Plato had friends in the literary community.  One time he was attending a festival on the island of Samos.  He was supporting a poet friend of his named Antimachus, from the nearby city of Colophon. The festival was in honor of a Spartan general who had defeated the Athenians in a great war, Lysander. Antimachus…

How can we turn bad luck in our lives into a good thing?  Plutarch offers a strategy. In classical Athens, the first well known democracy in the West, most offices were decided by lot.  If you wanted to “run,” you threw your name into the equivalent of a hat, and crossed your fingers. When someone’s…

Aristides was sitting in court, listening to an accuser prosecuting his cousin.  It was a major trial.  His cousin, Callias, was one of the richest men in Athens.  But Aristides was famous for being poor. The prosecutor turned to Aristides, sitting in the audience, and said, “Can anyone doubt Callias is  a wicked man, when…

The Romans attributed many of their religious institutions to an early king of the city named Numa. Numa set up a cult of the goddess Vesta, the goddess of hearth and household.  Her temple was in a prominent place, and in it was an ever-burning flame.  The keepers of that flame were a group of…