A Single Soldier

“The slaughter that followed was made particularly memorable through the murder of a father by his son. I will record the incident with the names, on the authority of Vipstanus Messalla. Julius Mansuetus, a Spaniard, enlisting in the legion Rapax, had left at home a son of tender age. The lad grew up to manhood, and was enrolled by Galba in the 7th legion. Now chancing to meet his father, he brought him to the ground with a wound, and, as he rifled his dying foe, recognized him, and was himself recognized. Clasping the expiring man in his arms, in piteous accents he implored the spirit of his father to be propitious to him, and not to turn from him with loathing as from a parricide. ‘This guilt,’ he said, ‘is shared by all; how small a part of a civil war is a single soldier!’ With these words he raised the body, opened a grave, and discharged the last duties for his father.”

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).

Scribedom

“A father taking his son to school: ‘Set your heart on books. It shall make you love scribedom more than your mother. It’s the greatest of all callings. There is none like it in the least. I have seen the metalworker at his furnace with fingers like the claws of a crocodile. He stinks more than fish roe. The barber barbers till nightfall. He moves from street to street, looking for someone to barber. The gardener’s shoulders are bent as with age. He works himself to death. The farmer wails more than guinea fowl. His fingers are swollen and stink to excess. See, there is no profession without a boss, except for the scribe. He is the boss. Hence, if you know writing, it will do better for you than those other professions I’ve set before you, each more wretched than the other.’”

12th Dynasty, Egypt

Mushrooming

“And there was Marianna Palach!—the laundrywoman, wizened to a husk now, who none the less went mushrooming, and had set up shop. Everyone in the market was laughing, haggling, giving, taking, proving beyond all doubt, whatever the zealots had to say, that the business of trade was one of life’s most natural and enjoyable pleasures, no more to be abolished than the act of falling in love....”

Bruce Chatwin, Utz (1988).

The first rule of Banditry

"You’ll agree with me that the first rule of our profession is to find out where the money lies.”

--Apulieus, The Golden Ass (2nd Century A.D.)

[translated by Robert Graves].

Applauder

“When Selius spreads his nets for an invitation
To dinner, if you’re due to plead a cause
In court or give a poetry recitation,
Take him along, he’ll furnish your applause:
‘Well said!’ ‘Hear, hear!’ ‘Bravo!’ ‘Shrewd point!’ ‘That’s good!’,
Till you say, ‘Shut up now, you’ve earned your food.’”

--Martial, The Epigrams (85 AD).

On Workers

“Always honest, as long as he isn’t fomenting riots.”

--Gustave Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880). [Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]

Verse-Makers

“All other trades demand, verse-makers beg.”

--Edward Young, Love of Fame (1728).

Great Capitalists and Humble Venturers

“The great Capitalist whose imperial sway is more withering than despotism itself, to the enterprises of humble venturers.”

--Alexander Kinglake, Eothen (1844).

Permatemps

“The ‘permanent temporaries’ are liable to dismissal at any time, but are practically fixed, some having been in the service from eight to ten years.”

--Pall Mall Gazette (1892).

The Two Oldest Professions in the World

“Lawyers and tarts are the two oldest professions in the world. And we always aim to please.”

--Horace Rumpole, as quoted by Peter McWilliams, Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do (1993).

A Tapper of Kegs

“Ther’s Tom the Tapster peerelesse for renowne,
That drank three hundred drunken Dutch-men downe.”

--William Parkes, The Curtain-Drawer of the World (1612).

Sir Walter Scott on Tailors

“They say it takes nine tailors to make a man—apparently, one is sufficient to ruin him.”

--Sir Walter Scott, Letter 26 July in Lockhart (1819).

The Imaginary Saddler

“Once or twice a day, the saddler used to go tearing down the street, putting on his coat as he went; and then everybody knew a steamboat was coming. Everybody knew, also, that John Stavely was not expecting anybody by the boat—or any freight, either; and Stavely must have known that everybody knew this, still it made no difference to him; he liked to seem to himself to be expecting a hundred thousand tons of saddles by this boat, and so he went on all his life, enjoying being faithfully on hand to receive and receipt for those saddles, in case by any miracle they should come. A malicious Quincy paper used always to refer to this town, in derision, as ‘Stavely’s Landing.’ Stavely was one of my earliest admirations; I envied him his rush of imaginary business, and the display he was able to make of it before strangers, as he went flying down the street, struggling with his fluttering coat.”

--Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Achilles on buying the farm

Achilles: “O shining Odysseus, never try to console me for dying.
I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another
man, one with no land allotted him and not much to live on,
than be a king over all the perished dead.”

--Homer, The Odyssey (6th Century B.C.).

[Translated by Richard Lattimore.]

Palmer

“The Pilgrim had some home, or dwelling place, but the Palmer had none. The Pilgrim travelled to some certain designed place, or places, but the Palmer to all. The Pilgrim went at his own charges, but the Palmer profest wilful poverty, and went upon Alms.”

--Thomas Staveley, The Romish Horseleech (1674).

Dickens on the Fragile Millers

“Surely there never was such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke.”

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854).

Erasmus on the Merchant

“Most foolish of all, and the meanest, is the whole tribe of merchants, for they handle the meanest sort of business by the meanest methods, and although their lies, perjury, thefts, frauds, and deceptions are everywhere to be found, they still reckon themselves a cut above everyone else simply because their fingers sport gold rings.”

Erasmus, Praise of Folly, (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

Plato on the Master of Gymnastic

“Then they send them to the master of gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better minister to the virtuous mind, and they may not be compelled through bodily weakness to play the coward in war or on any other occasion. This is what is done by those who have the means, and those who have the means are the rich; their children begin to go to school soonest and leave off latest.”

Plato, Protagoras (4th century B.C.)

[translated by Benjamin Jowett].

To Tame a Lion

“He who would teach the lion hath two dogs. When he would fain make the lion do anything, he commandeth him to do it, and if the lion murmur, then he beateth the dogs; whereof the lion disdoubteth him sore, when he seeth the dogs beaten; wherefore he refraineth his courage and doeth that which hath been commanded.”

--Villard de Honnecourt, Sketch-Book, folio 46 (13th century).

Lexicographers

“Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite right.”

--Samuel Johnson.

Galley Slave

"The galley-slaves have agreed together to throw their Officers and the Soldiers overboard.”

--London Gazette (1701).