Talk:Dio Chrysostom

Query on Druids

On the position of the Druids among the Celts, Dion notes that

"Without the Druids, the Kings may neither do nor consult anything; so that in reality they are the Druids who reign, while the Kings, though they sit on golden thrones, dwell in spacious palaces, and feed on costly dishes, are only their ministers."

How is this information relevant to the article, life of Chrysostom, or any of his achievments? Stoa 07:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Links added 14 Jan 08

Some of the links to the text of Dio that I just added a few minutes ago will lead for now to my homepage; but they should all be good within about 10 days, and it therefore seemed easier to pop 'em all in at once. Bill (talk) 18:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Horse and decorum quote

The "quote" as it is now conflates two different passages, separated by about 10 pages, and reversed; only one of them is probably about chariot-racing, the other merely about horse-racing. In neither is there any mention of Olympia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.136.6.162 (talk) 17:15, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay, it's been removed. Random quotes are best left to wikiquote anyway. Pasicles (talk) 00:19, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Rephrasing seems needed

Currently we are told: "He also claimed that the epics of Homer were known in India;[15] this is unlikely to be true, and there may have been confusion with the Mahabarata and the Ramayana, of which there are some parallels in subject matter.[16]" But the notion that Homer's epics were unknown in India by Dio's time seems deeply implausible. They may not have been widely known, and some of Dio's detailed claims may be wrong. But the statement as it stands seems hard to believe (even if it accurately quotes its alleged source, which is hardly self-evident). I can't rewrite it myself because I know too little to know what to put in its place. But somebody who does know the relevant details ought to re-phrase it.Tlhslobus (talk) 15:36, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

You're going to have to explain, I think, why it's "deeply implausible" that Homer's epics were unknown in India in the 1st century. Pasicles (talk) 18:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Because there was quite a lot of trade and similar cultural contacts between India and the Roman and Hellenistic worlds at the time, and there had been for centuries. So at least some Indians seemngly must have known about Homer and his epics. This need not mean they were widely known or influential, but 'not widely known' and 'not influential' is different from 'unknown'. It seems correct to say, for instance, that Arthurian legend was unknown in fourteenth century Mexico, due to lack of cultural contact, but if there had been cultural contact for centuries the most one might then say was that they were not widely known (assuming of course that no evidence suggested they were in fact widely known).

Meanwhile, to try to progress things, let me suggest the following rephrasing for appraisal by you and/or anyone else who might be interested: "He also claimed that the epics of Homer were known in India;[15] but it seems unlikely that they were widely known, and there may have been confusion with the Mahabarata and the Ramayana, of which there are some parallels in subject matter.[16]" If I don't forget, I currently propose to make this change in a few days' time, unless somebody asks me not to do so, or suggests or makes some better change instead.Tlhslobus (talk) 00:31, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, by all means make the change. Obviously the sentence in the article could be better worded. I think the point is that Chrysostom makes a claim that the Indians sing Homer's poetry having "translated it into their own speech and tongue" and it's this which is considered pretty dubious. One can find plenty of books on Google Book Search which discuss this passage [1]. Pasicles (talk) 18:19, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your very informative link. As a result, I now think that what's needed is to leave unchanged "this is unlikely to be true" and instead modify "He also claimed that the epics of Homer were known in India" to reflect more accurately what is said in those books, while possibly also including a reference to at least one of those book pages. Perhaps I'll eventualy get round to doing that, but I might have to take quite a bit of time and care if I wanted to get it as near right as reasonably possible. But as a quick short term fix, I've just replaced "were known in India" by "had been translated and were sung in India", which may well turn out to be a perfectly adequate fix if and when I take the time to study the matter in more detail. Tlhslobus (talk) 06:59, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

link rot

the Lacus Curtius links don't work. Can't get them from Google either. Please fix if the site is still up. 100.15.120.122 (talk) 19:24, 7 April 2016 (UTC)