Classical History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Classical History’
Pliny was only about nine when his uncle left to go and help rescue the terrified townspeople of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
On August 24th, 70, Mount Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples began to erupt. Pliny, a nine-year-old boy doing his homework in nearby Miseno, watched his uncle Pliny, the admiral, sail off to the disaster zone; later he learnt that Uncle Pliny had parted from the other boats to go and rescue Senator Pomponianus in Stabiae.
Augustus, the Roman Emperor, invited himself to dine at the luxury Naples villa of Publius Vedius Pollio, but a broken goblet thoroughly spoilt the evening.
The Roman Emperor Augustus (r. 27 BC - AD 14) made a habit of inviting himself to other men’s tables — not expecting much ceremony, though to one host who put on no show at all he remarked as he left, ‘I didn’t realise I was such an intimate friend of yours’. His dinner companions varied, but for the sake of his civic building projects he favoured the vulgar millionaire, and few were as vulgar as Vedius Pollio.
On the annual Remembrance Day of ancient Athens, Pericles rose to remind the people of the City that grief alone was not the best way to honour the fallen.
In the winter of 431 BC, their annual Remembrance Day had a special resonance for Athenians: war had broken out with Sparta, a city felt to stand for crushing State control, even as Corinth stood for licentious ruin. Rising to deliver the keynote address, Pericles asked Athenians not just to grieve for the dead, but to cherish a City founded on liberty and self-control as a living monument to heroes.
Classical Greece has been an inspiration to every generation because she stands for the triumph of liberty and reason over prejudice and power.
In 1808, William Mitford (1744-1827) published a History of Greece, of which Thomas Macaulay was far from uncritical; but it prompted him to reflect on the hold that classical Greece continues to exercise over us all. We speak of it mostly in terms of fine buildings and grand oratory, of places of learning or gatherings at Court, but the real glory of Athens, said Macaulay, does not lie there.
The supreme arts and literature of ancient Athens all sprang from the State’s refusal to interfere in the life of the citizen.
In 1808, William Mitford (1744-1827) published a History of Greece to the death of Alexander in 327 BC. A recurrent theme of his narrative was a horror of the kind of popular politics for which Athens is famous, and his conviction that stability comes from a close-knit group of elder statesmen keeping the country on a tight rein. Macaulay completely disagreed.
When Alexander the Great threatened the people of Scythia, their ambassadors reminded him that a conqueror has many more burdens to carry than an ally has.
In 329 BC, during his Persian Campaign, Alexander the Great defeated the Scythians at the Battle of Jaxartes near Cyropolis, now Khujand in Tajikistan. Prior to the battle, the Scythians (a people of the steppes) warned him that allies were better then enemies, and customers better than slaves, and that those who thought themselves exceptional should not behave like everyday tinpot tyrants.