Sublime

“According to Aristophanes in Plato’s The Banquet, in the ancient world of legend there were three types of people,” Oshima says. “Have you heard about this?” “No.”

Aeneas and more

For bars were not just drinking dens but an essential part of everyday life for those who had, at best, limited cooking facilities in their lodgings. As with the arrangement of apartment blocks, the Roman pattern is precisely the reverse of our own: the Roman rich, with their kitchens and multiple dining rooms, ate at home; the poor, if they wanted

Ancient Greek and Roman culture recognized and honoured our needs with greater dignity. The noblest minds – Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius – all turned their hands to what were unmistakably works of self-help. The applied philosophical tradition in which they operated continued beyond the fall of Rome. Michel de Montaigne’s

Oui, répondit Nietzsche, c’est un élément important dans mon travail. Mon premier champ d’exploration reste la philologie. Mon premier et seul emploi fut un poste de professeur de philologie à l’université de Bâle. Je me suis particulièrement intéressé aux philosophes présocratiques, et j’ai toujours jugé crucial de revenir aux textes originaux. Le

According to Nietzsche, Socrates had started us off on a dangerous path, causing us to value reason and enquiry over the instinctual, creative urge. The new type of hero he posits would connect us once again with the rich, intuitive realm of Dionysus; one to which Greek Tragedy had once connected us, but we have since left long behind.