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Thank you for your interest in and love of the Classics. It is in times like this that we need the wisdom from the ancient world. Not only in showing us where we've been - but also in helping us get to where we want to go. 

Indeed, the study of history is essential. It is filled with so many examples from which we can learn - both of past mistakes and brilliant accomplishments.  But more than that, it is because we humans haven’t really changed that much. We experience the same raw emotions, struggle with the constant vices and aim always for virtues, just like the men and women before us have done. 

As for Classical Wisdom, I can’t tell you how excited I am to embark on this next phase. We’ve achieved a lot in the last ten years (almost - our anniversary is coming up!) and this new chapter promises to be our biggest yet. We’ve got plenty in store for you... including all you’ve come to love from Classical Wisdom, as well as some big announcement to come over the next few months. 

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By Ed Whelan, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

The Battle of Adrianople (378 AD) was one of the most important battles in ancient history. It was one of Rome’s greatest defeats and left an Emperor missing, presumed dead... it was the beginning of the end of an empire.

Background to the Battle of Adrianople

The Roman Empire was already greatly weakened by the death of the Emperor Julius, the Apostate in Persia. When Valentinian became Emperor, he was able to stabilize the situation. He then appointed his brother, Valens (328-378), to be the ruler of the Roman East, despite the fact that was not an able soldier. Indeed, he once nearly resigned in a panic during a revolt! Valentinian died of a stroke in 375 AD and left the Western Empire to his son Gratian. It was at this moment that a crisis developed on the Danuban frontier.

The Coming of the Huns

The Goths had established kingdoms from the Black Sea to the Baltic. One day they were attacked by strange warriors on horseback, reputedly born of witches. These were the fearsome Huns. The Goths, in terror, fled before the fierce nomads and such was their fear that they were forced to seek refuge with their sometimes enemy, the Romans. The Goths and allied tribes at the Danube frontier, begged the Romans for refuge. Valens could not exactly refuse because he was fighting the Persians in the east and so had only a few troops in the Balkans.

Reluctantly, he agreed, and the Goths were permitted entry into Imperial territory.
It was expected that they would become farmers and serve in the military. However, things soon went very wrong. The Goths began to starve, and they became so desperate that they rose in a rebellion led by their leader Fritigern. They defeated a small Roman force and began to plunder the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire.

Prelude to the Battle of Adrianople

Valens was campaigning against the Persian king Shapur and he could not deal with the crisis for two years. After reaching an agreement with the Persians, he finally turned his attentions to the Goths. He was offered assistance by his young nephew and Western Emperor, Gratian, who had recently won a minor victory over the Alemanni. Valens collected a large army and marched to confront the Goths without his nephew. Gratian urged his uncle to wait until he could join his army, but Valens was reluctant to do this. He had probably grown jealous of Gratian and wanted to win some glory on the battlefield for himself. So Valens forced his men to march to the Goths, where they were currently raiding in Thrace (modern Bulgaria).

The Battle of Adrianople

By the time the Romans encountered the Goths they were exhausted, but Valens was determined to fight them nonetheless. For two years they had plundered and killed Romans citizens and he wanted them to pay.

The Battle took place on the 9 August 378. While the two armies were approximately of equal size, about 15,000 to 20,000 each, the Goths had slightly more cavalry, who were very experienced. Valens, whose army was made up of archers, infantry and light and heavy cavalry, decided to attack even though he did not have numerical superiority. This was in part because he did not have good intelligence. His scouts told him that he had more men than Fritigern. This was incorrect as the Roman scouts had failed to find the bulk of the Gothic cavalry who were a short distance away, probably foraging for supplies. This was a catastrophic intelligence failure and was to prove very costly.

The Goths circled their wagons and created a defensive position, a tactic that was often used by German tribes. The Roman Emperor, confident of victory, rashly ordered his weary men to attack the circled wagons of the Goths and called his shield-archers to advance, but they were easily repulsed.

Then Valens ordered his heavy infantry to attack the circled wagons of the Goths. They were making some headway when the tide of the battle changed. The Gothic cavalry suddenly reappeared and they attacked the Roman heavy infantry in the rear. This caused panic among the Roman troops and the heavy infantry was nearly annihilated.

This was a grave setback for Valens but it should not have been fatal. Unfortunately, he was not an experienced commander and it appears that he failed to respond properly to the deteriorating situation. The Roman infantry began to panic and started to run, even though the Goths were not near them. Soon the entire Roman army was in a panic running from the battlefield. The Germans followed, easily caught up with the heavily armored infantry and then massacred them. Up to two-thirds of the Roman army was annihilated.

It was at this moment that Valens fled the field of battle and was apparently killed. His body was never found. When the young Emperor Gratian heard the news, he broke down and wept.

The aftermath of the battle of Adrianople

The Goths had won a total victory and they now controlled the Balkans. However, they could not take any major towns and cities because they did not have siege works. Gratian appointed Theodosius as Emperor and he was able to neutralize the Goths by turning them into allies.

However, the Romans were greatly weakened and the Germans were, in reality, not allies but an independent force in the Empire. The Goths undermined the Romans significantly and destabilized the Empire. In 410, under the leadership of Alaric, they even sacked Rome itself.

It’s clear that the Battle of Adrianople was, in many ways, the beginning of the end of the Western Roman Empire.

Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena... these are just a few of the names that Greek mythology lovers know, as they are no doubt aware of the standard Greek pantheon, the Olympians. They get all the air time, after all, with their epic tales of love, murder, incest, revenge...and everything in between.

The Titans, likewise, grab headlines with their creation stories... They gave fire to man, hold up the earth, and father the sun, the moon and the dawn.

While these deities were held in high esteem by the ancients, the Greeks also worshipped smaller, kinder, more...natural gods - the gods of the countryside. Not surprisingly, these represent water, trees and beasts. Some of these you will have heard about, but others, perhaps, are a little less known:

1. Pan

This satyr-god is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, and can often be seen with flute in hand. Being a rustic god of mountain wilds, Pan was not worshipped in temples or other built edifices, but in natural settings, usually caves or grottoes such as the one on the north slope of the Acropolis of Athens. Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. The ancient Greeks also considered Pan to be the god of theatrical criticism.

The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the principal seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of mountain people, culturally separated from other Greeks and Arcadian hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase.

The word panic ultimately derives from the god's name, as his angry shouts determined victories.

2. Naiads

A type of female spirit, this nymph presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water.

Naiads were often the object of archaic local cults, worshipped as essential to humans. Boys and girls at coming-of-age ceremonies dedicated their childish locks to the local naiad of the spring. In places like Lerna their waters' ritual cleansings were credited with magical medical properties. Animals were ritually drowned there. Oracles might be situated by ancient springs.

The Naiads are distinct from river gods as well as salt water gods.

3. Nereids

Sea nymphs were female spirits of sea waters. The Nereids often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors, like the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece. Famous examples include the 50 daughters of Nereus and Doris, sisters to Nerites.

4. Oceanids

Also called Oceanides, they are the nymphs who were the three thousand (a number interpreted as meaning "innumerable") daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. The Oceanid nymphs were associated with water, as the personification of springs. Hesiod says they are "dispersed far and wide" and everywhere "serve the earth and the deep waters".

5. Dryads

A tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology, Drys signifies "oak" in Greek. Dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, but the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general, or all human-tree hybrids in fantasy. They were normally considered to be very shy creatures except around the goddess Artemis, who was known to be a friend to most nymphs.

6. Satyrs

Also known as a silenos, a satyr is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike, usually with little success.

Or, The Girl Who Told the Truth about the Gods

By Nicole Saldarriaga, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

I’d take a look at the humble spider. Though spiders may not qualify as the most terrifying of creatures, their inclusion in a popular myth about Roman goddess, Minerva, certainly clues us into what the Greeks and Romans found chilling. I’m speaking here about the myth of Arachne, of course.

Though it’s considered one of the “lesser myths” of Greco-Roman mythology—probably because it’s not quite as detailed as other myths—it still gives us wonderful insight into ancient culture. Essentially, it functions as three different things: a moralistic warning, a subtle jab at the gods, and an origin story.

Before we get into the details of the myth, however, it’s important to point out that—like most myths—Arachne’s story has warped and changed over time, resulting in a few different versions of the myth. We’ll be focusing on the most well-recorded version, which can be found in that great book of transformations, Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

According to Ovid, Arachne was the beautiful young daughter of a simple shepherd. She took up the craft of weaving at a very young age and quickly demonstrated an incredible amount of talent. As she grew into a young woman her talent only grew with her, and many people gathered to see her beautiful tapestries or to simply watch her at the loom—a sight that was said to be mesmerizing.

However, after years of having her work effusively praised, Arache gets a bit cocky. She begins to boast that her work is more beautiful than Minerva’s (the Roman equivalent of Athena).

Keep in mind here that Minerva is to weaving what Vulcan is to smithing—she is considered the patron goddess of the craft, yet Arachne refuses to acknowledge Minerva’s hand in her great talent and even claims superiority. As you can imagine, this is incredibly infuriating to the goddess.

So, Minerva does what most of the Greco-Roman gods and goddesses seem to do when a mortal ticks them off— she disguises herself and pays Arachne a little visit. Appearing as an old crone, Minerva warns Arachne that she should not boast so carelessly, and that she should beg the goddess for forgiveness:

“Not everything old age has is to be shunned: knowledge comes with advancing years. Do not reject my advice: seek great fame amongst mortals for your skill in weaving, but give way to the goddess, and ask her forgiveness, rash girl, with a humble voice: she will forgive if you will ask.”

Arachne responds with surprise and rage:

“Weak-minded and worn out by tedious old age, you come here, and having lived too long destroys you. Let your daughter-in-law if you have one...listen to your voice. I have wisdom enough of my own. You think your advice is never heeded: that is my feeling too. Why does [Minerva] not come herself ? Why does she shirk this contest?”

Enraged by Arachne’s impudence, Minerva reveals herself as the goddess (which, interestingly, barely affects Arachne), and the two ladies challenge each other to a contest: whoever can produce the most beautiful, the most flawless tapestry wins. In order to ensure fairness, the contest would be judged by the goddess Envy.

So, goddess and mortal sit down to work, and both produce beautiful—but incredibly different tapestries. Ovid spends a relatively lengthy amount of time describing the scenes woven into each tapestry, and for good reason. Minerva weaves a perfectly symmetrical tapestry that depicts the glory of the gods (and her own glorious achievements in particular) in the center, and four separate corner scenes depicting mortals who were severely punished for challenging or insulting the gods. The work is technically flawless, and stunning.

Arachne, on the other hand, weaves a very different tapestry. While hers is also gorgeously worked, it depicts the gods in a very unfavorable light. The tapestry is packed with scenes of gods raping women, deceiving innocent mortals, and generally displaying embarrassing behavior.

Minerva is completely outraged at this further sign of arrogance and insult—and is only angered more by the undeniable fact that the tapestry is perfect. There is no clear winner, but Minerva can’t contain her rage-- she tears the offensive tapestry into pieces and begins to beat Arachne with her shuttle (a tool used for weaving).

Arachne can’t bear this abuse, and suddenly hangs herself. This extreme reaction actually causes Minerva to feel pity for Arachne, and the goddess chooses to bring Arachne back to life—but in the form of a spider, so that Arachne can both continue to weave and continue to “hang.”

“Live on then,” says Minerva, “and yet hang, condemned one, but, lest you are careless in future, this same condition is declared, in punishment, against your descendants, to the last generation!”

There you have it—the creation of the first spider; but as I mentioned earlier, this myth is much more than a simple origin tale for those creepy-crawlies you find in your basement. The basic function of the myth is, of course, to act as a warning.

Like many of the transformation myths found in the Metamorphoses, Arachne’s story is a reminder to never challenge the gods. No matter the validity of your claims, it will not go well for you—that is a guarantee.

But Arachne’s story is also interesting in that it subtly shows us an unpopular opinion about the gods. It’s no secret that the Greco-Roman pantheon is made up of gods who are flawed, petty, and often cruel. Arachne could not ignore this and paid the price for calling attention to it.

In fact, this myth is much more than just a warning— because in the end, it’s very important for us as modern readers to recognize that even the ancients were well aware that their gods were flawed. It may have been unpopular and even dangerous to express this opinion, but the opinion existed, there is no doubt.

Even more interesting is the fact that in the myth itself, the two different perspectives expressed by Minerva and Arachne are both actually substantiated. Minerva punishes Arachne for her insolence, just like the mortals on her tapestry were punished. She clearly believes that the gods have that natural right to command respect.

Arachne, on the other hand, whose tapestry displays mortals being treated unfairly and horribly hurt by the gods, is in fact reprimanded and beaten by Minerva.

Because of this, we could theoretically argue that Arachne’s behavior is not truly arrogant. Instead, it’s simply an example of a young woman telling the truth about her world as she perceives it, and being severely punished for doing so—and that is an entirely different sort of warning. One that, as modern readers, we must hope no longer applies today.

by A.P. David

Unlike Socrates, Plato wrote—and wrote and wrote. This was a man who said, on a rare occasion in the first person, that his theories could not be expressed in writing. Just as inner contradiction is a key to effective drama, where we call it ‘conflict’, contradiction appears to be the fount and foil of philosophy. This is likely a reason why Plato was obsessed with the daimonic, galvanic impact of one peculiar man on the sophistic/philosophical movement that came to a head in fifth-century Athens. It was a man whom Plato had probably known all his life... it was none other than Socrates himself.

Athens was the birthplace of tragedy and comedy, and Plato was supposed to be a successor to Euripides and Agathon in tragedy. Instead, he fell victim to that indescribable pull of Socrates.

After that, only one person could be dramatized by Plato and it certainly wasn’t the traditional, mythic figures posed as Trojan horses. It could only be Socrates, who died for his sins. The man who sent Plato and his crowd into despair at his death would be the focalizing agent for Plato’s dramatic instinct.

Only with Socrates as reagent did the real drama happen for Plato, and consequently real thought could be dramatised.

Let us consider the passage from Crito about Socrates’ dream. Crito walks in on Socrates sleeping so peacefully that he does not wish to wake him up, despite the urgency of his business. We soon find out that the dream is about a gorgeous woman (though it was not likely an erotic dream in any embarrassing sense).

The woman was dressed in white, and καλή καὶ εὐειδής, ‘beautiful and shapely’. She came up to Socrates and called to him, saying, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἤματί κεν τριτάτῳ Φϑίην ἐρίβωλον ἵκοιο. ‘Socrates, on the third day wouldst thou come to fertile Phthia.’

‘Bizarre dream’ says Crito, Socrates’ wealthy age-mate and a man who seems to care more about Socrates as a human person than as a mentor or guru. ‘Seems pretty clear to me, Crito,’ says Socrates in response.

Well, what is clear about it? The beautiful woman is also a motherly figure who seems to know Homer’s works well.

The lines she recites come straight from Achilles, in his response to Odysseus in Book IX of the Iliad:

‘You will see, if you want, and if such things could concern you
At early dawn upon the fish-filled Hellespont sailing,
My own ships, and men in them eager to row;
If he should give us fair voyaging, Glorious Earth-Shaker,
On the third day I would reach deep soiled Phthia.’

Does this mean Socrates is identifying himself with Achilles? On his way to Phthia?

In some ways the Crito, depicting a private conversation that Plato must only have imagined, seems to show the public bravado that Socrates exhibited in his defence at the trial. He there associated himself with Achilles, which was surely not a winning thing to do, when he was ugly, old, and irritating. Was this in fact a genuine fantasy on Socrates’ part?

In the speech at the end of the Crito, Socrates connects himself to Achilles in the context of not deserting his post. Socrates, like Achilles, will stick to his life’s mission under fire. This is because Socrates is a servant of the Laws.

But wait a minute... Achilles actually was fantasising about returning to Phthia. Achilles was looking forward, in the form of a passive-aggressive threat, to deserting his post.

Whatever Socrates may have said at the end of the Crito, he has, in fact, had a dream of wish fulfillment. He has managed, while sleeping, to express his desire to escape the bitter degradation that he has suffered by submitting to Athens. Is it the same dishonour that embroiled Achilles who capitulated to the Achaean army?

No one knows where Achilles’ Phthia really was, but Phthia in historical times was a region of Thessaly. Thessaly, of course, is the ‘lawless place’ where Crito would like to smuggle Socrates. Does Crito understand Socrates’ wish, when he hears about the dream? Is that why he appears to ignore Socrates’ statement that the dream is clear, and presses his suit? Does Socrates want to go to Thessaly?

Context suggests that the woman in Socrates’ dream corresponds to Thetis, Achilles’ divine mother. This further proposes that we should be thinking about the alternative paths to death that Thetis presented to Achilles, in the Iliad. There is a long anonymous life at home, or a short but glorious life at Troy. This also is clear: going back to Phthia, for Achilles, to work on the farm, is the path not chosen.

How does this work in the dream analysis? Socrates wins eternal glory (Plato is the poet to thank for this) by sticking to his post and obeying the Laws. Does the clarity of his dream suggest that this is all a sham? That he would rather desert his thankless army and be received in the arms of a shapely woman, who is his original mother?

Socrates’ own reading of the dream is that it signifies something about the day he will die—the third day. Then Phthia becomes a kind of Hades. Is it possible that Socrates’ conception of the afterlife allowed him, at different times, to fulfill both of Achilles’ fates?

Perhaps it is only this aspect of the number of days that is clear to Socrates. The woman is a mystery. What sort of comfort or reward is her beauty? If you want to take in all of what is in front of you, do not forget her as you contemplate the speech of the Laws, and Socrates’ obligation to the state that is executing him. The ‘argument of the dialogue’ only emerges if you ignore her. Plato included her. Thus there is created a drama not of action but of thought. To resolve it is, is to kill it; meanwhile, Socrates lives.

The post The Pompeii Mosaics: A Rare Look into Roman Life first appeared on Classical Wisdom Weekly.

Written by Jocelyn Hitchcock, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

"Sing, O Muse, of the man of many devices..."

Line one of the Odyssey begins like so many in ancient literature, by invoking the muses or gods. It was a common practice to ask, thank, and implore the other-worldly forces for inspiration and guidance in writing and story-telling.

The muses themselves are generally split into two different generations: the "Elder" and the "Younger." The Younger Muses are perhaps more widely known, as they were often represented on Mount Olympus or in the company of Dionysus and Apollo. Stories, music, and dance were all a part of their entertainment repertoire, performing in joy and in sorrow, as they were said to have been present even at the funerals of Achilles and Patroclus, lamenting the deceased and their honors in life.

It is the Younger Muses, as Hesiod referred to them in his Theogony, that Calliope, the muse of eloquence and epic poetry, belonged to. Calliope was the eldest of the muse offspring between Zeus and Mnemosyne (the goddess of memory), supposedly conceived on the first night of the partnership. Calliope was also the mother of Orpheus, fathered by Oiagros, the Thracian king, who caused "stones and trees to move" with his own singing.

Calliope is usually depicted with a lyre, tablet, or stylus, representing her written and verbal talents. She doesn't usually appear by herself in stories, but with her sisters complementing one another.

Calliope, being the muse of eloquence, is naturally closely linked with the mortal world. It is said that she was the one who gifted kings with the ability to speak with grace and power when they were babies by anointing their lips with honey. In this way, when the babies grew up, they were able to "utter true judgments" and "would soon make wise end even of a great quarrel" (Hesiod, Theogony, 75).

Depictions in Art

As the muses as a whole were incredibly influential in the mortal and divine world, it comes as no surprise that they were depicted at length in classical art. Calliope, being considered the eldest, the muse at the helm of her sisters, was a popular subject. She is depicted on dozens of Athenian red figure vases, mosaics, and sculptures.

One famous depiction is on the Francois Vase, a large Attic volute krater produced by the artist Ergotimos around 570 BCE. You can see her identified by name on the upper belly of the vase next to two horses, Zeus, and Ourania, who Calliope leads the procession with. The other 7 muses are depicted behind Zeus. Seen frontally on the vase, Calliope occupies an interesting position of dominance.

In more recent art, such as the painting by Charles Meynier in 1798, Calliope is depicted as directly inspiring the Homeric epics. While she is not specifically named at the opening of epics—just a general 'muse' being used to invoke the ethereal realm—Calliope being the oldest, most prominent, and most associated with eloquence, makes it likely that she was the intended muse.

Other renderings of Calliope depict her in the classical style we are familiar with: flowing robes, a tablet or writing instrument, and austere but serene countenance.

Overall, the 9 Muses continue to be treated as a cohesive unit, operating in pursuit of a common goal. However, Calliope is presented and revered as one of the more prominent of muses, no doubt due to the fact that she is intimately tied to the Homeric epics and feats of leaders. She operates immediately behind the scenes, never far from the action.

By Jocelyn Hitchcock, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

Empedocles, born c. 490 BCE in Akragas, Sicily, is perhaps one of the more eccentric pre-Socratic philosophers. He himself claimed other-worldly powers, is credited by Aristotle as the inventor of rhetoric, and is thought to have originated the cosmogonic theory of the four elements: fire, air, water, and earth.

Empedocles’ Personal Life

While relatively little is known about Empedocles' personal life, we do know he was born to a wealthy family who was involved in the overthrow of the Akragas tyrant in 470 BC.

Diogenes relates the ambiguity regarding exactly of whom Empedocles was a student. He offered the following options: that he was a student of Pythagoras himself, that he was a student of the Pythagorean school under the instruction of Huppasus and Brontinus, or that he could have originally been under the influence of Xenophanes and later "fell in with the Pythagoreans." All of this confusion is due to the fact that Empedocles promoted his poetry at the start and the Pythagorean school had a law to admit no Epic poet. Indeed, he is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to have recorded his ideas in verse.

Empedocles himself had one pupil mentioned, Gorgias, and his travels to the Peloponnese, Attica, and Thurii were mentioned by authors such as Timaeus and Dicaearchus.

Empedocles’ Philosophy

Empedocles' philosophy and teachings are taken from the remaining fragments of his epics 'On Nature' and 'Purifications.' The core of Empedocles' philosophy relied on the notion that all things are transformed and manipulated between the four worldly elements of fire, air, water, and earth, and that nothing is destroyed and nothing is created new. He believed that everything in the universe was made of these four root elements and was conscious.

Combined with this attempt to simplify and organize the world, Empedocles’ doctrine promoted the idea that love was the unseen force holding things together, while strife was the force by which things were pulled apart. Love and Strife, then, were the ways in which the four elements were able to interact and mix together.

Empedocles' philosophy about the universe was in response to the contemporary Eleatic School which was founded by Parmenides in southern Italy. The Eleatic School promoted the idea that "all is one" in the universe and everything existed in a single entity. Empedocles pushed back a little by saying all is composed of the same four elements. While this concept is similar at the root of the argument, it did differ enough to constitute a separate philosophical school.

Empedocles’ Science

Even though the line between Empedocles’ philosophy and Empedocles’ science is blurred to say the least, he did undertake what we would even recognize today as “scientific testing.”

Empedocles was (unsurprisingly) not very thorough. He did, though, prove that air was not empty space by using a clepsydra, which is a water clock or any timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into or out from a vessel, and where the amount is then measured. He did this by filling the clepsydra with water while covering the hole at the top. This allowed for his element of air to be an active 'ingredient' in comparison with earth, water, and fire - all tangible and manipulative elements.

Another theory of Empedocles comes down to us through Aristotle in De Sensu. Empedocles thought that the light from the sun passed through intermediary space before being processed by our eyes, moving through space by whatever force. Indeed, Empedocles is credited with the first comprehensive theory of light and vision.

But perhaps one of the more advanced undertakings of Empedocles gives us what is thought to be the earliest extant attempt to discern the origin of species. He introduces zoogony, or generations of animals, in his attempts to explain the origin and development of biological life as a coming together and unfolding of birth. He uses examples of wild animals, humans, and plants as his proofs. This theory is strongly in line with his overarching philosophy of things in strife and things in love. Indeed, we see what Empedocles thought was the practical application of such rules.

Empedocles’ Death and Legacy

Empedocles’ death is the stuff of legends, as he was mythologized by ancient writers. One story of which is where he died by throwing himself into Mount Etna, allowing him to turn into an immortal god. Another includes Empedocles being removed from the earth and his exact age at death is disputed anywhere between age 60 and age 109.

Further descriptions of Empedocles and his ideas are recorded by Aristotle, Diogenes, Pliny, and Horace's Ars Poetica. Aristotle called him the father of rhetoric and Lucretius speaks of him with enthusiasm, and evidently viewed him as his model. Much later his death is at the center of a 1826 play by Friedrich Holderlin, 'Tod des Empedokles,' and Matthew Arnold's 1852 poem titled 'Empedocles on Etna.' While this eccentric philosopher may not be a household name today, he was clearly very influential in the ancient world and thus deserves our attention.

By Ben Potter

Aias to the Greeks, Aiax to the Romans, now known to us as the anglicized Ajax, he was 'the best of all men that ever came to Troy, save only Achilles'.

However, Ajax's status as number two in the Greek pecking order wasn't always fully appreciated. After Achilles perished when the arrow fired by the Trojan prince Paris pierced his Achilles' heel (oh the irony!) and Ajax gallantly carried his fallen comrade from the battlefield, it was assumed that the coveted armor worn by the slain hero would pass on to the number two warrior, Ajax.

However, the Greek commander Agamemnon and his brother, husband of the wanton Helen, Menelaus had other ideas. Persuaded by his eloquence, they decided to give the armor to Odysseus.

So what's the big deal? Ajax is a wealthy prince and a mighty warrior, surely he doesn't need Achilles' armor, right?

Wrong.

The armor is not merely precious, useful and a wonderful souvenir which could rival a piece of the true cross, but it is hugely symbolic. It is so saturated in symbolic honor that to be denied it, Ajax has been forced to suffer a de facto demotion.

This snub is enough to tip a character, who is often portrayed as tactless, boorish and arrogant, totally over the edge.

He resolved to steal out into the night and enter the beach encampments of his fellow Greek commanders whereupon he would kill whomever he could and bring the rest back to his own tent for torture.

This, Ajax achieved... or at least thought he had achieved. Instead the goddess Athena, looking to protect her favorite, Odysseus, sent Ajax mad so that instead of mutilating Agamemnon, Menelaus et al, he butchered a flock of sheep.

It is at this point, with sanity suddenly returning to him, that Sophocles' Ajax begins.

However, an Athenian audience wouldn't have been waiting with bated breath to see what was in store for the man whose stock has dropped from the heights of second greatest of all the Greeks to being a traitor and maniacal livestock botherer. They already knew his fate; he was to commit suicide.

Whilst myths are able to evolve and Athenian tragedians do often significantly change major details of stories, this one was perhaps a step too far even for the innovative Sophocles to tinker with.

Instead what he does is develop Ajax's tragic flaw. Quite obviously pride would be the one to play up, but Sophocles mixes it with a shot of blasphemy to make a cocktail of hubris.

There is some minor evidence for such impiety in The Iliad. In book XI, Ajax won't listen to the gods when they instruct the Greeks to retreat from the battlefield, but continues fighting nobly and bravely when the other heroes are making their tactical withdrawal.

Also, most Greek heroes are honored by a patron deity who watches over them. Odysseus and Diomedes have Athena, Achilles has Thetis; even the Trojans Paris and Hector have Aphrodite and Apollo respectively. However, Ajax is alone.

It is this theme that Sophocles nurtures as we learn that Athena did not merely send Ajax wild to save her dear Odysseus, but to punish the doomed man himself. The Messenger (a stock character in ancient tragedy) highlights just why this is:

“The gods have dreadful penalties in store for worthless and redundant creatures, mortals who break the bounds of mortal modesty. And Ajax showed he had no self-control the day he left his home. 'Son,' said his father – and very properly – 'Go out to win, but with God beside you.' 'Oh,' said Ajax with vain bravado, 'any fool can win with God beside him; I intend to win glory and honor on my own account.'”

Thus Ajax is seen not only as a character with a deeply flawed personality, but one who is on the end of Divine retribution. So the question that crops up isn't so much 'did he deserve his fate' as 'can we feel any sympathy for him at all'?

Well... Ajax was honor-bound to come to Troy by the oath sworn during his courtship of Helen. In Sophocles, Ajax is less concerned with rescuing the stolen princess than with trying to please or even emulate his father Telamon, who himself sacked Troy in the previous generation along with Heracles – a feat, of course, which Ajax has been unable to better.

Telamon, “the man who never smiles”, is the only man who Ajax seems afraid of and indeed he comments timorously: “How will he welcome me, when I come home empty-handed?”

It feels like Ajax been pushed all his life to try and accumulate kleos (reputation) and succeed at every turn simply in order to be able to step out of his father's shadow. The failure to gain Achilles' armor would have be seen as unacceptable in Ajax's own eyes and presumably also in those of Telamon.

Can we find sympathy for a man whose every waking thought is centered round yearning for his father's approval? Is this something which reinforces Ajax's pathetic vanity? And in turn does it cause us to pity rather than despise him?

Sophocles includes a “family scene” which contrasts starkly to its inspiration in book VI of The Iliad. It involved Hector, his wife, Andromache and their son, Astyanax. Hector, knowing he was going into mortal combat from which he may not return, is depicted as a loving husband and gentle father.

The parody in Ajax shows the 'hero', not going nobly into battle, but about to selfishly and capriciously commit suicide. In these final moments they can share together he is very curt and snaps at his wife, Tecmessa. He hopes that his son, Eurysaces, will be as good a man as he is, only more lucky. Hector on the other hand desired that Astyanax would emulate him, going on to bigger and better things. This makes it seem like Ajax can't bear to be outshone by anyone, not even his own flesh and blood!

Both men also worry about their wives being sold into slavery should they die. However, by committing suicide and Tecmessa being a foreigner, Ajax has all but guaranteed this fate for her.

The dramatic irony of this scene causes us to feel great pity for poor Tecmessa, an innocent victim of a self-destructive and proud fool who, instead of being the linchpin of victory in the Trojan War heaps woe upon woe, tarnishes his reputation, enslaves his loved-ones, bereaves his loyal and loving half-brother and leaves his father without an heir.

However, this is not the only way in which Sophocles creates suspense, pity and fear. Ajax falls on his sword just over half way through the story, the rest of the play is a struggle between Ajax's half-brother, Teucer and the opposing, gloating siblings, the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus.

The tension comes about because Teucer is being denied by the Atreidai (the sons of Atreus) the right to bury Ajax.

Prohibition of burial rites might seem like more of an insult than a real tragedy to us, but it was of vital importance to the Greeks. It was not a matter of life and death, it was much more important than that!

Indeed, the importance of burial rites ties in with the fact that Sophocles has been, very wrongly, accused of making a hash out of Ajax due to the fact that the main character dies, and therefore the climax is reached, so early in the performance.

What these critics don't understand is that the death is a foregone conclusion, common knowledge to all, but the burial of Ajax is far from guaranteed. Consequently, this sacred rite, the blasphemous denial of which would leave no Athenian theatre-goer sitting comfortably, creates tension and drama of the very highest order. Especially as all the men at the crux of the debate are edgy, angry and highly dangerous.

Indeed some interpret the play as reflecting the mental pressure on men in the appalling conditions of siege-warfare, far away from their homes and loved-ones and with the constant threat of slavery or annihilation hanging over their heads.

However, the play ends on a hopeful note thanks to a most unlikely source.

Odysseus, acting like a deus ex machina, manages to convince Agamemnon that Ajax, despite his faults, deserves a burial. Although Agamemnon doesn't really concur and is amazed that Odysseus, mortal enemy of Ajax, wants to help Teucer, he allows him to do as he pleases.

And these are the words with which Odysseus guides the heart-broken Teucer through his darkest hour:

“I have this to say to you: I am your friend henceforth, as truly I was your enemy; and I am ready to help you bury your dead and share in every office that we mortals owe to the noblest of our kind”.

And thus Odysseus shows us that even in death, even through enmity, even when blood has been shed, bile been spat, even when hate and hostility trickle from the lips more readily than any words of friendship or conciliation.... even then there is still room for someone to step in and make things right, to honor the gods through a kind act and to lighten, even slightly, the weight upon a bereaved and dejected soul.

By Ḏḥwty, Contributing Writer, Ancient Origins

The ancient Greek city-state of Sparta had a social hierarchy that was different from many of its neighbors. The top of the social pyramid was occupied by the two kings, whose powers were checked by a ‘council of elders’. These elders were chosen from the next class, the Spartiates. Below this aristocratic class was a middle class which was called the Perioeci. The lowest class, which was also the largest, in Spartan society was held a group known as the Helots.

According to the Greek geographer Pausanias, the Helots hailed from a city called Helos. This city is said to have been conquered by the Spartans, and its inhabitants became their first slaves. Subsequent peoples enslaved by the Spartans were also called Helots. The Greek historian, Thucydides, however, gives a different account of the origins of the Helots. According to this writer, the Helots were the descendants of the Messenians who were enslaved by the Spartans during the First Messenian War in the 8th century BC. Another account of the origins of the Helots can be found in Strabo’s Geography. According to this writer, the peoples who were subjected to Spartan rule were initially accorded equal rights. During the reign of Agis I, however, these rights were revoked, and the subjects forced to pay a tribute. All complied, except the people of Helos, who revolted. They were crushed in a war and reduced to slavery.

Whilst they are considered as slaves, it has been pointed out that they were somewhat different from other slaves in the neighboring Greek city-states. It is claimed that in Athens, for instance, slaves did not have families and communities of their own. The Helots, by contrast, had their own families and communities. Additionally, the Helots were not privately owned, but belonged to the state. According to Strabo, “the Lacedaemonians held the Helots as state-slave in a way, having assigned to them certain settlements to live in and special services to perform.”

As the male citizens of Sparta devoted their lives to athletic and military training, war, politics, and hunting, they could not afford to spend time on agricultural activities. The task of producing food was left to the Helots. Although the Helots were, generally speaking, peasants, they may be employed for other jobs, such as servants or grooms, as well. Additionally, the Helots could be conscripted into military duties at times of war. For instance, the Greek historian Herodotus records that each of the 5000 Spartiate at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC was protected by seven light-armed Helots. Thus, there was a total of 35,000 Helots at that battle.

Although the Helots were crucial for the functioning of Spartan society, the other classes had an uneasy relationship with them. Given that the Helots greatly outnumbered their Spartan masters, the possibility of them revolting against their repressive rulers was ever present. The first major Helot revolt took place around 665 BC, and is known as the Second Messenian War (The First Messenian War had ended around 40 years prior to this conflict). The Helots seized on the occasion of Sparta’s defeat by Argos at the Battle of Hysiae to launch a revolt. It took the Spartans nearly 20 years to put down the rebellion.

Given the precarious state of things, the Spartans took precautions to prevent the Helots from revolting. During the Persian Wars, for instance, the Spartans were not too eager to send their hoplites abroad to fight for the freedom of Greece. This was due to the fear that the Helots would revolt when the Spartan army was fighting away from home. Despite these and other precautions, several revolts by the Helots took place over the centuries. When an earthquake struck the Eurotas Valley in 464 BC, the Helots seized this opportunity to revolt. This was the largest revolt recorded. The Helots fortified Mount Ithome, which was besieged by Sparta. The siege only ended five years later when both sides agreed to a truce. The surviving Helots were taken by Athens and settled on Naupactus on the Corinthian Gulf.

Spartan treatment of Helots improved overtime, perhaps as a means of appeasing them. For instance, Helots could hope to be emancipated, and it is known that groups of Helots were sometimes liberated. Nevertheless, the system collapsed in the 4 th century BC. In 371 BC, the Spartans suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Leuctra. The victorious Thebans then invaded the Peloponnese, and the Helots of Messenia were liberated. The last Helots (the Helots of Laconia) were emancipated at the end of the 3rd century BC by the reformer kings Cleomenes III and Nabis.

By Peter Marshall, Contributing Writer, Ancient Origins

"Poseidon
the great god
I begin to sing, he who moves the earth
and the desolate sea…
You are dark-haired
you are blessed
you have a kind heart.
Help those who sail upon
The sea
In ships."
~Homeric Hymn to Poseidon

Gods and Legends

Poseidon was the Greek god of the sea, the shaker of the land responsible for earthquakes, and the god of horses. Usually living in the sea, he could make the waters either calm or stormy depending on his volatile moods. As a patron deity of Athens, Poseidon competed with Athena, who planted the sacred olive tree, by establishing a magical well of salt water on the Acropolis.

If any boat was to survive in Poseidon’s Realm, its crew would have to appease him, usually in the form of sacrifices. The ancient Greeks would kill bulls on beaches or temples and offer up the sacrifices to the god; I preferred in my sailing voyage around the Aegean to make a libation to his memory and presence, usually in the form of the first glass of wine which I poured in the waters of Homer’s ‘wine-dark sea’.

Poseidon—Neptune to the Romans—was one of the three main gods of ancient Greece. He was the brother to Zeus, the most powerful god and ruler of the Heavens, and to Hades, the god of the Underworld where a soul goes to spend a ghostly existence after death. As with the other gods and goddesses, they intervened into human affairs and often took the form of what humans called fate.

When Odysseus, for instance, tried to get home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, Homer tells us in his epic poem The Odyssey, it took him many years because he had angered Poseidon after blinding one of his sons, the one-eyed monster Cyclops Polyphemus for eating his crew and for keeping him captive in a cave. On the other hand, Odysseus was helped on his way by the intervention of the goddess Athena who wanted the Trojans defeated.

The gods and goddesses normally lived on the summit of Mount Olympus (the tallest mountain in Greece, and only climbed by humans at the beginning of the last century, and by myself this century). Although in some ways idealized, they were all-too-human, quarrelling with each other, committing adultery, laughing as well as being downhearted. Zeus would often have arguments with his wife Hera, the goddess of marriage and childbirth, particularly because of his many infidelities.

Despite the cities along the coast of the Eastern Aegean being the birthplace of philosophy and science, with one philosopher saying we can know nothing of the gods and the afterlife, most Greeks firmly believed in their gods. They held Delos in the center of the Aegean to be a sacred island, the birthplace of Apollo, the god of light, music and knowledge, and his twin sister Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and the moon. And they readily consulted oracles, especially at Delphi, in their attempts to see into the future.

But Apollo was also the brother of Dionysius, the god of wine and ecstasy. Many festivals of plays and songs were put on his honour. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche for one saw the birth of Greek tragedy to a combination of ‘Apollonian’ spirit giving form to ‘Dionysian’ energy.

Aegean Voyage

Mythology was an important part of my voyage around the Aegean as it helps to understand ancient Greeks. I set off in a small sailing boat with a traveling companion and traveling at roughly the same speed as the ancient boats, I drew a great circle around the Aegean.

My voyage in space reflected my voyage in time, for I investigated the various stages in ancient Greek history, from the Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Classical and the Hellenic. I also wanted to test my hunch that Greek civilization cannot be properly understood except from the point of view of the sea. It was central to their lives; Plato described accurately the city states like ‘frogs around a pond’. With a mountainous hinterland and poor soil, they inevitably looked to the sea for foreign trade and new colonies.

The only time they stopped fighting against each other was when they declared a temporary truce for their Olympic games every four years and when they were united against a common foe. Twice they had to face the Persians who had at the time the most powerful empire the world had ever known, under Xerxes I, the ‘King of Kings’. They brought vast armies and huge fleets to conquer the troublesome and squabbling peoples on their western border.

However, believing themselves to be free, the greatly outnumbered Greeks managed to push back the far greater force which would have enslaved them and changed the nature of Europe forever.

After sailing for six seasons in my small sailing boat, covering over 5,000 miles, I visited many ancient sites both famous and obscure and met many Greeks and Turks on the way. I suffered a near shipwreck and sinking. But more than sailing narrative and personal quest, I returned with a remarkable portrayal of the Greeks and a fuller understanding of their history, mythology and culture.

It is certainly worth studying the art, sculpture, literature, philosophy and architecture of ancient Greece—not only because the people are valuable and fascinating in themselves—but because the culture forms the seabed of Western civilization. I have witnessed the unforgettable portrait of arguably the most beautiful and magical sea in the world.

Peter Marshall is the author of Poseidon’s Realm: A Voyage around the Aegean the recently published by Zena. ISBN 9780951106969. He has written 16 books which have been translated into as many languages. His website is www.petermarshall.net

By Mary Naples, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

Read Hypatia-The Last Academic (part One) here.

Under Christian rule, Alexandria, once the definitive center of learning throughout the empire, was fast becoming anti-intellectual and inhospitable to Hypatia and the academic circle in which she traveled. In fact, this burgeoning new religion was oftentimes suspicious of learning, equating it to the work of the devil. Faith in Christ replaced scholarship in this brave new world.

An example of this hatred for scholarship was demonstrated in 392 when Theophilus (384 CE-412 CE) Bishop of Alexandria, led a braying mob of Christian zealots in the pummeling of the Serapeum, the city’s premier temple and library complex. Elevated by one-hundred steps on the acropolis of Alexandria, the Serepeum was made of luminous marble and rose above all other structures commanding the city skyscape. Equally impressive, the library within the Serapeum was considered the daughter to the defunct Library of Alexandria housing hundreds of thousands of scrolls. After the extremists razed the Serapeum complex and set fire to the scrolls, the swarm went on a holy mission tearing down other temples, statuary and religious sites, when all was said and done destroying over twenty-five hundred structures in total.

In 414 CE Theophilus died and was succeeded by his nephew, Cyril (378 CE- 444 CE) who made his uncle look conciliatory in comparison. Ruling with an iron-fist from the get-go, he made his wrath known against another enemy of the Christians—the Jews. When some Christians were killed in a skirmish that had broken out between Christians and Jews, Cyril organized an army of thousands called the parabalani. Typically, from the lower rungs of society and oftentimes illiterate, the parabalani were at his call to serve their god, or in this case god’s representative, Cyril. In addition, some in his army were Nitrian monks who traveled to Alexandria from the desert fired up in righteous religious indignation against non-Christians. Both groups had a flagrant reputation for violence.

At Cyril’s behest, they seized the synagogues converting them into churches. But defacing their places of worship was not enough for the iron-fisted bishop, he also exiled the Jews from Alexandria and encouraged his Christian disciples to occupy their now abandoned homes and to seize their possessions.

It is emblematic of the staggering influence wielded by religious authority that Orestes—the governor of Alexandria—could do little but stand by the sidelines in horror and despair at this gross injustice. Though a Christian himself, Orestes was a nonsectarian and like his good friend Hypatia appalled by Cyril’s barbaric actions against the Jews.

Though it did no good, Orestes reported the atrocious events to the emperor in Constantinople, which put him squarely in the crosshairs of Cyril’s band of thugs. One night while out in his chariot, Orestes was confronted by an angry mob of parabalani and Nitrian monks—which soon turned into a physical altercation when one of the monks gashed Orestes’ head open with a stone. If not for the help of nonsectarian bystanders, Orestes would have died.

When the stone-hurling monk was apprehended, Orestes had him publicly tortured and the monk ultimately died. In true form, Cyril used the monk’s death in a propaganda campaign against the governor further fueling the fire between the disparate factions.

Attempts at reconciliation between the two leaders ended in failure. Through it all, the governor sought counsel from the wisest person in the land who stood resolutely by his side. But Cyril’s supporters saw Hypatia’s advocacy on Orestes’ behalf not as uniting but as dividing. Alexandria’s most acclaimed pagan was an easy target who they blamed for the continuing rift between the two men.

Then the rumors began. She has an undue influence on Orestes, they blustered. She’s bewitched him with her sorcery, others moaned. She is teaching idolatry, they shrieked. Calling her a witch, they even used her famed astrolabe against her saying it was an instrument of Satan. The cacophony of outcries against her became deafening. Then it happened. Demonstrating once again how easy it is to harm those who have been dehumanized.

On her daily ride through the city on that bright and sunny day in March of 415, Hypatia had set off for school in her chariot. As was usual for her, her mind was a million miles away. Perhaps she was thinking about her next seminar; about some philosophical dictate or mathematical law she would discuss in class. Being an exemplary teacher, her fortunate students were never far from mind.

But her introspection was savagely broken when she found herself physically confronted by a howling mob under the leadership of Peter, a church magistrate. Because she was not a civil authority, she lacked the security detail that Orestes enjoyed. But up until then, no academic had needed such protection in Alexandria.

From the beginning, it was violent. They ordered her off her chariot, then dragged her through the streets and into a church. She must have tried to reason with them, but her reasoning fell on the deafened ears of the righteous. After all, theirs is the will of god. They tore the clothes off of the “luminous child of reason” and in God’s house they flayed her with the jagged edges of roofing tiles.

As if that were not enough, while still alive and breathing, they gouged out her eyes. Once dead, they further violated her by cutting her body into pieces and parading the pieces throughout the streets of Alexandria. Finding rest, at long last, on a pyre. Violent criminals were treated with more forbearance than Alexandria’s most prominent intellectual.

From the farthest reaches of the empire to close by, both Christian and non-Christian alike were in an uproar about the abhorrent slaying of the greatest mathematician of the day. It was an outrage. Academics were considered inviolable because they enhanced the community with their scholarship and wisdom. But if being an academic was not enough to protect her, Hypatia was also an elite woman. A rank by itself deemed sacrosanct.

How could something of this magnitude happen to one as beloved as she? But the truth is that Hypatia was part of a dying breed, the last champion of a seven-hundred-year academic tradition vanishing under a tidal wave of anti-intellectual religious dogma. After Hypatia’s death, many pagan academics fled Alexandria in search of more tolerant cities. But eventually the tidal wave could be felt throughout the empire with religion replacing philosophy and clergy replacing academics.

Devastated, Orestes soon left public life. But Cyril’s star was still rising. Although never formally charged in Hypatia’s violent end, if not for the anti-pagan fervor he stirred up amongst his minions, such a horror would never have taken place. Following her death, Cyril was given the honorary moniker “the new Theophilus” by his jubilant followers for quashing the “last remnants of idolatry.” Under his continued leadership, Alexandria became an important Christian hub with Cyril eventually canonized as a saint. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches to this day.

by Ed Whelan, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

Many heroes from Greek mythology have inspired people across the millennia. We can think of warriors and adventurers like Achilles, Odysseus and Jason. Yet amongst theses names, there is a figure that is especially remarkable: Cadmus, the legendary founder of Thebes. What makes Cadmus distinct amongst these names is that he was a foreigner, or in Greek terms, a barbarian. Yet he is still considered by the Greeks as one of the greatest heroes before Heracles.

The Early Adventures of Cadmus

Cadmus was born in Phoenicia, and was apparently the son of King Agenor, yet his real father may have been Zeus. The etymology of the name may Camus mean ‘Easterner’, and this reflects his foreign origins. His sister was the beautiful Europa, from whom we derive the name Europe, and she was abducted by the great philanderer Zeus. Cadmus was sent to retrieve her and bring her home, but he had no success. In desperation he visited the Oracle of Delphi for some help in his search. He was told to abandon his search, and instead focus on founding a city. The Oracle ordered him to follow a cow with unusual markings. Where she lay down, he was to find a city.

He followed the animal to Boeotia (land of cows), and she eventually lay down. After he sacrificed the cow to the goddess Athena, he laid the foundation for what later became the city of Thebes, one of the greatest cities in the Classical world. During the construction of Thebes, the first inhabitants were threatened by a dragon from a nearby spring. Cadmus, like any hero, naturally killed the dragon. In Greek mythology, the teeth of dragons had special powers when they were sown in the ground. Cadmus sowed the earth with the slain dragons’ teeth, and from these grew a race of armed warriors, who were called Sparti (or ‘the sown’ in Greek).

They immediately started into violence, and killed each other until only five were left standing. These five were enlisted by Cadmus and helped him to build a citadel in Thebes. The descendants of the five Sparti became the leading aristocratic families of Thebes.

The Later Adventures of Cadmus

Yet all was not well. Cadmus had unwittingly offended the god of war, Ares. The slain dragon was sacred to this Olympian. The hero had to serve Ares for eight years as a bondsman, little more than a slave. After the eight years were finished, Ares gave his daughter Harmonia to Cadmus as his bride. Their wedding was attended by many of the gods. One of the gifts that Harmonia received was a gift of a necklace made by Hephaestus. The couple had a son, Polydorus, and four daughters, Agave, Ino, Autonoë and Semele (who would become the mother of Dionysus). Myths relate that Cadmus also founded some cities in Illyria. In some stories, after a series of misfortunes, such as their grandson King Pentheus being torn apart, and civil strife in Thebes, the couple wished that they were black serpents rather than endure their miserable existence. Upon hearing this they couple were changed into black serpents by the gods. After some time as snakes, Zeus rescued the couple and brought them to Elysian Fields where they spent, eternity in a blessed and happy state.

The Meaning of the Myth

The Cadmus myth, like other fables, demonstrates that humans must respect the gods or face their wrath. Some have argued that the hero was based on a real-life king or warrior and point to some refences in a Hittite record.  He was a cultural hero and his killing of the dragon, and the founding of Thebes can be seen as helping to create civilization. The myth of Cadmus may represent the influence of Eastern cultures, specifically the Phoenicians, on Greek culture. Certainly, the myth may have been used to explain the adoption of the phonetic alphabet from the Levant. The marriage of Harmonie and Cadmus may represent the union of Greece and the East. Furthermore, the years he spent serving Ares may reflect the employment of Eastern mercenaries in the Hellenic World. Finally, the story of Cadmus was used to explain the foundation of Thebes and other cities, which was common in Hellenic mythology.

References

Graves, Robert (1980). Greek Myths. Pélican : London.

By Mary Naples, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

They came to her by land. They came to her by sea. They came to her from the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire and they came to her from close by. Amongst the literati, Hypatia (355-415 CE), acclaimed philosopher and leading mathematician, was a rock star.

She was bold, she was beautiful, but most of all, she was brilliant. Her students, many of them adherents in the burgeoning new religion, Christianity, adored her and flocked to hear her every word. Congregating not only in the classroom but in the public square and even at her home—just to hear her speak. Hers was the school all serious students throughout the empire wished to attend. But students weren’t the only ones who were captivated by her brilliance. Amongst academics from near and from far, she was the one with whom they sought council.

But how did Hypatia, a woman in a deeply misogynist society, earn such high acclaim? By the tender age of thirty, Hypatia had become a legend within academic circles for fusing the two apparently disparate disciples of mathematics and philosophy together in the classroom. Although well-versed in both disciplines, academics tended to be trained as either philosophers or mathematicians and had schools in one discipline or the other but not in both. Hypatia’s school was the exception.

Weaned on mathematics by her father, Theon (335 CE-405 CE), the foremost mathematician in Alexandria, Hypatia would become his best pupil even assisting him in the seminal writings of Euclid and Ptolemy. In fact, Hypatia was so gifted, that her father ceded his school to her—retiring at only fifty-five years of age—when it became apparent that she surpassed him in ability. But for all her mathematical acumen, Hypatia had a strong affinity for philosophy which she believed led to the highest truth. Her robust background in mathematics and philosophy made her school a perfect venue for students who wanted to learn how the two disciplines were unified.

But it’s important to have an understanding of what was meant by mathematics and philosophy in ancient times. Today, what two disciplines are more at odds than mathematics and philosophy? Though one is considered practical and useful, the other is considered metaphysical and without merit in our highly technical world. While both were thought to be sacrosanct by the ancients, a debate ensued between scholars over which of the two disciplines led to the highest truth.

Mathematics, which encompassed arithmetic, geometry, algebra, as well as astronomy, was irrefutable and as such was considered sacred and a path to a higher being or what the ancients termed “the One.” Meanwhile philosophy, a less demonstrable field, was a study employed to instill honor, wisdom and integrity within an individual. The philosophical goal being that this moral code could impart a oneness with the divine. Thus, the goal of both mathematics and philosophy was a transcendent affinity with the sacred, making them both more akin to our notion of religion.

Neoplatonism, the type of speculative philosophy that Hypatia taught, espoused a renunciation of the material world in favor of spirituality. Neoplatonists believed that the materiality of the body and the world in general are things to be overcome. Hypatia herself was exemplar of this creed, choosing to remain celibate so she could focus her energies on scholarship and the satisfaction of the incorporeal world. One famous vignette has her thwarting the unwelcome advances of a student by showing him one of her menstruation rags, quipping “Is this what you love, young man?” Unsurprisingly, his desire for her was quelled.

Hypatia’s severe rejection of his advances illustrates how fundamental repudiation of the material world was to Neoplatonism. In this way, it was a philosophy not inconsistent with the essential tenets of Christianity. On account of this compatibility, many of Hypatia’s students were both Neoplatonists and Christian. Although a pagan, Hypatia was nonpartisan and endowed all her students to honor and respect one another and others in the world, regardless of religious affiliation.

For as much as peaceful coexistence was the order of the day in Hypatia’s school, Alexandria was a tinderbox with disparate factions in conflict with one another; Christian against pagan and Jew, orthodox against heterodox, sectarian against non-sectarian and finally religious authority against civil authority.

To Be Continued....

It’s called the “Ham-Rig” Index in our household. 

The premise is pretty simple. On the one end of the scale is a family member responsible for running a million dollar a day offshore oil rig... while battling coups, ebola outbreaks, international regulatory bodies and diminishing funds.

On the other side, another family member must buy a ham for a casual get together. 

Guess who was more stressed? 

It’s a trick question really, it couldn’t have been easier for either of them... though we certainly heard more about the pork leg. 

The reality is that it doesn’t matter what is the cause of stress. There is no absolute correlation - some can handle war and torture better than others can deal with a dinner party. 

Of course a huge difference is the philosophy of the individual. Probably the most famous example is James Stockdale, the US admiral who survived seven years as a POW in the “Hanoi Hilton”. He has very vocally discussed the influence of ancient Stoicism and in particular, the Roman slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, whose lessons captured in The Enchiridion Stockdale credited with providing him strength during his ordeals as a prisoner. 

So this brings us to this week’s question: 

Is how we react to stress really in our control? And if it is, what can we do to handle it? What ancient examples and philosophies can help us today? 

As always, you can email me at anya@classicalwisdom.com or comment below

Now, as to last week's question “Does technology change us?” - a note from my dear husband. 

Through no planning whatsoever, your editor and her husband wrote on the same subject of technology - and its unintended consequences. 

Drawing on the excellent and bizarrely pertinent book by Postman, Joel delves into what the medium of Twitter says about our culture. You can read it HERE.

By Van Bryan

The legend of Sisyphus begins with a man who, if we are to believe Homer, was one of the wisest and most prudent of mortals. Nonetheless he would fall out of favor with the gods of ancient Greece. He was taken to the kingdom of the underworld and was forced to endure one of the most pointless and excruciating punishments of ancient mythology. Everyday he would carry a massive boulder up a mountain, straining and sweating all the while. When Sisyphus reached the top of the mountain, the boulder would immediately roll back down the hill in a matter of moments. Sisyphus would then make his tired march down the hill where he would start this task over again. It is said that Sisyphus would be forced to endure this for all of time, performing a pointless, tired task until the end of existence.

What did Sisyphus do to anger the gods? There are several different accounts. The one that Albert Camus seems to favor in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, involves Sisyphus testing his wife's devotion and love as he nears death. According to the story, Sisyphus asks his wife that, upon his death, she cast his unburied body into the town square. When Sisyphus dies he wakes up in the underworld only to find that his wife has indeed fulfilled his request. Sisyphus is angered that his wife would choose strict obedience to his word, rather than devoted love to his memory and dignity. Sisyphus is deeply troubled and (for reasons I don't understand personally) asks Hades to return him to the world of the living so that he might scold his wife.

It would seem that Sisyphus' wife is truly the tragic hero in this story, having followed her husbands request she is promptly confronted with a newly resurrected Sisyphus who scolds her for only doing as he asked. It doesn't make sense, I know, but stick with me on this one. After Sisyphus returns to the mortal world he quickly decides that he does not wish to return to the underworld. He learns to love the trees, the cool oceans, and the feel of warm stone under his feet. He wishes to stay and so betrays Hades by refusing to return. It is only after Hermes swiftly captures the newly freed man, does Sisyphus return to the land of the dead. And there his boulder is waiting for him.

...

Albert Camus was born in Algeria in 1913. Only one year later, his father would be killed in World War I. Camus was raised by his mother in extreme poverty. At the age of 25, Camus traveled to France where he would develop into a highly successful author and existential philosopher. His book, The Plague, written in 1947, is particularly relevant today. He was involved with the French resistance during the Occupation of Paris during World War II. Editing and writing many underground newspapers during this time, Camus would attempt to undermine the Nazi control of Paris. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957, only to die tragically in a car crash three years later.

In The Myth Of Sisyphus, his first essay published in 1942, Camus uses the myth of Sisyphus as a corner stone on which to build his unique school of existential thought. Following some of the teachings of the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, Camus' philosophy would later become known as Absurdism. Absurdism teaches that human beings struggle with an internal, never ending quest for purpose and fulfillment in life. This search for purpose is in direct conflict with the apparent purposelessness of the universe. Struggling to find meaning in a universe devoid of any is at the heart of the human condition, a condition that tortures us the more we fight against it.

"The Absurd" is the feeling that Camus describes when we are forced to confront the apparent meaninglessness of our existence. It is the uneasy realization that all purpose we may believe we have does not exist out there in the universe, but only in our own hearts and minds. And so life is an endless struggle to perform tasks that are essentially meaningless; we are born into this world, we fight vainly for understanding, and we are eventually sealed away by death.

It is not hard to see how Camus would find inspiration for this thinking from the myth of Sisyphus. The unfortunate mortal is unduly bound to his boulder. He will suffer for all eternity, straining all the while to perform a task that serves no purpose and inevitably must be repeated. It is this realization that would prompt a human being to tackle what Albert Camus considers the most important philosophical question. He poses this fundamental problem, rather bluntly, within the first few lines of his essay...

"There is but one truly philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." -Albert Camus (The Myth Of Sisyphus)

It is important to remember that Camus is not necessarily advocating suicide, but he does admit to consider it, at least partially, to be justified when faced with the absurdity of life. Camus writes that any healthy man is capable of considering the possibility of suicide, even if he never acts on it. And much like Hamlet when he muses "to be or not to be...", Albert Camus makes an eloquent consideration for the prospects of taking ones own life. Camus writes that he is not so interested in the observation of the absurd, but rather the consequences of realizing it. He explains that we can either ignore the absurd, continue to search for meaning in vain, or reject the absurd and rebel against the purposelessness of the universe. In his own words...

"There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." -Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus)

Despite how it may appear, and this is the important part, The Myth of Sisyphus is not the musings of a mad man bent on self destruction. It is instead a manual for happiness. Camus tells us that as the boulder rolls back down the hill, Sisyphus must slowly descend to retrieve the rock to repeat his punishment. It is at this moment that he reflects on his punishment, much like the human being must become conscious of the absurd predicament of life. And yet it is in this moment of self reflection that we are happiest. By accepting the absurd we can likewise accept the fact that life is meaningless, and it is at this time that we are capable of living fully.

Our lives become a constant revolt against the meaninglessness of the universe and we can finally live freely. All at once the universe is quieted, the gods that might wish to control us cease to exist. Our lives become our lives alone, not dictated by any outside force. Our fate becomes a human matter that can only be settled among men.

To accentuate this point, Camus retells the horrors of Oedipus. A man who tried to outrun fate, he inadvertently falls prey to it. It is only near his final hours, when he is blind and broken, does he cry out "...all is well". Oedipus has accepted his condition, accepted his actions as his own. And he is free. Camus points to this as the recipe for victory for the absurd hero. He writes... "Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism".

The legend of Sisyphus would appear tragic. A man condemned to struggle eternally, he never accomplishes anything of value. The philosopher Albert Camus would tell us that, much like Sisyphus, our lives are devoid of any real meaning or purpose. Our struggle to find purpose that does not exist is the root of human despair. It is only when we accept the absurdity of life, only when we rebel against the meaninglessness of the universe, do we truly become free. Life is lived all the better if it has no purpose. We become captains of our own ships, authors of our own story. And it is only at our most fragile, most uncertain times that we may say 'All is well'...

By Ben Potter, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

Many folks see the Etruscan civilization as merely a segue, a follow up to the Greeks and a foreshadowing to the Romans. But casting this ancient society as a sideline character might not do them enough justice.

Indeed, despite the importance of Etruria (the wider region of the Etruscans) in its context as a link between the ancient worlds of the Greeks and the Romans, modern thought considers Etruscan civilization ‘far superior to the traditional picture of a poor relation of Greece and a mysterious prelude to Rome.’

This new found appreciation of the Etruscans can be most clearly seen in its art and architecture - and distinguishing where they leave off from the Greeks and create their own individual style.

Of course, Etruscan art did owe a great debt to Greece. Even in its primitive form, we are able to draw comparisons between the miniature statues of Etruscan native warriors and Greek Cycladic art (Quick note: the Cyclades is a group of islands including and north of modern Santorini). The unnaturally thin limbs and square faces, although not being a direct copy, certainly look as if the Etruscans must have been aware of the Cycladic statues.

This very early example gives us the impression that trends in the art world, in general, evolve in tandem and that ‘picking and choosing’ Greek elements may not have been a conscious decision by Etruscan artists. Instead, the vast trading links with Greece would have provided constant contact with the art of different peoples.

For example, red and black pottery were introduced into the Etruscan world in the 6th century BC when Greek artists began to settle in towns such as Veii and Cerveteri. This would have made good fiscal sense, as it was far easier, safer and cheaper to relocate one gifted artisan than transport 500 pots. We see this evidence in the discovery of bird, ring, and animal shaped vessels found in Greece and Cyprus, but which are made of native clay. Such items are technically Greek rhytons, a type of drinking horn, despite their Etruscan origins.

Additionally, we can see that the antefix, a type of ornament that hides the joints of a tiled roof, from the temple of Portonaccio at Veii is designed in the image of a gorgon, and can be a direct copy of the Greek style prominent on the pediment of the temple of Artemis at Corfu. Also striking is that the two examples are within only a few decades of each other, implying that not only were ideas from Greece to Etruria transferred, but they were done so relatively quickly.

We can also see these cross cultural transfers in painting, particularly in the practice of portraying females in white and males much darker. This made sense in Greek painting as women were supposed to remain within the oikos, or house, whilst men went about their business outside. However, Etruscan women were given no such restrictions (though more about them later) and therefore this shows us an artificial depiction brought to the Etruscans from Greece.

But in many ways Etruscan art was different to that of Greece. For instance, the roofing techniques found in Etruria were not in Greece, and this can be taken further as we examine Etruscan dwellings in general. An Etruscan funerary urn (8th century BC) depicts a wattle and daub hut most unGreek in style. Also, even if some materials and techniques may have had Greek origins, we still have a good deal of subject matter that is uniquely Etruscan.

For instance, there is little exaltation of local heroes in the art and no attempt to use it as a tool of fear or propaganda. This may be one of the reasons why the Etruscans are thought mysterious to modern archaeologists and dangerous to Greeks and Romans, as they felt identity was more precious than all else.

There are other ways in which the Etruscans revealed their own unique style. For example, in pot making. While the technique may be Greek, Etruscans introduced their own shapes into the art, making it no challenge to tell apart a Greek from an Etruscan pot. Additionally, more unGreek scenes appear, such as the mauling of a blindfolded man by a dog, and the occurrence of elaborate gold jewellery, which has more in common with the Celtic Le Tene culture, than with Hellenistic artwork. There is also a good deal of material whose origins could be said to be more Egyptian than Greek, such as the appearance of ‘human feline’ statuettes and hieroglyphic markings.

But it is the women in Etruscan art that make it really unique from Greece.

In both Greek and Roman societies even the highest bred women were subject to a greatly diminished status, both domestically and within the state. Whilst we have little to tell us of the official role of women in Etruscan society, we can see through the artwork that they enjoyed a much more even social status.

‘Etruscan woman ‘went out’ a great deal. We see them everywhere, in the forefront of the scene, taking a considerable place in it and never blushing from shame’ (J. Heurgon, Daily Life of the Etruscans). There are several wall paintings of feasts and banquet scenes that feature both men and women enjoying their meals together. The Greeks, rather unreasonably and rudely, used this as evidence that Etruscan women were all drunkards and promiscuous.

This domestic interaction between the sexes is something that is seen nowhere in Greek art. Women are either interacting between themselves, performing sexual acts, entertaining, working or taking part in a festival in Greece. These domestic scenes, therefore, would be wholly bizarre and unnatural to the Greeks.

In Etruria we see the women reclining along with their husbands in what the Greeks presumed to be a readiness to perform sexual acts, but seems far more probable to be merely an affectionate sharing of time together. This is supported in the grave markers, where the sculptures of a man and wife lie in peace together. We see one example of a couple with the woman holding a baby on her knees in a scene where presumably libations are about to be poured for the child’s safety. Domestic intimacy like this is an alien concept to Greek art.

Though we can clearly identify a good deal of Greek artistic traits in the art of the Etruscans, we could just as easily claim to identify Egyptian ones (to a lesser extent) and on this tack we could claim that any Greek art is not truly Greek but merely a bastardisation of near Eastern art.

That said, Etruscan art can clearly be identified as an art unto its own. Saying it is merely the evolution of Hellenistic art seems rather patronising towards the Etruscans. Regardless of to what extent the Greeks managed to influence Etruria, it seems that the Etruscans were more than capable of firmly stamping their own individuality on their artistic culture.

By Natalia Klimczak

Constantine the Great is known in history as the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity. However, legends and archaeological evidence suggest a different story– it seems that Constantine had a secret about his faith which was hidden for centuries.

Constantine built many churches. He celebrated the faith in one (Christian) God and his son Jesus by creating many of the greatest churches of the world, including: St. Peter’s in Rome, The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, The Eleona on the Mount of Olives, The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and others.

***Editor's Note: St. Peter's Basilica was commissioned by Pope Julius II in the 6th Century, which replaced the original 4th Century structure which had indeed been built by Constantine. This is to say that the current St. Peter's Basilica is not the one built by Constantine.***

Constantine became emperor in 306 AD, and ruled for 31 years. According to tradition, just before the battle of the Milvian Bridge (Rome) in 312, he experienced a vision of a flaming cross with the inscription ''In his sign conquer''. As the legends say, he understood it as a sign from the Christian God asking him to convert. Constantine believed that he would be awarded with unusual power, the support of a deity, and the greatest kingdom of the world if he followed through with the vision.

By the decree of Constantine, Christianity became the official religion of Rome in 324. However, did he really become a true Christian, or was he just seeking the support of powerful bishops for political purposes?

Constantine - the Christian Emperor of Rome?

In the group of his closest advisers there were bishops such as Hosius, Lactantius, and Eusebius of Caesarea. He appointed the group of converted Christians to high positions in many parts of his empire. The Christian ministers had special privileges. He also extended many benefits to pagan priests who became Christian ministers. For example, they received monetary support from the Empire and didn't pay taxes.

The bishops were a faithful army for the ruler, but apart from creating some laws, temples, and supporting the growing group of priests, Constantine didn't appear to be much of a Christian. He agreed with the bishops’ suggestions to legislate against magic and private divination. But if a change in these kinds of laws was not put forth by an influential bishop, Constantine wasn't interested in making the changes.

With his decree many pagan temples were destroyed. For example, he ordered the damage of the Temple of Aphrodite in Lebanon, but also many other ceremonial pagan places. It seems that he was interested in destroying some of the important places of pre-Christian cults, but at the same time destruction didn't apply to all of them. In every decision to destroy a pagan temple, it was written that the place could not exist because it was a site of misguided rites and ceremonies - a place of true obstinacy. He never outright banned pagan rituals like sacrifices, but only closed and destroyed important temples when the bishops felt the sites were dangerous to their own faith.

Apart from his political motives to support the growing army of priests, Constantine may have had a secret. What is more interesting, is that it seems that the bishop of Rome knew about it, and supported him in this hidden aspect of his life. The truth was that Constantine outwardly supported the new religion but still worshiped the Sun and pagan symbols.

A Sun-Worshipping Christian?

Constantine grew up in the court of the emperor Constantine Chlorus, who was a Neoplatonist and a devotee of the Unconquered Sun. His mother, Empress Helena, was a Christian who traveled through the Middle East searching for key sites connected to Jesus. According to the ancient texts, she was the one who identified the most important places known in the Bible. Young Constantine didn't appear as a follower of his mother's religious interests. He worshiped the Sun, or was devoted to Mithraism.

After his official conversion to Christianity in 312, Constantine built his triumphal arch in Rome. It is interesting that it wasn't dedicated to the symbols of Christianity, but to the Unconquered Sun. During his reign, he changed many aspects connected with pagan cults, but that doesn’t mean that he stopped the cultivation of old traditions. He often named them differently, but still allowed for pagan practices in many ways. For example, in 321 Constantine legislated that the celebration of the Day of the Sun should be a state holiday – a day off for everybody.

The Confusing Column of Constantine

In 330, Constantine set up a statue which is a key to understanding his private beliefs. After decades of supporting Christianity, he appeared as a statue of the Sun god in the forum. The column became the center of the Forum of Constantine, nowadays known as the Cemberlitas Square in Istanbul. Today, the column is 35 meters (114.8 feet) tall, but in the ancient times it was 15 meters (49.2 feet) taller, and ended with an impressive statue of the emperor. The column was decorated with pagan symbolism supported by some Christian decoration.

The statue on the top of the monument presented Constantine in the figure of Apollo with a Sun crown, the greatest symbol of the kings from the times of Alexander the Great. It is said that he carried a fragment of the True Cross in his hand - a relic of the cross of Jesus. At the foot of the column there was a sacred place which contained relics, including other parts of crosses, a basket from the biblical story of the loaves and fishes miracle, a jar which belonged to Mary Magdalene, and a wooden statue of Pallas Athena from Troy.

The Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143 – 1180) saw this monument as too pagan, and he decided to place a cross in place of the statue on the top of the column. The monument was damaged a few times in history, but the column has survived until modern times. Parts of the statue of Constantine are located in a museum, but the Column of Constantine is still one of the most important examples of Roman Art in Turkey.

True Christian, Secret Pagan, or a God?

After his death in 337, Constantine became one of the pagan gods. An analysis of archaeological sites suggests that Constantine, like previous emperors of Rome, had never stopped seeing himself as a son of the ancient deities. It is hard to believe that Constantine’s Christian beliefs were as strong as his mother Helena’s. He appears more as an intelligent politician than a man who truly wanted to Christianize the world.

The scene was cliche. It was a sunny fall afternoon in New York City and the construction workers were taking their break. Then a stunning woman came down the street.... Not just pretty, but Big Apple gorgeous and dressed... flatteringly. 

As she passed the construction workers, I waited for what I thought was the inevitable. But to my surprise there were no catcalls, no whistles or provocative comments. Wow, I remember thinking, perhaps the whole #metoo thing really affected things... maybe this younger generation is much more respectful... maybe culture has changed! 

And then I realised it was because the entire row of workers were glued to their phones. They didn’t even notice the beautiful woman. 

She also did not notice not being noticed... because she too was staring at her phone. So perhaps culture has changed... just not in the way I had originally thought. 

As this dystopian future dawned on me, I became cognizant of the fact that EVERYONE was looking at their phones. I was shocked, honestly, that more people weren’t crashing into each other. 

But the downsides to being glued to this technology (or others) are much more than an accidental bump in the street. It’s affecting attention spans, literacy abilities, family relationships, even courtship... Millennia of essential societal bonding thrown out in a generation...

It’s time to question whether it has altered us as a people... as a species? 

I have to ask: Has technology changed us? Are we the same as people of the Classical Era, thousands of years ago? 

by Andrew Aulner, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

Euripides is unique among the three tragedians in that, unlike Aeschylus and Sophocles, there is no historical record that he ever served in the Greek military. Admittedly, Euripides was able to describe actual battle techniques in Phoenician Women and Children of Heracles, despite the lack of a record of him fighting in any battles. Hanson argues that it is probable that Euripides would have seen military service like his contemporary Sophocles; while there may be no hard evidence that Euripides ever served in combat, he did live through all but the final two years of the Peloponnesian War. In any case, this conflict led him to question his society’s martial values, while also showing him the toll of war upon civilians and returning soldiers.

Euripides lived under the dark specter of constant warfare, and his plays are correspondingly dark in their realism. Apart from being critical of established values, Euripides also subverts those values in reaction to contemporary events. Tritle writes that “…the outbreak of extreme violence [i.e. the Peloponnesian War] in 431 [BC] may have energized Euripides”, who is believed to have written the violent Medea in that same year. As city-states that had formerly been allies against mutual enemies like the Persians turned against each other, and Greek soldiers went off to war against those who had once been their countrymen—all of which suggests a confusing loss of values and morality—it seems fitting that Euripides would write a play in which a character feels justified in murdering her own beloved children in order to hurt her unfaithful husband. Each main party in the conflict, Athens and Sparta, could be viewed as harming their own blood relatives—their fellow Greeks—in order to inflict petty harm against the other. Euripides’ most popular play may never have come to be if not for the war that served as a historical backdrop to it.

This was not the only instance of military events influencing the playwright. The defeat of Athens at the Battle of Delium, as Hanson says, “helped shape Euripides’ developing disgust over the war—and his growing propensity to use his drama to critique contemporary culture even in Athens’s darkest hours”. By the time of the writing of Orestes, Euripides, who had witnessed over two decades of Greeks killing Greeks, goes so far as to condemn war as “‘a friend to lies’”. Even as he questioned Athenian values, Euripides used his stagecraft to declare his own firmly held anti-war beliefs while the world around him continued to crumble.

Another major theme of Euripides’ work is his sympathy for both the civilians who have no choice but to live during the ravages of war—particularly the wives of soldiers—as well as the fighters who must live with what they have done once they return home. In Heracles, a great warrior returns home and commits an act of violence upon his wife and children, shattering his own life even as he ends theirs in a fit of madness. This is a crystallization of the daily lives of the Greek women and children who bid their soldier husbands and fathers farewell, suffering their absence, and living in ignorance of how altered many of the men were upon their return.

For all of his anti-war sentiment and concern for civilians, Euripides is also painfully sympathetic toward the men who are called to fight in war. Euripides was even hired to write odes to the war hero Alcibiades after his successes at the Summer Olympics of 416 BC, during an “Olympic Truce” between the warring Greek city-states. For all of his anti-war sentiment, Euripides nevertheless showed an appreciation for valor both on and off the battlefield. Still, he feared the damage that unrestrained violence could do to men’s souls. There is even a suggestion of war-induced trauma—perhaps even a disturbance on par with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—within the psyche of Menelaus in Euripides’ Helen. Euripides uses his plays to honor those who fight in war, even as he confronts the long-lasting damage caused by war itself.

As different as the three tragedians were in style and in personal background, they all felt the impact of both the heroic and the horrific aspects of warfare. Whether through personal combat experience or life as a civilian bearing witness to warfare, each man came to an understanding of the immediate and ongoing dangers of armed conflict and subsequently grappled with those dangers through their art. The genre of tragedy was shaped by its writers, and its playwrights were shaped by the wars of their time. Aeschylus, who fought a victorious battle against the Persians at least once and perhaps even twice, sought to balance lofty idealism with gritty realism. Sophocles witnessed the suffering caused by ongoing conflict, as well as the relationship between society and its imperfect leaders, in both the Samoan revolt and the Peloponnesian War. Finally, Euripides was led to critique his world’s values as it became mired in the darkness of a seemingly endless struggle, while he also bore witness to the men, women, and children whose lives were irrevocably harrowed by that same conflict. War, a force that is harshly impersonal in abstraction yet deeply personal in actuality, shaped the elemental force that is classical Greek tragedy.

Works Cited

Hanson, Victor Davis. Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight,      How We Live, and How We Think. Doubleday, 2003. Print.

Krentz, Peter. The Battle of Marathon. Yale University Press, 2010. Print.

Leahy, D. M. “The Representation of the Trojan War in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.” The      American Journal of Philology, vol. 95, no. 1, 1974, pp. 1-23,            http://www.jstor.org/stable/293815. Accessed October 12, 2017.

Sommerstein, Alan H. Greek Drama and Dramatists. Routledge, 2002. Print.

Stoessl, Franz. “Aeschylus as a Political Thinker.” The American Journal of Philology, vol.73, no. 2, 1952, pp. 113-139, http://www.jstor.org/stable/291809. Accessed October 11,   2017.

Strauss, Barry. The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece—and Western Civilization. Simon & Schuster, 2004. Print.

Tritle, Lawrence A. A New History of the Peloponnesian War. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.

Woodbury, Leonard. “Sophocles Among the Generals.” Phoenix, vol. 24, no. 3, 1970, pp. 209-         224, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1087241. Accessed October 12, 2017.