“They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.”
―Philip Freneau
.
And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?
Archilochus
The Lex sub rosa... the agoge... which serves to steel men against hardship and pain, but does nothing to prevent corruption by luxuries and over-abundance.
from the Jowett summary of Plato's "Laws": Then, now, we playfully say to him who fancies that it is easy to make laws:—You see, legislator, the many and inconsistent claims to authority; here is a spring of troubles which you must stay. And first of all you must help us to consider how the kings of Argos and Messene in olden days destroyed their famous empire—did they forget the saying of Hesiod, that 'the half is better than the whole'? And do we suppose that the ignorance of this truth is less fatal to kings than to peoples? 'Probably the evil is increased by their way of life.' The kings of those days transgressed the laws and violated their oaths. Their deeds were not in harmony with their words, and their folly, which seemed to them wisdom, was the ruin of the state. And how could the legislator have prevented this evil?—the remedy is easy to see now, but was not easy to foresee at the time. 'What is the remedy?' The institutions of Sparta may teach you, Megillus. Wherever there is excess, whether the vessel has too large a sail, or the body too much food, or the mind too much power, there destruction is certain. And similarly, a man who possesses arbitrary power is soon corrupted, and grows hateful to his dearest friends. In order to guard against this evil, the God who watched over Sparta gave you two kings instead of one, that they might balance one another; and further to lower the pulse of your body politic, some human wisdom, mingled with divine power, tempered the strength and self-sufficiency of youth with the moderation of age in the institution of your senate. A third saviour bridled your rising and swelling power by ephors, whom he assimilated to officers elected by lot: and thus the kingly power was preserved, and became the preserver of all the rest. Had the constitution been arranged by the original legislators, not even the portion of Aristodemus would have been saved; for they had no political experience, and imagined that a youthful spirit invested with power could be restrained by oaths. Now that God has instructed us in the arts of legislation, there is no merit in seeing all this, or in learning wisdom after the event. But if the coming danger could have been foreseen, and the union preserved, then no Persian or other enemy would have dared to attack Hellas; and indeed there was not so much credit to us in defeating the enemy, as discredit in our disloyalty to one another. For of the three cities one only fought on behalf of Hellas; and of the two others, Argos refused her aid; and Messenia was actually at war with Sparta: and if the Lacedaemonians and Athenians had not united, the Hellenes would have been absorbed in the Persian empire, and dispersed among the barbarians. We make these reflections upon past and present legislators because we desire to find out what other course could have been followed. We were saying just now, that a state can only be free and wise and harmonious when there is a balance of powers.
6 comments:
"Horrible! Horrible! MOST Horrible!"
~ Shakespeare, Hamlet
A Sado-Masochistic culture. A celebration of the worst kind of child abuse imaginable.
I'm morally certain these little boys were routinely used as sex objects by their tormentors.
Why do we insist on dwelling upon sick, sad evidence of darkness and depravity?
A lot like ISLAM is it not?
Sorry, you're talking to a military academy graduate...
...in other words, "I can relate".
The Lex sub rosa... the agoge... which serves to steel men against hardship and pain, but does nothing to prevent corruption by luxuries and over-abundance.
from the Jowett summary of Plato's "Laws": Then, now, we playfully say to him who fancies that it is easy to make laws:—You see, legislator, the many and inconsistent claims to authority; here is a spring of troubles which you must stay. And first of all you must help us to consider how the kings of Argos and Messene in olden days destroyed their famous empire—did they forget the saying of Hesiod, that 'the half is better than the whole'? And do we suppose that the ignorance of this truth is less fatal to kings than to peoples? 'Probably the evil is increased by their way of life.' The kings of those days transgressed the laws and violated their oaths. Their deeds were not in harmony with their words, and their folly, which seemed to them wisdom, was the ruin of the state. And how could the legislator have prevented this evil?—the remedy is easy to see now, but was not easy to foresee at the time. 'What is the remedy?' The institutions of Sparta may teach you, Megillus. Wherever there is excess, whether the vessel has too large a sail, or the body too much food, or the mind too much power, there destruction is certain. And similarly, a man who possesses arbitrary power is soon corrupted, and grows hateful to his dearest friends. In order to guard against this evil, the God who watched over Sparta gave you two kings instead of one, that they might balance one another; and further to lower the pulse of your body politic, some human wisdom, mingled with divine power, tempered the strength and self-sufficiency of youth with the moderation of age in the institution of your senate. A third saviour bridled your rising and swelling power by ephors, whom he assimilated to officers elected by lot: and thus the kingly power was preserved, and became the preserver of all the rest. Had the constitution been arranged by the original legislators, not even the portion of Aristodemus would have been saved; for they had no political experience, and imagined that a youthful spirit invested with power could be restrained by oaths. Now that God has instructed us in the arts of legislation, there is no merit in seeing all this, or in learning wisdom after the event. But if the coming danger could have been foreseen, and the union preserved, then no Persian or other enemy would have dared to attack Hellas; and indeed there was not so much credit to us in defeating the enemy, as discredit in our disloyalty to one another. For of the three cities one only fought on behalf of Hellas; and of the two others, Argos refused her aid; and Messenia was actually at war with Sparta: and if the Lacedaemonians and Athenians had not united, the Hellenes would have been absorbed in the Persian empire, and dispersed among the barbarians. We make these reflections upon past and present legislators because we desire to find out what other course could have been followed. We were saying just now, that a state can only be free and wise and harmonious when there is a balance of powers.
I suppose you'd have to be a geography major to best understand.
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