Quotes4study

>Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.

PLUTARCH. 46(?)-120(?) A. D.     _Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs._

But to exercise the intellect the prince should read histories, and study there the actions of illustrious men, to see how they have borne themselves in war, to examine the causes of their victories and defeat, so as to avoid the latter and imitate the former; and above all do as an illustrious man did, who took as an exemplar one who had been praised and famous before him, and whose achievements and deeds he always kept in his mind, as it is said Alexander the Great imitated Achilles, Caesar Alexander, Scipio Cyrus. And whoever reads the life of Cyrus, written by Xenophon, will recognize afterwards in the life of Scipio how that imitation was his glory, and how in chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality Scipio conformed to those things which have been written of Cyrus by Xenophon. A wise prince ought to observe some such rules, and never in peaceful times stand idle, but increase his resources with industry in such a way that they may be available to him in adversity, so that if fortune chances it may find him prepared to resist her blows.

Nicolo Machiavelli     The Prince

"I had nearly five thousand volumes in my library at Rome; but after reading them over many times, I found out that with one hundred and fifty well-chosen books a man possesses, if not a complete summary of all human knowledge, at least all that a man need really know. I devoted three years of my life to reading and studying these one hundred and fifty volumes, till I knew them nearly by heart; so that since I have been in prison, a very slight effort of memory has enabled me to recall their contents as readily as though the pages were open before me. I could recite you the whole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Machiavelli, and Bossuet. I name only the most important."

Alexandre Dumas, Pere     The Count of Monte Cristo

Meanwhile the teacher who had won this great reputation had also been active as a public writer. The most interesting and most characteristic works of Isocrates are those in which he deals with the public questions of his own day. The influence which he thus exercised throughout Hellas might be compared to that of an earnest political essayist gifted with a popular and attractive style. And Isocrates had a dominant idea which gained strength with his years, until its realization had become, we might say, the main purpose of his life. This idea was the invasion of Asia by the united forces of Greece. The Greek cities were at feud with each other, and were severally torn by intestine faction. Political morality was become a rare and a somewhat despised distinction. Men who were notoriously ready to sell their cities for their private gain were, as Demosthenes says, rather admired than otherwise.[6] The social condition of Greece was becoming very unhappy. The wealth of the country had ceased to grow; the gulf between rich and poor was becoming wider; party strife was constantly adding to the number of homeless paupers; and Greece was full of men who were ready to take service with any captain of mercenaries, or, failing that, with any leader of desperadoes. Isocrates draws a vivid and terrible picture of these evils. The cure for them, he firmly believed, was to unite the Greeks in a cause which would excite a generous enthusiasm. Now was the time, he thought, for that enterprise in which Xenophon's comrades had virtually succeeded, when the headlong rashness of young Cyrus threw away their reward with his own life.[7] The Persian empire was unsound to the core--witness the retreat of the Ten Thousand: let united Greece attack it and it must go down at the first onset. Then new wealth would flow into Greece; and the hungry pariahs of Greek society would be drafted into fertile homes beyond the Aegean. Entry: ISOCRATES

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 14, Slice 8 "Isabnormal Lines" to "Italic"     1910-1911

Nor is this all: the earlier _Rhetoric to Alexander_ and the later _Rhetoric_ show us logic itself in the making. We have already said that Aristotle was primarily a metaphysician. He gradually became a logician out of his previous studies: out of metaphysics, for with him being is always the basis of thinking, and common principles, such as that of contradiction, are axioms of things before axioms of thought, while categories are primarily things signified by names; out of the mathematics of the Pythagoreans and the Platonists, which taught him the nature of demonstration; out of the physics, of which he imbibed the first draughts from his father, which taught him induction from sense and the modification of strict demonstration to suit facts; out of the dialectic between man and man which provided him with beautiful examples of inference in the Socratic dialogues of Xenophon and Plato; out of the rhetoric addressed to large audiences, which with dialectic called his attention to probable inferences; out of the grammar taught with rhetoric and poetics which led him to the logic of the proposition. We cannot write a history of the varied origin of logic, beyond putting the rudimentary logic of the proposition in the _De Interpretatione_ before the less rudimentary theory of categories as significant names capable of becoming predicates in the _Categories_, and before the maturer analysis of the syllogism in the _Analytics_. But at any rate the process was gradual; and Aristotle was advanced in metaphysics, mathematics, physics, dialectics, rhetoric and poetics, before he became the founder of logic. Entry: 4

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 5 "Arculf" to "Armour, Philip"     1910-1911

Honey is mildly laxative in properties. Some few kinds are poisonous, as frequently the reddish honey stored by the Brazilian wasp _Nectarina_ (_Polistes_, Latr.[5]) _Lecheguana_, Shuck., the effects of which have been vividly described by Aug. de Saint-Hilaire,[6] the spring honey of the wild bees of East Nepaul, said to be rendered noxious by collection from rhododendron flowers (Hooker, _Himalayan Journals_, i. 190, ed. 1855), and the honey of Trebizond, which from its source, the blossoms, it is stated, of _Azalea pontica_ and _Rhododendron ponticum_ (perhaps to be identified with Pliny's _Aegolethron_), acquires the qualities of an irritant and intoxicant narcotic, as described by Xenophon (_Anab._ iv. 8). Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xxi. 45) describes as noxious a livid-coloured honey found in Persia and Gaetulia. Honey obtained from _Kalmia latifolia_, L., the calico bush, mountain laurel or spoon-wood of the northern United States, and allied species, is reputed deleterious; also that of the sour-wood is by some good authorities considered to possess undeniable griping properties; and G. Bidie (_Madras Quart. Journ. Med. Sci._, Oct, 1861, p. 399) mentions urtication, headache, extreme prostration and nausea, and intense thirst among the symptoms produced by a small quantity only of a honey from Coorg jungle. A South African species of _Euphorbia_, as was experienced by the missionary Moffat (_Miss. Lab._ p. 32, 1849), yields a poisonous honey. The nectar of certain flowers is asserted to cause even in bees a fatal kind of vertigo. As a demulcent and flavouring agent, honey is employed in the _oxymel_, _oxymel scillae_, _mel boracis_, _confectio piperis_, _conf. scammonii_ and _conf. terebinthinae_ of the _British Pharmacopoeia_. To the ancients honey was of very great importance as an article of diet, being almost their only available source of sugar. It was valued by them also for its medicinal virtues; and in recipes of the Saxon and later periods it is a common ingredient.[7] Of the eight kinds of honey mentioned by the great Indian surgical writer Susruta, four are not described by recent authors, viz. _argha_ or wild honey, collected by a sort of yellow bee; _chhatra_, made by tawny or yellow wasps; _audálaka_, a bitter and acrid honey-like substance found in the nest of white ants; and _dála_ or unprepared honey occurring on flowers. According to Hindu medical writers, honey when new is laxative, and when more than a year old astringent (U. C. Dutt, _Mat. Med. of the Hindus_, p. 277, 1877). Ceromel, formed by mixing at a gentle heat one part by weight of yellow wax with four of clarified honey, and straining, is used in India and other tropical countries as a mild stimulant for ulcers in the place of animal fats, which there rapidly become rancid and unfit for medicinal purposes. The _Koran_, in the chapter entitled "The Bee," remarks with reference to bees and their honey: "There proceedeth from their bellies a liquor of various colour, wherein is a medicine for men" (Sale's _Koran_, chap. xvi.). Pills prepared with honey as an excipient are said to remain unindurated, however long they may be kept (_Med. Times_, 1857, i. 269). Mead, of yore a favourite beverage in England (vol. iv. p. 264), is made by fermentation of the liquor obtained by boiling in water combs from which the honey has been drained. In the preparation of sack-mead, an ounce of hops is added to each gallon of the liquor, and after the fermentation a small quantity of brandy. Metheglin, or hydromel, is maufactured by fermenting with yeast a solution of honey flavoured with boiled hops (see Cooley, _Cyclop._). A kind of mead is largely consumed in Abyssinia (vol. i. p. 64), where it is carried on journeys in large horns (Stern, _Wanderings_, p. 317, 1862). In Russia a drink termed _lipez_ is made from the delicious honey of the linden. The _mulsum_ of the ancient Romans consisted of honey, wine and water boiled together. The _clarre_, or _piment_, of Chaucer's time was wine mixed with honey and spices, and strained till clear; a similar drink was _bracket_, made with wort of ale instead of wine. L. Maurial (_L'Insectologie Agricole_ for 1868, p. 206) reports unfavourably as to the use of honey for the production of alcohol; he recommends it, however, as superior to sugar for the thickening of liqueurs, and also as a means of sweetening imperfectly ripened vintages. It is occasionally employed for giving strength and flavour to ale. In ancient Egypt it was valued as an embalming material; and in the East, for the preservation of fruit, and the making of cakes, sweetmeats, and other articles of food, it is largely consumed. Grafts, seeds and birds' eggs, for transmission to great distances, are sometimes packed in honey. In India a mixture of honey and milk, or of equal parts of curds, honey and clarified butter (Sansk., _madhu-parka_), is a respectful offering to a guest, or to a bridegroom on his arrival at the door of the bride's father; and one of the purificatory ceremonies of the Hindus (Sansk., _madhu-prasana_) is the placing of a little honey in the mouth of a newborn male infant. Honey is frequently alluded to by the writers of antiquity as food for children; it is not to this, however, as already mentioned, that Isa. vii. 15 refers. Cream or fresh butter together with honey, and with or without bread, is a favourite dish with the Arabs. Entry: HONEY

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 6 "Home, Daniel" to "Hortensius, Quintus"     1910-1911

FRÉRET, NICOLAS (1688-1749), French scholar, was born at Paris on the 15th of February 1688. His father was _procureur_ to the parlement of Paris, and destined him to the profession of the law. His first tutors were the historian Charles Rollin and Father Desmolets (1677-1760). Amongst his early studies history, chronology and mythology held a prominent place. To please his father he studied law and began to practise at the bar; but the force of his genius soon carried him into his own path. At nineteen he was admitted to a society of learned men before whom he read memoirs on the religion of the Greeks, on the worship of Bacchus, of Ceres, of Cybele and of Apollo. He was hardly twenty-six years of age when he was admitted as pupil to the Academy of Inscriptions. One of the first memoirs which he read was a learned and critical discourse, _Sur l'origine des Francs_ (1714). He maintained that the Franks were a league of South German tribes and not, according to the legend then almost universally received, a nation of free men deriving from Greece or Troy, who had kept their civilization intact in the heart of a barbarous country. These sensible views excited great indignation in the Abbé Vertot, who denounced Fréret to the government as a libeller of the monarchy. A _lettre de cachet_ was issued, and Fréret was sent to the Bastille. During his three months of confinement he devoted himself to the study of the works of Xenophon, the fruit of which appeared later in his memoir on the _Cyropaedia_. From the time of his liberation in March 1715 his life was uneventful. In January 1716 he was received associate of the Academy of Inscriptions, and in December 1742 he was made perpetual secretary. He worked without intermission for the interests of the Academy, not even claiming any property in his own writings, which were printed in the _Recueil de l'académie des inscriptions_. The list of his memoirs, many of them posthumous, occupies four columns of the _Nouvelle Biographie générale_. They treat of history, chronology, geography, mythology and religion. Throughout he appears as the keen, learned and original critic; examining into the comparative value of documents, distinguishing between the mythical and the historical, and separating traditions with an historical element from pure fables and legends. He rejected the extreme pretensions of the chronology of Egypt and China, and at the same time controverted the scheme of Sir Isaac Newton as too limited. He investigated the mythology not only of the Greeks, but of the Celts, the Germans, the Chinese and the Indians. He was a vigorous opponent of the theory that the stories of mythology may be referred to historic originals. He also suggested that Greek mythology owed much to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. He was one of the first scholars of Europe to undertake the study of the Chinese language; and in this he was engaged at the time of his committal to the Bastille. He died in Paris on the 8th of March 1749. Entry: FRÉRET

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 2 "French Literature" to "Frost, William"     1910-1911

The battle of Leuctra transferred the hegemony from Sparta to Thebes, but the attempt to unite Greece under the leadership of Thebes was from the first doomed to failure. The conditions were less favourable to Thebes than they had been to Athens or Sparta. Thebes was even more exclusively a land-power than Sparta. She had no revenue comparable to that of Athens in the preceding century. Unlike Athens and Sparta, she had not the advantage of being identified with a political cause. As the enemy of Athens in the 5th century, she was on the side of oligarchy; as the rival of Sparta in the 4th, she was on the side of democracy; but in her bid for primacy she could not appeal, as Athens and Sparta could, to a great political tradition, nor had she behind her, as they had, the moral force of a great political principle. Her position, too, in Boeotia itself was insecure. The rise of Athens was in great measure the result of the _synoecism_ ([Greek: sunoikismos)] of Attica. All inhabitants of Attica were Athenians. But "Boeotian" and "Theban" were not synonymous terms. The Boeotian league was an imperfect form of union, as compared with the Athenian state, and the claim of Thebes to the presidency of the league was, at best, sullenly acquiesced in by the other towns. The destruction of some of the most famous of the Boeotian cities, however necessary it may have been in order to unite the country, was a measure which at once impaired the resources of Thebes and outraged Greek sentiment. It has been often held that the failure of Theban policy was due to the death of Epaminondas (at the battle of Mantinea, 362 B.C.). For this view there is no justification. His policy had proved a failure before his death. Where it harmonized with the spirit of the age, the spirit of dissidence, it succeeded; where it attempted to run counter to it, it failed. It succeeded in destroying the supremacy of Sparta in the Peloponnese; it failed to unite the Peloponnese on a new basis. It failed still more significantly to unite Greece north of the Isthmus. It left Greece weaker and more divided than it found it (see the concluding words of Xenophon's _Hellenics_). It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of his policy as a destructive force; as a constructive force it effected nothing.[19] The Peloponnesian system which Epaminondas overthrew had lasted two hundred years. Under Spartan leadership the Peloponnese had enjoyed almost complete immunity from invasion and comparative immunity from _stasis_ (faction). The claim that Isocrates makes for Sparta is probably well-founded (_Archidamus_, 64-69; during the period of Spartan ascendency the Peloponnesians were [Greek: eudaimonestatoi tôn Hellênôn]). Peloponnesian sentiment had been one of the chief factors in Greek politics; to it, indeed, in no small degree was due the victory over Persia. The Theban victory at Leuctra destroyed the unity, and with it the peace and the prosperity, of the Peloponnese. It inaugurated a period of misery, the natural result of _stasis_ and invasion, to which no parallel can be found in the earlier history (See Isocrates, _Archidamus_, 65, 66; the Peloponnesians were [Greek: ômalismenoi tais sumphopais]). It destroyed, too, the Peloponnesian sentiment of hostility to the invader. The bulk of the army that defeated Mardonius at Plataea came from the Peloponnese; at Chaeronea no Peloponnesian state was represented. Entry: 5

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 4 "Grasshopper" to "Greek Language"     1910-1911

_In Human Beings._--The disease of hydrophobia has been known from early times, and is alluded to in the works of Aristotle, Xenophon, Plutarch, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and many others, as well as in those of the early writers on medicine. Celsus gives detailed instructions respecting the treatment of men who have been bitten by rabid dogs, and dwells on the dangers attending such wounds. After recommending suction of the bitten part by means of a dry cupping glass, and thereafter the application of the actual cautery or of strong caustics, and the employment of baths and various internal remedies, he says: "Idque cum ita per triduum factum est, tutus esse homo a periculo videtur. Solet autem ex eo vulnere, ubi parum occursum est, aquae timor nasci, [Greek: hydrophobian] Graeci appellant. Miserrimum genus morbi; in quo simul aeger et siti et aquae metu cruciatur; quo oppressis in angusto spes est." Subsequently Galen described minutely the phenomena of hydrophobia, and recommended the excision of the wounded part as a protection against the disease. Throughout many succeeding centuries little or nothing was added to the facts which the early physicians had made known upon the subject. The malady was regarded with universal horror and dread, and the unfortunate sufferers were generally abandoned by all around them and left to their terrible fate. In later times the investigations of Boerhaave, Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772), John Hunter, François Magendie (1783-1855), Gilbert Breschet (1784-1845), Virchow, Albert Reder, as also of William Youatt (1776-1847), George Fleming, Meynell, Karl Hertwig (1798-1881), and others, have furnished important information; but all these were put into the shade by the researches of Pasteur. Entry: HYDROPHOBIA

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 14, Slice 2 "Hydromechanics" to "Ichnography"     1910-1911

As far as the Khabur Mesopotamia seems to have been a well-inhabited country from at least the 15th century B.C., when it constituted the Hittite kingdom of Mitanni, down to about the 12th century A.D., and the same is true of the country on the Syrian side of the Euphrates as far as the eastern limit of the Palmyrene. Below this point the back country on the Syrian side has always been a complete desert. On the Mesopotamian side there would seem, from the accounts of Xenophon and Ptolemy, to have been an affluent which joined the Euphrates between Deir and 'Ana, called Araxes by the former, Saocoras by the latter; but no trace of such a stream has been found by modern explorers and the country in general has always been uninhabited. Below Salahiya the river-bed narrows and becomes more rocky. A day's journey beyond Salahiya, on a bluff on the Mesopotamian side of the river, are the conspicuous ruins Of el-'Irsi (_Corsote_?). Half a day's journey beyond, at a point where two great wadis enter the Euphrates, on the Syrian side, stands Jabriya, an unidentified ruined town of Babylonian type, with walls of unbaked brick, instead of the stone heretofore encountered. At this point the river turns sharply a little north of east, continuing on that course somewhat over 40 m. to 'Ana, where it bends again to the south-east. Just above 'Ana are rapids, and from this point to Hit the river is full of islands, while the bed is for the most part narrow, leaving little cultivable land between it and the bluffs. 'Ana itself, a very ancient town, of Babylonian origin, once sacred probably to the goddess of the same name, lay originally on several islands in the stream, where ruins, principally of the Arabic and late Persian period, are visible. Here palm trees, which had begun to appear singly at Deir, grow in large groves, the olive disappears entirely, and we have definitely passed over from the Syrian to the Babylonian flora and climate. Between 'Ana and Hit there were anciently at least four island cities or fortresses, and at the present time three such towns, insignificant relics of former greatness, Haditha, Alus or el-'Uzz and Jibba still occupy the old sites. Of these Alus is evidently the ancient Auzara or Uzzanesopolis, the city of the old Arabic goddess 'Uzza; Haditha, an important town under the Abbasids, was earlier known as Baia Malcha; while Jibba has not been identified. The fourth city, Thilutha or Olabus, once occupied the present deserted island of Telbeis, half a day's journey below 'Ana. About half-way between 'Ana and Hit, in the neighbourhood of Haditha, the river has a breadth of 300 yds., with a depth of 18 ft., and a flood speed of 4 knots. At this point we begin to encounter sulphur springs and bitter streams redolent with bitumen, a formation which reaches its climax at Hit (q.v.), where a small stream (the "river of Ahava" of Ezra viii. 21) enters the Euphrates from the Syrian side, on which, about 8 m. from its mouth, stands the small town of Kubeitha. Entry: EUPHRATES

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 8 "Ethiopia" to "Evangelical Association"     1910-1911

5. _Greek Mercenaries._--The military system of the 4th century was not called upon to provide armies for continuous service on distant expeditions. When, after the earlier campaigns of the Peloponnesian War, the necessity for such expeditions arose, the system was often strained almost to breaking point, (e.g. in the case of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse), and ultimately the states of Greece were driven to choose between unprofitable expenditure of the lives of citizens and recruiting from other sources. Mercenaries serving as light troops, and particularly as _peltasts_ (a new form of disciplined "light infantry") soon appeared. The _corps de bataille_ remained for long the old phalanx of citizen hoplites. But the heavy losses of many years told severely on the resources of every state, and ultimately non-national recruits--adventurers and soldiers of fortune, broken men who had lost their possessions in the wars, political refugees, runaway slaves, &c.--found their way even into the ranks of the hoplites, and Athens at one great crisis (407) enlisted slaves, with the promise of citizenship as their reward. The Arcadians, like the Scots and the Swiss in modern history, furnished the most numerous contingent to the new professional armies. A truly national army was indeed to appear once more in the history of the Peloponnesus, but in the meantime the professional soldier held the field. The old bond of strict citizenship once broken, the career of the soldier of fortune was open to the adventurous Greek. Taenarum and Corinth became regular _entrepôts_ for mercenaries. The younger Cyrus raised his army for the invasion of Persia precisely as the emperors Maximilian and Charles V. raised regiments of _Landsknechte_--by the issue of recruiting commissions to captains of reputation. This army became the famous Ten Thousand. It was a marching city-state, its members not desperate adventurers, but men with the calm self-respect of Greek civilization. On the fall of its generals, it chose the best officers of the army to command, and obeyed implicitly. Cheirisophus the Spartan and Xenophon the Athenian, whom they chose, were not plausible demagogues; they were line officers, who, suddenly promoted to the chief command under circumstances of almost overwhelming difficulty, proved capable of achieving the impossible. The merit of choosing such leaders is not the least title to fame of the Ten Thousand mercenary Greek hoplites. About the same time Iphicrates with a body of mercenary _peltasts_ destroyed a _mora_ or corps of Spartan hoplites (391 B.C.). Entry: 5

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 6 "Armour Plates" to "Arundel, Earls of"     1910-1911

Cornelius Nepos, _Vita Epaminondae_; Diodorus xv. 52-88; Xenophon, _Hellenica_, vii.; L. Pomtow, _Das Leben des Epaminondas_ (Berlin, 1870); von Stein, _Geschichte der spartanischen und thebanischen Hegemonie_ (Dorpat, 1884), pp. 123 sqq.; H. Swoboda in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopädie_, v. pt. 2 (Stuttgart, 1905), pp. 2674-2707; also ARMY: _History_, § 6. (M. O. B. C.) Entry: EPAMINONDAS

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts"     1910-1911

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