The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Alexander the Great
“And it is said that when he took his seat for the first time under the golden canopy on the royal throne, Demaratus the Corinthian, a well-meaning man and a friend of Alexander's, as he had been of Alexander's father, burst into tears, as old men will, and declared that those Hellenes were deprived of great pleasure who had died before seeing Alexander seated on the throne of Dareius.”
Alexander, 37, 7 (Loeb)
Parallel Lives
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Plutarch 251
ancient Greek historian and philosopher 46–127Related quotes
Alternate translation: Then in the middle of all stands the sun. For who, in our most beautiful temple, could set this light in another or better place, than that from which it can at once illuminate the whole? Not to speak of the fact that not unfittingly do some call it the light of the world, others the soul, still others the governor. Tremigistus calls it the visible God; Sophocles' Electra, the All-seer. And in fact does the sun, seated on his royal throne, guide his family of planets as they circle round him.
Book 1, Ch. 10, Alternate translation as quoted in Edwin Arthur Burtt in The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (1925)
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543)
Context: At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun. For, in this most beautiful temple, who would place this lamp in another or better position than that from which it can light up the whole thing at the same time? For, the sun is not inappropriately called by some people the lantern of the universe, its mind by others, and its ruler by still others. The Thrice Greatest labels it a visible god, and Sophocles' Electra, the all-seeing. Thus indeed, as though seated on a royal throne, the sun governs the family of planets revolving around it.
“As if Misfortune made the throne her seat,
And none could be unhappy but the great.”
Prologue. Compare: "None think the great unhappy, but the great", Edward Young, The Love of Fame, satire 1, line 238.
The Fair Penitent (1703)
“And amongst us one,
Who most has suffer’d, takes dejectedly
His seat upon the intellectual throne.”
St. 19
The Scholar Gypsy (1853)