3 Adjectives to Describe Pliny the Elder

There are many adjectives that would describe Pliny the Elder. Some of the most fitting of these would be: inquisitive, clever, and foolhardy. There are many justifications for each of these adjectives that can be found from textual evidence. For example, he is quite inquisitive from the first viewings of the phenominum as it states he ascended to a place which would give him the best view of the phenominum. (ascendit locum ex quo maxime miraculum illud conspici poterat) He always wanted to learn more and that was the origanal basis for him sailing over to Vesuvius. It appeared most scholarly and worthy of further investigation. (Magnum propiusque noscendum, ut eruditissimo viro, visum) Pliny the Elder was a very scholarly man, but he realized that he had no justification to send the fleets out for science. This is where Pliny the Elder was clever. As the text says, he changed his mind from a scholarly one to a heroinc one. (Verit ille consilium et quod studioso animo incohaverat obit maximo) Now that he is doing it for noble intentions, the fleet can be sent out. Yet, all the way he dictates his scientific observations. (adeo solutus metu ut omnes illius mali motus, omnes figuras, ut dephrehenderat oculis, dictaret enotaretque) It was a clever move on Pliny the Elder's part to hide a trip based off of the desire for knowledge under the guise of a herioc rescue. He successfully prevents any further questioning of his actions, not that there would be much time for them to be questioned. The previous line of text also states he was without fear when he did all this. (adeo solutus metu) This is proving his foolhardiness. He is sailing into an unknown thing that is spewing fire into the sky. His ship has flaming rocks and pumice falling on it. (iam pumices etiam nigrique et ambusti et fracti igne lapides) This is not a rescue mission; it is a death mission. He had all the tme in the world to turn back, it was suggested by his crew, but he did not. (mox gubernatori ut ita faceret momenti) He has the opportunity to save his men and his life, but he does not. Instead, he says (Fortes fortuna iuvat; Pomponianum pete) He is not saving these peolpe, he is condeming many more to die because of his own foolhardiness.

Pliny Blog

Pliny's letter to Trajan concerning the Christians is making a complete mockery out of the tourture he is ordered to give any person who is a Christian. The only doubt that Pliny has is that they are making a mistake and that they should be toururing these people. He finds out the great exent of the Christian horrors is them "gathering together before dawn to sing to Christ as if he were a God." It is incocievable that, the destructive threat to the Roman Empire takes oaths to committ; "no theft, no fraud...." Pliny is satiring the entire principle of attacking a group of people because he doesn't understand them. A Roman with little contact to Christians would think that while the have different beliefs, they are merely trying to be better people after reading Pliny's letter. They would not be filled with fear about the "virus" which is spreading across the Empire. They have exetreme superstition, but that doesn't require execution. Pliny's doubt lie in how wrong the treatment of the Christians is, not how to conduct an investigation of them.

The Allegory of Cupid and Psyche

While one may read this as merely a story, in truth it is far more than that. This story means much more than the words on the page. Cupid represents desire, one of the greatest forms of love and lust. He is shown to be more than just the God of love in many places. When it is said that Psyche falls in love to Love (Amoris incidit amorem), Apuleius is saying that the love is more than a person, it is a being in itself. Another example of Cupid being desire is the relationship they have. Cupid knows that a god and a mortal should not be together, but they are anyway. This is desire in its most basic form; love regardless of anything else, not location or social rank or any other factor. Cupid shows this love throughout the tale even though there is great opposition to it mainly from his mother, Venus. However, his desire even passes that.

Pyche is also a symbol in the novel. She represents the soul. The soul is one's true being, their actual self and when shown hides nothing about the person. Psyche shows this on many occasions. She goes through great ordeals because the love she has is real. She is tortured by Venus (... she leaped upon Psyche, tore her clothes into shreds, tugged out her hair and beat her black and blue. From english translation). If she truly did not love him, she would not have been able to go through all of this abuse without raising a hand to stop her. Because she truly loves Cupid she is prepared to go through with the torture so she can finally have the love of her life. Another example of Pysche being the soul is in the times she tried to kill herself, with the knife, in the river, she realized that she had loved him even before she had truly known him and was so angry at herself for giving into the evil wishes of her sisters. She realized that if she lost him because of the attempted murder, she would be at such a great loss in her life that she could no longer continue living. This truly shows her soul as one completely devoted to Cupid.

The final example of this being an allegory is in Desire and the Soul's offspring, Pleasure. When the greatest form of love comes together with the pure, unfacaded view of a person, pleasure is what occurs. This is the conclusion of the allegory telling people that if you can find true love that you really do love with all your heart, everything else doe not matter because regardless of any other factors, you will have pleasure in your life.

The Fate of the Sisters

I do not believe that the sisters' fate was just. They tried to ruin a marriage for their personal gain, (anxiae te exspectabimus cunctisque istis thesauris tecum relatis). They merely wanted the treasure that she had such great amounts of. However, they were also extremely jealous of the divine baby she was bearing. (...does become the mother of a divine babe, I'll string myself up on the spot in a noose. From English translation). The sisters cannot bear the to have their younger sister surpass them in importance and even though they are married to kings, a divine child would be far above them.

Despite all the bad of the sisters, they did not deserve their fate. Jealousy is a normal human emotion which they experienced in reaction to their situation. They have to look down at their younger sister in great jeaousy (here are we, elders by birth, delivered as bondsmaids to foreign husbands... and her is the youngest daughter... owning all the wealth and a god for a husband). They had a right to be jealous of what she had and because of their culture, the place amongst in her family which she had it. This does not excuse their actions, but they did not deserve to die. (for her limbs were torn by the jutting rocks and strewn down the face of the cliff, as she deserved; and her entrails provided nourishment for the birds and beasts. English translation). Apuleius may say that it was justified, but no one deserves to have their corpses feasted upon by animals, it is such a barbaric fate which could have been resolved in so many more peaceful ways.

Fear

Throughout Cupid and Psyche, fear comes at many different times and from many different characters. The first major instance of fear comes from the king, Psyche's father. He originally consults the Oracles because he fears "the anger from above." (iram superim metuens). This ultimately leads to his great despair, but Psyche's great happiness. This is significant in showing one of fear's opposites, happiness. From the terror of her parents, Pysche finds great happiness. The next example of fear in the text is that of the sisters. They run away from their fear after they explain their nefarious plan to Psyche. They run away fearing that what they have done will eventually hurt them. (statim deseruerint metuentes ne quid mali ipsae acciperent). They do not want to be injured by their actions showing another opposite of fear, saftey. Instead of their fear making them do something rash, they instead overcome these feelings and do something thoughtful. All of these characters have fear, but none of them like that of Pysche. Her fear comes at many points in the story. She fears many times over her husband. She fears that he is a really a monster whose purpose is to eat her. This fear shows one of its opposites, love. Her love for the unknown husband, Cupid, makes her initially sceptical of him being a monster. However, there was too much fear and it overpowered the love of Psyche. Psyche fears again when she has seen who her husband really is. (et Psyche tant aspectu perterrita). She fears for what she wanted to do and for questioning his love. This leads to one of the greatest opposites of fear, self-infliction to get rid of the fear. (ferrum quaerit abscondere, sed in tuo pectore).
As seen many times through the text, fear is an underlying emotion. Feat has many opposites which occur in people during times of great fear. It is very probable that fear will again and again show up in the text with other varying degress of its' opposite.

Question Following Chapter Three

So far, the story has had many traditional fairy tale elements in it. At the beginning, the family structure shown to you is close to that of Cinderella. Psyche, like Cinderella, is a beautiful girl (at puellae inioris...poterat) who is repressed by her older sisters who go off and get married. This story is also like that of the movie Hercules. She is beyond human in her beauty but because she lives with mortals, no one understands her and no one will ever want to marry her. (non rex... nuptias petit). Finally, the story has the fairy tale elements of Romeo and Juliet. She likes her life and the love she has, (Pysche tali vita delectari coepit) but it can never be true as some part of it must be hidden from the world.

Chapter 2 Question 4

Pysche's funeral marrage is a time of great loss. A gloom hangs over all as they wail over Psyche's fate. All are really unsure of what to do as they leave her their alone to die. The saddness of the situation is underlined by the constant repition of words conveying the same meaning. This repition really drives home the piont the Apuleius is trying to make. For example, the parents mourned, cryed and wept. These all have closely related meanings but when place together aplify the message.