Nov

25

2012

Noteable Quote: Cicero on Handouts

by Scott Morales

Gaius Gracchus proposed his grain law. It delighted the people for it provided an abundance of food free of toil.  The good men, by contrast, fought against it because they reckoned that the masses would be seduced from the ways of hard work and become slothful, and they saw that the treasury would be drained dry.

– Marcus Tullius Cicero ,Speech on Behalf of Publius Sestius (h/t: After America)

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by Scott Morales

I’m a software guy with a penchant for football, hockey, music, current events and politics -- mostly current events and politics. Having driven several conversations to silence while discussing the latter items, it has been intimated that I should blog about it; to purge it from my system so that we may return to enjoying social events and cocktail parties. Kind of like drawing venom from a snakebite so that the body may return to health. The body, in this clumsy metaphor, is the social life of my wife:0) So, game on! I’ve got opinions and I hope to persuade and look forward, in return, to be persuaded.

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  • KenEyring

    Thanks Scott. This is the type of education that we should be providing to our children, in addition to American History, our Constitution, our quest for independence from England…

  • xbox361

    and remember how his life ended, from Wikipedia

    Cicero’s last words are said to have been, “There is nothing proper
    about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.” He
    bowed to his captors, leaning his head out of the litter in a
    gladiatorial gesture to ease the task. By baring his neck and throat to
    the soldiers, he was indicating that he wouldn’t resist. According to Plutarch,
    Herennius first slew him, then cut off his head. On Antony’s
    instructions his hands, which had penned the Philippics against Antony,
    were cut off as well; these were nailed along with his head on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum according to the tradition of Marius and Sulla,
    both of whom had displayed the heads of their enemies in the Forum.
    Cicero was the only victim of the proscriptions to be displayed in that
    manner. According to Cassius Dio (in a story often mistakenly attributed to Plutarch),[44] Antony’s wife Fulvia
    took Cicero’s head, pulled out his tongue, and jabbed it repeatedly
    with her hairpin in final revenge against Cicero’s power of speech.

    I wonder how the Second Term of our President will turn out?
    Hope we avoid proscription.

    recommend the history of rome podcast, gives a nice historical perspective on a shortsighted government making bad choices that lead inexorably to the end of an empire

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