Civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity—enough to provide a little leisure. But, far more, it requires confidence—confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy,...
What will be lost, and what saved, of our civilization probably lies beyond our powers to decide. No human group has ever figured out how to design its future. That future may be germinating today not...
The consulships were not the only ornamental offices in Roman society: the Eternal City was filled with the comings and goings of impotent men—senators, magistrates, bustling administrators of all kin...
Next panel [Plate 9]: Adam and Eve—painted by Masaccio—as they are thrown out of Eden. (Masaccio seems to have been, too.) The figures are less standard, even less accurate, than Masolino’s: Adam’s ar...
Translating Plato’s philosophy to the context of Christian belief, Augustine finds that out of a certain compassion for the masses God Most High bent down and subjected the authority of the divine int...
This is God’s self-description, the one he would have us remember. He is the God of mercy and forgiveness, the God who never deserts his people, faithful to the end, patient with all our failings howe...
They understood, as few have understood before or since, how fleeting life is and how pointless to try to hold on to things or people. They pursued the wondrous deed, the heroic gesture: fighting, fuc...
Alexander was, therefore, the Great, the greatest man who had ever lived. If Plato was the measure of all subsequent philosophy and Phidias of all attempts to carve a man in marble, Alexander was the...
We will never make it under our own stem. Having made this connection, Augustine falls apart. What he describes at this point in the Confessions is a full-scale emotional breakdown.
This was why sudden death was so feared: it did not give you time to put your spiritual house in order. You might have meant to repent but hadn’t quite got round to it. Too bad. Down you go. All the w...
After the Age of Pericles, as Athenian confidence dimmed, that famous confidence was all too often replaced by cynicism, modesty by cockiness, sincerity by manipulation, strength by bluster. Though th...
There are, no doubt, lessons here for the contemporary reader. The changing character of the native population, brought about through unremarked pressures on porous borders; the creation of an increas...