02 July 2013

Quote of the Day: on Rome

"Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven."

--a character in Russian fiction

3 comments:

  1. "Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple knot as in an intestinal obstruction. Dacians, Heruleans, Scythians, Sarmatians, Hyperboreans, heavy wheels without spokes, eyes sunk in fat, sodomy, double chins, illiterate emperors, fish fed on the flesh of learned slaves... all crammed into the passages of the Coliseum, and all wretched."

    Notably, penned by Boris Pasternak (in Dr Zhivago), a member of the tribe. Although put in the mouth of Nikolay ("Kolya") Zhivago, a Xian character, who then continues by explaining how Yeishu allegedly fixed all that. You can decide if the above more reflects the author's or the character's culture. (I can't.)

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  2. If we accept this description of an imperial power as a place of borrowings and individual greed, does it then follow that if you represent or hold fast to nothing in particular, you can be anything to anybody?
    Or did Rome get to be Rome more because of its military than because of its vagueness?
    Or both?

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    Replies
    1. It seems to me that it is futile, for Rome as for an individual, to try to be "anything to anybody".
      If it seems to you that Rome succeeded, I assume that that impression is because we are still living in a Rome-based culture (galus Edom).

      The military would be in the service of the vagueness, no?
      Tsofi, help me out here -- am I confusing Edom with Amalek?

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