
More than ‘know thyself’: on all the other Delphic maxims - diodorus
https://aeon.co/ideas/more-than-know-thyself-on-all-the-other-delphic-maxims
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yesenadam
Gee I'd never seen those (the 147) before. It's not far from a super-
summarized version of Gracian's _Art of Worldly Wisdom_. I was lucky enough to
visit Delphi when I was 13...

The Delphic Oracle said no-one was wiser than Socrates; Socrates thought he
wasn't wise, but came to understand that although no-one else was either, only
he knew that he knew nothing. In epistemology (theory of knowledge) class at
uni (philosophy course) once I said to the lecturer that I knew nothing. I
really believed I knew nothing for certain. He said, not very charitably,
"Don't you know your name?". Luckily no-one said that to Socrates. Well, maybe
they did.

Although thinking about that now, the Oracle only said that no-one was wiser
than Socrates, which is compatible with all men being fools equally. And the
Oracle did give similarly veiled, tricky prophecies:

"Croesus...asked if he should make war on the Persians and if he should take
to himself any allied force. The oracles to whom he sent this question
included those at Delphi and Thebes. Both oracles gave the same response, that
if Croesus made war on the Persians, he would destroy a mighty
empire...However, it was his empire, not that of the Persians, that was
defeated, fulfilling the prophecy but not his interpretation of it."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oracular_statements_fr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oracular_statements_from_Delphi)

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hacknat
“Beget from noble routes” to me can be translated:

Accomplish your goals in an honorable way.

Something akin to:

“The ends don’t justify the means”.

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buboard
The phrase is: "Ἐξ εὐγενῶν γέννα"

Which roughly means "seek to become relatives with noble people"

or alternatively

"seek to create with noble ingredients"

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phs318u
Definitely the latter. One could almost paraphrase as “the ends reflect the
means... therefore use noble means”

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buboard
well techically it talks about the beginning and the means. In any case how
can we be sure it's not the first ?

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anvandare
All 147 maxims are available here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims#147_Delphic_max...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims#147_Delphic_maxims)

The last is, fittingly, the most meaningful of them all: On reaching the end
be without sorrow.

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ggchappell
"Do not stop to be thrifty" \-- I imagine that should be "Do not stop being
thrifty"?

"Master wedding-feasts" \-- what does that mean?

"Grieve for no one" seems odd.

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anvandare
For the second, Γάμος is like the word "marriage", meaning both the occasion
of getting married and the state of being married. So a better translation
would be "Master (your) marriage". Given the Ancient Greeks' dim view of
women, I'm guessing it boils down to "Wear the pants at home."

For the third, I think it should be "Cause no grief onto [others]" (ἐπί+ dat.)

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irrational
"Master wedding-feasts" A maxim about Ancient Greek wedding crashers?

"Admire oracles" \- Ha ha!

"Keep deeply the top secret" \- how is this one simply baffling (per the
article)? I'm not sure if they are referring to religious secrets or state
secrets, but either way, how is encouraging people to keep secrets baffling?

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philwelch
Not just any secrets, though, but the singular top secret in particular.

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WorldMaker
An interesting translation question of "top secret" used as a phrase here, as
in "Top Secret", by a translator looking for "Confidential" or similar English
relative word, or if it is a matter of "top" as in biggest/most important
single secret.

Also, yes, it took the English language many years to come up with the pithier
"Loose lips sink ships".

