To quote a few...

I couldn't watch or read the news yesterday, just like I couldn't the day before. Current affairs in the US frighten and anger me to the point where letting them into my daily life would render me unable to function. I feel, I suppose, like a time traveller from the future might feel if they had just witnessed Hitler voted into power. The sense of enornous dread and weight upon me is stiffling. I am going to borrow a blog post today, from Sententia Antiquae. The post in question collects ancient Hellenic and Roman quotes about leadership, quotes that fit with the current... well... maybe you should fill in your own noun here, because all I can think of are expletives.

Silius Italicus, Punica 11.183-4

“Shall I put up with a leader whose sword now stands in place of justice and treaties and whose only praises stem from bloodshed?”

 

 Sophocles, Ant. 175-77

“It is impossible to gain a full understanding of any man’s moral nature (psûche), mentality (phronêmà), or judgement (gnome) until he has shown himself exercising the functions of ruler and law-giver.”

 

Arist. Eth. Nic. 5.1130a

“There are many people who can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but are unable to do so in their relations with others. This is why the aphorism of Bias, “Office will reveal the man”, seems a good one, since an official is, by virtue of his position, engaged with other people and the community at large’ (trans. R. Crisp, Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics)

 

Soph. Ant. 707-9

“For if anyone believes that only he has good sense (phronein), or has powers of speech (glossa) or moral quality (psûche) unlike any other – such people, when they’re laid open, are seen to be empty.

 

Heraclitus, fr. 44

“The people must fight for law just as they would for the walls”

 

Publilius Syrus

“He conquers who conquers himself.”

 

Sallust, Iug. 35.10

“Yonder lies a city up for sale, and woe unto it when it finds a buyer.”

 

Virgil, Aeneid 1.203

“One day we’re going to look back on even this and laugh (maybe).”

 

Thucydides 3.82

“Many terrible things happened to the cities during the revolution, as it always has been and always will be, as long as human nature is the same, although it sometimes takes a harsher or more mild form as the changes arise in different cities. During peace and times of abundance, cities and individual citizens have better ideas since they do not experience the compulsion of scarcity. But war, in depriving them of their daily needs, is a forceful teacher, and makes the character of most people equal to their present conditions.”

 

Tacitus’ Agricola 42

“Let those in the habit of admiring the flouting of authority know that there can be great men, even under bad rulers.”

 

Cicero

“Few men desire wisdom.”

 

Horace, Epistles 1.14.13

“The fault lies in the mind that never escapes itself”