Marius the Epicurean — Volume 2

From the opening

PART THE THIRD 15. Stoicism at Court 16. Second Thoughts 17. Beata Urbs 18. “The Ceremony of the Dart” 19. The Will as Vision

PART THE FOURTH 20. Two Curious Houses—1. Guests 21. Two Curious Houses—2. The Church in Cecilia’s House 22. “The Minor Peace of the Church” 23. Divine Service 24. A Conversation Not Imaginary 25. Sunt Lacrimae Rerum 26. The Martyrs 27. The Triumph of Marcus Aurelius 28. Anima Naturaliter Christiana

Notes: I have placed an asterisk immediately after each of Pater’s footnotes and a + sign after my own notes, and have listed each of my notes at that chapter’s end.

Greek typeface: For this full-text edition, I have transliterated Pater’s Greek quotations. If there is a need for the original Greek, it can be viewed at my site, http://www.ajdrake.com/etexts, a Victorianist archive that contains the complete works of Walter Pater and many other nineteenth-century texts, mostly in first editions.

+“A winter’s dream, when nights are longest.” Lucian, The Dream, Vol. 3.

The very finest flower of the same company—Aurelius with the gilded fasces borne before him, a crowd of exquisites, the empress Faustina herself, and all the elegant blue-stockings of the day, who maintained, people said, their private “sophists” to whisper philosophy into their ears winsomely as they performed the duties of the toilet—was assembled again a few months later, in a different place and for a very different purpose. The temple of Peace, a “modernising” foundation of Hadrian, enlarged by a library and lecture-rooms, had grown into an institution like something between a college and a literary club; and here Cornelius Fronto was to pronounce a discourse on the Nature of Morals. There were some, indeed, who had desired the emperor Aurelius himself to declare his whole mind on this matter. Rhetoric was become almost a function of the state: philosophy was upon the throne; and had from time to time, by request, delivered an official utterance with well-nigh divine authority.

A short sample. Read the whole book

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