One for the poets

In the closing chapter of Augustus by John Williams, a novel I have just finished reading for the second time, I noticed yet another passage that I criminally overlooked on the first read. This quote appears in a letter written by the elderly and reflective emperor Octavius Caesar, to his friend, the historian and philosopher,…

The Romans and the Moralists

I am half way through rereading Augustus, a suberb novel by John Williams, author of the equally brilliant Stoner and Butcher’s Crossing, and noticed this particularly eloquent passage that I had overlooked the first time through. The quote is taken from a fictionalised 12BC letter from the political advisor Gaius Cilnius Maecenas to Titus Livius and…

Happy Sunday

I spotted this on the awning of an underground (literally) cocktail bar in East London. I can’t tell if it’s trying to persuade passersby to part with their money over expensive drinks or attempting to offer some kind of pop-philosophical critique of free will in e modern age. You’d think Kierkegaard has a bar tab…