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Marcus Tullius Cicero: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from Marcus Tullius Cicero, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• The world's best memorisers all use a 2,500-year-old trick a poet stumbled into

  After a banquet hall collapsed and crushed the guests beyond recognition, the poet Simonides of Ceos reportedly identified each body by recalling exactly where they'd been sitting.…

  — Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oratore

• One plank, two drowning sailors — Carneades asked who may live

  Two shipwrecked men reach the same plank, but it holds only one. Carneades argued that the one who pushes the other off to save himself may be blameless — not because it's just, bu…

  — Marcus Tullius Cicero, reporting Carneades, De Officiis (On Duties)

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