A Safe Haven in Virgil
I began reading Virgil's The Aeneid this weekend, Robert Fagles' translation. Somehow I escaped both high school and college without reading this. My knowledge of Virgil came from a few Virgil's in my schools in small town Louisiana and Oklahoma, not to mention a Virgil at work in our credit department. Seriously, I only knew of Virgil through Dante's depiction as his guide through Inferno and Purgatory. It was time to read the real deal, albeit a translated Virgil. The quotes below stood out in my reading of Book One: Safe Haven After the Storm. On leadership: Just as, all too often, some huge crowd is seized by a vast uprising, the rabble runs amok, ... but then, if they chance to see a man among them, one whose devotion and public service lend him weight, they stand there, stock-still with their ears alert as he rules their furor with his words and calms their passion. (1.174-181) Brave words. Sick with mounting cares he assumes a look of ...