May the sailor who brought me [to Athens] die miserably. Athens contains nothing magnificent except its place names. When a sacrificial victim is burnt only the skin remains as an indication of what animal that once was; just so, now that philosophy has deserted Athens, all that remains is to wander and wonder at the Academy and the Lyceum; ... Athens was indeed once a city, the home of the wise; now it is inhabited by bee-keepers.
--Synesius, Letters 135 [395 AD]
Richard Stoneman trans, in
Richard Stoneman, A Literary Companion to Travel in Greece (1984).
No comments:
Post a Comment