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In his recent book on the cultural history of honor, James Bowman notes that "both Greeks and Romans had a history of skepticism about honor that ran in parallel with the mainstream culture's celebration of it. Plato anticipated a particular Christian tradition of other-worldliness by treating honor as a mere illusion, born of a world of illusions against which he counterpoints an ideal reality. That was one reason he banished poets from the ideal republic: because they were conduits of transmission for fame - that is, honor. In Cicero and Seneca there are similar cautions, where a distinction between mere public applause and real virtus is acknowledged. Cicero, indeed, was terms 'the Pagan Christian' by Anthony Trollope, the Victorian novelist with whom he shared a powerful interest in honor, partly on account of this inwardness, which was so uncharacteristic of most honor cultures."
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, August 28, 2006 at 12:52 PM
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