Wednesday 17 April 2019

Tacitus Wrote

"...a person could only do as she might, then suffer what she must."
-SM Stirling, Snowbrother (New York, 1985), Chapter 12, p. 168.

That reminds me of something in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series but for once I cannot find it: Anderson quoting a Greek or Roman historian who wrote that men did what they could and suffered what they had to...?

The Time Patrol series may be the major source of quotations and comparisons on Poul Anderson Appreciation. A similar passage although not, I think, the right one is:

"As for the Ampsivarii, they wandered year after year, sometimes briefly finding refuge, sometimes harries onward, until, Tacitus wrote, 'all their young were killed in a foreign country, and those who could not fight were shared out as booty.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Star Of The Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT p. 557.

9 comments:

David Birr said...

Paul:
I, too, haven't found an Anderson passage quoting it, but the line appears to come from the Athenian general Nicias, who died in the expedition against Sicily, 415-413 BC. References in other works say Nicias made a speech to his "doomed" army, telling them that they had "no course left open except, having done what men may, to endure what men must."

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and DAVID!

I'm almost sure, in the bit Paul quoted from SNOWBROTHER, that Stirling was adapting a line taken from Thucydides HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. A work I have read in a Penguin books translation. So Thucydides may have been quoting a speech by Nicias.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Yes to Thucydides and I think that Anderson quotes it.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I'm simply not sure if Poul Anderson ever quoted or alluded to this line from Thucydides.

Sean

Keith Halperin said...

"No course left open except, having done what men may, to endure what men must."

I believe that this may be an approximate translation from the original Attic which may be more literally rendered as:
"We're f***ed- let's fight!"

-Keith

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Keith!

Ha! While that may well be the actual language used by trapped and doomed soldiers, I doubt Thucydides used the Attic equivalents of such words! (Smiles)

Sean

Nicholas D. Rosen said...

Kaor, Sean!

Yes, Anderson quoted this line from Thucydides: it’s in “Ivory, Apes, and Peacocks,” where Manse Everard, thinking about Bronwen, remembers the line, which speaks of men, and then thinks, “And women, especially women.” I’m quoting from memory.

Best Regards,
Nicholas

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Nicholas,
Thanks. I knew it was somewhere.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Nicholas!

Thanks for telling us Anderson DID use or allude to this famous line from Thucydides.

Sean