Tag: Quintus Curtius

Vacation Reading: Quintus Curtius’s “Digest”

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I’m hitting the road with my family for a fun-filled trip to Florida.  As such, posts will be a bit shorter through the weekend.

That said, it’s also the perfect time to catch up on some reading.  Classicist and antiquarian Quintus Curtius just released a massive collection of his blog essays, Digest, which I am excited to, um, digest.

Readers may recall a post I wrote last summer about an essay from Curtius about the ocean.  That essay is indicative of Curtius’s depth of thought and erudition; his mind is keenly analytical, and he writes with the perspective of someone who has lived and learned much.

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Lazy Sunday XXXVII: Best of the Reblogs, Part II

The Portly Politico39 Comments

Thanksgiving is almost here!  Regular readers will by now know of my love for Halloween, which is second only to Christmas in my heart.  But Thanksgiving is definitely up there in the Top Five, at least—sandwiched neatly between the former two, a brief taste of the Christmas togetherness and relaxation to come.

This week’s Lazy Sunday continues with some of my favorite reblogged posts.  As I wrote last week, one of the simple joys of blogging is making friends with other bloggers.  Maybe one day we can all meet up at some kind of blogging convention.

This week’s reblogs feature two from Practically Historical, a blog dedicated to historical topics, mostly American History.  The other is from Quintus Curtius, a classicist and world traveler (not to mention a former Marine) who writes beautifully about forgotten chunks of the distant past.  He revives the old tradition of the great antiquarians, much to our benefit.

  • “Reblog: Lincoln and Civil Liberties” – This post is an examination of Lincoln’s decision to arrest pro-secessionist legislators in Maryland, in order to prevent the State from seceding from the Union.  He examines John Merryman, for whom the case Ex Parte Merryman is named, and notes Merryman was actively engaged in leading an armed militia in Maryland against federal authority.  Yikes!
  • “Reblog: Quintus Curtius, ‘On Living Near the Ocean’” – This essay on the ocean really struck a chord with me.  Quintus Curtius is a strong writer, and his examination of the ways that people respond to living near the water are fascinating.  On the one hand, people enjoy the vigorous health of the salt air and good seafood, but maritime towns tend to be breeding grounds for shabbiness and dingy criminality (see also:  Myrtle Beach).  A worthy read.
  • “Reblog: Practically Historical on the Electoral College” – Gordon Sheaffer of Practically Historical delivers again with an excellent examination and defense of the Electoral College.  He has a great takedown for the anti-EC crowd, who argue that individual votes are all that matter:  he argues that we should think of the EC like a series of baseball games.  Yes, the highest score wins individual games, but the wins are what matter.  A team can win ten games by one run each, while another team can win nine games by ten runs each; what matters are the wins, not the overall scoring.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy the fleeting glory of your weekend, and enjoy the short workweek!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

The Impermanence of Knowledge and Culture: The Great Library and Notre Dame

The Portly Politico11 Comments

On Sunday, blogger and antiquarian Quintus Curtius posted a piece about the famed Great Library at Alexandria.  The Library is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient War, and its destruction is an event that stands as one of the great cautionary tales of history.

Except, as Curtius points out, it wasn’t a single event.  Historians point to the accidental burning in 48 B.C., when Julius Caesar’s men’s burned Pompey’s fleet, and the flames spread, consuming a substantial portion of the Library’s connections.  Curtius mentions other events that may have damaged the Library, including Emperor Theodosius II’s decree to destroy pagan temples and buildings.

But, significantly, Curtius argues that it was centuries of neglect that destroyed the Great Library, rather than one single, spectacular event.  The burning of the Library in 48 B.C. makes for a dramatic story, but lack of maintenance, poor funding, and corrupt officials, Curtius contends, ultimately destroyed the Library.

To quote Curtius (emphasis is his):

The point is that libraries, like all institutions of culture, must be maintained and refurbished by every generation.  As I see it, the evidence points to a stark truth that tells us much about human nature.  The primary destroyer of the library, and perhaps of most cultural artifacts, was apathy.  How does this happen, in practice?  It is very simple.  It happens the same way official neglect happens today.  A new king or government minister would have said to himself, “I don’t think we need to allocate funds to the Alexandrian Library right now.  I have other priorities.  I would rather spend the money on ships, the army, or my new summer retreat.”  And this is how it starts.

Apathy—a general lack of care and concern for our cultural artifacts—destroys them far more effectively than book burnings.  Death by a thousand insouciant cuts, rather than the dramatic thrust of the sword, causes all things to wither away.

Having read Curtius’s piece (and a podcast related to it, which I cannot now locate), I very much had this topic on my mind when I heard about the tragic fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday.  I did not realize that the great cathedral is 850-years old.

Let that sink in:  it’s stood for nearly a millennium, surviving the Wars of Religion in France; the Thirty Years’ War; and the First and Second World Wars.  It also survived the French Revolution, which saw many churches destroyed or converted into blasphemous “Temples of Reason” throughout Paris and France.

Notre Dame is a powerful symbol of Western Civilization:  a bold testament of the faith and piety of a once-proud, Christian people.  A civilization that believes in itself and its God builds and maintains an edifice like Notre Dame.

We don’t yet know the source of the Notre Dame fire (at least, I don’t), and I’ve heard and read several explanations, from the careless (a dropped cigarette) to the, if true, quite wicked (Islamic terrorism; to reiterate, I am not claiming this was the cause of the fire, just that I’ve heard it insinuated).

What we do know is that France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has promised to rebuild the destroyed roof and upper level of the cathedral “in a way consistent with our modern diverse nation.”  I let out a moan of despair upon reading that phrase.

Notre Dame is a not a symbol of a “modern diverse nation,” nor should it be.  The only universalism it embodies is Christ’s universal Love for all of humanity.  Beyond that, it is a symbol of the French people, and of Christendom.  I am not convinced that the “diverse” Maghreb and Bedouin tribesman of the banlieues are deserving of that patrimony.

The West is constantly bending over backwards to accommodate foreign cultures in a show of cosmopolitan hospitality, but the favor is never returned.  Unassimilated migrants and “refugees” don’t deserve architectural “representation” in a building that never would have been built were it not for Charles “The Hammer” Martel.

Knowledge and culture are both one generation away from darkness.  Westerners should understand the deep roots of our civilization, and protect it at all costs.  That means teaching it to our children, and instilling them a love of and reverence for our institutions, culture, and faith.

Reblog: Quintus Curtius, “On Living Near the Ocean”

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Blogger Quintus Curtius wrote a beautiful, reflective essay on his blog, Fortress of the Mind, about the effects, both spiritual and physical, of living near the sea.  It’s an excellent example of strong writing; here’s a lengthy quotation:

There is no union with the sea.  There is the sea, and there is you, and this is as it should be.  So we have this cautionary dualism:  there is the ancient, perilous essence of the ocean, this tiger’s heart, and at the same time there is this rejuvenating energy of the sea.  There is this inexplicable allure that calls us to it.  It both provides, and destroys.  There is kindness, and there is cruelty of the most savage sort.  The fire can both sustain and destroy.  And it seems that too much exposure to the ocean has some kind of degenerative effect, as well.  You cannot quite put your finger on it.  But it is there.  You see it with those old mariners.  The grizzled visages of those who have spent too much time with the ocean do not really convey wisdom:  it is rather that the life has been sucked out of them, leaving a desiccated human husk.  There are no places so degenerate as some of these obscure seaside communities.  The odors of decay and ruin hover about them.

The line “it is rather that the life has been sucked out of them, leaving a desiccated human husk” calls to mind H.P Lovecraft’s “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” a classic of Lovecraft’s genre of weird horror fiction, about a town inhabited by people with an overly closer union with the sea and its horrors.

Living in South Carolina, the ocean is a large draw for our tourism industry, which is (I believe still) the largest part of our State’s economy.  But there is a certain strangeness that attaches itself to seaside towns, a certain freewheeling sleaziness.

Take Myrtle Beach, a town that is like a slightly scruffier, tackier, and sleazier Branson, Missouri.  Charleston, with—despite its reputation for elegance and charm—is a bustling port city that suffers from the double-edged sword of cosmopolitanism.

Quintus Curtius relates an example of oceanic dualism in an illustration from the Samnite War.  Another ancient allusion came to my mind:  the view of the ancient Israelite people regarding the sea.  They viewed it distrustfully, and I seem to recall that Old Testament references to “the abyss” may have referred to the wine dark Mediterranean.

Standing by the ocean is a humbling experience; like staring at the starry night sky on a crystal clear night, it reminds us of our own smallness in the vastness of the Universe.