Quotes from Frank McLynn

the greatest humourists are deep down usually angry men, who know that human nature ignores tirades, but is responsive to laughter.

Next day he proved the point that he was always singularly useless unless some daredevil escapade was called for.

he passed through a village and a woman approached him with a request. 'I don't have the time,' he replied. 'Then stop being emperor' was the devastating riposte.

Muitas das notas de Marco Aurélio a si próprio, (…) baseavam-se nos riscos de tirania de um imperador. Detestava especialmente Nero – um homem à mercê dos mais loucos impulsos, como um animal selvagem – ou, como Marco Aurélio descreveria imemoriavelmente "Um carácter obscuro: efeminado, grosseiro, selvagem, animalesco, pueril, cobarde, falso, tolo, mercenário e despótico.

In the lower orders infanticide was the preferred method of birth control, but attitudes towards this swung sharply negative under the Antonines, in contrast to the tolerance in the late republic and first century of the empire.95 Avoiding reproduction out of financial meanness, or the desire to avoid the pain and suffering of child mortality, produced a distinctive mindset in the second century AD.

É importante saber, com toda a certeza, que Marco Aurélio não se limita a defender o carpe diem de Horácio ou a aliciar-nos a viver cada dia como se fosse o último – embora também o faça. O que ele prega muito claramente é que o presente é tudo o que temos.

Marcus will probably never be hugely popular with committed Christians, if only because he persecuted them. But for others he holds out the prospect of spirituality for atheists, happiness without God, joy without heaven and morality without religion.

One murder makes a villain, millions a hero.

The Middle Ages were notorious for unchaste priests, with some parochial houses more akin to crèches or bordellos than abodes of God.

The only real avenue for social mobility was that of the freedman, for the manumitted slave could rise higher in Rome than in any other slave society. It takes an effort of imagination to conceive of a society where vast wealth was concentrated in so few hands; perhaps the nearest modern equivalent would be Saudi Arabia.34

the idea of a supra-human Chief Justice, totally 'objective', may be a necessary political and social myth but it is an illusion for all that.

The beauty of pragmatism is that it enables one to make judgements based on supposed consequences, which always lie in the future and are thus immediately unverifiable.

Como sempre, a guerra proporciona grandes oportunidades aos homens ambiciosos que teriam permanecido na obscuridade em tempos de paz.

By any reckoning, the twenty-day march from Antibes to Paris was one of the high points in his life. As Balzac later wrote incredulously: 'Before him did ever a man gain an Empire simply by showing his hat?

The psychological effects of wet-nursing are usually thought pernicious by modern experts, but it must be remembered that the Romans had a much more diffuse notion of family than that in the post-Industrial Revolution West. Child-minders were a fact of life in a culture that regarded marrying for love as eccentric, even deviant, and whose kinship boundaries were constantly shifting; divorce and remarriage among aristocratic families may have reached 50 per cent.64

In his preparations for the battle of Waterloo Napoleon contrived to produce a grand slam of mistakes. It is surprising that his great name as a captain has survived the lengthy checklist of errors he committed that day, or that Wellington should have gained such a great reputation for taking advantage of opportunities that were virtually handed him on a plate.

he showed consummate folly in allowing the Duke to fight on ground of his own choosing.

É irracional desejar a fama póstuma, pois as pessoas que de facto se recordam de nós também morreram e o nosso nome depressa passa a ser conhecido apenas por académicos especialistas e antiquários. Para além disso, de que serve tentar impressionar a posteridade – são pessoas que nunca vamos conhecer. O que valerá a sua opinião?

The priests received special treatment, for the last nine days of the festival of Mars were meant to be fast-days except for priests; the breaking of the fast on 25 March is thought by some scholars to be the origin of Mardi Gras, instead of the 'fat Tuesday' before Christian Lent.

The peculiarity of the Battle of Waterloo was its narrow compass, with 140,000 men crammed into three square miles; the front was only four kilometres wide, as against ten at Austerlitz.

O outro evidente sinal da grandeza de Marco Aurélio era o facto de ele próprio ser a refutação em pessoa do famoso ditado de Lord Acton: "o poder tende a corromper e o poder absoluto corrompe absolutamente". Marco Aurélio detinha um poder absoluto, mas nunca o usou para fins egoístas, malévolos, despóticos ou corruptos.

A friend should always be quite clear what your attitude was on any subject, there should be no prevarication, and if people offended you or merited your disapproval, you should be utterly frank with them.