One July evening in 2022, amidst dwindling mask mandates and growing sense of new prospects, one of those “now or never” feelings arose, and Keeley and I began *The Pierian*. We knew the market for lit mags was crowded, but we had a unique vision—not a classically-themed literary magazine, but a literary magazine that reconnects to the classics. We were grateful to be founding a journal in Vermont. With a concentration of creative and liberal arts colleges in the immediate area, we felt well-resourced: Goddard College; Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA); the University of Vermont (UVM); and Saint Michael’s College. Those of literary ambition and their fellow-travellers were thick on the ground. Since that time, Goddard collapsed and shuttered; VCFA announced a joint-partnership with CalArts and sold off a chunk of its campus; UVM closed its Classics, Religion and Geology departments; and St. Mike’s slashed its language and humanities programs. And it’s not just here in Vermont. Across the US, the many long and storied departments that once served as the cornerstone of a rigorous education—antiquities, languages, history, philosophy, theology—are gone or going fast. Now we enter the second Trump presidency and the attacks go far beyond curricula to take aim at the independence of American intellectual life. Colleges and universities can no longer count on the federal government to make good on awarded grant dollars, let alone future monies for scholarships, research, and other programs. Scientists, long accustomed to being celebrated for their world-leading research, now face a new reality, their fields pitted against one another in a kind of funding Hunger Games. #@callout The humanities, not the sciences, are where the bounds of academic inquiry are most frequently contested Trump and his thugs are also targeting the most vulnerable—non-citizen scholars. For now, they are picking off supposed Hamas sympathizers. But the result is an undermining of any remaining trust in academic freedom and the institutions that once safeguarded it. The humanities, not the sciences, are where the bounds of academic inquiry are most frequently contested, because the humanities involve proposals about the human condition, be they geographical, historical, philosophical, religious, cultural, or aesthetic. One would assume America, so long@blur Quaesisti a me, Lucili, quid ita, si prouidentia mundus ageretur, multa bonis uiris mala acciderent. Hoc commodius in contextu operis redderetur, cum praeesse uniuersis prouidentiam probaremus et interesse nobis deum; sed quoniam a toto particulam reuelli placet et unam contradictionem manente lite integra soluere, faciam rem non difficilem, causam deorum agam. @blur 2. Superuacuum est in praesentia ostendere non sine aliquo custode tantum opus stare nec hunc siderum coetum discursumque fortuiti impetus esse, et quae casus incitat saepe turbari et cito arietare, hanc inoffensam uelocita tem procedere aeternae legis imperio tantum rerum terra marique gestantem, tantum clarissimorum luminum et ex disposito relucentium; non esse materiae errantis hunc ordinem nec quae temere coierunt tanta arte pendere ut terrarum grauissimum pondus sedeat inmotum et circa se properantis caeli fugam spectet, ut infusa uallibus maria molliant terras nec ullum incrementum fluminum sentiant, ut ex minimis seminibus nascantur ingentia. @blur 3. Ne illa quidem quae uidentur confusa et incerta, pluuias dico nubesque et elisorum fulminum iactus et incendia ruptis montium uerticibus effusa, tremores labantis soli aliaque quae tumultuosa pars rerum circa terras mouet, sine ratione, quamuis subita sint, accidunt, sed suas et illa causas habent non minus quam quae alienis locis conspecta miraculo sunt, ut in mediis fluctibus calentes aquae et noua insularum in uasto exilientium mari spatia. @blur 4. Iam uero si quis obseruauerit nudari litora pelago in se recedente eademque intra exiguum tempus operiri, credet caeca quadam uolutatione modo contrahi undas et introrsum agi, modo erumpere et magno cursu repetere sedem suam, cum interim illae portionibus crescunt et ad horam ac diem subeunt ampliores minoresque, prout illas lunare sidus elicuit, ad cuius arbitrium oceanus exundat. Suo ista tempori reseruentur, eo quidem magis quod tu non dubitas de prouidentia sed quereris. 5. In gratiam te reducam cum dis aduersus optimos optimis. Neque enim rerum natura patitur ut umquam bona bonis noceant; inter bonos uiros ac deos amicitia est conciliante uirtute. Amicitiam dico? immo etiam necessitudo et similitudo, quoniam quidem bonus tempore tantum a deo differt, discipulus eius aemulatorque et uera progenies, quam parens ille magnificus, uirtutum non lenis exactor, sicut seueri patres, durius educat. 6. Itaque cum uideris bonos uiros acceptosque dis laborare sudare, per arduum escendere, malos autem lasciuire et uoluptatibus fluere, cogita filiorum nos modestia delectari, uernularum licentia, illos disciplina tristiori contineri, horum ali audaciam. Idem tibi de deo liqueat: bonum uirum in deliciis non habet, experitur indurat, sibi illum parat.