Extracts from Classical Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Classical Literature’
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Classical Literature’
A proud British king, taken to Rome as a trophy of Empire, refused to plead for his life.
Caratacus, King of the Catuvellauni, led the British resistance to Roman invasion in the AD 40s, but he was betrayed and taken to Rome. The Emperor Claudius asked him why his life should be spared, and this was the King’s reply.
The wise old philosopher had learnt that popular entertainments rot the soul.
Seneca knew something about cruelty: he was tutor and counsellor to the Emperor Nero. Here, he writes to Lucilius, Procurator of Sicily, about the moral effect of mass entertainments such as the brutal gladiator contests of Rome.
The Roman Emperor Honorius, so the story goes, had more on his mind than the impending sack of one of Europe’s iconic cities.
After the Roman Empire split into East and West, Constantinople’s glories in the East contrasted sharply with Rome’s growing vulnerability, and in 410, Alaric the Goth beseiged the former capital.