Does anyone know...? (Cicero quote)

[Epictetus]

I wonder what the ancients would have said about those who rewrite history to fit their agenda?

Oh, the ancients were quite good at this, actually. Maybe better than us moderns.

[D B Campbell]

Another quote which I suspect to be by a 20th century American but attributed to an ancient is "the nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

These words were written by the British adventurer Sir William Francis Butler in his biography of Gordon of Khartoum (Charles George Gordon, 1913): "The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards." Gordon, says Butler, was both a thinker and a fighter.

[Robert Vermaat]

I wonder what the ancients would have said about those who rewrite history to fit their agenda?

Oh, the ancients were quite good at this, actually. Maybe better than us moderns.

Absolutely. Whereas we feel an urge for 'history' describing 'what really happened' (even though we already know since Herodotus that that's impossible), the ancients had no qualms about writing down what history 'should have been', because to them their version of it served a specific purpose. This went on throughout history :wink: as we can see during the Middle Ages, when forged history served to support claims of ownership for instance.

[M. Caecilius]

Try to read Lucian's "Vera Historia", "True History", which is anything but. In fact, it's a rather nice parody on histories, travelogues (mostly), and academic works. It's a great work!

For more standard fare, Polybius dedicates large chapters of his work to criticize some other historians (but is himself sometimes guilty of similar excesses), and Tacitus' "sine ira et studio" is often cited, but only true on the surface. There's everything from clever manipulation to outright invention - and with regards to this thread, it's especially dangerous to accept speeches written down in, say, Livy, as accurate: some ancients actually admit in their prefaces that they write down what should/could have been said rather than what actually was said. Considering even Cicero's speeches were not delivered as we have them now, but were carefully edited (and, in the case of, say, the Pro Milone, never fully delivered at all!).

[Sean Manning]

Another quote which I suspect to be by a 20th century American but attributed to an ancient is "the nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

These words were written by the British adventurer Sir William Francis Butler in his biography of Gordon of Khartoum (Charles George Gordon, 1913): "The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards." Gordon, says Butler, was both a thinker and a fighter.

I will have to check a hard copy, but I can see that version around the internet, and it looks plausible. Turn Victorian rhetoric into a more modern style, attribute it to someone who many Americans have heard of, and off the quote runs!

I know the man better as Chinese Gordon of the Ever-Victorious Army.

[Draconis]

So, is there even an ancient origin to the quote? Did some biographer of Cicero squeeze it in as something Cicero would have said or should have said, or is it of more modern origin? Or did Goldwater or his speechwriter make it up and claim it was a paraphrase of Cicero, knowing that nobody would research its verity? Obviously it would be lucky for him we were not there to check up on it :-)

[D B Campbell]

I will have to check a hard copy, ...

Now, what kind of scholar doesn't check a hard copy?! :wink:
[attachment=3759]Butler_quote.jpg[/attachment]

[Sean Manning]

We moderns are certainly spoiled when we do research. That's a lot easier than poking behind temples flipping over plaques and trying to read inscriptions in funny script!

It happens that my university library has a copy, which I am waiting for. Canadian university libraries usually have a good collection of Victorian and Edwardian biographies with colourful leather covers. But I'll take that as the original source, and resist pointing out the error when I see it attributed to Thucydides.