HKB
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Often appears with: conspiracy and assassination · tacit consent in usage · slave informer · senator rufus · self-esteem and ingratitude · self-denunciation · pride, vanity, and humility · language, naming, and meaning · intelligibility depends on shared ideas · gratitude expressions · gratitude and ingratitude · furnius
Usually: injustice endured (3) · narrative (2) · lament (2) · argument (1) · reflection (1) · verse (1) · exile and homecoming (1) · the fall of the great (1) · censure (1) · detachment (1)
“All things that exist being particulars, it may perhaps be thought reasonable that words, which ought to be conformed to things, should be so too,—I mean in their signification: but yet we find quite the contrary.” John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2 · insight
“Quam legis ex illis tibi uenit epistula, Brute, Nasonem nolles in quibus esse locis.” Ovid, The Last Poems of Ovid · observation
“What can prove gratitude so well as that a man should never be satisfied, should never even entertain the hope of making any adequate return for what he has received?” Lucius Annaeus Seneca, L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits · insight
Locke insists that word-signification is based on perfect arbitrary imposition, not natural connection, and even Augustus could not create a new Latin word that would determine the same idea in everyone.
OF GENERAL TERMS. 1. The greatest Part of Words are general terms. All things that exist being particulars, it may perhaps be thought reasonable that words, which ought to be conformed to things, should be so too,--I mean in their signification: but yet we find quite the contrary. The far greatest part of words that make all languages are general terms: which has not been the effect of neglect or chance, but of rea…
Gulliver recounts a specific soldier’s story—victory at Actium followed by Augustus preferring a court-connected youth—then reflects on rapid corruption in empires, calls up an “old stamp” English yeoman, and laments degeneration from native virtues to bribed politics.
all appeared with dejected looks, and in the meanest habit; most of them telling me, “they died in poverty and disgrace, and the rest on a scaffold or a gibbet.” Among others, there was one person, whose case appeared a little singular. He had a youth about eighteen years old standing by his side. He told me, “he had for many years been commander of a ship; and in the sea fight at Actium had the good fortune to brea…
Seneca praises expressions of gratitude as a way to make repayment clear, citing Furnius’s words to Augustus, and claims ingratitude mainly comes from excessive self-esteem and misjudging one’s own worth.
as overwhelmed by kindness; or "I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently; but, at any rate, I will never cease to express everywhere my inability to thank you." XXV. By nothing did Furnius gain greater credit with Augustus, and make it easy for him to obtain anything else for which he might ask, than by merely saying, when at his request Augustus pardoned his father for having taken Antonius's side, "One wron…
Seneca tells how a slave reports a senator Rufus’s insulting remarks about Caesar, leading Rufus to self-denounce and be pardoned; he praises both Caesar’s mercy and the slave’s service.
who did his master this service was set free; yet his master did not do this for nothing, for Caesar had already paid him the price of the slave's liberty. XXVIII. After so many instances, can we doubt that a master may sometimes receive a benefit from a slave? Why need the person of the giver detract from the thing which he gives? why should not the gift add rather to the glory of the giver. All men descend from th…
Ovid laments to Brutus about his exile, fearing he cannot trust help, and contrasts Augustus’s initial clemency with Fate’s continuing cruelty.
VI Quam legis ex illis tibi uenit epistula, Brute, Nasonem nolles in quibus esse locis. sed tu quod nolles, uoluit miserabile fatum; ei mihi, plus illud quam tua uota ualet. in Scythia nobis quinquennis Olympias acta 5 iam tempus lustri transit in alterius. perstat enim Fortuna tenax, uotisque malignum opponit nostris insidiosa pedem. certus eras pro me, Fabiae laus, M…