"I confess to you that whenever, in my absence, I thought of my country, what I saw in my mind’s eye were these hills and plains, the Tiber and this beloved countryside, and the familiar sky under which I was born and bred. I can but hope that the love of these things will move you now to stay, and that the loss of them will not, in after years, tear your hearts with vain regret.”
the early history of rome
Livy, from "The Early History of Rome"
“The three young men reached Delphi, and carried out the king’s instructions. That done, Titus and Arruns found themselves unable to resist putting a further question to the oracle. Which of them, they asked, would be the next king of Rome? From the depths of the cavern came the mysterious answer: ‘He who shall be the first to kiss his mother shall hold in Rome supreme authority.’
Titus and Arruns were determined to keep the prophecy absolutely secret, to prevent their other brother, Tarquin, who had been left in Rome, from knowing anything about it. Thus he, at any rate, would be out of the running. For themselves, they drew lots to determine which of them, on their return, should kiss his mother first.
Brutus, however, interpreted the words of Apollo’s priestess in a different way. Pretending to trip, he fell flat on his face, and his lips touched the Earth—the mother of all living things.”
On Art
“Greek writers had style; Latin writers had a style—each his own—which is a very different thing.
They knew that ‘art was to conceal art…’ ”
- Aubrey de Selincourt, in his introduction to Livy’s “The Early History of Rome”