Carol’s Reviews > Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature > Status Update
Carol
is 53% done
The modern term ‘ethics’ may be a little misleading as a descriptor of the ancient field: Stoic ethics was concerned not with establishing a rational basis for moral judgements, but with the way an individual – usually imagined as a male, relatively privileged individual – could attain the best possible life, through making himself immune to the vicissitudes of fortune.
— Aug 29, 2026 06:27AM
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Carol’s Previous Updates
Carol
is 73% done
Beard…is a public figure who has used her training in a small subfield of ancient studies to acquire a soapbox as an oracular authority on all things… from Brexit to the global history of culture…. Each of these figures – Fry, Haynes and Beard – are like Hamilton in that they have gained popular success by fusing a schtick about classics with something much more nebulous and hard to achieve: a Personality.
— Aug 30, 2026 06:51PM
Carol
is 59% done
Anachronism is fun, and Logue allows one to share his enjoyment in creating a collage made up of pieces from different eras. But it also serves the purpose of not allowing us to think of this story as a distant, musty old classic.
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— Aug 29, 2026 04:18PM
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Carol
is 56% done
.Other philosophical and religious traditions encourage their followers to aspire to an emptiness of the self, mirroring the emptiness of reality (in Sanskrit, sūnyatā) or the self-emptying of God (in Greek, kenōsis). In Stoicism, the self is always the focus, even for the most enlightened philosopher.
— Aug 29, 2026 04:05PM
Carol
is 55% done
The central distinction between what is and what is not ‘up to us’ (eph’hēmin) relies, in Epictetus’s work, on an individualistic idea of human motivations and values. What is ‘up to us’ tends to mean ‘what is up to me’. There is no possibility of collective action…. [A] revolutionary desire for political reform is not a feature of Epictetus’s version of Stoicism.
— Aug 29, 2026 03:26PM
Carol
is 54% done
All anger – including righteous rage at collective injustice – is to be eradicated for the individual’s peace of mind. The followers of Epictetus are supposed to do what is ‘appropriate’ (kathēkon), and he does not worry about defining or reimagining what that might be. Convention and tradition are good enough guides.
— Aug 29, 2026 06:39AM
Carol
is 51% done
The Stoics taught that reason is the guiding force of the world, and ought to be the guiding principle of each human being. Thinking, and trying our best to discover the truth about the universe as well as about human life, is part of our duty as Stoics. Rather than shut our eyes to the truth, we must work to make it acceptable emotionally.
— Aug 29, 2026 06:20AM
Carol
is 49% done
But translation, perhaps especially the translation of poetry, is never really so simple. Meaning, form and language are intertwined. A poem belongs to the culture in which it was produced; sense is not separable from particular words, their rhythms, their connotations, their history.
— Aug 28, 2026 07:47PM