Long before our own time, the customs of our ancestors moulded admirable men, and in turn these eminent men upheld the ways and institutions of their forebears. Our age, however, inherited the Republic like some beautiful painting of bygone days, its colors already fading through great age; and not only has our time neglected to freshen the colors of the picture, but we have failed to preserve its form and outlines. For what remains to us, nowadays, of the ancient ways on which the commonwealth, we are told, was founded? We see them so lost in oblivion that they are not merely neglected, but quite forgot. And what am I to say of the men? For our customs have perished for want of men to stand by them, and we are now called to an account, so that we stand impeached like men accused of capital crimes, compelled to plead our own cause. Through our vices, rather than from happenstance, we retain the word “republic” long after we have lost the reality.–Cicero, De Re Publica
Stewardship applies to more than the natural world.
5 comments
D.W. Sabin
Our vicarious agora, like our industrialized food chain distracts us from the reality that we can find a higher degree of greatness within a thirty minute walk than we can by tuning into the idiot-fest of modern “info-tainment”, a farrago of a concept.
Tim Holton
robert m. peters,
…and vice versa, no?
robert m. peters
Joanne,
Yes, where there are no republican men, men of virtue, there can be no republic.
Joanne
This quote sums it all up. We have got to have, retain, and pass on higher values. How do we do this in a postmodern world? Where are the honorable men and women to lead us? Frontporchrepublic is a good place to start relearning what we have forgotten. Thanks, Mark
robert m. peters
The union of constitutionally federated republics was finished long ago. Those republics have become mere political divisions, with their power and authority being drained each day, of the consolidated and centralized Hobbesian state. In Section 16 of Arlington National Cemetery there is there found of a monument the following words:
Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni! Lucan, “Pharsalia”
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