Travel, war and fortified cities

Meaning

Travel, war, the defence and enlargement of one’s country, cities and fortification broaden Philon’s praise beyond contemplation and mineral knowledge. The same intellect can organize movement, anticipate enemies and build protected civic spaces. These are examples of learned and transmissible human arts, offered against a reduction of humanity to bodily need. They are not a military programme and do not attribute all inventions to one historical founder. Their place in the poem also prevents its ideal investigator from being understood as exclusively an isolated alchemical operator.