Nobis a nostratihus esse exempla uirtutum, et
The Fading Legacy of Ancestral Virtue
The author laments the decline of ancestral virtue while asserting that domestic examples are as significant as those from antiquity.
Which cities in... According to ancient histories, Brennus founded Italy. But what we look for from our own people today has long since passed, and the virtue of our ancestors has flowed out to others to such an extent that the fullness of a rich spring seems to have dwindled into mere rivulets. We don't just have examples of virtue from the Romans and Greeks; we also have an abundance of them at home.
The Gallic and British Roots of the Senones
An exploration of the historical origins of the Senones, linking their lineage and physical traits back to the Britons and Gauls.
Histories tell us that Brennus, the leader of the Senones—who destroyed the Roman army at the river Allia, broke into and captured the city of Rome, slaughtered the senators, and after conquering Italy, invaded Greece—laid waste to everything and, a terror to all, marched as far as the temple of the Delphic Apollo on Mount Parnassus. There, coveting the spoils of Apollo himself, he joked crudely that the gods were wealthy and ought to be generous to men. They say that this man, I repeat, originated from Greater Britain, which has been called England since the Saxons arrived on the island. In the twentieth book of Trogus Pompeius, we find that the Senones, Gauls who were comrades-in-arms of Brennus, drove the Tuscans from their homes when they arrived in Italy and founded outstanding cities there: Milan, Como, Brescia, Verona, Bergamo, Trento, and Vicenza. For the fact that they built the city of the Senones for their own elderly, infirm, and herdsmen is not only a matter of historical record but also of famous tradition. This is all the more convincing because the Senones seem to resemble the Gauls and Britons—from whom they drew their origin—in the lines of their limbs, the beauty of their faces, the grace of their complexion, and their very customs, even though the passage of time, the climate of the region, the location of the land, and the company of neighbors with whom they have long been mixed in blood and custom have changed them to a great extent. Yet all these things haven't been enough to completely wipe out the Gallic complexion—that is, their fairness—to the point of making them resemble their neighbors. The Greeks.
Read the original Latin
quas ciuitates in. Italia condiderit Brennus secundum antiquas historias. Verum quod a nostris nunc quaerimus, iampridem praeteriit, et eo usque maiorum nostrorum uirtus manauit ad alios ut plenitudo diuitis uenae a fonte uideatur in riuulos defecisse. Neque enim a Romanis et Grecis tantum nobis sunt exempla uirtutis, nam et domesticis abundamus. Tradunt historiae Brennum ducem Senonum, qui exercitum Romanorum apud flumen AUiam confecit, ipsamque urbem Romam irrupit, cepit, et caesis patribus et subacta Italia inuasit Greciam, uastans omnia uniuersisque terribilis usque ad Delphici ApoUinis templum, quod situm est in monte Pamaso, processit, ipsiusque ApoUinis appetens spolia, scuriliter ioeatus ait: Locupletes deos largiri hominibus oportere; hunc, inquam, tradunt de maiori Britannia, quae ab aduentu a, Saxonum in insulam uocatur Anglia, oriundum. Apud Trogum Pompeium in uicesimo reperitur quod Senones Galli commilitones Brenni, eum in Italiam uenissent, Thuscos a suis sedibus expulerunt, in ea condidenmt lu-bes egregias Mediolanum Comum Brixiam Veronam Vergamum Tridentum atque Vincentiam. Nam quod urbem Senensium senibus suis et ualitudinariis armentariisque construxerint, non modo fides historiae sed celebris traditio est; ex eo quidem ualidior quod Senenses et liniamentis membrorum et uenustate faciei et coloris gratia moribus quoque ipsis ad Gallos et Britones, a quibus originem contraxerunt, uidentur accedere, licet eos uetustas, orbis plaga, situs regionis, conuictus finitimorum, quibus sanguine et moribus diu permixti sunt, ex magna parte mutauerit. Nondum tamen colorem Gallicum, candorem scilicet, haec omnia ad uicinorum similitudinem exterminasse sufficiunt.
Greci
Policraticus companion
Study the argument weekly; pray the tradition daily
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John of Salisbury argued that rulers must keep the law of God before their eyes daily; Chosen Portion gives modern readers that same daily discipline in five minutes a morning.
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