Plenty of Nothing

Amazon Falling From Her Horse

Amazon Falling from her Horse (1840s), by John Gibson. Source.

A Mask, Grapes and Leaves, Pompeii

Source.

The Holdovers' Marcus Aurelius

That edition of Marcus Aurelius with the 1970s cover in The Holdovers was a prop created for the film, so don't go looking for it in used bookstores. Source.

PHerc 1021

In addition to the papyri now being digitally unrolled and read with the aid of AI in the Vesuvius Challenge, there's another group of "older" Herculaneum papyri that were forcibly unrolled (and partly destroyed in the process) and read in the 18th Century. These, like PHerc 1021 above are now being reexamined with advanced imaging techniques, and new text is appearing. PHerc 1021 contains Philodemus' history of the Academy at Athens, and the new techniques have teased out more data, including the location of Plato's tomb. Read about it here. Source.

Pieces of Constantine

"The artist's despair before the grandeur of ancient ruins" circa 1778 by Fuseli. Source. 

Colosseum by Piranesi

"Vedutta dell' Anfiteatro Flavio detto il Colosseo" by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Source.

Calliope

The Muse Calliope, from the Triclinium complex in Moregine in Pompeii. Source.

Leda and the Swan

Leda and the Swan (first century, Rome) at the British Museum. Source. This weird myth has presented sculptors of every era with a compositional dilemma.

Leda and the Swan by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. Source.

Leda and the Swan by Ari Bitter. Source.

By Botero. Source.

Xenophantus

The Vesuvius Challenge is now revealing swaths of Epicurian philosophy. Read about it.

Machine Translation of Cicero, Timaeus XI to XIV

XI

But of the rest, whom the Greeks call daimons, I think they are ours, if only this can be seen rightly reversed, and to know and announce their rise is greater than we dare to confess. Of course, we must believe the ancients and the ancients, as they say to men who said they were the offspring of the gods, and therefore gave us their names; but they could know their generators very well, and it is difficult to not have faith from the gods: although their speech is supported neither by evidence nor by certain reasons, but because they seem to be speaking to us of their own affairs, we must conform to the old law and manners. Thus, therefore, as it is handed down from them, the origin of these gods is to be considered and said, so that we remember the Oceanus and Salacia being born and born from the conception of the Heavens and the Earth, from him Saturn and Opus, then Jove and Juno, the rest, whom we see usurped and called brothers and related to each other, and their , to use the old word, genealogy.
When, therefore, all and those who move openly show themselves, and those who are made manifest to us by those things which they will, then the god who begat all things declares these things to them: I do not want to be untied: although every bond may be untied, yet it is by no means good to wish to untie the life. , because there is a greater bond to your perpetuity than that to which you were bound when you were born. Know then what I mean. There remain for us three kinds, and those mortals, by which the absolution of heaven will not be complete; for it will not hold together all the kinds of animals; so that nothing may be absent from the same. These things, if they were produced by me, could equal the life of the gods; so that they should be born in a mortal condition, take yourselves to beget them and imitate my power, with which you remember that I was used in your birth. In which those who are created in such a way that they should be like the gentiles of the immortal gods, should be called of the divine race, and should hold the dominion of all living things, and should be born to you by right and by law. The beginning and beginning of which will be given to you by me, but you to that which will be immortal cover the mortal part.

XII

He said these things; then he returned to the higher temperance, in which he mixed all the spirit of the whole nature, and pouring out the remnants of the higher mixture, he equalized in almost the same way, except that it was not so uncorrupted as those which were always the same, but from them he took the second and even the third. Therefore, when the whole was established, he distributed an equal number of minds to every star, and joined each one to each one, and thus, as it were, placed it in the chariot of the universe, and made the fatal and necessary laws common, and showed that the first rising would be one for all, and that it would be moderate and constant, and that it would not be diminished by anything. and it would be sufficient, and as if it were scattered souls, to pray at certain intervals of time to the animal which was most suitable for the worship of the gods. But since the nature of the human race was twofold, the situation was such that there was a superior race of those who would be future men. But since souls were of necessity implanted in bodies, and by necessity there was both an approach and a departure from bodies, it was necessary at first that there should be one sense common to all, excited by the most violent motion, and united to nature, then love mixed with pleasure and pain, after anger and fear, and the rest of the emotions of the soul, the companions of the higher and to these also dissenters against them. "Those who rule with reason will live justly, but he who gives himself to them, unjustly. And he who has justly and honestly completed the course of life given by nature will return to that star for which he was fit; he will transfer, and if he does not even then make an end of his vices, he will be thrown even more severely, and in his manners he will be transferred to the most similar figures of cattle and beasts, and he will not see the limit of evils until he begins to follow that conversion, which he will have in himself of the same and likeness innate and innate: which will then happen with that which from the soul of fire, the water, the turbulent earth, and the experiences of the mind have settled, reason has purged it, and it has arrived at the first and best affection of the soul."

XIII

When he had thus designated himself, and if anything afterwards of fraud or vice had occurred, he would have placed outside all guilt and cause, others on the earth, others on the moon, and others in the rest of the world, which are established [for] signs and marks of space and time, scattering as if sowing . And after that dispensation, so to speak, he permitted the younger men to form mortal bodies, and as much as was left of the human mind which should approach, to polish and absolve all that and whatever consequences there were, then to provide themselves with princes and guides to this animate being, and to rule and govern its life as beautifully as possible. , in so far as he himself was not made well by his own fault, he sought some misery for himself. And indeed he who arranged all things constantly remained in his state; but those who were created by him, when they knew the order of their parent, followed it. And so when they had received the immortal principle of the animating mortal, imitating their parent and producer, the particles of fire and earth, and of the soul from the world, which they would again give back, they exchanged and united them to each other, not by the same bonds with which they themselves were bound, but by such as could not be seen on account of their smallness. by melting them together like blocks, they made one body out of all, and in it bound the spheres of the divine soul by the inflowing and affluent flow. And so they plunged into the river, neither holding nor being held, but with great force both carried and were carried. Thus they moved the whole animal, indeed, but in an immoderate and random manner, so that it rode in six movements: for both in front and in position and to the left and to the right and up and down, just this way that way ...

XIV

... it is settled in brightness, and then either the same appearance or sometimes it is rendered unchanged, when the fire of the eyes mingles with the fire which is poured out by the mouth and is carried away. But things that are left are seen on the right, because the opposite parts of the eyes touch the opposite parts. And they answer right to right, left to left, by turning the lights, when they are not coherent with each other: this happens when the lightness of the mirrors here and there has assumed height and thus pushed the right hand into the left part of the eyes and the left into the right. The dorsal edges are also seen by the repulsion of the lights, which, by turning, renders the inferior ones which are superior. And all these things are of that kind which help the causes of things, by which services God uses to make the appearance of the best as far as possible; but most people think that these are not the auxiliary causes, but these are the very causes of all things, [which have the power of cold and heat] which have the power of cooling, heating, congealing, melting, but are devoid of all understanding and reason, which are found in nature nowhere else except in the mind; but the mind escapes all sense from the eyes, but fire, water, earth, the soul are bodies, and they are seen. But he who professes himself to be a lover of understanding and wisdom must find out the first causes of the understanding and wise nature, and then the second causes of those things which necessarily move others when they themselves are moved by others. Wherefore I see that we ought to do so, that we should indeed speak of both kinds of causes, but separately of that which, with the understanding, is efficient to the most beautiful things and the best, and of that which, void of prudence, produces inconstancy and disturbance. And of the causes of the eyes, that they should have the power which they now have, I think it has been sufficiently said; and their greatest utility, given to the human race, will be further explained by the role of the gods. For the eyes have brought us the best knowledge of things. For this, which is considered of the universe, prayer would never have been invented by us, if neither the stars, nor the sun, nor the sky had been able to fall under the gaze of our eyes. Now, however, the days and nights having been known to the eyes, and the revolutions of the month and the years, and the number, have been contrived, and the length of time has been measured, and they have driven to the question of the whole of nature; from which things we have obtained philosophy, for which good none more desirable, none more excellent, has not been given to the mortal race by the consent and gift of the gods, nor will it be given.

Latin text translated by Google Translate.