Antiquities Exhibits

"Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments." - Plato In the case of drinking to excess, this change could result in the loss of virtue and well-being or, as the Greek philosophers termed it, Eudaimonia. Plato believed that individuals naturally feel unhappiness when they do something they know and acknowledge to be wrong. Plato's student, Aristotle, agreed that although the pursuit of virtue, excellence, and the best within us was necessary to achieve eudaimonia, virtue in itself was not sufficient alone.   "Aristotle believes that happiness and well-being come from how we live our lives,"   explains psychologist Catherine Moore, "And that's not in pursuit of material wealth, power, or honor." Aristotle expounds upon ways to achieve the happy life in his work "Nichomacean Ethics." "To be honest, a lot of Nichomacean Ethics is a...

Although originally the ancient Roman virtue of virtus was used to describe specifically martial courage, it eventually came to represent a host of qualities including valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, and worth, perceived as masculine strengths.  Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics divided these cardinal virtues into prudentia (prudence), iustitia (justice), temperantia (temperance, self-control), and fortitudo (courage).  But as the goals and ideals of the empire changed, the meaning of the word also shifted. No longer did virtus mean that a person was a brave warrior but it could also mean that he was a good man, someone who did the right thing. Especially during the later Empire the Roman upper class no longer thought of themselves as unmanly if they did not serve in the military as long as they complied with the appropriate tradition of public conduct in their navigation of the cursus honorum. The term did not apply in the private sphere bu...