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Feb. 9th, 2022 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A totally relatable 2,000-year old experience:
Apollonius, we are told, not understanding the Roman language, requested Cicero to declaim in Greek, with which request Cicero readily complied, thinking that in this way his faults could better be corrected. After he had declaimed, his other hearers were astounded and vied with one another in their praises, but Apollonius was not greatly moved while listening to him, and when he had ceased sat for a long time lost in thought; then, since Cicero was distressed at this, he said: "Thee, indeed, O Cicero, I admire and commend; but Greece I pity for her sad fortune, since I see that even the only glories which were left to us, culture and eloquence, are through thee to belong also to the Romans."
--- Plutarch, The Life of Cicero, 4:10.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Cicero*.html