Conference 7.286::digital

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@(#)Guide data file version 1.363, copyright C.R. Colbert 7/11/90.
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We trained hard...but it seemed that everytime we were beginning to
form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in
life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing: and a
wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress
while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization
 
			Petronius Arbiter
			Greek navy 210 b.c.
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...

    So, did maybe the word "arbitrate" come from this man's last name? 
    Almost sounds like a spoof quote to me. 
    
    
    

"The only thing that man learns from history, is that man does not learn 
from history."

Original author unknown ... passed on to me by a 10th grade Social Studies 
teacher.

Very true, IMHO...

Bob

    re: .2
    
    Yes
    
    

    re .3 -- "Those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it."
    				--Georges Santayana
    
    Quoted so often, it's become a cliche.

    The quote from Petronius Arbiter is first cited in topic 892.3 of this
    conference. I believe it is one other place, but I had a marker there.

    	 "When the situation was manageable, it was neglected, 
	 and now that it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply 
	 too late the remedies which might then have effected 
	 a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as
    	 old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long 
	 dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience 
	 and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of 
	 foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be
    	 simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion 
	 of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-
	 preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the 
	 features which constitute the endless repetition of 
	 history."
		    	Churchill, May 2, 1934
    

    
    	"The future just ain't what it used to be..."
    
    		- Source unknown

re .-1

He also said

	"Nostalgia ain't what it used to be."

    Casey Stengle (SP?)
    
    Marc H.

    In the Viking Ship museum here in Oslo, there's a
    1,000 year old wooden bucket with a runic inscription.
    An informative card beside it carries a translation and
    a comment:
    
          ******************************
          *   "Man knows little"       *
          * [Uncertain interpretation] *
          ******************************
    
    
    Henrik       

   "The only thing that man learns from history, is that man does not learn 
   from history."

   Original author unknown ... passed on to me by a 10th grade Social Studies 
   teacher.

Or you could also say "History... will teach us nothing" -- Sting.

   Very true, IMHO...

   Bob


Kumar

    
    re. -1
    
    .... or as Henry Ford II was widely rumored to have said, "History
    is bunk"  (I heartily disagree, by the way)
    
    My personal favorite comes from (I think, but check me on this)
    Yogi Berra:" Avoid making predictions, especially about the future."
    
    
    Glenn
    

        

    "history is a reflection of our future brought back by the passage of
    time within our soles"

    this is really weird, but i always seem inspired during the lunch time
    more than any other time of the day and this is when i thought of the 
    above quote.
    
    if i come up with more quotes on this i'll be happy to share it with 
    my fellow DECeees.

    thank you,
    \nasser
                      

    re .3, .13
    
    "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."
    					- George Bernard Shaw
    
    
    "History would be a wonderful thing - if it were only true."
    					- Tolstoy

    "History sucks."
             -Butthead
    
    
    "Yeah, huh, huh, huh"
                -Beavis

       Re .0/.1
    
      It's nice to see this again... Last time I saw it was in 1972 in a
    "History of Ancient Rome", the author of which escapes me...but the
    book and many similar to it are in most public libraries..
    
      To "nit-pick" a bit though: Petronius Arbiter, if he did do this
    relative to the Greek Navy, must have done so as a P.O.W.. He was a
    Roman Centurion, 6th Cohort under Ceaser in Gaul when he wrote this,
    according to history text.
    
      However, it makes little difference to the validity of his
    understanding. I think this is a pretty clear verification of  another
    proverb:
    
        "The more things change, the more they remain the same." 
    

    Another good one, very used in Italy:
    
    	"Sometimes is necessary that everything changes so that everything
    can remain the same"
    
    		G. Tomasi di Lampedusa, from the novel "Il Gattopardo" (or
    			from the movie by Luchino Visconti with the same title)
    �AA

    "We're going to keep repeating history until we get a passing grade"
    
    		-- from my copious button collection
    

    How about a moratorium?  
    
    I know we could never stop re-organizing, OK...but how about NOT
    ALLOWING ANY NEW ACRONYMS OR GROUP NAMES???
    
    In _particular_, you would be forbidden from renaming any existing
    group, no matter how ill-named they are.
    
    You could form any new group you wanted, to do whatever needed to be
    done, but it had to go by some existing name!  
    
    Re-naming is becoming such a plague around here, that you can't fix
    accountability on anybody!  They're moving targets.  Who remembers the
    charter of some group from one year ago, who may have made a stupid
    decision that's killing us now?  No matter, all those people have
    reorganized and re-acronymed, and now you can't find them!

    This quote bothers me to no end.

    By far the likeliest person to be meant by the name Petronius Arbiter
    was the fellow who wrote the Satyricon.   Tacitus mentions that he was
    a consul (and yet seems to have gotten his praenomen wrong), and
    reports how he committed suicide after being accused (it's believed
    falsely and out of malice) of being aligned with an enemy of the
    emperor Nero in A.D. 66.

    	"Gaius Petronius deserves a further brief notice.  He spent his
    	days sleeping and his nights working and enjoying himself. 
    	Industry is the usual foundation of success, but with him it was
    	idleness.  Unlike most people who throw away their money in
    	dissipation, he was not regarded as an extravagant sensualist,
    	but as one who made luxury a fine art.  His conversation and his
    	way of life were unconventional with a certain air of nonchalance,
    	and they charmed people all the more by seeming so unstudied.  Yet
    	as proconsul in Bithynia and later as consul, he showed himself a
    	vigorous and capable administrator.  His subsequent return to his
    	old habits, whether this was real or apparent, led to his admission
    	to the small circle of Nero's intimates, as his Arbiter of
    	Elegance.  In the end Nero's jaded appetite regarded nothing as 
    	enjoyable or refined unless Petronius had given his sanction to it.
    	Consequently the jealousy of Tigellinus was aroused against him..."
    		(Tacitus,  Annals 16.18)

    I think it's obvious that this geezer wasn't around both in the late
    third century B.C., and also hobnobbing with Nero in the middle of the
    first century A.D.  And while a Greek could become a Roman citizen in
    that period, I don't think any of them were getting elected to the post
    of consul, which still had considerable cachet (but not the power of
    centuries past, alas).

    There's one catch, though -- I've read most of the Satyricon in
    English, and don't recall ever seeing anything resembling this quote.
    So I suppose that there might be another (terribly obscure) Petronius,
    who just might have been involved with some sort of naval group in
    Greece (Roman far from home, like joining the French Foreign Legion
    today)...
    
    I guess this means I should read it again, in my copious spare time,
    and put the issue to bed.
    
    Dick

    It must be remembered that there is nothing more
    difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor
    more dangerous to manage than the creation of a 
    new system.
    For the initiator has the enmity of all who would
    profit by the preservation of the old institution
    and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would
    gain new ones.
    
    	Nicollo Machiavelli - "The Prince" 1513
    
    

    Re -1
    
    Is this what happened to the CBUs?

re Note 2677.23 by LYCEUM::CURTIS:

> (and yet seems to have gotten his praenomen wrong), 

        Please tell me what a "praenomen" is, lest I find that I've
        gotten mine wrong, too!

        Bob

    re:26
    
    From the Webster Dictionary on my desk:
    
    praenomen - the first of the usual three names of an ancient Roman

        .26, .27:

    Up through early Imperial times, the standard was to have 3 names:

    � the praenomen (rather like one's Christian name).  There seems to
      have been a list of about 14 or 15 which were in such common use that
      they were usually abbreviated to the first initial (e.g.,
      C. Cornelius Tacitus)
    
    � the nomen (clan name) 
    
    � the cognomen (family name)

    e.g.  Caius Iulius Caesar, Marcus Tullius Cicero.

    One also occasionally finds the use of the 'agnomen', a nick-name often
    referring to some feat (the word is related to the verb 'to identify,
    to recognize'), e.g. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (later called
    Africanus Maior, to distinguish him from a relative, P. Cornelius
    Scipio Aemilianus, who also distinguished himself against Carthage, and
    was dubbed Africanus Minor).  If memory serves, the latter's
    "Aemilianus" refers to his adoption;  it might also offer some insights
    into Roman naming conventions if I could recall the details.

    Finally, if I recall the list of names correctly, Emperors in the later
    centuries tended to add "Caesar" to their names as a sort of agnomen or
    title.  Curiously, this persisted into this very century -- in two
    countries whose languages (and leaders) have no direct descent from
    the Romans.

    Dick

    re .28
    
    Kaiser and Tsar/Czar, of course.
    
    	-John Bishop

	Re .28, .29:

>    Kaiser and Tsar/Czar, of course.

	I think also Shah.

	...none of which are in use any more, I think.

	rd

    
    "Caesar" means "long hair", so like many names probably started out
    as a descriptive term.  A pretty hairy job too.

    .31:
    
    Yeah, but there were worse -- perhaps the name explains why two heroes
    (father & son, or grandfather & grandson) died in battle.  They were
    both named Publius Decius Mus.
    
    Dick