Philosophy is meditation.

As originally practiced, it seeks to attain a vision of the immaterial structural causes of reality.

By deeply focusing the mind on some aspect of reality - beauty, justice, the soul... anything - and thinking about it carefully and thoroughly, the philosopher eventually comes to see the thing itself.

At that point he has abandoned theories and treatises for genuine knowledge of the intellectual realities which he contemplates.

What is the subject of our present enquiry?
'Pleasure.'
Submit it to the standard, put it on the scales. For something to be good, must it be something that we can properly place confidence in and trust in?
'Indeed it must.'
Can we properly place confidence, then, in something that is unstable?
'No.'
Is pleasure stable?
'No, it isn't.'
Away with it, then; take it out of the scales, and drive it away from the realm of good things. But if your sight is none too keen and one set of scales isn't enough for you, bring another. Is the good something that can properly inspire us with pride?
'It is indeed.'
Is the pleasure of the moment, then, something that can properly inspire us with pride? Take care not to say that it is, or I'll no longer regard you as being worthy of even using the scales!

Epictetus, Discourses 2.11

"Something is said to be a cause if it is: [1] The component from which a thing comes to be - for example, the bronze of a statue or the silver of a bowl... [2] The form or paradigm, that is, the account of the essence...(for example, of the octave, the ratio 2:1 and number in general)... [3] Further, that from which the change or rest from change first starts - for example, the person who has deliberated is cause [of the action] and the father of his child and in general the producer is cause of the thing being produced and the change-maker of the change. [4] Further, the end, and this is the for-the-sake-of-which - for example, of taking walks health is the end."

Aristotle, Metaphysics 1013a

"Life, connectedly-contains in itself bodies; but of this, soul is the cause. Harmony comprehends, connectedly, the world; but of this, God is the cause. Concord binds together families and cities; and of this, law is the cause. Hence, there is a certain cause and nature which perpetually adapts the parts of the world to each other, and never suffers them to be disorderly and without connection."

Ocellus Lucanus, On Laws

Fragment from a Greek red-figure calyx crater found in Taranto, Italy - 400-390 BC. It depicts a gilded and/or polished bronze statue of Apollo in his temple at Delphi. Beneath the temple was a chamber in which his oracle would receive and relate prophecies

"The intellect derived from philosophy is similar to a charioteer; for it is present with our desires, and always conducts them to the beautiful."

The Similitudes of Demophilus 34

"The proper incense:
🔸 of Kronos is styrax, for it is heavy and fragrant;
🔸 of Zeus, malabathron;
🔸 of Ares, kostos;
🔸 of Helios, frankincense;
🔸 of Aphrodite, Indian nard;
🔸 of Hermes, cassia;
🔸 of Selene, myrhh."

The Greek Magical Papyri XIII.15-20

"Neither let us accuse our flesh as the cause of great evils, nor attribute our troubles to outward things. Rather let us seek the cause of these things in our souls, and casting away every vain striving and hope for fleeting joys, become completely masters of ourselves. For a man is unhappy either through fear or through unlimited and empty desire. Yet if he bridle these, he can attain to a happy mind."

Porphyry, Letter to his wife Marcella 29

"Plato, for instance, compared life to a game of dice in which we must try, not only to throw what suits us best, but also, when we have thrown, to make good use of whatever turns up. ... Men of sense, just as bees extract honey from thyme, the most pungent and the driest of plants, often in like manner draw from the most unfavorable circumstances something which suits them and is useful. This, then, we should practice and cultivate first of all, like the man who threw a stone at his dog, but missed her and hit his stepmother, whereupon he exclaimed, "Not so bad after all!" For it is possible to change the direction of Fortune when she has given us things we do not wish."

Plutarch, Moralia: On Tranquility of Mind 5-6 (467b-c)

"The pontifices have authority over the most important matters. They give judgments on all religious cases involving private citizens, magistrates and religious officials. They make laws for the observance of any religious rites that are not established either in writing or by custom, but which seems to them suitable to receive the sanction of law and custom. ... For private citizens who are not knowledgeable about worship of the gods and divine spirits, the pontifices are explainers and interpreters."

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquities 2.73.1-2

"On the subject of fate, Plato's views are roughly as follows. All things, he says, are within the sphere of fate, but not all things are fated. Fate, in fact, has the status of a law. It does not say, as it were, that such-and-such a person will do this, and that such-and-such another will suffer that...then the concept of what is in our power would go out of the window, and so would praise and blame, and everything like that. But fate consists rather in the fact that if a soul chooses a given type of life and performs such-and-such actions, such-and-such consequences will follow for it. ... For example, from the fact that Paris will steal away Helen, this being a voluntary action of his, there will follow that the Greeks will go to war about Helen."

Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism 26.1-2

"Since men live but for a very short period, if their life is compared with the whole of time, they will make a most beautiful journey as it were, if they pass through life with tranquility. This however they will possess in the most eminent degree, if they accurately and scientifically know themselves, that is, if they know that they are mortal and of a fleshly nature, and that they have a body which is corruptible and can be easily injured, and which is exposed to every thing most grievous and severe, even to their latest breath."

Hipparchus, On Tranquility

The universe is always happy; and our soul will likewise be happy, when it is assimilated to the universe; for thus it will be led back to its cause. Hence, when the sensible man is assimilated to the universe, he also imitates his paradigm after an appropriate manner, becoming a world through similitude to the world, and happy through resemblance to that blessed God, the universe.

Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus, Book I

"Choose rather to be strong in soul than in body.

Every passion of the soul is most hostile to its salvation.

It is difficult to walk at one and the same time in many paths of life.

All the parts of human life, in the same manner as those of a statue, ought to be beautiful."

Selected from Pythagoric Ethical Sentences from Stobaeus

"When a man had made an axe, he asked the trees to give him a handle made of the hardest wood. The other trees selected the wood of the wild olive. The man took the handle and fitted it to his axe. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he began to chop down the trees' mighty branches and trunks, taking whatever he wanted. The oak tree then said to the ash, 'It serves us right, since we gave our enemy the handle he asked for!'"

Aesop, The Axe and the Trees

Today is Veneralia in honor of Venus. An offering of Wine is made to Venus and her myths are retold. Her statue is given a ritual washing and then adorned with flowers.

Women may make petitions to Venus in matters of love and we honor traditional sexual proprieties and mores.

https://nistsocietytheroma.substack.com/p/romanist-holidays

"He is a wise man, and beloved by divinity, who studies how to labor for the good of his soul, as much as others labor for the sake of the body."

The Pythagoric Sentences of Demophilus 41

"The world is a scene; life is a transition. You came, you saw, you departed."

The Golden Sentences of Democrates 83

"...It behoves the brave to set their hands to every noble enterprise, bearing before them the buckler of hope, and to endure gallantly whatever fate God may allot."

Demosthenes, On the Crown 97

"Just shut your eyes, and change your way of looking, and wake up. Everyone has this ability but few use it. Go into yourself and look. If you do not yet see yourself as beautiful, then be like a sculptor who, making a statue that is supposed to be beautiful, removes a part here and polishes a part there so that he makes the latter smooth and the former just right until he has given the statue a beautiful face. ... If you see that you have become this, at that moment you have become sight, and you can be confident about yourself, and you have at this moment ascended here, no longer in need of someone to show you. Just open your eyes and see, for this alone is the eye that sees the great beauty."

Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.8-9

"What has soul is distinguished from what lacks soul by living. But things are said to be living in many ways, and we say that a thing is alive if any one of these alone is present, for example, understanding, perception, movement and rest with respect to place, further the movement involved in nourishment, and also both withering and growth. This is why all plants too seem to be alive. ... To plants only the nutritive part belongs, whereas to others it belongs together with the perceptual part. ... Further, animals have a perception of what is nourishing, since touch is a perception of what is nourishing. For all animals are nourished by dry, hot, wet, and cold things, of which the perception is touch. ... those living things that have touch also have desire. ... Some have in addition to these the part capable of causing movement with respect to place, while others also have the thinking part and also understanding (nous) - for example, human beings and anything else there may be that is similar or more estimable."

Aristotle, De Anima (On the Soul) 413a20 - 413b19