Here's a good resource I recently came across: the Wiki Classical Dictionary. There looks to be a wide range of info here, 742 articles, although I haven't looked extensively myself. One problem seems to be that the wiki has not been updated since March 6, 2006. I think this kind of a site could be a great source of information if it were being continuously updated and expanded. Give it a look and see if you don't have some information to add yourself.
First of all, I would like to thank all who have commented on this blog and encourage more to do so. This is exactly why I wanted to start Classics Reloaded. It is easy enough to sit around by yourself, coming up with ideas, tossing them around your own head, with no one to challenge or support you, then moving on. I was hoping that this would be a place for me to do more than that. This will be for me a testing ground of sorts for different ideas, theories, etc. that I may come across. Ideally, I want this to be a conversation. I am just starting off in the field of classics. I know I have a lot to learn. It is my hope that this blog will be a place for me to share my thoughts and receive criticisms and encouragement from you, the readers.
That being said, the most recent comments on my last two posts, both on democracy in Athens, have really got me thinking. As I read them over, I realized that I do indeed need to take a closer, more critical look at my own thoughts on this topic. I believe that I may have been too hasty in my judgments of Athenian democracy. I think that I may have come out too strongly in my posts against the Athenians, sounding as though I was certain of the undemocratic nature of Athens rather than accurately conveying the state that I was in – one of questioning and doubt. I believe that the events that I discussed were intriguing occurrences in a democracy and warrant a closer look. I do not, however, claim to have the answers.
Looking more closely at my issues with the cases of Alcibiades and Nicias, I realize now that it is not the democracticness, as you might say, of Athens that I should be questioning, but rather, perhaps, the fairness, or justness of the system. (I am still searching for the correct word here, for neither of these are quite accurate.) The problem may not be that Athens was not democratic enough, but rather quite the opposite, that it was too democratic. With the citizens having the right and expectation to vote on quite literally everything, there were no checks on the swings of public opinion. If there was a particularly persuasive orator speaking against Alcibiades, he would be put to death. Is this wrong? Not technically. If that is what the people want, then, in a pure democracy, that must be what happens. Morally, however, it is easy, hopefully obvious, to take issue with this possibility. This very well may be a flaw in the system. One that was remedied with modern democracies, beginning with America. This is precisely why today we have a republic, not a true democracy. The legislature and judiciary, in essence, are in place to protect us from ourselves. I believe the necessity for this protection can, at times, be seen in ancient Athens.
Again, this is a topic that requires far, far more discussion than what has already taken place. I hope that anyone who has anything to contribute will post a comment. As you can see, I may at times, be a little too hasty to post my thoughts on here. That’s when I hope you will call me out on it. The comments here have forced me to reconsider my opinions, to take a closer look at stories I already thought I understood and find a more convincing argument. Hopefully with more time and research, I will yet again fine-tune my opinion on this and other topics. We shall see...
This, of course, is a topic that could, and has been, expanded upon to a much greater extent than I can here. However, in this post, I will explore another incident in the Peloponnesian War which brings into question the fairness of Athenian democracy. I acknowledge there is a great deal more to say on this topic, and I intend to return to it in the future.
In war, it was not abnormal for Athenian generals to be tried and punished for crimes and shortcomings in war - they were always to provide a proper burial for the dead; they were never permitted to hit a soldier. These all seem like reasonable expectations for military leaders. However, you’d expect there to be a limit. You, being the Athenian people, can’t punish someone for doing something in you best interests but that you don’t like… right?
Apparently not. As the inevitable failure of the Sicilian Expedition became increasingly apparent, Nicias, one of the greatest generals Athens ever produced and the man responsible for the earlier Peace of Nicias, refused to retreat from Sicily out of fear of the Athenian people. His fellow general, Demosthenes, openly declared that it would be best for the Athenians to retreat. Even the soldiers were “crying out so loudly about their desperate position” (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War VII:48). It seems as though this would be an acceptable move. But Nicias disagreed.
The troublesome part of this story is that Nicias did not demand that the Athenians stay in Sicily because he believed it to be the best move militarily. Nor because he thought they had a better chance to win the battle. Indeed, according to Thucydides, Nicias agreed that “ their affairs were in a bad way.” He was, nevertheless, unwilling to leave. Nicias knew the Athenian people well – they would not approve of the withdrawal. He also knew what fate awaited him upon his return. “Hostile critics” would deliver speeches and reports to the Athenians “whose judgments would be swayed by any clever speech designed to create prejudice.” Even his own soldiers could not be counted on; regardless of how dire they agreed the situation was while in Sicily, they “would, as soon as they got to Athens, entirely change their tune and would say the generals had been bribed to betray them and return” (VII:48). Plutarch agrees, explaining that Nicias refused to retreat, “not because he underrated the Syracuseasn, but because he was still more afraid of the Athenian people and of the accusations and trials which would follow at home” (The Rise and Fall of Athens VII:22).
I find this to be not only disturbing but ineffective. This seems problematic to the idea of the great Athenian democracy. How fair is a government when one of its best generals is too afraid of the prejudiced condemnation of his fellow citizens to make the militaristic decisions which he believes to be best? How well run is an army when decisions are being made for any reason other than what will give the group the best chance of victory and/or survival? Nicias made a conscious decision that death at the hands of his enemy in a failed battle would be preferable to being “put to death on a disgraceful charge and by an unjust verdict of the Athenians” (VII:48). Nicias is described as “knowing the Athenian character.” If even he did not fully trust the constructs of the judicial system, I think it is safe to say that system was corrupt.
So, how fair is a system in which innocent leaders are liable to be put to death for making a unpopular but responsible decision? Not very, I would have to say.
Since I've known what Ancient Greece was, I've known that Athenian democracy is touted as the great predecessor of our own American democracy and of all democracies, to some extent, throughout the world. This is a fact often taken for granted in studying the ancient world. It is very easy to make comparisons between the U.S. and Athens.
However, as I am learning more about the form of democracy developed and employed at the height of Athenian power, I am become more and more suspicious that this system may not be all it is cracked up to be. There are the obvious undemocratic aspects of Athens, such as slavery and the political and social repression of women. I am willing to leave these out of the equation, given that America, too, was guilty of these same crimes for the better part of her existence.
Apart from this, however, I am finding things that make me wonder how democratic this place really was. Several instances in the Peloponnesian War are particularly questionable. Take the case of Alcibiades, for example. The night before the great (but doomed) Athenian expedition to Sicily was to launch all but one of the Hermea in the city were mutilated. The Hermea, podiums with the head of Hermes and a phallus, were located all throughout the city calling on the god for protection from evil. Such a sacrilege, particularly the night before such a crucial expedition, was seen as a very bad omen for the mission and a grave crime that had to be punished. Although it still remains uncertain who was responsible for the acts, Alcibiades was accused. (His actual guilt or innocence is irrelevant to the point I am making with this story.) According to Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, Alcibiades denied the charges but requested to stand trial before leaving for Sicily. He begged the citizens not to listen to his enemies in his absence but rather try and, if necessary, put him to death right there while he could still defend himself. He even acknowledged “how unwise it would be to send him out in command of such a large army with such serious accusations still hanging over his head” (VI: 29). This seems like a very level-headed and fair thing for a man in such a position to say. However, the Athenians, so worked up about their attack on Sicily, were willing to overlook this offense for the sack of the mission. The Athenians decided, then, it would be best not to hold up the army. Alcibiades would sail with them and return in a set number of days to stand trial.
Does this sound very democratic to you? Because of his position of military and social prominence, Alcibiades was allowed to avoid trial. Eventually, after fighting for some time with Sicily, Alcibiades, rather than returning to Athens for his trial at the appointed time, deserted. He ended up becoming a key advisor and strategist for none other than the Spartans. Even if he wasn’t the one who mutilated the Hermea, he’s still probably not the kind of guy you want leading your army into an expedition of such a size and importance of that of the one headed for Sicily. (He then deserted Sparta and returned to, yes, you guessed it, Athens. And (get this!) he was reinstated as a general! How’s that for democracy?) The fact that the popularity of Alcibiades, as well as the influence of his enemies who wanted more time to gather incriminating evidence, was capable of overruling law, a fairly serious, religious law at that, says to me that this “democracy” still had a long way to go.
In my next post, I will look into another incident from the expedition to Sicily that brings into question the democratic nature of Athens: Nicias’ fear of the Athenian public, therefore courts, and his subsequent unwillingness to surrender.
Who ever said classicists weren't fun?? This skit by Monty Python shows a dramatic 'football' match between some famous Ancient Greek and German philosophers. Just further proof of the superiority of the classical world. Enjoy.
Here's an other good link for you: The Princeton/Stanford Writing Papers in Classics (PSWPC). This joint project between the Classics Departments of Princeton and Stanford Universities acts as a means of making available papers by professors and grad students of each school prior to publication. It is a great way to read some quality new work before it is even published.
In a class I am currently taking we were, in our study of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars, the Melian Dialogue (V: 84-116). This debate, between representatives of Athens and the council of Melos, takes place in 416 BC, right in the meat of the war. Melos, a small island city-state, while known as being sympathetic to Sparta, claimed neutrality in the war. (Recent evidence has suggested that at least some Melians did, in fact, pay tribute to Sparta. That can be looked into more in-depth later.) Athens, eager to secure all islands as allies in their domination of the seas, sailed to the island to demand their tribute, whether through debate or force. This dialogue consists basically of the Melians trying to convince the Athenians to let them remain neutral and the Athenians, in turn, demanding the Melians pay tribute and become their ally
In discussing this in class, I was shocked to discover that the vast majority of students, when polled, would have surrendered to the Athenians rather than fight had they been in the Melian council. I am certain that most, if not all of the students, were influenced by the outcome of the actual historical events – the Melians resisted and were eventually defeated; all the men were killed, the women and children sold into slavery, and their city repopulated by Athenians. Nevertheless, where was these students’ sense of pride and honor? Their respect for national freedom, even in the face of an overwhelming enemy? Especially in this classroom situation, where there is nothing really at stake, how could you not vote in favor of freedom??
This debate, and the hubris of the Athenians, reminded me of another similar historical event, one with a very different outcome. The American Revolution. True, there are some major differences; the American’s had no Sparta to fall back on, nor were the Melians a colony of Athens. However, the core of the Melians’ and
Americans’ conundrum is the same: do you surrender to foreign rule in order to avoid destruction, or do you take up arms, despite a horribly unequal battle, to sacrifice everything to save your independence? When debating this issue from the Melians’ perspective, the phrase that I came back to again and again was one from Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” I agree with the Melians. They had no choice but to fight. If freedom is not worth fighting for, what is? Henry would have agreed; “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” The Melians clearly did not think so. If the they had just handed over their city, an independent polis built up over 700 years, to the first oppressor that came by, they would have been undoing all the hard work of their predecessors. They would be selling freedom at far too low of a price. The Melians affirm this position, stating “we who are still free would show ourselves great coward and weaklings if we failed to face everything than comes rather than submit to slavery” (V:100).
It unnerves me that my peers, representative, I fear, of my generation, were so unwilling to send our imaginary Melians into battle in the name of freedom. Are we too comfortable today, confident that the freedoms we enjoy in America are permanent? Do we take these for granted? I hope not. Freedoms are never for certain and we must always willing to fight for them, regardless of the costs. Because, in answer to Patrick Henry, I say that a life bought by chains and slavery is not one worth living.
I have received this same response, in some form or another, from a wide variety of people – classmates, family friends, and (most frighteningly) recruiters at career fairs. I find that it is easy to get discouraged by all this. However, I think there are a few key points about a major in the Classics, or any of the liberal arts or, as I have often heard them called, "unemployable majors," that must be kept in mind when faced with such situations.
Firstly, Classics is not an easy concentration. True, we are not cooped up in labs for hours upon hours, nor are we pounding away at calculators. This does not mean, however, that we are not working, and not working hard. The most obvious place where this is true is in the languages. Latin and Ancient Greek are not simple subjects to be easily picked up. And reading ancient, stylistically-challenging texts, such as those by Thucydides, requires a level of language proficiency that I could only dream about at this point in my studies.
Languages aside, there is nothing easy about the rest of the courses in any Classics department. Most people are far more unfamiliar with the ancient world than they are with more modern history. By modern, here, I’m talking anything more than a few hundred years after the birth of Christ. This means that a lot of time needs to be spent learning the basics of the various classical cultures. Not simple.
Secondly, there are countless sources of information about the relevance of a classical education in the modern world. This, most certainly, will be the subject of many future posts, and has already been addressed on the surface in a previous post, so I don’t want to go too much into it here. Suffice to say, it is most definitely relevant.
Most importantly, when discussing an undergraduate major, it all comes down to what you are expecting from your college education. It seems to me that a majority – I hesitate to preface that with vast, although it is tempting – of college students today, not to mention their parents, view their college years merely as something necessary for getting that premier job and increasing their earning potential. I am most certainly not condemning this. We need money to live. And who wouldn’t want some prestigious, high-paying, power-trip of a job on Wall Street? But who ever said you had to sacrifice all the fun and intellectual excitement of college for that?
I want to first acknowledge that some kids do, legitimately, enjoy business classes, and finance courses, and the like. More power to them. But others, too many I think, suffer through four years of dry lectures and endless problem sets because they think without that they will never get hired by anyone after graduation. This is disheartening.
Call me an idealist, but this is not what I think college is for. This is a time when you can study what ever your heart desires to whatever extent you wish. The only time, really, that this is possible. Leave the rest of your life to worry about how you will get hired, and where the money will come from. Some company will hire you. I promise. Even, gasp, if you have an “unemployable” major in the liberal arts. So live it up while you can.
Here's a blog I recently found that I love -rogueclassicism. It is updated many times throughout the day - with more information than I think is possible to take in in one day. Nevertheless, this is a great source for some really quality information about the classical world - from references in news media, to regular "Latin Proverb of the Day," and much more. I highly recommend giving it a look.
Disclaimer: This title almost makes me laugh; it is so huge. Entire books have been written on this topic. I anticipate that I will return to it in future posts. So let’s think of this one as merely the first installment. Let’s go.
I have always heard that history repeats itself, as I am sure all of you have. This seemed for a long time as though it may be something that was really just meant to scare us. A phrase used by middle school teachers to make sure that their pesky little students were paying attention in class. Because if we didn’t, history teachers silently implied, we were all going to become the next Lost Generation of some terrible war or fall victim to another similarly devastating catastrophe that could have been avoided had only we listened in 7th grade World History. As time went on, I began to agree, however, that the study of history has very important implications in today’s world and that having the background and vocabulary of historical inquiry is essential for fully understanding something as seemingly simple as what’s in the newspaper on any given day. How are you to understand the current political situation in Russia without knowing the socialist past and subsequent downfall of the USSR? What previous wars and international relations can we look to in order to better understand what is the best next move for the U.S. in the Middle East? World affairs are just too complicated today to attempt to understand without at least some basic understanding of the history uniting and dividing various countries and region. I guess there was a reason I always had to do those weekly “Current Events” presentations in history class.
I have never, however, heard these concerns presented as eloquently and urgently as Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides opens Book I by assessing his reasons for writing, sources, and methodology. It is in this section that he states:
"It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or an other and in much the same ways, be repeated." (I: 22 – Penguin Classics translation)
One may be wondering what, precisely, the title of this blog means. I believe that a good title is to the point and creative; concise enough to be effective, yet original enough to be memorable. This is what I hope my title, Classics Reloaded, will achieve.
I say Reloaded because it is my goal that this blog will serve as a fresh look at old, ancient in fact, information- events, people, theories, concerns and more. Additionally, this blog will aim to reinterpret the classics to make them relevant to today’s world. This is a task which I know is best left to those more informed about both the classical and contemporary worlds than I, but I intend to give it the old college try here. That being said, a site that I very highly recommend is famed classicist and historian Victor Davis Hanson’s Works and Days. Take some time to look at his posts. His applications of historical events to today’s news stories is both completely relevant and very interesting.
All this being said, I just hope people don't confused this with Street Fighter...
I am willing, but unable to write as I would like to about the classical world. Being an undergraduate Classics major only recently introduced to the field, I readily admit that I have but a limited range of knowledge. However, this blog will serve just one avenue through which I will gain the scope of knowledge about the classical world to which I aspire. As I learn more, through my university courses, news articles, online sources, and more, I will use this as a venue to explore events, ideas, and anything else relating to the classical world in greater detail. It is my hope that any reader, from the completely new to fully trained classicist, will gain some new insight from the posts that are to come. Enjoy.
MJD
