 1620 is false. The truth is more credible. The first colonists in Massachusetts, exchanging accusations of “bestial, yea, diabolical affectations,” were as divided and conflicted as people usually are when fate flings them together. Their leaders did not seek
”
”
Felipe Fernández-Armesto (Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States)
“
In his stories, his memories, and above all in his dreams, the father in The Road is visited as poignantly and dreadfully as Odysseus or Aeneas by ghosts, by the gibbering shades of the former world that populate the gray sunless hell which he and his son are daily obliged to harrow.
”
”
Michael Chabon (The Road)
“
Laughter-loving Aphrodite answered her, “I was wounded by the son of Tydeus, that arrogant Diomedes, because I took my dear son from the battle— my son Aeneas, whom I love the most of anyone by far. The violent fighting is now no longer Trojans against Greeks. 380 510 The Greeks are fighting the immortal gods!
”
”
Homer (The Iliad)
“
Cymru AM byth (Wales forever)
”
”
Aeneas Middleton
“
[T]he ignorant soul is unaware even of that in which another is successful, but knowledge bears additional witness to that which is well done.
”
”
Onasander (Aeneas Tacticus, Asclepiodotus, and Onasander (Loeb Classical Library, No. 156))
“
Entropy is a bitch,” I said.
“Now, now,” said Aenea from where she was leaning on the terrace wall. “Entropy can be our friend.”
“When?” I said.
She turned around so that she was leaning back on her elbows. The building behind her was a dark rectangle, serving to highlight the glow of her sunburned skin. “It wears down empires,” she said. “And does in despotisms.
”
”
Dan Simmons (Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #3))
“
I could weep over the death Dido brought upon herself out of love for Aeneas, yet I shed no tears over the death I brought upon myself by not loving you. O God, you are the light of my heart, bread for the inward mouth of my soul, the virtue wedded to my mind and the innermost recesses of my thought; yet I did not love you, and breaking my troth I strayed away from you.
”
”
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
“
I remember every word because they are the fabric of my life, the warp I am woven on. All my life since Aeneas’ death might seem a weaving torn out of the loom unfinished, a shapeless tangle of threads making nothing, but it is not so; for my mind returns as the shuttle returns always to the starting place, finding the pattern, going on with it. I was a spinner, not a weaver, but I have learned to weave.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (Lavinia)
“
Come Muse migrate from Greece and Ionia,
Cross out please those immensely overpaid accounts,
That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas', Odysseus'
wanderings,
Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy
Parnassus,
Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on Jaffa's gate and on
Mount Moriah,
The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish
castles, and Italian collections,
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain
awaits, demands you.
- Song of the Exposition
”
”
Walt Whitman (The Complete Poems)
“
A Whitman által jól ismert és feudálisnak nevezett klasszikus modellekben mindig van egy központi hős — Akhilleusz, Odüsszeusz, Aeneas, Roland, Cid, Siegfried, Krisztus –, aki fölébe magasodik a neki alávetett összes többi embernek. Ez a kiváltság, gondolta Whitman, egy olyan világ tartozéka, amelyet már túlhaladtunk, vagy legalábbis szeretnénk túlhaladni: az arisztokrácia világáé. Az én hőskölteményem nem lehet ilyen: összetettebbnek kell lennie, kifejezve vagy feltételezve minden ember teljes, semmihez sem hasonlítható egyenlőségét.
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges
“
Eventually, after travelling through the underworld, Aeneas finds his father, and can ask him for advice. It’s a touching scene, and one that helps us see why Greco-Roman theology and myth might have lasted like they did: wouldn’t we all wish to be reunited with our loved ones this way? The notion that the dead are only temporarily separate from us, the other side of a door through which we too can pass, is incredibly enduring in many cultures. Isn’t the death of a beloved parent or friend easier to understand if we believe there’s a possibility that they and we might speak again some time?
”
”
Natalie Haynes (The Ancient Guide to Modern Life)
“
ACHILLES – the best fighter of the Greeks who besieged Troy in the Trojan War; extraordinarily strong, courageous, and loyal, he had only one weak spot: his heel AENEAS – a Trojan hero, the son of Aphrodite and a favourite of Apollo; became king of the Trojan people AMPHORA (AMPHORAE, pl.) – a tall ceramic jar ANDROMEDA – the daughter of the Ethiopian king, Cepheus, and his wife, Cassiopeia; after Cassiopeia bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sent a sea monster, Cetus, to attack Ethiopia; Perseus saved Andromeda from the rock she was chained to as a sacrifice
”
”
Rick Riordan (Camp Half-Blood Confidential (The Trials of Apollo))
“
More frail and illusory Than numbers written on water, Our seeking from the Buddha Felicity in the afterworld.” Archbishop Breque cleared his throat and joined in the conversation. “That seems clear enough, young lady. You do not think that God will grant our prayers.” Aenea shook her head. “I think that he meant two things, Your Eminence. First that the Buddha will not help us. It isn’t in his job definition, so to speak. Secondly, that planning for the afterworld is foolish because we are, by nature, timeless, eternal, unborn, undying, and omnipotent.” The Archbishop’s face and neck reddened
”
”
Dan Simmons (The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle: Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion)
“
Supporters of apokatastasis in roughly chronological order:
- [c. 30-105] Apostle Paul and various NT authors
- [c. 80-150] Scattered likely references among Apostolic Fathers
o Ignatius
o Justin Martyr
o Tatian
o Theophilus of Antioch (explicit references)
- [130-202] Irenaeus
- [c. 150-200] Pantaenus of Alexandria
- [150-215] Clement of Alexandria
- [154-222] Bardaisan of Edessa
- [c. 184-253] Origen (including The Dialogue of Adamantius)
- [♱ 265] Dionysius of Alexandria
- [265-280] Theognustus
- [c. 250-300] Hieracas
- [♱ c. 309] Pierius
- [♱ c. 309] St Pamphilus Martyr
- [♱ c. 311] Methodius of Olympus
- [251-306] St. Anthony
- [c. 260-340] Eusebius
- [c. 270-340] St. Macrina the Elder
- [conv. 355] Gaius Marius Victorinus (converted at very old age)
- [300-368] Hilary of Poitiers
- [c. 296-373] Athanasius of Alexandria
- [♱ c. 374] Marcellus of Ancrya
- [♱378] Titus of Basra/Bostra
- [c. 329-379] Basil the Cappadocian
- [327-379] St. Macrina the Younger
- [♱387] Cyril of Jerusalem (possibly)
- [c. 300-388] Paulinus, bishop of Tyre and then Antioch
- [c. 329-390] Gregory Nazianzen
- [♱ c. 390] Apollinaris of Laodicaea
- [♱ c. 390] Diodore of Tarsus
- [330-390] Gregory of Nyssa
- [c. 310/13-395/8] Didymus the Blind of Alexandria
- [333-397] Ambrose of Milan
- [345-399] Evagrius Ponticus
- [♱407] Theotimus of Scythia
- [350-428] Theodore of Mopsuestia
- [c. 360-400] Rufinus
- [350-410] Asterius of Amaseia
- [347-420] St. Jerome
- [354-430] St. Augustine (early, anti-Manichean phase)
- [363-430] Palladius
- [360-435] John Cassian
- [373-414] Synesius of Cyrene
- [376-444] Cyril of Alexandria
- [500s] John of Caesarea
- [♱520] Aeneas of Gaza
- [♱523] Philoxenus of Mabbug
- [475-525] Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
- [♱543] Stephen Bar Sudhaili
- [580-662] St. Maximus the Confessor
- [♱ c. 700] St. Isaac of Nineveh
- [c. 620-705] Anastasius of Sinai
- [c. 690-780] St. John of Dalyatha
- [710/13-c. 780] Joseph Hazzaya
- [813-903] Moses Bar Kepha
- [815-877] Johannes Scotus Eriugena
”
”
Ilaria Ramelli
“
one day Apollo showed up at the doorway of my cave with half a dozen young demigods. ‘You know all that stuff I taught you?’ he asked me. ‘It’s time to pay it forward! I’d like you to meet Achilles, Aeneas, Jason, Atalanta, Asclepius and Percy –’ ‘It’s Perseus, sir,’ said one of the young men. ‘Whatever!’ Apollo grinned with delight. ‘Chiron, teach them everything I showed you. Y’all have fun!’ Then he vanished. I turned to the youngsters. They frowned at me. The one named Achilles drew his sword. ‘Apollo expects us to learn from a centaur?’ he demanded. ‘Centaurs are wild barbarians, worse than the Trojans!’ ‘Hey, shut up,’ said Aeneas. ‘Gentlemen and lady,’ I interceded.
”
”
Rick Riordan (Camp Half-Blood Confidential (The Trials of Apollo))
“
These two misfortunes happen to armies, to become so terrified of the enemy that they are unwilling to attempt any offensive, and so bold that they are unwilling to take any precautionary measures. With regard to each the general must arrange his plans, and know when by voice and look he must make the enemy appear weak, and when more threatening and formidable.
”
”
Onasander (Aeneas Tacticus, Asclepiodotus, and Onasander (Loeb Classical Library, No. 156))
“
At a time when travel is for many easy and anodyne, their voyages through the Sahara, the Balkans or across the Mediterranean – on foot, in the holds of wooden fishing boats and on the backs of land cruisers – are almost as epic as those of classical heroes such as Aeneas and Odysseus. I’m wary of drawing too strong a link, but there are nevertheless obvious parallels. Just as both those ancient men fled a conflict in the Middle East and sailed across the Aegean, so too will many migrants today. Today’s Sirens are the smugglers with their empty promises of safe passage; the violent border guard a contemporary Cyclops. Three millennia after their classical forebears created the founding myths of the European continent, today’s voyagers are writing a new narrative that will influence Europe, for better or worse, for years to come.
”
”
Patrick Kingsley (The New Odyssey: The Story of the Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis)
“
First, I assessed their combat skills. Aeneas performed surprisingly well for a son of Aphrodite; I expected him to be a lover, not a fighter, and yet he actually knew how to use his sword as a sword rather than as a fashion accessory. The other demigods had some work to do. Atalanta seemed to think all training matches had to be fought to the death. She also referred to her classmates as dirty, stupid men, which made team-building difficult. Achilles spent his entire time in combat defending his right heel, an unusual manoeuvre that baffled me until I found out about his childhood dip in the River Styx. I tried to tell the boy to wear iron-shod boots rather than sandals, but he simply wouldn’t listen. As for Asclepius, in one-on-one melees he had an off-putting habit of darting in and feeling his opponent’s forehead for signs of fever.
”
”
Rick Riordan (Camp Half-Blood Confidential (The Trials of Apollo))
“
We live liturgically, telling our sacred Story in worship and song. We fast and we feast. We marry and give our children in marriage, and though in exile, we work for the peace of the city. We welcome our newborns and bury our dead. We read the Bible and we tell our children about the saints. And we also tell them in the orchard and by the fireside about Odysseus, Achilles, and Aeneas, of Dante and Don Quixote, and Frodo and Gandalf and all the tales that bear what it means to be men and women of the West.
We work, we pray, we confess our sins, we show mercy, we welcome the stranger, and we keep the commandments. When we suffer, especially for Christ's sake, we give thanks, because that is what Christians do. Who knows what God, in turn, will do with our faithfulness? It is not for us to say. Our command is, in the words of the Christian poet W.H. Auden, to "stagger onward rejoicing
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Rod Dreher (The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation)
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Ode 4.7
Diffugere niues, redeunt iam gramina campis
arboribus comae;
mutat terra uices et decrescentia ripas
flumina praetereunt;
Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
ducere nuda chorus.
Inmortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum
quae rapit hora diem.
Frigora mitescunt Zephyris, uer proterit aestas,
interitura simul
pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox
bruma recurrit iners.
Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae:
non ubi decidimus
quo pater Aeneas, quo diues Tullus et Ancus,
puluis et umbra sumus.
Quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae
tempora di superi?
Cuncta manus auidas fugient heredis, amico
quae dederis animo.
Cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos
fecerit arbitria,
non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te
restituet pietas;
infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum
liberat Hippolytum,
nec Lethaea ualet Theseus abrumpere caro
uincula Pirithoo.
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Horatius
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Machiavelli’s second metaphor alludes to the fact that Fortune was always seen as a feminine force. Like any woman, she responds best, he believes, to rough handling. He argues that in dealings with Fortune it is advisable to act impetuously “because Fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.” However disagreeable the image, it is worth remembering that gendered interpretations of philosophical conceptions have a lengthy history, and that Machiavelli elsewhere speaks of winning over Fortune by means of friendship and harmonious action. The idea of battering Fortune into submission did not, in fact, originate with Machiavelli. Seventy years earlier, in Somnium de Fortuna (The Dream of Fortune), Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini had Fortune claim she despised those who “run away from me” and favored “those who put me to flight.” The upshot, at any rate, is that one can manage the caprice of Fortune—a comforting philosophy for the former Second Chancellor to contemplate from his lonely exile in the Albergaccio.
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Ross King (Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power (Eminent Lives))
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We who are called royal are those who speak for our people to the powers of the earth and sky, as those powers transmit their will through us to the people. We are go-betweens. The chief duty of a king is to perform the rites of praise and placation as they should be performed, to observe care and ceremony and so understand and make known the will of the powers that are greater than we are. It is the king who tells the farmer when to plow, when to plant, when to harvest, when the cattle should go up to the hills and when they should return to the valleys, as he learns these things from his experience and his service at the altars of earth and sky. In the same way it is the mother of the family who tells her household when to rise, what work to do, what food to prepare and cook, and when to sit to eat it, having learned these things from her experience and her service at the altars of her Lares and Penates. So peace is maintained and things go well, in the kingdom and in the house. Both Aeneas and I had grown up in this responsibility, and it was dear to us both.
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Ursula K. Le Guin (Lavinia)
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The world owes its first instructional text on communications security to the Greeks. It appeared as an entire chapter in one of the earliest works on military science, On the Defense of Fortified Places, by Aeneas the Tactician.
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David Kahn (The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet)
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Another steganographic system was still in use in the 20th century: Aeneas suggested pricking holes in a book or other document above or below the letters of the secret message. German spies used this very system in World War I, and used it with a slight modification in World War II—dotting the letters of newspapers with invisible ink.
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David Kahn (The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet)
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Virgil put it with Roman bluntness and economy. Dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat? cried Aeneas’s comrade as they fought their way out of burning Troy disguised in Greek armor; which may be loosely translated: It won’t matter to the enemy whether you beat him by guile or by valor.
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Thaddeus Holt (The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War)
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Wie zich niet alles herinnert wat hij wil vergeten, loopt het risico dat hij bepaalde zaken vergeet te vergeten. Ik moest alles opschrijven, hoewel ik besefte dat de noodzaak van het vertellen, in de woorden van Aeneas tot Dido, het verdriet zou verversen. Maar ik moest boekstaven om de rekening te kunnen opmaken. Er is geen bestemming zonder duidelijkheid over de herkomst en geen toekomst zonder een leesbare versie van het verleden. Ik denk beter na met een pen in mijn hand. Inkt verheldert. Alleen door op te schrijven wat er was gebeurd, kon ik de controle herwinnen over mijn gedachten. Dat was de opdracht die ik mijzelf had gesteld. Daarom was ik hier. Het had geen zin om het uit te stellen. Als het gedaan is wanneer het is gedaan, is het beter als het zo snel mogelijk wordt aangevangen.
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Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (Grand Hotel Europa)
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I say, too, that when a painter desires to become famous in his art he endeavours to copy the originals of the rarest painters that he knows; and the same rule holds good for all the most important crafts and callings that serve to adorn a state; thus must he who would be esteemed prudent and patient imitate Ulysses, in whose person and labours Homer presents to us a lively picture of prudence and patience; as Virgil, too, shows us in the person of AEneas the virtue of a pious son and the sagacity of a brave and skilful captain; not representing or describing them as they were, but as they ought to be, so as to leave the example of their virtues to posterity.
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Book House (100 Books You Must Read Before You Die - volume 1 [newly updated] [Pride and Prejudice; Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; Tarzan of the Apes; The Count of ... (The Greatest Writers of All Time))
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She was to carry the Ross Sea party, under the command of Lieutenant Aeneas Mackintosh, who had served aboard the Nimrod on Shackleton’s 1907–1909 expedition.
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Alfred Lansing (Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage)
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Why did Poseidon take Palinurus’s life? Because, if they do not seek to explain the random cruelty with which death seizes our friends, families and ultimately ourselves, then myths about the gods serve no useful purpose whatsoever (from In Search of Aeneas, due to be published on 15 October 2023).
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Anthony Adolph
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Nikopolis’s walls that we see now were built by the Byzantines, and seem vast; but then you realise that they encompass only a small portion of the original, Roman metropolis. If one ever feels in doubt of the scale of Augustus’s confidence and ambition, Nikopolis serves as an indelible reminder. Its size and grandeur, even after so long, are truly staggering. And, back when Nikopolis was still being built, Virgil turned Aeneas’s sojourn there into the city’s poetic genesis. (from In Search of Aeneas, due to be published on 15 October 2023)
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Anthony Adolph
“
But the history of the Britons as a distinct nation had its beginnings with the fall of Troy, and it is at this point that Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Welsh chronicles take up the story. Anchises, known to us from other histories, fled with his son, Aeneas, from the burning ruins of Troy, and they made their way to the land that is nowadays called Italy, settling with their people on the banks of the river Tiber around what was later to become Rome.
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Bill Cooper (After the Flood)
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The mother of Brutus died whilst giving birth to him, and when he was a lad of fifteen years, Brutus accidentally shot his father dead with an arrow whilst out hunting. For having caused the deaths of both his parents, thus fulfilling a prophecy concerning him, Brutus was exiled out of Italy, the royal line of Aeneas passing into the hands of another. And it is at this point that the history of the Britons as a distinct nation begins.
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Bill Cooper (After the Flood)
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Her detachment and perspective, which enable her to empathize with Aeneas and even to help him along his way, are an epitome of Stoicism, and especially of ‘the view from above’. If we are too absorbed in our life and times, our perspectives shrink, and we become fearful and hopeful and prone to upset.
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Neel Burton (Stoic Stories: A Heroic Account of Stoicism (Ancient Wisdom))
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
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It was the most beautiful moment that was so perfect you felt like you could just die. It was like the first time you ever heard Dido and Aeneas’ “When I am laid in earth.” A moment so pure you feel like you’re dreaming and begin to question your own mortality that could be capable of and rival such innocent beauty.
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Phil Volatile (My Mind's Abyss)
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the cave at Cumae — "the poppy fields north of Naples" — identified by Virgil as the domicile of the Sibyl, the pagan oracle who had predicted a host of momentous events in the history of Rome including the birth of the Son of the Great God, the long-awaited Messiah. Aeneas, in Virgil's epic, had convinced the Sibyl to lead him through her cave straight into the underworld; just as Dante, writing his Divine Comedy thirteen hundred years later, would enlist Virgil as his guide to the same region — that was the easy part. The hard part was finding the way back.
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Kenneth Atchity (The Messiah Matrix)
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the verses of the Eclogue actually referred to Augustus. Virgil was clearly writing a disguised political commercial. Virgil composed Rome's great epic, The Aeneid, between 29 and 19 B.C. In the epic's vision of the future of Rome, Aeneas's guide, the Sibyl, tells him of: Augustus, promis'd oft, and long foretold, that Saturn rul'd of old; Born to restore a better age of gold. She continued, "Other verses in The Aeneid substantiate the identity of the long-expected virgin-born Messiah that Virgil referred to covertly in the Eclogue: 'Augustus Caesar… brings a Golden Age; he shall restore old Saturn's scepter to our Latin land.
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Kenneth Atchity (The Messiah Matrix)
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I watched him get up, and out there in the rain and the murk and the sadness, he wasn’t mere mortal, he was Aeneas, come to claim his throne. There was a quality about him, an idyllic charm, like the thought of woods in the Italian countryside. It filled you with hope. It felt like home.
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Ellie Fox (And then the Devil Cried: Episode One)
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Louisa considered pleading a headache, but withdrawing from the table would only fuel gossip, and perhaps reflect poorly on Sir Joseph, who did not deserve such censure. She could retreat into silence, though, and so she did. Something warm covered the hands she’d linked in her lap. Looking down, she saw Sir Joseph’s scarred fingers stroking slowly over her knuckles, once, twice. He was unobtrusive about it. The person sitting opposite him and even on his other side would not know he’d made such an overture. Louisa turned her hand palm up, and for an instant, Sir Joseph linked his fingers with hers and squeezed gently. “Fortran et haec olim meminisse…” “Juvabit.” Louisa finished the half-whispered quote. Aeneas, trying to instill fortitude in his men, suggesting that some day it might cause a smile to recall even moments such as this. Sir Joseph squeezed her fingers again, the shock of it warring with pleasure. Nobody attempted to offer Louisa comfort or reassurance after one of her social missteps. Her family would rally in their way, but to cover up her mistakes, not to console her for them. Joseph Carrington, without a single word, offered consolation and understanding. Before Louisa could acknowledge his kindness, the moment was over, his hand gone, and the lovely warmth easing through Louisa’s middle her only proof the exchange had occurred.
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Grace Burrowes (Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight (The Duke's Daughters, #3; Windham, #6))
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R. G. Austin argued that Aeneas had no choice about the gate: he could not go through the exit for true shades because in fact he was not a shade.
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Bart D. Ehrman (Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition)
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A Christian variation of the Greek hero myth infers that Jesus, like the celebrated figures of Dionysus, Orpheus, Heracles (Hercules), and Aeneas, descended (presumably after the Crucifixion) into these “dark pits,” where he “made his proclamation to the imprisoned spirits” (1 Pet. 3: 19; cf. 1 Pet. 4: 6). After having experienced both earthly life and a postmortem descent to the Underworld, Jesus then ascends to the uppermost realm of the three-tier cosmos.
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Stephen L. Harris (The New Testament: A Student's Introduction)
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I have never heard anyone, when asked to name their favorite hero, answer Aeneas. And that's coming from someone who has lived for a time in Rome.
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Andrea Marcolongo (Starting from Scratch: The Life-Changing Lessons of Aeneas)
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The Aeneid is not an epic for times of peace. Its verses are not suited to smooth sailing. When all is well, the Aeneid bores people to death - and lucky are those who, for centuries, have had the luxury of yawning at its hexameters . . . The Aeneid is warmly recommended reading for days when you're in the eye of a storm without an umbrella. On sunny days, it serves little to no purpose.
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Andrea Marcolongo (Starting from Scratch: The Life-Changing Lessons of Aeneas)
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I identify always with Aeneas, the Trojan refugee who desperately tries to fulfill his destiny in a world that holds no place for him.
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Marie Benedict (The Personal Librarian)
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As always in the midst of crises, Romans reshaped their religion along the lines of their newly found identity. They were in part the descendants of Trojan Aeneas; their intellectual heritage was Greek. Pious Aeneas suited the Romans well. This wandering Trojan prince existed in the context of Greek myth, a framework the Romans had adopted and were propagating. Aeneas and the Romans shared the same mythological “Greekness.” Thus, the militarily successful Romans, armed with an acquired respectable and tangible past, began more intensively to encourage the literary arts, whose major proponent had been the Hellenistic world and whose guardian deity was Olympian Apollo.
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Sarolta A. Takács (Vestal Virgins, Sibyls, and Matrons: Women in Roman Religion)
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The reported Sibylline instructions could be horrific (bury a Greek and a Gaul alive to avert a foreign invasion),18 but most often they prompted the introduction of a foreign god and the building of a temple. The introduction of new cults, those performed according to Greek rite (Graeco ritu),19 depended on the college’s interpretation of the Sibylline Books. The most dramatic introduction of a cult at the behest of the Sibylline Books was that of the Great Mother from Ida (Mater Magna Idaea) in the Troad, Aeneas’ home region, at the end of the Second Punic War. The Romans were urged to fetch this goddess, for her presence in Rome would bring an end to the struggle with Carthage.
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Sarolta A. Takács (Vestal Virgins, Sibyls, and Matrons: Women in Roman Religion)
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He carries me on his back the way Aeneas carried Anchises,
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Jonathan Rosen (The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions)
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Take a bowsy short leave of your nymphs on the shore, And silence their mourning with vows
of returning,
Though never intending to visit them
more.
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Nahum Tate (The Loves of Dido and Aeneas, an Opera, Written by Nahum Tate, Esq. and Set to Music by Mr. Henry Purcell, Performed, ... by the Academy of Ancient Music, on Thursday, April 21, 1774.)
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Aeneas comes to the Lugentes Campi, the Mourning Fields. Here are hidden those who had died of broken hearts from unrequited love. Among these pathetic souls Aeneas grieves to find his beloved Dido.
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Bart D. Ehrman (Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition)
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In the classical era, the Lar was duplicated and the Lares became rather confused, or at least associated, with the Penates, who appear in the lararia of Pompeii in the form of gods for whom the master of the house had a fondness. As for the two Lares, they are shown as two young people, their heads crowned with flowers, pouring the contents of a rhyton into a situla or libation patera. They flank Vesta or the domestic 'Genius' or spirit, thus setting an example of sacrificial piety. They are also to be found in the company of Mercury, Venus, Bacchus or other deities dear to the paterfamilias. The one or two snakes associated with the Genius, or shown below the Lares (sometimes entwined around the altar where the Genius sacrifices) appear to be the guardians of the place as well as an expression of the vital, if not genetic, force of the family. When Aeneas pays homage to the Manes of his father (Virg., Aen., 5, 84 ff.), a serpent appears and, slithering among the paterae and vessels, 'tastes the sacred food
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Robert Turcan (The Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times)
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In the lararia or in public life, as we have seen, deceased or living emperors entered the daily devotions of the Romans. The first, like the Indigetes or Novemsiles - such as Aeneas, Romulus or the mythical kings of Latium - were 'men become gods' (Serv., Aen., 12, 794) who 'merited' it (Am., 3, 39). The second were the incarnation of 'the breath, the life that so many thousands of beings breathe', as Seneca says (Clem., 1, 4, 1), quoting Virgil (G, 4, 212 f.), and comparing the empire to an immense beehive whose unity depends on the well-being of its queen. For the Latin philosopher, the emperor resembled the Stoics' pneuma which, born of the fire of Zeus or the divine Word, gave life to the universe: spiritus vitalis.
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Robert Turcan (The Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times)
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One set depicted the History of Aeneas, another the Judgment of Paris,
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John Guy (Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart)
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Life is a common good, it inheres in man and beast and passes from one to another, from body to body, this is how souls travel. In nature, everything is constantly changing, nothing is lost. The soul, that is, what constitutes life, is like wax: it retains its identity but only changes shape and constantly appears as new individuals. This is the nature of being: nothing in the world remains in one state, everything flows, every phenomenon is in progress, time itself moves steadily, like a river. Night turns into day, day into night, the moon has different phases, the year has different seasons. Nor will our bodies remain tomorrow what they are today or what they were yesterday. How many changes does a person undergo in the course of life, from fetus through infancy, crawling, maturity, aging, and unto death! And the whole universe. According to theory of the four elements, everything that exists arises from these very basic elements, and everything then turns into building material. “To be born”means “to begin to be something else.”“To die”means “to stop being what you used to be.”The ingredients are interchangeable, but matter remains the same. What does geology prove? Eternal transformations of the earth. There were seas, and now there are no seas; there were mountains and they have vanished; rivers flowed and dried up; volcanoes erupted and cooled. And that’s just the inanimate nature for you! The law of change in the animal world is even clearer. Caterpillars turn into butterflies, tadpoles into frogs, larvae into bees. Human societies and states are governed by the same principle. Troy has fallen, Pythagoras said to Numa Pompilius, and it is from that fall, thanks to Aeneas, the progenitor of the Julian house, that the Roman Empire will be reborn. It will be very powerful. Pythagoras did not say what would happen to Rome next. After all, everything changes? Yes, everything changes, the golden age has passed, the iron age has come. Therefore, I tell you, do not eat meat, concluded Pythagoras. And Numa Pompilius, having heard his teachings, came to Rome, instituted civilization there, and instructed a nation of warriors in the ways of peaceful coexistence.
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Jacek Bocheński (Naso the Poet: The Loves and Crimes of Rome's Greatest Poet (The Notorious Roman Trilogy))
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We should have consulted each other before the event,” Caro said, staring up at him and ignoring Madeleine. “If you were the Aeneas to my Dido, think what a stir we could have caused.”
Dido — the Carthaginian queen who stabbed herself in the heart after being abandoned by her Trojan lover. “You look very well, of course, but I have chosen a different consort.” Caro cast a flickering glance at Madeleine, just enough to make it clear that the actress was socially beneath her. “I have little love for Salford’s ward, but it does seem callous of you to parade this actress chit in front of the ton when you’d have everyone believe that your engagement to Lady Madeleine is a love match.”
“You know how these things play,” he said, trying to sound bored. “Lady Madeleine could never attend an event such as this, and I’ve no intention of giving up all my entertainments.”
“Just the same as always, aren’t you?” Caro said. “You hold all the power, and it’s all directed to your own ends. If I thought you were capable of change, I could forgive you — but you are just as selfish as you were ten years ago.
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Sara Ramsey (Heiress Without a Cause (Muses of Mayfair, #1))