tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/ancient-greece-617/articlesAncient Greece – The Conversation2024-03-14T19:24:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188002024-03-14T19:24:53Z2024-03-14T19:24:53ZFriday essay: from political bees to talking pigs – how ancient thinkers saw the human-animal divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581424/original/file-20240312-18-f7g0up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C8%2C5467%2C3655&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What makes us human? What (if anything) sets us apart from all other creatures? Ever since Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, the answer to these questions has pointed us back to our own animal nature.</p>
<p>Yet the idea that, in one way or another, our humanity is entangled with the non-human has a much longer and more venerable history. In the West, it goes all the way back to Classical antiquity – to Greek and Roman views about humans and animals. </p>
<p>The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322) first argued the human stands out from all other animals through the presence of <em>logos</em> (“speech” but also “reason”). Numerous Greek and Roman thinkers engaged in similar attempts to name what, exactly, sets humans apart. </p>
<p>Who or what is man? The arguments these philosophers came up with verged from the obscure to the outright bizarre: The human alone has the capacity to have sex at all seasons and well into old age; the human alone can sit comfortably on his hip bones; the human alone has hands that can build altars to the gods and craft divine statues. No observation seemed too far-fetched or outlandish. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a bearded man, Aristotle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Aristotle, as painted by Raphael.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>And yet, above all, the argument that animals lack logos continued to resonate. In classical antiquity it became powerful enough to coin the very word for animals in ancient Greek: <em>ta aloga</em> – “those without logos”. </p>
<p>This position was taken up by the philosophical school of the Stoics and from there came to influence Christianity, with its view of man made in the image of God. </p>
<p>The idea of an insurmountable gap between humans and other animals soon became the dominant paradigm, informing, for instance, the 18th century naturalist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carolus-Linnaeus">Carl Linnaeus’s</a> influential classification of the human as <em>homo sapiens</em> (literally: the “wise”, or “rational man”). </p>
<p>The practical implications of this idea cannot be underestimated. What has been termed “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/">the moral status of animals</a>” – the question of whether they should be included in considerations of justice – has traditionally been linked to the question of whether they have logos. Because animals differ from humans in lacking both speech and reason (so this line of argument goes) they cannot themselves formulate moral positions. Therefore, they do not warrant inclusion in our moral considerations, or at least not in the same way as humans. </p>
<p>Increasingly, of course, as many contemporary philosophers have pointed out, this idea seems too simple. </p>
<p>New research in the behavioural sciences illustrates the at times astonishing capacities of certain animals: crows and otters using tools to crack open nuts or shells to make their contents available for consumption; octopuses lifting the lids to their tanks and successfully escaping to the ocean through pipes; bees optimising their flight path on repeated trips to a food source.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pink octopus in a tank." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Octopus have lifted the lids of their tanks and escaped.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dofleins-octopus-latin-enteroctopus-dofleini-tentacles-2278086727">Victor1153/shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But there is, in fact, a considerable body of evidence from the ancient Greek and Roman worlds showcasing the complex behaviours of different kinds of animals.</p>
<p>Ancient authors like <a href="https://www.livius.org/articles/person/pliny-the-elder/">Pliny</a>, <a href="https://www.livius.org/sources/content/plutarch/">Plutarch</a>, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-4570">Oppian</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095353490">Aelian</a>,<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/porphyry/"> Porphyry</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095431452">Athenaeus </a>and others have dedicated whole books or treatises to this topic, pushing back on the notion of animals as merely “dumb beasts”. </p>
<p>Their views anticipated the modern debate by attributing animals not only with forms of reason; they also highlighted their capacity to suffer, to feel pain and to feel empathy towards each other and, occasionally, even towards members of the human species. </p>
<p>Then there are the human-animal hybrid creatures of the Greek and Roman myths (more on this later) – the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Minotaur. All combine the body parts of human and animal. Individually and collectively they thus raise a fundamental yet potentially disturbing question: what if we are really, in part at least, animal?</p>
<h2>Ancient animal-smarts</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/11879565">On the Nature of Animals</a> (late second/early third century CE), Aelian, a Roman author writing in Greek, described fish that helped their unfortunate mates when caught at sea, setting their backs against the trapped creature and “pushing with all their might to try to stop him from being hauled in”. </p>
<p>He wrote, too, of dolphins that helped fisher-folk, pressing the fish in “on all sides” so they couldn’t escape. In return, they were rewarded for their labours by a share of the catch.</p>
<p>He celebrated the clever design of beehives, observing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first thing that they construct are the chambers of their kings, and they are spacious and above all the rest. Round them they put a barrier, as it were a wall or fence, thereby also enhancing their importance of the royal dwelling. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By parading animal-smarts in action these examples – of which there are hundreds - astonish, inform, and entertain at the same time – similar perhaps to the ubiquitous reels showing animals doing amazing things circulating in modern social media.</p>
<p>Modern ethological studies variously observe animal behaviours which reverberate with Aelian’s examples.</p>
<p>Pairs of <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925085344.htm">rabbit fish</a> have been shown to cooperate, with one partner standing on guard protecting the other one while feeding. Honeybees indeed build bigger cells for their queen that are set apart at the bottom of the hive separated by thicker walls. And <a href="https://www.pnas.org/post/podcast/cooperative-fishing-between-humans-and-dolphins">bottlenose dolphins</a> have been found to cooperate with humans in their efforts to capture fish. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dolphins swimming over seagrass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bottlenose dolphins have been seen cooperating with humans while fishing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anita Kainrath/shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>While not all of the ancient anecdotal evidence is confirmed by modern research, the overall thrust is clear: it deserves to be taken seriously and is part of the ancient conversation of what makes us human. </p>
<h2>The power of storytelling</h2>
<p>Some Greek and Roman thinkers resorted to the medium of storytelling to articulate views that are essentially philosophical in nature. The Greek philosopher Plutarch’s treatise <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Gryllus*.html">Beasts are Rational</a> draws on the famous story from Homer’s Odyssey in which some of Odysseus’ comrades are turned into pigs by the sorceress Circe. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-odyssey-82911">Guide to the Classics: Homer's Odyssey</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Odysseus is eventually able to convince the sorceress to turn them back into human beings. In Plutarch’s rendering of the story he returns to Circe’s island to check whether there are any other Greeks turned animal – and finds a pig named Gryllus (“Grunter”).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of men with animal heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Detail of a wine cup (kylix) depicting scenes from The Odyssey including men turned into animals, circa 560-550 BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail_view_-_Odysseus_men_turned_into_animals_by_Circe_receive_antidote_photo_by_Lucas_ancientartpodcast_flickr_cca2.0_8705662763_02d64d713e_o.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Things take a turn for the unexpected when Grunter declines Odysseus’ offer of help. The reason? He prefers his animal to his human existence.</p>
<p>Grunter sets out to make an impassioned, highly rational case, arguing all animals in one form or another, have reason. Individual species differ from each other merely in the extent of and kind of reason. And, yes, this includes even those animals that have come to serve as the epitome of dumbness: sheep and the ass. </p>
<p>“Please note,” he adds, “that cases of dullness and stupidity in some animals are demonstrated by the cleverness and sharpness of others – as when you compare an ass and a sheep with a fox or a wolf or a bee.”</p>
<p>Grunter is not afraid to push things even further: Don’t individual humans, too, differ from each other in cleverness and wit? Long before the arrival of evolutionary theory, the pig here points towards a gradual view of how certain features, skills, and capacities map onto a continuum of all living creatures (the human included). The implied conclusion: there is no insurmountable gap between the human and other animals.</p>
<p>Grunter’s views are supported by others such as the speaking rooster of Lucian’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/11879565">The Dream or the Cock</a> (second century CE). Claiming to be the latest in a long line of previous incarnations that include (brace yourself) – the philosopher Pythagoras, the Cynic philosopher Crates, the Trojan hero Euphorbus, the Greek courtesan Aspasia, and several animals – this rooster-philosopher, too, prefers his animal to his human existence. </p>
<p>Animals, the rooster argues, are content with the basics; humans, by contrast, over-complicate things because they can’t get enough and greedily strive for ever more. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-darwins-the-descent-of-man-150-years-on-sex-race-and-our-lowly-ape-ancestry-155305">Guide to the classics: Darwin's The Descent of Man 150 years on — sex, race and our 'lowly' ape ancestry</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Myths and hybrid monsters</h2>
<p>Myth is arguably the most influential genre of ancient storytelling. A set of malleable tales of great age and importance, myth constitutes a world apart, a medium just far enough removed from the intricacies (and banalities) of everyday life to allow for the exploration of fundamental questions concerning the human condition. And Greek myths often explore human entanglements with non-human animals in ways that reference the philosophical debate.</p>
<p>The mythical figure of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Minotaur">the Minotaur</a> for example – a hybrid creature sporting the head of a bull and the body of a human male – does not seem to adhere to the norms and conventions applying to either of his composite identities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a minotaur." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tondo of a Minotaur, circa 515 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tondo_Minotaur_London_E4_MAN.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His insatiable appetite for young humans sets him apart from accepted behaviour for both humans and cattle alike, identifying him as monstrous. </p>
<p>But what are monsters for?</p>
<p>This question also applies to another famous hybrid beast of the ancient world: the Theban sphinx. Perched high outside the gates of the city of Thebes, in the region of Boeotia in central Greece, this creature (half woman, half lion, often endowed with an extra set of wings) challenges all wishing to enter with the following riddle: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many try and fail to name the right answer, paying for it with their lives. Until Oedipus comes along. He gives the correct answer and thus busts the beast, which dutifully throws itself to death. </p>
<p>The creature in the riddle is, of course, the human: man first crawls on four legs, then walks on two, until in old age when a walking stick may serve as a third “leg”. And yet despite his clever wit, Oedipus is ultimately unable to use reason to his and the city’s advantage (a situation explored in depth in <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html">Sophocles’ famous tragedy Oedipus the King</a>).</p>
<p>What is the point of the riddle of the Sphinx? This story poses the human as a question but also illustrates the limits of logos in gaining self-understanding. Oedipus can solve the beast’s riddle; yet the riddle of his own humanity remains unresolved until it is too late. Here, the monstrous figure holds up a mirror for the human to recognise himself. </p>
<h2>Speaking animals</h2>
<p>Logos (in the sense of speech) also features prominently in the intervention of another iconic creature from classical antiquity: Xanthus, Achilles’ speaking horse. </p>
<p>On the battlefields of Troy (featured in Homer’s Iliad) Xanthus reminds Achilles of his imminent death. In this way the horse seems to tease all those thinkers (ancient and modern) who have argued the human stands out from all other animals in his capacity to speak in complex sentences.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-iliad-80968">Guide to the classics: Homer's Iliad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a Greek god with two horses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Automedon with the Horses of Achilles, painting by Henri Regnault, 1868.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Xanthus’s voice resonates with that of numerous other speaking animals populating Greek and Roman literature, including the gnat of <a href="http://virgil.org/appendix/culex.htm">Pseudo-Virgil’s Culex</a>, the speaking eel in Oppian’s didactic poem <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/oppian-halieutica_fishing/1928/pb_LCL219.279.xml">On Fishing</a>, and the whole chorus of animals speaking to us in ancient fables. </p>
<p>Individually and as a group they raise a question: what if animals could speak to us in human language? What would they have to say to those humans prepared to listen? </p>
<p>As it turns out in these stories, often nothing too flattering. In classical antiquity, speaking animals often use their special position to question or examine the human condition.</p>
<p>Xanthus is a case in point. By reminding Achilles he is fated to die at Troy, the speaking horse reminds the Greek hero of an important aspect of the human condition: his own mortality and the fact that he, too, is ultimately subject to powers beyond human control.</p>
<h2>The political bee</h2>
<p>In Greek and Roman accounts of honeybee politics we find a peculiar human habit with a surprisingly long history: the attribution of political qualities to honeybees. </p>
<p>When we distinguish a “queen bee” from “workers” we are continuing a tradition that goes back to the ancient world (and possibly beyond). Aristotle names honeybees among the <em>zoa politika</em> (the “political animals”) – a category that includes wasps, ants, cranes, and, above all, the human.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Day_85_-_Sweat_Bee_-_Lasioglossum_species,_Leesylvania_State_Park,_Woodbridge,_Virginia.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He and others then set out to explore the intricacies of honeybee society. The ancient Greeks and Romans traditionally considered honeybees to inhabit a monarchy. In line with the gender realities of the ancient world, they imagined this monarchy to be led by a king or male leader. </p>
<p>Does the bee monarch have a stinger? If not, how does he assert his power and leadership? And what does the presence of the obviously unproductive drones in the hive say about the distribution of labour in a community? These are the kind of questions that resonated among Greek and Roman thinkers.</p>
<p>Honeybee society thus provided a perfect microcosm to study a set of questions that concerned human politics and society. The Roman philosopher Seneca, for instance, asserted that the bee monarch leads by <em>clementia</em> (mercy or mildness) - a form of leadership he found woefully lacking in contemporary Roman society. </p>
<h2>Meat and man</h2>
<p>So far we have seen animals mostly playing a symbolic role in Graeco-Roman storytelling. There is also a very real way in which human and animal bodies come to merge: through the human consumption of meat.</p>
<p>The ancient Greeks and Romans were ardent meat-eaters. Indeed meat-eating became a status symbol closely linked to the articulation of masculine identities. </p>
<p>In classical Greece the male citizen received his equal share of meat after communal religious sacrifices carried out by the <em>polis</em> (“city-state”). Meat eating also features prominently in several anecdotes about successful ancient Greek athletes who toned their extraordinary bodies through the consumption of ridiculous amounts of meat.</p>
<p>One of them – a boxer named Theagenes – even claimed to have gobbled up an entire oxen in one sitting. Another one – Milo of Croton – apparently gained his extraordinary strength by carrying a heifer on his back as a young man until both he and the heifer had grown up. </p>
<p>Meanwhile at Rome, the elites sought to outdo each other by hosting ever more lavish dinner parties typically featuring one or several meat dishes. More often than not this involved attempts to serve a bigger or larger quantity of boar than their peers. <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Sumtuariae_Leges.html">Roman sumptuary laws</a> eventually sought to control the worst excesses – albeit with limited success. </p>
<h2>The shearwaters of Diomedea</h2>
<p>The real also blends into the imaginary in the story of a special kind of bird. The Scopoli Shearwater (<em>Calonectris Diomedea</em>) is a species common to the Adriatic and other parts of the Mediterranean Sea. One of its outstanding features is that its cries resemble that of a wailing baby. These birds feed on small fish, crustaceans, squid, and zooplankton and are both migratory and pelagic. </p>
<p>The stories told about these birds by several ancient authors bring us to what is perhaps the most momentous way of exploring the human-animal boundary: the idea that in the realm of myth, at least, some humans, under certain conditions, could turn into animals and back again (metamorphosis). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A shearwater in the sea." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scopoli shearwater.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.serra1/shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aelian-characteristics_animals/1958/pb_LCL446.15.xml">Aelian</a>, some shearwaters residing on a rocky, otherwise uninhabited island in the Mediterranean Sea showed puzzling behaviour. They duly ignored all non-Greeks arriving on their island. Yet if Greek people reached their shores they welcomed them with stretched wings, even settling down on their laps as if for a joint meal. </p>
<p>What motivated this curious behaviour? </p>
<p>The backstory explains that the birds were once human. They were the comrades of Diomedes, king of Argos, one of the Greeks fighting at Troy, who is said to have died on the same island now inhabited by the birds. Apparently, upon his death, his friends grieved so heavily the goddess Aphrodite turned them into birds – their cries forever bemoaning the passing of their comrade. </p>
<p>On the face of it this story is merely another example of a myth explaining an outstanding feature in nature (the birds’ endearing <a href="https://www.birdlife.org/news/2021/05/31/seabird-month-corys-shearwater-calonectris-borealis/">human-like cry</a>). Yet there is more to the birds’ curious behaviour than meets the eye. In discriminating between Greeks and non-Greeks the birds seem to recall not only their former humanity but specifically their Greekness; they even seem to engage in the central Greek practice of extending friendship to guests (<em>xenia</em>) and the sharing of food. </p>
<p>In doing so they illustrate a central point of ancient (and many modern) tales of metamorphosis: even though the body may turn animal, the mind remains human. As the seat of logos it contains our humanity while the body adds little, if anything, of substance.</p>
<p>As such, rather than imagining what the world looks like from the point of view of a non-human creature, tales of metamorphosis ultimately come to reaffirm the view that the human stands apart from all other animals. </p>
<h2>And so?</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Trojan Horse and other stories: book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cambridge University Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the myth of the Minotaur, the Greek hero Theseus eventually enters the labyrinth in which the Minotaur is confined, tracking him down, and slaying him. With the help of a thread given to him by Ariadne, he finds his way back out to tell the tale.</p>
<p>But trying to make sense of the Minotaur and other iconic creatures from the ancient world leads us down a rabbit hole into a place of blurred boundaries: where the human emerges as a contested figure somewhere in the space between mind and body, human and animal parts.</p>
<p>In the end, then, there is no hard and fast boundary separating us from all other creatures – notwithstanding all efforts to dress ourselves up as different.
Rather, it is the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/trojan-horse-and-other-stories/6DD8408FDBA4C5C6604536F6EC7406D5">negotiations between different facets of our identity</a> which make us human</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218800/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Kindt received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and is a member of the Sydney Environment Institute.</span></em></p>What makes us human? Greek and Roman thinkers were preoccupied with this question. And some of their observations of animals foreshadowed recent findings in the behavioural sciences.Julia Kindt, Professor, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254132024-03-14T13:28:27Z2024-03-14T13:28:27ZParis 2024: conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East threaten to turn the Olympic Games into a geopolitical battleground<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581622/original/file-20240313-30-xbar5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C0%2C3935%2C2854&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/paris-france-23-september-2017-olympic-736128922">Keitma/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Summer Olympic Games will return to Paris this July exactly a century after it last took place in France. Paris is the hometown of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pierre-baron-de-Coubertin">Pierre de Coubertin</a>, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. </p>
<p>When Coubertin first conceived the revival of this ancient Greek tradition in the late 19th century, he imagined a scene where nations celebrated friendly internationalism by playing sports together. His Olympic idealism provides the foundation for the <a href="https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/General/EN-Olympic-Charter.pdf">Olympic charter</a>, a set of rules and guidelines for the organisation of the Olympic Games that emphasise international fraternity and solidarity. </p>
<p>In 1992, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) moved to uphold Coubertin’s legacy by renewing the tradition of the <a href="https://olympictruce.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/IOTC-2010-Brochure-EN.pdf">sacred truce</a> associated with the ancient Olympics. The Olympic truce calls for the cessation of hostilities between warring nations during the Olympic Games and beyond. </p>
<p>The Olympic truce has contributed to peace before – albeit only fleetingly. During the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the South and North Korean delegations marched into the stadium <a href="https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/News/2018/2018-01-20-Declaration.pdf">together</a> under the single flag of the Korean peninsula. They also fielded a unified Korean ice hockey team for this competition. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-winter-olympics-and-the-two-koreas-how-sport-diplomacy-could-save-the-world-89769">The Winter Olympics and the two Koreas: how sport diplomacy could save the world</a>
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<p>The IOC <a href="https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/News/2023/10/14/2023-10-14-IOC-Session-Mumbai-Bach-Opening-speech.pdf">hopes</a> that the forthcoming Olympics will be a moment for world peace. But with the Paris Olympic torch relay starting next month, the world is plagued with conflict and animosity. And tensions in eastern Europe and the Middle East show no sign of easing. </p>
<p>The 2024 Olympics will take place amid geopolitical turmoil. These conflicts will affect the Olympic Games and throw into question the capacity of sport to reduce tension between nations. </p>
<h2>Banned Russian athletes</h2>
<p>Moscow ordered its army to invade Ukraine four days after the end of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The IOC considered this aggression a violation of the Olympic truce and subsequently <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/media/q-a-on-solidarity-with-ukraine-sanctions-against-russia-and-belarus-and-the-status-of-athletes-from-these-countries">banned</a> Russian athletes from participating in the Paris Olympic Games.</p>
<p>Russia was unhappy with this decision. It <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sports/iocs-ban-russia-cannot-be-compared-with-israel-situation-2023-11-03/">condemned</a> the IOC as being biased towards the west and even appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the suspension. But in February 2024, the court eventually <a href="https://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_Award_10093.pdf">upheld</a> the IOC’s position.</p>
<p>Russian athletes will not be absent from the Olympics. The IOC allows them to take part in the competition not as a state delegation but as neutral individuals. Ukraine finds this situation unacceptable, <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/media/q-a-on-solidarity-with-ukraine-sanctions-against-russia-and-belarus-and-the-status-of-athletes-from-these-countries">arguing</a> that neutrality cannot remove Russian identity from the Olympics.</p>
<p>The IOC has denounced the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territories. But it also admits the complexity of this geopolitical conflict, and acknowledges that its best approach would be to keep impartiality on this matter. Ukraine responded by implementing a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-olympics-russia-boycott-paris-569d1c75d5e6c835016dd41f1b10c217">policy</a> for its athletes to boycott any contests involving Russians at Paris 2024, although it later lifted this rule. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three helicopters flying over a war-damaged city." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581616/original/file-20240313-18-ptcldi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581616/original/file-20240313-18-ptcldi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581616/original/file-20240313-18-ptcldi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581616/original/file-20240313-18-ptcldi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581616/original/file-20240313-18-ptcldi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581616/original/file-20240313-18-ptcldi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581616/original/file-20240313-18-ptcldi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Russian assault on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in 2022 left thousands of civilians dead and injured.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/war-ukraine-huge-damage-cause-by-2156014785">BY MOVIE/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unhappy Russians</h2>
<p>The war between Israel and Hamas will further complicate the 2024 Olympics, with Olympic officials poised to face allegations of inconsistency concerning Israeli athletes. </p>
<p>This conflict is no less brutal than the war between Ukraine and Russia. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 30,000 people have been <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68430925">killed</a> in Gaza since the start of the war. And there is also <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evidence-of-war-crimes-as-israeli-attacks-wipe-out-entire-families-in-gaza">evidence</a> that Israeli forces have committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip. </p>
<p>However, the resolution for the Olympic truce of Paris 2024 singles out the suspension of Russia and does not contain a single word on the violence in Israel and Palestine. </p>
<p>These two warring parties can participate in the Olympics – though the strict <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/07/gaza-who-lives-there-and-why-it-has-been-blockaded-for-so-long">blockade</a> of the Gaza Strip will make it hard for Palestinians to take part in the games. But the Russian delegation is prevented from taking part in the same competition. Russia considers this discrepancy unfair and again blames Olympic officials for siding with the west.</p>
<p>Israel and its allies are seemingly very vocal within the Olympic circle. In October 2023, the IOC <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-member-elections-lead-to-increased-female-representation-among-the-membership">offered</a> Yeal Arad, who in 1992 became the first Israeli to win an Olympic medal, their prestigious membership. When accepting this privileged appointment, she <a href="https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1141836/arad-comments-after-elected">urged</a> the Israeli athletes to give inspiration and hope to their fellow citizens suffering from the tragedy. </p>
<p>At the same IOC session, Cassy Wasserman, the chairperson of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, also declared himself “proud to be Jewish” before his speech. </p>
<p>The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris will take place amid conflict and contention. The Olympic truce and the neutrality of international sport is the idealism of the IOC. Not only that, it volunteers to be a messenger of world peace.</p>
<p>Can Paris 2024 be a catalyst for this vision? Unfortunately, the capacity of the Olympics to act as a festival of peaceful internationalism will inevitably be curtailed in this period of geopolitical turmoil. </p>
<p>Despite the facade of festivity in Paris, the escalation of hostilities around the world is likely to trouble the Olympic Games in the French capital.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jung Woo Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Olympic Games have also been highly political events – Paris 2024 will be no different.Jung Woo Lee, Lecturer in Sport and Leisure Policy, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2242622024-02-27T19:09:01Z2024-02-27T19:09:01ZA new Netflix doco shows Alexander the Great as queer, and some viewers aren’t happy. An expert weighs in<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577694/original/file-20240223-16-w18nq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C18%2C1470%2C1952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia/Johann Heinrich Tischbein, oil painting (1781)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You might be surprised to learn the sex life of a long-dead conqueror is making headlines in 2024. Netflix documentary <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27494999/">Alexander the Great: The Making of a God</a> has provoked outrage for its portrayal of Alexander in a romantic relationship with his male companion <a href="https://www.livius.org/articles/person/hephaestion/">Hephaestion</a>.</p>
<p>Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) spent his short life undertaking an enormous military campaign. He defeated the Persian king <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Darius-III">Darius III</a> and created an empire that stretched from Europe into Egypt, Western and Central Asia, and all the way to India. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577848/original/file-20240226-16-r1kfr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577848/original/file-20240226-16-r1kfr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577848/original/file-20240226-16-r1kfr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577848/original/file-20240226-16-r1kfr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577848/original/file-20240226-16-r1kfr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577848/original/file-20240226-16-r1kfr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577848/original/file-20240226-16-r1kfr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577848/original/file-20240226-16-r1kfr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Conquest course of Alexander the Great from Greece to India to Babylon in 334-323 BC, with the most important provinces of his empire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>After dying at the young age of 32, he has remained the subject of intense fascination and speculation.</p>
<p>The six-episode series is the latest to tackle some interesting questions about the conqueror’s life through dramatised scenes and commentary from a range of experts. Although the show doesn’t try to cover everything – and there are several gaps – its portrayal of Alexander’s sexuality is what has caused the greatest stir.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/romosexuality-embracing-queer-sex-and-love-in-ancient-times-130420">Romosexuality – embracing queer sex and love in Ancient times</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Alexander, the great enigma</h2>
<p>One of the first scenes depicts Alexander sparring with Hephaestion before the pair share several kisses. Hephaestion promises he will be by Alexander’s side “til the bitter end”. The experts then note the pair were likely more than just close friends.</p>
<p>Some viewers, however, have accused the show of pushing a supposed agenda. Others found it “<a href="https://www.unilad.com/film-and-tv/netflix/new-netflix-drama-slammed-too-woke-brutal-reviews-974744-20240211">too woke</a>”. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B7lwgysILLU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Even Greece’s Minister for Culture, Lina Mendoni, has spoken on the topic, insisting that historical sources offer no evidence for the relationship going “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/feb/20/alexander-the-great-netflix-show-greece-minister-for-culture-lina-mendoni-gay-characters">beyond the limits of friendship</a>”. </p>
<p>Mendoni’s comment was made in response to questions from Dimitris Natsiou, the president of a far-right Christian Orthodox political party. Natsiou has spoken out against the series for perceived inaccuracies. Along with other critics, he suggests the show’s portrayal of Alexander’s sexual identity is a historical distortion.</p>
<p>It’s true there is nothing written by Alexander himself that confirms how he viewed his own sexuality. But is it fair to call the show <em>inaccurate</em> for its interpretation of his relationship with Hephaestion?</p>
<h2>The ancient evidence</h2>
<p>While the ancient evidence suggests the pair were particularly close, reconstructing the past is not a straightforward matter. Most surviving ancient authors actually wrote centuries after Alexander’s death and often had their own interpretations of events. This makes it very challenging to uncover the truth. </p>
<p>Some sources do assume the pair were lovers, such as the Roman author Claudius Aelianus, or Aelian, because of the way they <a href="https://erenow.org/biographies/alexander-the-great-a-new-history/14.php">presented themselves in public</a>.</p>
<p>This public presentation is probably the strongest evidence for how important Hephaestion was to Alexander. Alexander was an absolute master of propaganda. He took care to restrict how he appeared <a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103SXQ">in art and sculpture</a>, and controlled his campaign narrative through the use of his own historian, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-1285#acrefore-9780199381135-e-1285">Callisthenes of Olynthus</a>. Callisthenes was responsible for glorifying Alexander’s victories and presenting the version of events Alexander wanted. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578112/original/file-20240226-20-fe89vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578112/original/file-20240226-20-fe89vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578112/original/file-20240226-20-fe89vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578112/original/file-20240226-20-fe89vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578112/original/file-20240226-20-fe89vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578112/original/file-20240226-20-fe89vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578112/original/file-20240226-20-fe89vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578112/original/file-20240226-20-fe89vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Alexander claimed the mythological hero Achilles was his ancestor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Alexander also stage-managed a number of events at the start of his military campaign to make it seem like the beginning of another <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/myth-trojan-war">Trojan War</a>. The tale of this war was incredibly important to the ancient Greeks, and especially Alexander, who claimed the mythological hero Achilles was his ancestor.</p>
<p>During the important opening act, Alexander laid a wreath on the tomb of Achilles. Some ancient accounts say Hephaestion did the same for the tomb of Patroclus, who many in the ancient world <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Achilles-Greek-mythology">assumed was Achilles’ lover</a>. </p>
<p>Hephaestion is the only companion of Alexander who is mentioned by name doing something important like this. Alexander was no doubt astute enough to understand the implication in his own day; he was therefore probably comfortable with his followers assuming he and Hephaestion were lovers, just as Achilles and Patroclus were thought to be. </p>
<p>Ancient author Diodorus Siculus reports that Alexander preferred Hephaestion <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/17F*.html#ref67">above everyone else</a>, even claiming that Hephaestion loved him as Alexander, while his other close friend Craterus loved him as the king. These are just some of the numerous anecdotes that demonstrate Hephaestion had a significant role in Alexander’s life – and one that was different to that of a friend. </p>
<p>After Hephaestion’s death in 324 BC, Alexander <a href="https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/histfacpub/20/">mourned him extravagantly</a>, just as <a href="https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/iii-5-the-weeping-body-of-achilles/">Achilles did for Patroclus</a>. </p>
<p>These very public displays might be as close as we can get to understanding how Alexander wanted the pair to be perceived. And they suggest a romantic relationship is a strong possibility.</p>
<h2>What does the scholarship say?</h2>
<p>Perhaps a more important question is why a documentary exploring this angle might provoke such a strong reaction today. </p>
<p>It’s true that scholarship on Alexander’s sex life has not always been accessible. It wasn’t until 1978 that K. J. Dover’s work <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674362703">Greek Homosexuality</a> paved the way for new insights into a more diverse interpretation of sexualities in the ancient world.</p>
<p>Before this, important scholars on Alexander, such as W. W. Tarn (1869–1957), had outright denied Alexander’s interest in men, asserting any such evidence was a result of “hostile” sources. <a href="https://erenow.org/biographies/alexander-the-great-a-new-history/14.php">Tarn even erased</a> certain figures from history, including another possible male lover of Alexander’s, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/637975?seq=3">Bagoas</a>. He was unable to accept Alexander as someone who didn’t fit with his own image of the conqueror. </p>
<p>The reality is that same-sex relationships were generally pretty common <a href="https://www.livius.org/articles/concept/greek-homosexuality/">during the time</a> of Alexander the Great, although there were also societal pressures on men, as they were expected to marry and have children with their legitimate wives. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-myth-of-the-ancient-greek-gay-utopia-88397">Friday essay: the myth of the ancient Greek 'gay utopia'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Queer erasure has been all too common <a href="https://www.getty.edu/news/coming-out-queer-erasure-and-censorship-from-the-middle-ages-to-modernity/">in scholarship</a>, which has traditionally favoured hetero-normative interpretations, even when the evidence could clearly be interpreted in another way. </p>
<p>Media representations that explore these interpretations offer us a chance to understand ancient relationships in their own context. In doing so, they pave the way for a richer understanding of the possibilities of the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224262/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Dunn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ancient evidence suggests Alexander was particularly close with one of his male companions. But how close exactly?Charlotte Dunn, Lecturer in Classics, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217282024-02-09T13:35:44Z2024-02-09T13:35:44ZLove may be timeless, but the way we talk about it isn’t − the ancient Greeks’ ideas about desire challenge modern-day readers, lovers and even philosophers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574185/original/file-20240207-31-3xrj56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C1022%2C790&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The love story of Psyche and Eros − also known as Cupid − has survived since the days of Rome and Greece.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/stature-of-cupid-and-psyche-embracing-from-the-villa-news-photo/517391898?adppopup=true">Bettman via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every year as Valentine’s Day approaches, people remind themselves that not all expressions of love fit the stereotypes of modern romance. V-Day cynics might plan <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2023/02/02/when-is-galentines-day-2023/11154837002/">a “Galentines” night for female friends</a> or toast their platonic “Palentines” instead.</p>
<p>In other words, the holiday shines a cold light on the limits of our romantic imaginations, which hew to a familiar script. Two people are supposed to meet, <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-underestimate-cupid-hes-not-the-chubby-cherub-you-associate-with-valentines-day-197735">the arrows of Cupid</a> strike them unwittingly, and they have no choice but to fall in love. They face obstacles, they overcome them, and then they run into each other’s arms. Love is a delightful sport, and neither reason nor the gods have anything to do with it. </p>
<p>This model of romance flows from Roman poetry, medieval chivalry and Renaissance literature, especially Shakespeare. But as <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/profile/david-albertson/">a professor of religion</a>, I study an alternative vision of eros: medieval Christian mystics who viewed the body’s desires as immediately and inescapably linked to God, reason and sometimes even suffering. </p>
<p>Yet this way of thinking about love has even older roots. </p>
<p>My favorite class to teach traces connections between eros and transcendence, starting with ancient Greek literature. Centuries before Christianity, the Greeks had their own ideas about desire. Erotic love was not a pleasant diversion, but a high-stakes trial to be survived, quivering with perilous energy. These poets’ and philosophers’ ideas can stimulate our thinking today – and perhaps our loving as well.</p>
<h2>Deadly serious</h2>
<p>For the ancient Greeks, <a href="https://outils.biblissima.fr/fr/eulexis-web/?lemma=eros&dict=LSJ">eros</a> – which could be translated as “yearning” or “passionate desire” – was a matter of life and death, even a danger to avoid. </p>
<p>In the tragedies of Sophocles, when someone feels eros, typically something is about to go terribly wrong, if it hasn’t already.</p>
<p>Take “Antigone,” <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo14823116.html">written in Athens in the fifth century B.C.E</a>. The play opens with the title character mourning the death of her brother Polyneices, who betrayed her father and killed her other brother in battle. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574181/original/file-20240207-28-emp3fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a white dress and black shawl throws her arms up dramatically in front of stern-looking soldiers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574181/original/file-20240207-28-emp3fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574181/original/file-20240207-28-emp3fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574181/original/file-20240207-28-emp3fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574181/original/file-20240207-28-emp3fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574181/original/file-20240207-28-emp3fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574181/original/file-20240207-28-emp3fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574181/original/file-20240207-28-emp3fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Joan Maria Grovin stars as Antigone in a 1959 broadcast production in Munich.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/szene-mit-joan-maria-grovin-als-antigone-in-dem-news-photo/1198737763?adppopup=true">Klaus Heirler/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>After this civil war, King Creon, Antigone’s uncle, forbids citizens from burying Polyneices: an insult to his memory, but also a violation of the city’s religion. When Antigone insists on burying him anyway, she is condemned to death.</p>
<p>The play is often interpreted as a lesson on duty: Creon executing the laws of the state versus Antigone defending the laws of the gods. Yet, uncomfortably for modern readers, Antigone’s devotion to Polyneices <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559213.003.0015">seems to be more than sisterly love</a>.</p>
<p>Antigone leaps at the chance to die next to her brother. “Loving, I shall lie with him, yes, with my loved one,” she swears to her law-abiding sister, “when I have dared the crime of piety.” </p>
<p>Were Polyneices her husband, child, parent or even fiancé, Antigone says, she would never have violated the law. But <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo14823116.html">her desire for Polyneices</a> is so great that she is willing to face “marriage to Death.” She compares the cave where Creon buries her alive with the bedroom on a wedding night. Rather than starve, she hangs herself with her own linen veil.</p>
<p>Scholars have asked <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/657289">whether Antigone has too much eros</a> or too little – and what exactly she desires. Does she lust for justice? For piety? For her deceased brother’s body? Her desire is somehow embodied and otherworldly at the same time, calling our own erotic boundaries into question.</p>
<p>Eventually, Creon’s passion for civic order consumes him as well. His son, Antigone’s fiancé, stabs himself in grief as he embraces her corpse – and hearing of this, his mother kills herself as well. <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo14823116.html">Eros races through the royal family</a> like a plague, leveling them all. </p>
<p>No wonder the chorus prays to the goddess of love, pleading for protection from her violent whims. “Who has you within him is mad,” the chorus laments. “You twist the minds of the just.”</p>
<h2>Embrace the risk</h2>
<p>This leads to a second lesson from the Greeks: Love might make you a better person, but it also might not. </p>
<p>Rather than speak in his own voice, the philosopher Plato wrote dialogues starring his teacher, Socrates, who had a lot to say about love and friendship.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://hackettpublishing.com/plato-on-love">one dialogue, “Lysis</a>,” Socrates jokes that if all you want is romantic love, the best plan is to insult your crush until they thirst for attention. In another, “Symposium,” Socrates’ young student Phaedrus imagines an indomitable army entirely comprising people in love. What courage and strength they would show off for each other!</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574219/original/file-20240207-18-d0mmy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A scene of seven men in toga-like garments sitting and standing around a tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574219/original/file-20240207-18-d0mmy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574219/original/file-20240207-18-d0mmy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574219/original/file-20240207-18-d0mmy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574219/original/file-20240207-18-d0mmy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574219/original/file-20240207-18-d0mmy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574219/original/file-20240207-18-d0mmy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574219/original/file-20240207-18-d0mmy3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A mosaic of Plato talking with his pupils, found in the house of T. Siminius in Pompeii.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/plato-conversing-with-his-pupils-from-the-house-of-t-news-photo/73217223?adppopup=true">Art Images/Hulton Fine Art Images via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In <a href="https://hackettpublishing.com/plato-on-love">the “Phaedrus” dialogue</a>, foolish lovers seek a friends-with-benefits arrangement, afraid of the unwieldy passions that come with falling in love. Socrates entertains their question: Is it better to separate affection from sexual entanglements, since the force of desire can erode one’s ethical principles?</p>
<p>His answer is emphatically “No.” For Socrates, sexual attraction steers the soul toward divine goodness and beauty, just as great art or acts of justice can do. </p>
<p>The idea of friends with benefits, he warns, cleaves the ethical self from the erotic self. Here and elsewhere, Plato insists that to be whole people, we must embrace the risks that come with love.</p>
<h2>A necessary madness</h2>
<p>Socrates has one more lesson to teach. Erotic love is indeed a kind of madness – but a madness necessary for wisdom.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://hackettpublishing.com/plato-on-love">“Phaedrus</a>,” Socrates suggests that love is a madness given by the gods, a fire blazing like artistic inspiration or sacred rites. Sexual desire disorients us, but only because it is reorienting lovers toward another world. The “goal of loving,” <a href="https://hackettpublishing.com/plato-on-love">according to one dialogue</a>, is to “catch sight” of pure beauty and goodness. </p>
<p>In erotic longing we bump up against something greater than us, a thread that we can trace back to the divine. And for Socrates, this pathway from eros to God is reason. In desire, a shimmer of light cracks through the broken crust of the material world, inspiring us to yearn for things that last.</p>
<p>The contemporary philosopher <a href="https://socialthought.uchicago.edu/directory/Jean-Luc-Marion">Jean-Luc Marion</a> has suggested that modern academic philosophy has totally failed when it comes to <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo4134284.html">the topic of desire</a>. There are vast subfields devoted to the philosophies of language, mind, law, science and mathematics, yet curiously there is no philosophy of eros.</p>
<p>Like the ancient Greeks and medieval Christians, Marion <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo4134284.html">warns philosophers against assuming that love is irrational</a>. Far from it. If love looks like madness, he says, that’s because it possesses a “greater rationality.”</p>
<p>In the words of another French philosopher, Blaise Pascal: “<a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/06/19/blaise-pascal-intuition-intellect-pensees/">The heart has its reasons</a>, which reason knows nothing of.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Albertson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Conventional stereotypes about romance portray it as a passionate, irrational game. Ancient philosophers, on the other hand, viewed love as something dangerous − but also enlightening.David Albertson, Associate Professor of Religion, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212892024-01-30T20:37:34Z2024-01-30T20:37:34ZFrom ancient Greece to now, the bravado of athletes transcends centuries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571296/original/file-20240124-17-4eykqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=189%2C0%2C3327%2C2059&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ancient bas-relief on grave stele in Kerameikos in Athens, Greece depicting two wrestlers in action.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/from-ancient-greece-to-now-the-bravado-of-athletes-transcends-centuries" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>“I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I was really the greatest.” This <a href="https://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_/id/15930888/muhammad-ali-10-best-quotes">quote from Muhammad Ali</a> summarizes his legendary wit. But it also indicates the self-confidence and attitude that characterizes so many athletes.</p>
<p>Since the beginning of sport media coverage on radio and television, and now with <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CwcjaSGArUq/?img_index=1">social media</a> providing intimate access to athletes, it has been clear that boasts, attitudes and confidence are part of the athlete persona. These attitudes, however, are nothing new. </p>
<p>Sport as it is practised around the globe has its origins in a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/sport-9781350140202/">partially real and partially imaginary ancient Greece</a>. Similarly, the literary and documentary records from antiquity show that the attitudes of athletes are not a new phenomenon.</p>
<p>Ancient Greek athletes, however, faced a challenge unlike modern athletes. Without the internet, television, radio or any widespread means of communication, athletes had to struggle to make their success known and easily communicated to a broad public. </p>
<h2>Songs of victory</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571330/original/file-20240125-23-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white sculpture of a naked young man with a strip of cloth held in his left hand. The right arm is broken at the wrist." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571330/original/file-20240125-23-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571330/original/file-20240125-23-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571330/original/file-20240125-23-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571330/original/file-20240125-23-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571330/original/file-20240125-23-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571330/original/file-20240125-23-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571330/original/file-20240125-23-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fragments of a marble statue of the Diadoumenos (a youth tying a fillet around his head after victory in an athletic contest).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(The Metropolitan Museum of Art)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlike today’s elite athletes, athletes in antiquity were far less interested in highlighting sporting prowess. Athletic boasts <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-5370.12068">rarely focused on how quickly someone ran</a>, how easily they defeated an opponent in wrestling or how far they threw the discus. </p>
<p>Rather, athletes modified <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/in-praise-of-greek-athletes/605B9251CD2411DF810486AAF10A033F">the proclamation of victory</a> — an announcement made by a herald at athletic games, like the Olympics, that actually made them the victor. This proclamation is akin to the contemporary medal ceremony, but with more ritual and religious authority. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.academia.edu/1874218/_The_Heralds_and_the_Games_in_Archaic_and_Classical_Greece_Nikephoros_15_2002_69_97">The proclamation contained everything necessary to celebrate an athlete</a>: his name, father’s name, city of origin and the event in which he was successful. </p>
<p>The proclamation is referred to time and time again in the epinikian poetry of Pindar, an Ancient Greek poet from Thebes. Epinikian poetry consists of songs composed for a victory, as the word “epinikian,” which translates to “upon a victory,” indicates.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0162%3Abook%3DN.%3Apoem%3D5">opening of Pindar’s Nemean 5</a>, composed for an athlete named Pytheas, the herald’s proclamation is nearly repeated. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Sweet song, go on every merchant-ship and rowboat that leaves Aegina, and announce that Lampon’s powerful son Pytheas won the victory garland for the <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/ancient-olympic-games/pankration">pancratium</a> at the Nemean games, a boy whose cheeks do not yet show the tender season that is mother to the dark blossom.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a relatively simple representation of the herald. Still, the conceit of the song — that this message will go forth everywhere by means of word-of-mouth on ships — shows the determination of athletes to make their accomplishments known. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0162%3Abook%3DO.%3Apoem%3D8">Olympian 8</a>, Pindar’s song claims the authority that comes from a supposed eye witness. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“He was beautiful to look at, and his deeds did not belie his beauty when by his victory in wrestling he had Aegina with her long oars proclaimed as his fatherland.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Ancient Greek epigrams</h2>
<p>It’s not only in epinikian song that boasts and accomplishments appear. Dozens of epigrams (poems inscribed on stone) remain from ancient Greece. Many of these leverage the proclamation, and many claim special success. </p>
<p>One simple example is that of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110863543">Drymos</a>, who won a running event at the Olympics in the early fourth century BC and erected a statue with an inscribed poem. “Drymos, son of Theodoros, proclaimed here, on that very day, / an Olympic contest, running into the famous grove of the god, / an example of manliness; equine Argos is my homeland.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571341/original/file-20240125-23-hm34m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A weathered piece of stone with ancient Greek inscribed on the surface" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571341/original/file-20240125-23-hm34m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571341/original/file-20240125-23-hm34m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571341/original/file-20240125-23-hm34m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571341/original/file-20240125-23-hm34m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571341/original/file-20240125-23-hm34m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571341/original/file-20240125-23-hm34m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571341/original/file-20240125-23-hm34m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue base from ancient Olympia inscribed with an epigram in honour of the victory of Kyniska of Sparta in the four-horse chariot race of 396 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Peter J. Miller)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Still, these seemingly simple poems often include much more. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110863543">Kyniska of Sparta’s epigram</a>, one of the only epigrams for a victory by a woman in this period, is a good example. “Spartan kings are my fathers and brothers, / but, victorious with a chariot of swift-footed horses, / Kyniska set up this statue. And I declare that I alone / of women from all of Greece seized this crown.”</p>
<p>Kyniska’s epigram focuses on her and her singular achievement. Its boast is unique, but the rhetoric is not. It points to the ways in which ancient athletes established records and competed with their counterparts.</p>
<h2>We’re not so different</h2>
<p>Rather than counting statistical achievements, ancient athletic records tend to be of the type <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474469920-023">“the first with the most.”</a> Perhaps most telling is the massive inscription and poem celebrating the career of the most successful athlete from antiquity, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110863543">Theogenes of Thasos</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571343/original/file-20240125-15-qpq0ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An ancient Greek vase depicting five men, drawn in black ink, running against a terracotta background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571343/original/file-20240125-15-qpq0ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571343/original/file-20240125-15-qpq0ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571343/original/file-20240125-15-qpq0ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571343/original/file-20240125-15-qpq0ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571343/original/file-20240125-15-qpq0ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571343/original/file-20240125-15-qpq0ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571343/original/file-20240125-15-qpq0ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A terracotta Panathenaic prize amphora from 530 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(The Metropolitan Museum of Art)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This poem builds from the proclamation to claim his incredible supremacy by winning boxing and pancration at Olympia, something “no one” had done before. He also won three victories at the Pythian Games without competition (that is, his prospective opponents chose not to bother), something “no other mortal man” had done. Last, he won two crowns at the Isthmian Games on the same day. </p>
<p>All of these accomplishments were memorialized in poetry and inscribed on stone, along with a massive catalogue of his victories across a 20-year athletic career.</p>
<p>So, as the world prepares for another Olympic year, with television networks focusing on competition between athletes, and as the social media profiles of athletes themselves turn to vaunts, boasts and rivalry, we can reflect on the notion that athletics and athletes seem intrinsically connected to these attitudes. </p>
<p>There are, it seems, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/gutt13340">vanishingly few continuities between the sports cultures of classical antiquity and those of today</a>. Nonetheless, the attitudes of ancient and modern athletes remain, at their core, so very similar, despite massive change over millenia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221289/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter J. Miller receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Without the internet, television, radio or any widespread means of communication, ancient Greek athletes had to struggle to make their success known and easily communicated to a broad public.Peter J. Miller, Associate Professor of Classics, University of WinnipegLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207692024-01-23T20:02:18Z2024-01-23T20:02:18ZMichigan selects its legislative redistricting commissioners the way the ancient Athenians did<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570410/original/file-20240119-21-bkynf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C38%2C5066%2C3349&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michigan’s redistricting commission consists of ordinary citizens with no special qualifications. A court has disapproved their initial effort.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RedistrictingMajorityMinorityDistricts/5137b615fc8d46858956d5ec7bff88e1/photo?boardId=c895684284c34868ab222ff6c8ee3ff0&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=12&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Carlos Osorio</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How well can ordinary citizens exercise a political function traditionally assigned to elected legislators? </p>
<p>Michigan is finding out. The state has assigned the job of drawing election districts to a group of citizens with no special qualifications. Selecting government officials by lot is a procedure <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2016/03/sortition-ancient-greece-democracy/">first employed in Athens 2,500 years ago</a>. This experiment has produced dramatic results – as well as a court challenge. </p>
<p>The Michigan experiment marks a departure from how redistricting has usually been done.</p>
<p>Every 10 years, after the U.S. Census Bureau determines how many members of the House of Representatives are allocated to each state, the states redraw the geographical districts from which members of the House, as well as members of the state legislature, are elected. Historically, state legislatures have been responsible for making these maps.</p>
<p>But throughout U.S. history, the redistricting process has been marred by <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/news/2019/10/01/475166/impact-partisan-gerrymandering/">partisan gerrymandering</a> – drawing election districts to favor the political party that controls the state legislature.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/redistricting-litigation-roundup-0">Gerrymandering has often been challenged in court</a> as a violation of the Constitution’s equal protection clause and on other grounds. But in 2019, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/18-422">the U.S. Supreme Court held</a> that federal courts may not hear claims of partisan gerrymandering because they represent a “political question” that is unsuited for resolution by the courts.</p>
<p>The high court held that such issues should instead be resolved by the legislative and executive branches of government. </p>
<p><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedures">Eight states have withdrawn the authority</a> to draw election districts from legislatures and assigned it to independent commissions. The procedures for selecting the members of these commissions vary, but in most states they are chosen by state legislators or judges. </p>
<p>Michigan’s <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/micrc">Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission</a>, created by a <a href="https://votersnotpoliticians.com/redistricting/">2018 ballot initiative</a>, is unique. As a professor who teaches <a href="https://law.wayne.edu/profile/aj8419">constitutional law</a> and, occasionally, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1020397">ancient Athenian law</a>, I am fascinated by the fact that Michigan’s seemingly novel experiment in governance is based on a process that is thousands of years old. </p>
<h2>Selection by lot</h2>
<p>Unlike any other state, Michigan selected its 13 commission members almost entirely by lot from among those who applied for the position. </p>
<p>All Michigan registered voters who met the eligibility criteria, which excluded holders of political office and lobbyists, were eligible to apply. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.michigan.gov/som/0,4669,7-192-47796-532639--,00.html">From 9,367 applicants</a>, the Michigan secretary of state randomly selected 200 semifinalists. The process resulted in 60 Democrats, 60 Republicans and 80 independents. Following the procedure established by the ballot initiative, the four leaders of the Michigan Legislature then eliminated 20 of those semifinalists. </p>
<p>In August 2020, the secretary of state <a href="https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/08/13-commissioners-randomly-selected-to-draw-new-district-lines-for-michigan-house-senate.html">randomly selected the 13 commissioners</a> from the remaining pool of 180 candidates – four Democrats, four Republicans and five independents, as required.</p>
<p>In a process completed in December 2021, the commission – made up of citizens with no special qualifications for the office – created election districts that were used to elect officials to the Michigan Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 election cycle.</p>
<h2>Random selection in ancient Athens</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In a formal painting, a man stands on a platform addressing a crowd. A classical white building with pillars is in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570739/original/file-20240122-15-jbj453.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In ancient Athens, most government officials were selected at random from among citizens eligible to fill the positions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-F-2001-7-864-5">Philipp Foltz</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the exception of trial juries, the random selection of citizens to fill government office is almost unheard of. But it was not always that way. </p>
<p>Random selection was a prominent <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Athenian_Democracy/">feature of the ancient Athenian democracy</a>. In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., most important government offices were filled by lottery. The Athenians considered this selection of officials a hallmark of democracy.</p>
<p>These included the <a href="http://www.stoa.org/demos/article_democracy_overview@page=6&greekEncoding=UnicodeC.html">500 members of the Council</a>. This body proposed legislation for the agenda of the Assembly, composed of all free male adult citizens who chose to attend and the centerpiece of Athenian direct democracy. It also handled diplomatic relations between Athens and other states and appointed the members of administrative bodies. </p>
<p>Those selected by lot also included the nine chief officials of the city-state, <a href="https://erenow.net/ancient/ancient-greece-and-rome-an-encyclopedia-for-students-4-volume-set/268.php">the archons</a>, who had executive and judicial responsibilities. About 1,100 officials were selected annually by lot from a citizen population of about 25,000. </p>
<p>The Athenian historian Xenophon tells us that the philosopher Socrates, who was sentenced to death by an Athenian jury for his unorthodox views, thought that the Athenians were foolish to entrust the selection of the bulk of government officials to chance: <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0208%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D9">Nobody would select “a pilot or builder or flautist by lot</a>,” Socrates observed, so why trust to chance the selection of government officials who, if unsuited to their responsibilities, could harm the community?</p>
<p>The Athenians agreed with Socrates to an extent. In Athens, an additional 100 or so officials were elected by the Assembly, not selected by lot. They included the 10 generals responsible for commanding the army and navy. The Athenians thought the generals’ role was too important, and too dependent on skills possessed by few citizens, to allow the choice to be made randomly.</p>
<h2>How did Michigan’s redistricting commission do?</h2>
<p>Like piloting a ship or commanding an army, districting is a complex task. The <a href="http://tinyurl.com/bdfm4yut">2018 amendment to the Michigan Constitution</a> that established the commission says that the districts must be drawn in compliance with federal law. That includes a requirement that voting districts have roughly the same populations. It also requires that the districts “reflect the state’s diverse population and communities of interest” and “not provide a disproportionate advantage to any political party.”</p>
<p>Dividing the map to meet all of these criteria is not within the capabilities of a group of randomly selected citizens. Recognizing this, the 2018 amendment authorizes the commission to hire “independent, nonpartisan subject-matter experts and legal counsel” to assist them. The experts that the commission hired <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/redistricting-experts-tell-court-we-followed-law-michigan-maps">guided its members closely</a> throughout the redistricting process.</p>
<p>The outcome of the 2022 elections supports a conclusion that the commission achieved the goals that motivated its creation. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.michiganradio.org/post/report-quantifies-michigans-very-real-gerrymandering-problem">2018 report</a> by the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan found that the state’s election districts were “highly-gerrymandered, with current district maps drawn so that Republicans are ensured disproportionate majorities on both the state and federal levels.” In 2019 a <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/25/michigan-gerrymandering/3576663002/">federal court</a> held that Michigan’s gerrymandering violated the U.S. Constitution. That opinion was later vacated, or canceled, for jurisdictional reasons. </p>
<p>This gerrymandering was reflected in election results. In recent elections preceding the 2022 redistricting, Democratic candidates for the Michigan House of Representatives received a majority of the votes cast, yet <a href="https://votersnotpoliticians.com/voters-won-in-michigan-this-year-and-fair-maps-made-the-difference/">a majority of the candidates elected were Republican</a>. But in the 2022 elections, the first held using the redistricting commission’s maps, Democratic candidates for both the Michigan Senate and House won a majority of the votes and were awarded a majority of the seats: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-michigan.html">20-18 in the Senate and 56-54 in the House</a>. Democrats control both houses of the state Legislature for <a href="https://michiganadvance.com/2022/11/09/democrats-wrest-control-of-michigan-legislature-for-first-time-in-almost-40-years/">the first time since 1984</a>.</p>
<h2>Legal challenge to redistricting commission’s maps</h2>
<p>While the redistricting commission can claim success in eliminating the state’s partisan gerrymandering, in December 2023 <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/michigan/miwdce/1:2022cv00272/104360/131/">a federal district court held</a> that the procedure the commission followed in drawing some of the election districts violated the U.S. Constitution. </p>
<p>The court said that the commission violated the equal protection clause when it drew boundaries for seven state House and six state Senate districts in metro Detroit in such a way that <a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/experts-everything-air-now-michigan-districts-must-be-redrawn">the voting power of Black voters was diluted</a>. </p>
<p>The commission filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/22/michigan-redistricting-commission-us-supreme-court-redraw-house-senate-district-boundaries/72272380007/">denied the commission’s request for a stay</a> of the lower court’s order. The commission is now working to redraw the districts, and the lower court has ordered it to have a draft of the state House districts ready for public comment by Feb. 2. Time is now of the essence, since under state law the candidate filing deadline is April 23.</p>
<p><em>Portions of this article originally appeared in <a href="https://theconversation.com/michigans-effort-to-end-gerrymandering-revives-a-practice-rooted-in-ancient-athens-143892">an article published on Sept. 30, 2020</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Rothchild does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A battle over the voting districts in Detroit has landed in the Supreme Court, but any ruling may come too late for 2024 state elections.John Rothchild, Professor of Law, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2112792024-01-21T19:02:36Z2024-01-21T19:02:36ZEmily Wilson’s fluent new translation of the Iliad honours the epic poem’s power and beauty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569955/original/file-20240117-29-h4ovvh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5616%2C3368&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Menelaus holding the body of Patroclus – Diana Mantuana (1535-1587).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Menelaus_Holding_the_Body_of_Patroclus.jpg">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A new translation of the <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324001805">Iliad of Homer</a> is cause for a general celebration, especially when the translator is <a href="https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/">Emily Wilson</a> of the University of Pennsylvania. </p>
<p>Having turned her hand to translations of other Greek and Latin texts – notably Seneca, Euripides, Oedipus Tyrannos and Homer’s Odyssey – Wilson has moved on to the Iliad, joining an exclusive club of translators of this great work that includes <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/richmond-lattimore">Richmond Lattimore</a> and <a href="https://dbcs.rutgers.edu/all-scholars/9310-fagles-robert">Robert Fagles</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: The Iliad – Homer, translated by Emily Wilson (W.W. Norton)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>This is an excellent publication where some bold decisions have been made to provide a sense of the sound and pace of the original text. As Wilson says in the translator’s note:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wanted to honor the poem’s oral heritage with a regular and audible rhythm, and with language that would, like the original, invite reading out loud, and come to life in the mouth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thus, when reading Wilson’s Iliad one senses something of the chant of Homer’s verse, even through the written word. </p>
<p>Wilson’s book is much more than a translation. It contains a detailed introduction to the nature and dating of Homeric verse, the historical and archaeological issues of the Trojan war, the code of honour within which the Homeric heroes operate, and the broader mythical context of the war. The book could be a whole course in itself, if you wanted to make it one. </p>
<p>We are reminded, for instance, in a discrete section of the introduction, that the Iliad describes the destruction of Troy and the fate of its women, raped and abused by the conquering Greeks. Wilson writes that the “silencing, rape, subjugation, kidnapping and enslavement of women in war are essential instruments for the construction of male honor”. </p>
<p>The more one engages with the Iliad, the more one sees that it is not just a poem of immense power and beauty. It cast such a spell over antiquity that poets and artists after Homer spent much of their time engaging with it. </p>
<p>The Roman poet Vergil, for instance, whose epic poem the Aeneid (written about 700 years after the Iliad) was also focused on the Trojan war theme, may have known the Iliad off by heart. When we pick up Wilson’s translation we realise what a task that must have been.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-virgils-aeneid-85459">Guide to the Classics: Virgil’s Aeneid</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569228/original/file-20240115-19-lc4vcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569228/original/file-20240115-19-lc4vcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569228/original/file-20240115-19-lc4vcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569228/original/file-20240115-19-lc4vcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569228/original/file-20240115-19-lc4vcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569228/original/file-20240115-19-lc4vcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569228/original/file-20240115-19-lc4vcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569228/original/file-20240115-19-lc4vcu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the first things to note about Wilson’s translation is that it makes no attempt to offer line-by-line equivalence with the Greek text, as Lattimore does in his 1951 translation. Thus, the 24 books of the poem have both the original Greek line numbers and the line numbers of her translation. This means students of Homeric Greek will not find Wilson’s text such an easy point of reference to check up on their translations.</p>
<p>For Wilson, it was liberating to free herself from the same number of lines as the original Greek. “Once I understood that I needed more lines than the original,” she writes, “I realized I could sometimes use lovely long polysyllabic English words, echoing the original’s use of powerfully long, often compound words interspersed with many shorter connectives, verbs and particles.” </p>
<p>Inevitably, the plethora of names, and the Homeric penchant for repetition in a broader sense, caused Wilson plenty of hard thinking, not to mention the matter of the epithets – the formulaic phrases that appear throughout the poem. How would she deal with “swift-footed Achilles” rather than just “Achilles”, or “Phoebus Apollo”, or “rosy-fingered Dawn”? </p>
<p>Some of the most prominent and radical research in Homeric scholarship over the past hundred years or so (after <a href="https://dbcs.rutgers.edu/all-scholars/8998-parry-milman">Milman Parry</a>, who established that Homer’s poetry was most likely not the work of a single poet) has involved scholarly analysis of the epithets. Wilson’s response is to vary the use of Homeric repetition as determined by poetic considerations: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like almost all modern translators, I have sometimes varied the phrasing of certain formulaic phrases, usually for sonic or rhythmical reasons. So, for example, Zeus appears in this translation both as “cloud-gathering Zeus” and as “Zeus who gathers clouds together”. Minor variations of this kind seemed to me in keeping with the poetic techniques of the original poem, in which epithets are often chosen for metrical reasons as much as anything. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such a statement will inevitably provide reassurance for textual purists. The epiphany of the goddess Athena to the Greek warrior Achilles, in the midst of Achilles’ feud with Agamemnon in Book 1, gives us a sense of how this plays out and shows what a fine translator Wilson is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But then Athena swooped down from the sky.<br>
She had been sent forth by the white-armed goddess<br>
Hera, who loved both men. Athena stood<br>
behind Achilles, son of Peleus,<br>
and grabbed him by his chestnut hair. She was<br>
invisible to everyone but him.<br>
Achilles, startled, turned and recognized Athena. She had bright, unearthly eyes.<br>
His words flew out.<br>
“Why have you come here daughter<br>
of Zeus, the god who holds the royal aegis?<br>
Was it to see the cruel violence<br>
of Agamemnon, son of Atreus?”<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In such a busy scene as this, with seven individuals mentioned, both deities and mortals – Zeus, Athena, Hera, Achilles, Peleus, Agamemnon and Atreus – it might have been tempting to take out some of the names. Nothing like this happens and the translation is a lot richer for it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569771/original/file-20240117-21-vp9nh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569771/original/file-20240117-21-vp9nh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569771/original/file-20240117-21-vp9nh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569771/original/file-20240117-21-vp9nh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569771/original/file-20240117-21-vp9nh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569771/original/file-20240117-21-vp9nh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569771/original/file-20240117-21-vp9nh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569771/original/file-20240117-21-vp9nh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Wrath of Achilles – Louis Édouard Fournier (1881)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fournier_La_col%C3%A8re_d%27Achille.JPG">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Devotees of Book 6 will also note how the text flows with remarkable ease:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When Hector finished speaking, Hecuba<br>
went in the house and shouted to her slaves<br>
to go through town and call the older women,<br>
and then she went inside her fragrant storeroom.<br>
In it, she kept her fine embroidered robes,<br>
Made by the women of Sidonia<br>
Whom godlike Paris Alexander brought<br>
to Troy across the wide back of the sea,<br>
on that same journey when he brought back Helen,<br>
the daughter of the mightiest of fathers.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Book 6 is one of the more poignant books of the poem. The Trojan warrior Hector returns to the city from the fighting and talks with the women in his family: Hecuba, Andromache and Helen. It loses nothing in the Wilson translation. The reader might also note reference to Paris as “Paris Alexander” – a rather brilliant way of engaging with the fact that both names (i.e. “Paris” and “Alexander”) are used to describe him in the Iliad.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569959/original/file-20240117-29-bb72gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569959/original/file-20240117-29-bb72gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569959/original/file-20240117-29-bb72gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569959/original/file-20240117-29-bb72gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569959/original/file-20240117-29-bb72gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569959/original/file-20240117-29-bb72gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569959/original/file-20240117-29-bb72gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569959/original/file-20240117-29-bb72gg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hector’s body dragged behind the chariot of Achilles – John Flaxman (1895).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hector%27s_body_dragged_at_the_Chariot_of_Achilles.jpg">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-iliad-80968">Guide to the classics: Homer's Iliad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>So on the one hand Homeric purists should not be concerned about the disappearance of certain names or traditions from the Wilson translation. But this is not always the case. </p>
<p>The final book of the poem tells of the ransom mission undertaken by the Trojan king Priam and an old attendant to retrieve the body of Hector from Achilles, who has refused to give it over. The presence of Hermes is crucial in this particular book of the Iliad, because he is the god who oversees reciprocity and exchange. He acts as guide to the two old men. </p>
<p>But more often than not in Book 24 (and elsewhere in Homer) Hermes is called “Argeïphontês” (11 times), rather than “Hermes” (nine times). The name Argeïphontês seems to mean “Slayer of Argos”. It refers to a somewhat obscure narrative set in earlier times, in which Hermes killed a monster called Argos by first putting him to sleep and then striking him. The name Argeïphontês, it seems to me, is important in various ways, and it is something of a pity that it is dropped from the poem – although Wilson does maintain the monster-killing tradition by calling Hermes “the giant-slayer”.</p>
<p>Another surprising passage from Book 24 is Hermes’s arrival at Troy and his encounter with the two old Trojan men, Priam and Idaeus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He reached the Hellespont and Troy. He touched down in a human guise.<br>
He looked like a young man, a magistrate,<br>
with beard first sprouting, the most handsome age.<br>
The humans drove beside the tomb of Ilus,<br>
then at the river made the mules and horses<br>
halt for a drink. Dark night already covered<br>
the earth. Idaeus looked around and noticed<br>
Hermes right next to them and said to Priam …<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This passage, when I read it, seemed to me a strange translation, not the least for the references to a “magistrate” (i.e. a youthful Hermes) and “the humans” who drive past the tomb of Ilus. A “magistrate” in Homer’s Iliad? I don’t think so. </p>
<p>I don’t know what Wilson was thinking at this point, but she is alert to the danger of anachronism, which needs “to be balanced against an equally pressing danger: that archaism or unidiomatic English risks suggesting that the Iliad is more alien and more simplistic in its values than it really is”.</p>
<p>My two quibbles about Book 24 don’t add up to much in the context of this big work. I offer them as something to reflect upon. What is important about Wilson as a translator is that she has an unequivocal love for the text, which dictates almost all that she does:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I first began reading Homer in high school, early in the study of Ancient Greek. I liked the Odyssey, but I loved the Iliad with a passionate devotion. I have now lived with this poem for some 35 years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We may be thankful for her love for the Iliad, and the longevity of it, and her generosity in offering it up to readers with very different backgrounds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Mackie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Reading Wilson’s Iliad, one senses something of the chant of Homer’s verse, even through the written word.Chris Mackie, Emeritus Professor of Classics, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134402023-11-29T13:37:37Z2023-11-29T13:37:37ZStoicism and spirituality: A philosopher explains how more Americans’ search for meaning is turning them toward the classics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561703/original/file-20231126-17-wvurn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=137%2C245%2C1977%2C1153&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Web communities have helped the ancient philosophy of Stoicism find fans in a new generation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/e-book-digital-technology-and-e-learning-royalty-free-image/1254724408?phrase=internet+philosophy&searchscope=image%2Cfilm&adppopup=true">utah778/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stoicism may be having a renaissance. For centuries, the ancient philosophy that originated in Greece and spread across the Roman Empire was more or less treated as extinct – with the word “stoic” hanging on as shorthand for someone unemotional. But today, with the help of the internet, it’s gaining ground: One of the biggest online communities, <a href="https://dailystoic.com/podcast/">The Daily Stoic</a>, claims to have an email following of over 750,000 subscribers. </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s not so surprising. The United States’ current political climate has parallels to the last few centuries B.C. in ancient Rome, home of notable Stoics like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-life-gives-you-lemons-4-stoic-tips-for-getting-through-lockdown-from-epictetus-166487">the philosopher Epictetus</a>, a former slave, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. During this period of instability, including the fall of the Roman Republic, Stoicism <a href="https://store.doverpublications.com/0486433595.html">helped its practitioners find community</a>, meaning and tranquility. </p>
<p>Today, too, society faces widespread feelings <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html">of isolation</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/10/51percent-of-young-americans-say-they-feel-down-depressed-or-hopeless.html">depression</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2020.08.014">and anxiety</a>. Meanwhile, more and more people are looking for answers outside of mainstream religion. According to a 2022 Gallup Poll, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx">21% of Americans now say they have no religious affiliation</a>.</p>
<p>Riding this resurgence of interest in Stoicism, I designed <a href="https://search.asu.edu/profile/92871">a college philosophy class</a> that covers both theory and practice. When I ask students why they enrolled, I hear not only a genuine interest in the subject but also a desire to find meaning, purpose and personal development.</p>
<h2>Core principles</h2>
<p>Ancient Stoicism aimed to be a complete philosophy encompassing ethics, physics and logic. Yet most modern Stoics focus primarily on ethics, and they typically adopt four Stoic principles. </p>
<p>The first is that virtue is the only or highest good, including the cardinal virtues of wisdom, temperance, courage and justice. Everything apart from virtue – including wealth, health and reputation – might be nice to have, but they do not directly contribute to human flourishing. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561708/original/file-20231126-21-zbsxfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bust of a man draped in robes, with short, curly hair and a beard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561708/original/file-20231126-21-zbsxfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561708/original/file-20231126-21-zbsxfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561708/original/file-20231126-21-zbsxfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561708/original/file-20231126-21-zbsxfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561708/original/file-20231126-21-zbsxfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561708/original/file-20231126-21-zbsxfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561708/original/file-20231126-21-zbsxfn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marcus Aurelius: not just an emperor but a Stoic philosopher.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marcus_Aurelius_Glyptothek_Munich.jpg">Bibi Saint-Pol/Glyptothek/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, people ought to live in accordance with nature or reason. This principle reflects the Stoic belief that the universe exhibits a rational order, so we ought to align our beliefs and actions with eternal principles. Living in accordance with nature also reveals <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/6367/meditations-by-marcus-aurelius-a-new-translation-by-gregory-hays/9781588361738">the interconnectedness of all things</a>, showing how humans are part of a larger whole.</p>
<p>Third, a person can control only their own actions – not external events. Epictetus laid out this dichotomy in the opening sentence of <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html">The Enchiridion</a>, a collection of his core teachings compiled by his student Arrian: “Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.”</p>
<p>The fourth principle is that thoughts about external events are often the source of discontentment or distress – a view that <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_New_Guide_to_Rational_Living.html?id=3JB9sLEV-SoC">has influenced modern cognitive behavioral therapy</a>. Again, this idea comes <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html">directly from Epictetus</a>: “Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.”</p>
<p>Taken together, these principles form the bedrock of modern Stoicism, which aims to provide a coherent philosophy of life. Its hope is that once the practitioner accepts they are not entirely in control, they start building resilience and reducing anxiety. Not only is each individual the architect of their emotional life, but people can shape their own judgments in ways that are conducive to greater inner peace.</p>
<h2>Stoicism in practice</h2>
<p>In Discourses, Epictetus unequivocally states that <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/discourses-fragments-handbook-9780199595181?cc=us&lang=en&">study is not enough</a> – in order to become virtuous, a person must couple study with practice. “In theory, there is nothing to restrain us from drawing the consequences of what we have been taught,” he noted, “whereas in life there are many things that pull us off course.”</p>
<p>In other words, philosophy is not only an intellectual endeavor but a practical and spiritual one: a way of life designed to move practitioners toward the Stoic conception of the good. Learning to cultivate core Stoic principles involves certain <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Philosophy+as+a+Way+of+Life%3A+Spiritual+Exercises+from+Socrates+to+Foucault-p-9780631180333">spiritual exercises</a>.</p>
<p>My class incorporates a variety of these exercises so students can get a taste of Stoicism in practice. One is the “view from above,” which encourages the practitioner to imagine their life and certain situations from a bird’s-eye view, putting the insignificance of their current troubles in perspective. </p>
<p>Another is “negative visualization”: contemplating the absence of something we value. Instead of worrying about losing something, a person intentionally meditates on its absence, with the intention of fostering gratitude and contentment. When doing this exercise in class, students have imagined the loss of a possession, a scholarship or even a beloved pet.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561709/original/file-20231126-15-wvurn7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A tan and gray illustration of a man in simple clothing, seated with a crutch by his side, writing and looking over his shoulder." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561709/original/file-20231126-15-wvurn7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561709/original/file-20231126-15-wvurn7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561709/original/file-20231126-15-wvurn7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561709/original/file-20231126-15-wvurn7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1061&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561709/original/file-20231126-15-wvurn7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1333&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561709/original/file-20231126-15-wvurn7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561709/original/file-20231126-15-wvurn7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1333&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of Epictetus, likely drawn by William Sonmans and engraved by Michael Burghers, that served as frontispiece for a translation of Epictetus’ Enchiridion, printed in 1715.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Epicteti_Enchiridion_Latinis_versibus_adumbratum_(Oxford_1715)_frontispiece.jpg">John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library/Aristeas/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A third exercise is journaling to plan and review one’s day. Reflecting on thoughts and actions allows a more objective, rational way to judge whether someone is living in accordance with their principles.</p>
<p>Once the exercises are incorporated with theory, Stoicism can become a type of spiritual project. <a href="https://global.oup.com/ukhe/product/discourses-fragments-handbook-9780199595181?cc=us&lang=en&">As Epictetus wrote</a>, “For just as wood is the material of the carpenter, and bronze that of the sculptor, the art of living has each individual’s own life as its material.”</p>
<h2>The way of the prokopton</h2>
<p>So what does it mean to be a practicing Stoic – a “prokopton,” in Greek?</p>
<p>For both ancient and modern practitioners, Stoicism <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stoicism-influenced-music-from-the-french-renaissance-to-pink-floyd-181701">is more than a set of abstract ideas</a>. It is a set of guiding principles that permeate all aspects of one’s life. The goal is progress, not perfection – and exploring Stoic ideas alongside others is encouraged.</p>
<p>Today, there are at least three relatively robust Stoic communities online: <a href="https://dailystoic.com/">The Daily Stoic</a>, <a href="https://modernstoicism.com/">Modern Stoicism</a> and <a href="https://collegeofstoicphilosophers.org/">the College of Stoic Philosophers</a>.</p>
<p>By having dedicated communities, a guiding framework and distinctive spiritual exercises, parallels between Stoicism and many mainstream religions are undeniable. For modern people looking for such things, Stoicism may <a href="https://modernstoicism.com/providence-or-atoms-atoms-donald-robertson/">serve as a surrogate</a> or complement to mainstream religion. People today tend to find the original Stoics’ notions about physics and theology implausible, but apart from those ideas, the core principles of modern Stoicism can be palatable to people who identify with <a href="https://howtolive.life/episode/045-stoicism-in-everyday-life-with-william-irvine">contemporary faith traditions</a> – or none.</p>
<p>The ancient Greeks believed that a philosophy of life is critical for human flourishing. Without a guiding ethos, they feared, individuals are likely to lead unstructured and unproductive lives, to pursue superficial pleasures and to feel that their lives lack purpose. Stoicism offered <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-stoicism-of-roman-philosophers-can-help-us-deal-with-depression-75593">a path for some to follow</a> – then, and now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213440/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandra Woien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stoicism isn’t just a set of ideas; it’s meant to be put into practice. The ancient philosophy is finding new fans through online communities.Sandra Woien, Associate Teaching Professor, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2046062023-11-15T13:22:50Z2023-11-15T13:22:50ZFrom ancient Greece to Broadway, music has played a critical role in theater<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557575/original/file-20231104-17-el5el8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=747%2C286%2C4559%2C3246&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The remnants of a Greek theater in Sicily.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/panoramic-sights-of-the-beautiful-greek-theater-of-royalty-free-image/1345579639?phrase=++aulos+player+greek+theater&adppopup=true">Fausto Riolo/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Though anxiety about the fate of live theater performances still lingers, Broadway is celebrating its <a href="https://playbill.com/article/whats-currently-playing-on-broadway">third season</a> since <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/broadway-reopening-pandemic-new-york-city-1235046751/">reopening after the COVID-19 pandemic</a>, with a lineup dominated once again <a href="https://www.broadwayworld.com/shows/broadway-musicals.php">by musicals</a>. </p>
<p>The new season includes long-running hits like “<a href="https://hamiltonmusical.com/new-york/">Hamilton</a>,” revivals of classics like “<a href="https://merrilyonbroadway.com/">Merrily We Roll Along</a>,” new musical adaptations of nonmusical works like “<a href="https://daysofwineandrosesbroadway.com/">Days of Wine and Roses</a>,” and even “<a href="https://www.theshed.org/program/301-here-we-are">Here We Are</a>,” the last musical by <a href="https://www.sondheimsociety.com/">Stephen Sondheim</a>. </p>
<p>Despite its centrality to today’s theater, musicals are often thought of as second class to what is considered legitimate theater, such as William Shakespeare’s “<a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/">Hamlet</a>” or Arthur Miller’s “<a href="https://salesmanonbroadway.com/">Death of a Salesman</a>.” In both of those works, music plays little or no role. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The names of different musicals are illuminated by neon signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Broadway musical theater billboards in Times Square in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/broadway-theater-billboards-new-york-royalty-free-image/583765685?phrase=broadway+night&adppopup=true">Ozgur Donmaz/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But musicals have been the dominant form of theater across cultures and throughout most of history, including in ancient Greece, the birthplace of theater.</p>
<h2>Music, words and songs</h2>
<p><a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/grms/10/2/article-p306_4.xml">My research</a> focuses on the tragedies and comedies of ancient Greece and Rome. Though no scores from these original plays exist, a remarkable number of clues about the sound of ancient theater can be found in the surviving texts of the plays and other sources.</p>
<p>Evidence reveals that the plays of ancient Greece and Rome were decidedly musical affairs. </p>
<p>For example, in a conspicuous place during the performance stood an elaborately dressed player of the “aulos,” a loud and strident woodwind instrument consisting of two pipes played simultaneously. Both actors and choruses sang during their performances <a href="https://www.emousike.com/athenaeuspaean">to the accompaniment of this instrument</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="In this illustration, a man is using two long pipes as a musical instrument." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of a man playing the ‘aulos,’ or double pipe, in ancient Greece.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just as in modern musicals, the important components of what made the plays work were the actors’ use of words both spoken and sung.</p>
<h2>Oedipus’ woeful song</h2>
<p>Consider Sophocles’ “<a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html">Oedipus the King</a>,” thought by many to be the quintessential Greek tragedy, and often taught and performed as a drama without music. The plot and message of the tragedy are profound and disturbing. </p>
<p>Though Oedipus rises to the heights of human success and becomes an admired ruler of the city of Thebes, he is unaware that he had murdered his father and married his mother. When he learns the truth, he blinds himself and begs to be driven from the city.</p>
<p>Music does much of the work in making this powerful play effective. </p>
<p>Clues in the text of “Oedipus the King” suggest that when it was first performed in about 430 B.C., just under a fifth of the verses were sung or chanted to the accompaniment of the aulos. </p>
<p>Most of the play’s passages accompanied by music are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc97mwbbMds">sung by the chorus</a>. Far from mere interludes, the chorus’s songs expressed key themes in both their words and their music.</p>
<p>When the chorus first enters, for example, they sing stately prayers like the one in which they address the oracle of Apollo:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sweet voiced oracle, Zeus-sent, tell me, what is your message?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But later in the song, their rhythm becomes less self-assured when they turn from prayer to despair at the plague that afflicts their city:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>O dear, I’m bearing countless toils!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In conspicuous contrast to the chorus’s emotional songs, Oedipus does not sing through most of the play in his attempt to maintain control in the face of ever more threatening revelations. </p>
<p>The contrast becomes most pointed when the chorus, singing, defends Oedipus’ brother-in-law against a charge that he is plotting to gain the throne:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Don’t strike down in dishonor, on an unclear charge, a dear one who has sworn an oath.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then Oedipus replies, speaking and not singing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Know well that when you seek this you are seeking death or exile from this land for me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Oedipus later yields to the chorus’s wish, but his refusal to participate in their musical performance reflects both his reluctance and his determination to remain in charge. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A marble sculpture of the head of a bearded white man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A marble bust of the playwright Sophocles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bust-of-sophocles-athenian-playwright-roman-sculpture-in-news-photo/159829159?adppopup=true">DeAgostini/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But when Oedipus has met disaster and enters from his palace after blinding himself, he sings in his distress, and he calls attention to the change in his performance mode by addressing his now uncontrolled voice:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Oh, Oh, how miserable I am. Where on earth am I going? Where does my voice fly out uncontrollably? Oh, my fortune, where have you leapt to?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In contrast to the earlier scenes, it is now the chorus who speaks, distancing themselves from their fallen king:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To someplace dreadful, unbearable to listen to or to see.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recent productions of Greek drama have followed the textual clues to music provided in the texts, with chorus and actors alternating unaccompanied spoken performance with sung verses, accompanied by the aulos or other instruments.</p>
<p>Notable are performances in ancient Greek at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM4sYJ7hdqg">Columbia/Barnard</a> and in English translation at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MVyAZbRaK0">University of Vermont</a>. These performances indicate how much Greek theater has in common with modern musical theater on Broadway and around the world today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy J. Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The use of music in theater goes back to ancient Greece, and its popularity has grown to the modern-day productions of ‘Hamilton.’Timothy J. Moore, John and Penelope Biggs Distinguished Professor of Classics, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2101822023-09-11T12:33:42Z2023-09-11T12:33:42ZAncient texts depict all kinds of people, not just straight and cis ones – this college course looks at LGBTQ sexuality and gender in Egypt, Greece and Rome<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546480/original/file-20230905-27-72ixgv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C795%2C595&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A painting from the ancient Egyptian tomb of Niankhkhum and Khnumhotep, royal servants whom some scholars have interpreted to be lovers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/manna4u/5241629108">kairoinfo4u/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“LGBTQ Antiquity: A View from the Mediterranean”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/meams/faculty/profile.html?id=tchronop">I study Greek and Latin literature</a> and have noticed that ancient authors wrote about sex, homoerotic feelings or relations, and gender more often than we assume.</p>
<p>A few figures from ancient Mediterranean mythology are sometimes held up as LGBTQ ancestors – such as the Greek gods Apollo and Zeus, who both loved other men. But in a mythology course I taught in the fall of 2021, I found myself highlighting a number of other stories about same-sex attraction and gender variance beyond a strict male-female binary. For example, <a href="https://papyrus-stories.com/2021/06/15/ancient-same-sex-love-spells/">spells from Egypt</a> show that there were women who tried to get other women to fall in love with them. </p>
<p>Students responded with such curiosity and excitement that I decided to create a stand-alone course that would focus exclusively on these topics.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>The course explores literary texts from the ancient Mediterranean – including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Roman Italy – in which authors describe relationships that can be said to fall under the LGBTQ umbrella. We read the texts in chronological order, rather than grouped by theme or identity. This allows students to encounter the texts relatively label-free, since the words U.S. society uses to talk about gender and sexuality today – like “gay” or “transgender” – do not always align with ancient understandings.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A circular, red and black image of two men in battle gear as one binds the other's wound." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546488/original/file-20230905-24-b142tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=758&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A vase depicts Achilles bandaging the wound of his close friend Patroclus. Art from the era sometimes depicts the pair as lovers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/achilles-hero-of-homers-epic-poem-iliad-bandaging-the-wound-news-photo/113441527?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group Editorial/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>Assaults on members of the LGBTQ community, especially trans folks, are rising in the United States: both <a href="https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/healthcare_youth_medical_care_bans">through legal means</a> in a number of states and through <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/what-we-know-about-the-killing-of-oshae-sibley.html">physical attacks and hate crimes</a>. </p>
<p>My goal is for students to take courage and hope from knowing that same-sex relationships and gender diversity have existed in various guises for millennia. In antiquity, homosexuality was not considered an identity category the way it is today, making it hard to determine if and how <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3704629">LGBTQ-like people</a> were discriminated against, but they certainly were not always met with contempt. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139600439.007">the body of Hermaphroditus</a>, a god whom Greeks sought out for help with fertility and child care issues, combined female and male characteristics.</p>
<p>I also want students to connect with the past as a way to feel rooted and validated. In this, I took a cue from <a href="https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/self/">trans activist Leslie Feinberg</a>, who wrote in the 1996 book “<a href="http://www.beacon.org/Transgender-Warriors-P463.aspx">Transgender Warriors</a>,” “I couldn’t find myself in history. No one like me seemed to have ever existed.” </p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>LGBTQ-like individuals have always been here, although modern conceptions of self, gender and sexuality cannot be mapped directly onto the past. </p>
<p>The identities we know today were unknown then: The concept of homosexuality as a distinct sexual orientation or distinct kind of behavior did not exist. For instance, elite men in ancient Athens <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118610657.ch7">often engaged in same-sex relationships</a> with men alongside their marriages to women. Those who were in exclusively homoerotic relationships, however, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118610657.ch8">tended to be ridiculed</a>.</p>
<p>Another critical lesson is that language matters. The words we use today are often inadequate to capture how social status or age intersected with one’s gender in the ancient Mediterranean. Take the Greek word for a woman or wife, “γῠνή.” Typically, this word refers to an upper-class woman, rather than, say, one who is enslaved or a foreigner. Norms around sexual activity depended on a person’s social status, age and gender.</p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A statue of the head of a woman with curly hair, whose nose is partially missing, against a black background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546483/original/file-20230905-19-wz0g2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A seventh century B.C.E. marble bust of Sappho from the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sculptural-bust-of-the-greek-lyric-poetess-sappho-marble-news-photo/566415199?adppopup=true">GraphicaArtis/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Students come into the course expecting to encounter celebrated characters such as the poet Sappho, from the Greek island of Lesbos, whom lesbians have regarded <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324092315">as an ancestor</a>. </p>
<p>However, we also read less famous authors, such as Lucian of Samosata, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-second-century-roman-citizen-lucian-can-teach-us-about-diversity-and-acceptance-196726">a Syrian-born satirist</a> from the second century C.E. In <a href="https://sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/motc/motc09.htm">one of his dialogues</a>, a sex worker tells her friend about an encounter she had with two other women, one of whom describes herself as “quite like a man.”</p>
<p>Not all authors are sympathetic. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-Chrysostom">John Chrysostom</a>, archbishop of Constantinople at the end of the fourth century C.E., <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/EJC160018">vilified people</a> who engaged in homoerotic acts or homosexual relationships as criminals, mentally ill, diseased or diabolic. Many of these views are still being promulgated by religious leaders today.</p>
<p>The course also explores the lives of some Byzantine saints who were seen as women before they entered a monastery or became ascetics. Yet their self-punishing practices, such as extreme fasting, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048540266.011">transformed their bodies</a>, and the surrounding communities started to see them as men. These stories, which aimed to uplift their audiences, serve as a reminder that cross-dressing and gender variance were not always seen as objectionable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tina Chronopoulos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Writing about same-sex relationships and gender beyond a strict male-female binary was more common in ancient Greece and Rome than students assume, a scholar writes.Tina Chronopoulos, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127552023-09-06T15:08:00Z2023-09-06T15:08:00ZMissing objects leave British Museum facing historic crisis of custodianship – but case is far from unique<p>Since mid-August, the British Museum has been mired in a controversy over the theft of up to 2,000 objects from its collections. The theft is suspected to be an inside job that took place over a period of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/artefacts-stolen-from-british-museum-may-be-untraceable-due-to-poor-records">20 years</a>. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66582935">Alerted</a> to the sale of alleged stolen items in 2021, the museum did not take action until earlier this year. </p>
<p>This is not the first time the Museum has come under fire and its custodianship has been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-the-british-museum-thefts-stolen-goods-vf7tf2wt6">questioned</a> (paywall). This article turns its attention to some notorious incidents involving the curation of its collection. </p>
<h2>The Duveen scouring</h2>
<p>There can be little doubt that the most notorious of them is the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">Duveen scouring scandal</a>, so-named after Joseph Duveen, an ultra-rich art dealer of dubious ethics and benefactor of the British Museum. For a long time, museum officials had argued that the Parthenon marbles had better remain in Bloomsbury, because the Greeks were unable to care for them. That argument was abandoned sometime after it was revealed that back in the late 1930s the museum had scraped the marbles with abrasive tools, destroying their historic surface, its pigments and traces of toolmarks. </p>
<p>Ancient Greek temples were richly painted but remnants of colour were not to Duveen’s liking. A trustee of the British Museum <a href="https://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Crawford_Papers.html?id=55RnAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">described</a> Duveen’s attitude at the time:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘Duveen lectured and harangued us, and talked the most hopeless nonsense about cleaning old works of art. I suppose he has destroyed more old masters by overcleaning than anybody else in the world, and now he told us that all old marbles should be thoroughly cleaned – so thoroughly that he would dip them into acid. Fancy – we listened patiently to these boastful follies …’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Duveen’s men were given free access to the museum and were even allowed to give orders to staff. Soon, in a misjudged attempt to whiten what remained of the originally polychrome decoration, they started to scrub the marbles. The ‘cleaning’ lasted for fifteen months before it was stopped in September 1938. An internal board of enquiry convened at the time came to the conclusion that the resulting damage <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">‘is obvious and cannot be exaggerated’</a>. </p>
<p>Tactical considerations prevailed: it was important to avoid a blow to the museum’s reputation, so it kept quiet and denied that anything untoward had occurred. Documents related to the affair became, to all intends and purposes, classified. The marbles were later placed in the Duveen Gallery, named in honour of the man responsible for the damage to their historic surface.</p>
<p>The cleaning was kept a secret for 60 years until it was <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lord-elgin-and-the-marbles-9780192880536?cc=fr&lang=en&">exposed</a> by the British historian William St. Clair in 1998. Previously in favour of the retention of the marbles in the British Museum, St. Clair became one of the most vocal proponents of their repatriation.</p>
<p>The Duveen scouring was not the only modification of the marbles to cause consternation. A series of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">letters</a> published in <em>The Times</em> as early as 1858 expressed concern about ‘scrubbing’ of the marbles and blamed the museum for ‘vandalism’. It is probable that, if these early warnings had been headed, the Duveen scandal could have been avoided.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The painting ‘Pheidias showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his friends’ by Lawrence Alma-Tadema gives an idea of what the decorative scheme of the original frieze may have looked like. For instance, it is thought that the background of the frieze was probably blue, as imagined by the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1868_Lawrence_Alma-Tadema_-_Phidias_Showing_the_Frieze_of_the_Parthenon_to_his_Friends.jpg">Creative Commons/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Other controversies</h2>
<p>Other incidents have tarnished the British Museum’s reputation. Documents released under freedom of information legislation show that in the 1960s and 1980s members of the public and a work accident <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1490023/Revealed-how-rowdy-schoolboys-knocked-a-leg-off-one-of-the-Elgin-Marbles.html">permanently damaged</a> figures from the Parthenon’s pediments. </p>
<p>During a 1999 conference in the museum, a sandwich lunch was served in the Duveen Gallery, and the delegates were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/dec/01/maevkennedy">encouraged to touch</a> the ancient sculptures. Many among those present found the gesture so inconsiderate that they walked out of the gallery. A journalist writing for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/02/world/london-journal-on-seeing-the-elgin-marbles-with-sandwiches.html"><em>The New York Times</em></a> commented: ‘On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, With Sandwiches’.</p>
<p>Another controversial incident was the 2014 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/world/europe/elgin-marbles-lent-to-hermitage-museum.html">secret loan</a> of the pedimental statue of the river god Ilissos to the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, at a time when Europe had imposed sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea. The loan was not announced until the statue had been transferred to Russia.</p>
<p>A controversy of a different kind concerns contested objects in the museum’s collection that are the object of repatriation requests. In contrast with other institutions, such as the V&A, the British Museum has been facing a chorus of restitution claims concerning very specific objects in its collection. The Museum has staunchly refused to engage in the debate, although since the beginning of the year it has been attempting to convince Greece to accept a <a href="https://theconversation.com/debate-sorry-british-museum-a-loan-of-the-parthenon-marbles-is-not-a-repatriation-199468">‘loan’</a> of the Parthenon marbles, apparently considering this to count as entering the repatriation debate. </p>
<p>Of course, the Museum is bound by the 1963 <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24">British Museum Act</a>, which prevents the museum from deaccessioning (disposing of) objects in its collections except on limited grounds, but that is a discussion for a different article. </p>
<h2>The museum’s current troubles</h2>
<p>Now the British Museum is trying to repair the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-the-british-museum-thefts-stolen-goods-vf7tf2wt6">dent to its reputation</a>, which comes at an inconvenient time when the museum is hoping to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-british-museum-interim-boss-revealed-and-what-he-really-thinks-about-the-elgin-marbles-9s6zvgxnq">raise £1 billion</a> for much-needed renovation work. </p>
<p>About half of the museum’s <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/fact_sheet_bm_collection.pdf">8 million</a> items are <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection">uncatalogued</a> and this lack of an inventory has certainly facilitated the thefts. The fact that it took so long to discover the thefts also raises the question of what else might have gone missing without a trace. </p>
<p>Yet one can’t help but wonder: Do the museum’s current woes have other museum directors fretting with anxiety? How many museums have uncatalogued items in their storerooms? When a museum such as the Louvre explains that its database has entries for <a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/en/page/apropos">almost 500,000 works of art</a>, is that its entire collection or just a percentage of its collection? In a great number of cases, we simply don’t know. </p>
<p>The British Museum has yet to announce the exact number of stolen objects. But how does one know the exact number of what has gone missing without an inventory? More challenging still, how does one identify the objects, let alone <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/artefacts-stolen-from-british-museum-may-be-untraceable-due-to-poor-records">prove ownership</a>? </p>
<p>The secrecy is highly unusual. Sharing information about stolen objects helps identify and recover these objects. Interpol maintains an accessible database of stolen artworks precisely for that reason. But in order to enter an object in the database, it has to be <a href="https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Databases/Stolen-Works-of-Art-Database">‘fully identifiable’</a>. And the issue here is that the museum is probably still trying to identify what has gone missing. How do you fully identify an uncatalogued unphotographed object?</p>
<p>The secrecy could be attributed to another cause too. What if some of the identified stolen items are contested items that have been the object of restitution requests? For the time being, we can only speculate. </p>
<h2>Crisis as an opportunity</h2>
<p>Every crisis is an opportunity, and here too there is an opportunity. After the resignation of the director Hartwig Fischer, an interim director, Mark Jones, has been appointed. The permanent post is up for grabs. Among those <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-british-museum-interim-boss-revealed-and-what-he-really-thinks-about-the-elgin-marbles-9s6zvgxnq">mooted</a> for the museum’s top job is Tristram Hunt, the Director of the V&A, who appears to have been behind the initiative to revise museum deaccessioning laws. The selection of the next Museum Director is a crucial step in moving towards a modern British Museum that not only renovates its galleries but rebuilds its image in accordance with the new values of the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catharine Titi ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>From ill-thought renovation schemes to the latest row over the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles, this is not the first time the British Museum reckons with a custodianship crisis.Catharine Titi, Research Associate Professor (tenured), French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Université Paris-Panthéon-AssasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2107362023-08-02T15:21:43Z2023-08-02T15:21:43ZDid the Romans and Greeks really enjoy orgies?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540463/original/file-20230801-27-hrt45z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1920%2C1261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Helen Mirren playing Caesonia in Tinto Brass' 1979 historical drama film, _Caligula_ .</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Orgies conjure in our imagination the world of Greek and Roman Antiquity, thanks to more or less titillating films portraying debauched emperors, or maybe specifically Fellini’s Satyricon. The term is also used today to signify all sorts of excess. For us, the orgy stands for the ultimate celebration of the pleasures of the flesh, in an ancient world free from moral constraint. But what were they like in reality?</p>
<h2>From <em>orgia</em> to orgies</h2>
<p>The word comes to us from the Greek <em>orgia</em>. This denotes rites practised in honour of gods such as Dionysus, whose cult celebrates the regeneration of nature. It concerns so-called mystery cults – that’s to say, those limited to initiates, men and women, previously sworn to not divulge their secrets.</p>
<p>The term <em>orgia</em> suggests passion and thrill. Orgiastic rites – little known about because of the mystery surrounding them – could involve brandishing objects of a sexual form, in the course of ecstatic and violent displays which aimed to reach a <a href="https://www.arkhe-editions.com/magazine/le-mythe-de-lorgie-romaine/">state of collective stupor</a>.</p>
<p>But it was only after 1800, over the course of the 19th century and notably in French literature, that the orgy took the meaning of group sexual practices, most often associated with excesses of alcohol and food. Flaubert conceives in his tale Smarh, written in 1839, “A night-time festivity, an orgy full of naked women, beautiful like Venus”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540465/original/file-20230801-21-ji750q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540465/original/file-20230801-21-ji750q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540465/original/file-20230801-21-ji750q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540465/original/file-20230801-21-ji750q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540465/original/file-20230801-21-ji750q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540465/original/file-20230801-21-ji750q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540465/original/file-20230801-21-ji750q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woman and man on a coach between a flute player and a servant. Ceramic, 6th century BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archaeological Museum, Corinth. Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Prostitutes… and fish</h2>
<p>An orgy, properly defined, is not, however, a modern invention. Banquets mixing gastronomy and erotic delight are familiar in classical texts. Thus in the 4th century BC, the Greek orator Aeschines, in his <a href="https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/orateurs/eschine/timarque.htm">speech against Timarchus</a>, accuses his enemy of having surrendered to “the most shameful vices” and “everything which a free nobleman shouldn’t let himself get subsumed by”.</p>
<p>What were these forbidden pleasures? Timarchus invites home flute players and other reprobate women, and dines with them. We figure out that the flautists weren’t there simply as artists, picked solely for their musical talent, but young prostitutes primed to satisfy diners’ sexual demands.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540468/original/file-20230801-18-7hqfx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540468/original/file-20230801-18-7hqfx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540468/original/file-20230801-18-7hqfx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540468/original/file-20230801-18-7hqfx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540468/original/file-20230801-18-7hqfx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540468/original/file-20230801-18-7hqfx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540468/original/file-20230801-18-7hqfx6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greek banquet with young men gathered together, teased by a flute player wearing a transparent tunic. Mixing bowl, around 400BC, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://khm.at/de/objektdb/detail/58183">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as picking up courtesans, eating very expensive fish was a detail particularly noted by 4th century BC orators. Demosthenes links these two aspects of debauchery together in his False Embassy oration.</p>
<p>In 346 BC, the city of Athens had sent ambassadors to King Philip II of Macedon, who was threatening Greece with his troops. But the ruler had corrupted some of the Athenian ambassadors, to the point that they supported his imperial ambitions.</p>
<p>One of these envoys, who had been bought by the Macedonian king, is accused by Demosthenes of squandering his ill-gotten gains on “prostitutes and fish”. A double dose of gluttony, <a href="https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/orateurs/demosthene/ambassade.htm">both carnivorous and carnal</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540470/original/file-20230801-16611-v5y65s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540470/original/file-20230801-16611-v5y65s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540470/original/file-20230801-16611-v5y65s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540470/original/file-20230801-16611-v5y65s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540470/original/file-20230801-16611-v5y65s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540470/original/file-20230801-16611-v5y65s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540470/original/file-20230801-16611-v5y65s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A fresco in the Roman city of Herculaneum, showing an orgy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Roman debauches</h2>
<p>Roman historians also described sumptuous feasts, pairing sex and food. In the decade 89-80BC, the tyrant Sylla was the first Roman political leader to convene erotic drinking parties. He would have taken the concept from the Greek East, where he had been waging a military campaign. Sylla caroused until the morning with comic actors, musicians and mime artists, <a href="https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/Plutarque/sylla.htm">Plutarch writes (Life of Sylla, 36)</a>.</p>
<p>Erotic dancing was one of the courtesan’s additional skills, and likewise it wasn’t rare that prostitutes turned to mime artistry. They writhed while sometimes simulating sex acts.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540478/original/file-20230801-16682-v5y65s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540478/original/file-20230801-16682-v5y65s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540478/original/file-20230801-16682-v5y65s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540478/original/file-20230801-16682-v5y65s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540478/original/file-20230801-16682-v5y65s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540478/original/file-20230801-16682-v5y65s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540478/original/file-20230801-16682-v5y65s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trimalchio’s dinner party, a scene from <em>Fellini’s Satyricon</em>, 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Latin historian Suetonius portrays Tiberius as the archetypal debauched Emperor. In his palace at Capri, he staged daringly pornographic spectacles. He had enlisted a company of young actors who before his very eyes engaged in sex acts called <em>spintriae</em> – a Latin term, very likely from the Greek <em>sphinkter</em> (anus), <a href="https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/suetone/tibere.htm">suggesting a daisy chain</a> (Life of Tiberius, 43)</p>
<p>Caligula, Tiberius’s successor, would, according to Suetonius, sleep with his sisters, in view of his guests (Life of Caligula, 24). Incestuous and exhibitionist, he thus broke two Roman taboos at once. He would also display his wife Caesonia on horseback, dressed as a warrior, or alternatively completely nude. A willing accomplice in her husband’s foibles, the Empress would have particularly enjoyed these <a href="https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/suetone/caligula.htm">special sessions</a>, because she was, Suetonius claims, “lost to debauchery and vice” (Life of Caligula, 25).</p>
<p>Some 20 years later, the Emperor Nero “made his parties last from midday to midnight,” Suetonius writes (Life of Nero, 27). <a href="https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/suetone/neron.htm">All the senses needed to be sated</a> in the course of these long feasts. They were symphonies of food, music and pliant bodies – to look at or to ravish – while slaves made flowers rain down from the ceiling and filled the air with perfume.</p>
<p>During a feast of the Emperor Elagabal in around AD 220, guests were suffocated to death <a href="https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/histaug/heliogabale.htm">“and</a> <a href="https://remacle.org/bloodwolf/historiens/histaug/heliogabale.htm">were unable to break free”</a> if one believes the author of the <em>Historia Augusta</em> (<em>Life of Antoninus Heliogabalus</em>).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540479/original/file-20230801-19-24vmqh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540479/original/file-20230801-19-24vmqh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540479/original/file-20230801-19-24vmqh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540479/original/file-20230801-19-24vmqh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540479/original/file-20230801-19-24vmqh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540479/original/file-20230801-19-24vmqh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540479/original/file-20230801-19-24vmqh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Banquet scene, fresco from Pompeii, 1st century AD.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But these decadent banquets were no more commonplace during the Roman Empire than they are <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/series-d-ete/article/2020/08/12/sexe-et-pouvoir-le-cafardeux-rite-bunga-bunga-de-silvio-berlusconi_6048738_3451060.html">today</a>. There’s no doubt about the meaning of these descriptions of orgies by ancient authors. There’s always a moral purpose: <a href="https://theconversation.com/manger-boire-et-vomir-dans-la-rome-antique-153913">condemn “debauchery”</a>, in the name of moderation and temperance.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540480/original/file-20230801-28-39bhir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540480/original/file-20230801-28-39bhir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540480/original/file-20230801-28-39bhir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540480/original/file-20230801-28-39bhir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540480/original/file-20230801-28-39bhir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540480/original/file-20230801-28-39bhir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540480/original/file-20230801-28-39bhir.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Banquet in Nero’s Palace. Illustration by Ulpiano Checa from Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel <em>Quo Vadis?</em> around 1910.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_vadis_%3F_(roman)#/media/Fichier:Banquet_in_Nero's_palace_-_Ulpiano_Checa_y_Sanz.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Christian denunication</h2>
<p>The Christianisation of the Roman Empire only reinforced this moral perspective. There’s a good example in <a href="http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/14-6/S_DETAC7.html">St. Augustine</a>’s work (16th Sermon, on the beheading of John the Baptist).</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540482/original/file-20230801-20-8nj6bw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540482/original/file-20230801-20-8nj6bw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540482/original/file-20230801-20-8nj6bw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540482/original/file-20230801-20-8nj6bw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540482/original/file-20230801-20-8nj6bw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540482/original/file-20230801-20-8nj6bw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540482/original/file-20230801-20-8nj6bw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poster for the film <em>Babylon</em>, Damien Chazelle, 2022.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The portrayal of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee’s banquet, with food piled high, underlines the gluttony of the guests. Augustine adds a depravity which is entirely Satan’s work. Herod asks <a href="https://theconversation.com/salome-itineraire-dune-jeune-fille-impudique-155245">his great-niece Salome to dance for him</a>. The baleful young woman, after revealing her breasts in the course of her frenetic dancing, demands in return for her favour the head of John the Baptist, served on a platter.</p>
<h2>From Rome to Babylon</h2>
<p>Breaking with classical texts, Damien Chazelle’s film Babylon confronts the viewer with <a href="https://madame.lefigaro.fr/celebrites/cinema/grandeur-decadence-orgies-et-magie-babylone-ou-la-declaration-d-amour-grandiose-de-damien-chazelle-au-cinema-20230116">a huge orgy scene</a> without casting clear moral judgement over it.</p>
<p>That’s perhaps one reason that reactions have been strongly polarised, between detractors calling it an outrageous film, and admirers hailing <a href="https://www.marianne.net/culture/cinema/babylon-de-damien-chazelle-un-miracle-a-hollywood">a miraculous “visual orgy”</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Translation from French to English by <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshNeicho">Joshua Neicho</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian-Georges Schwentzel ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Following a number of films featuring debauched emperors, it is nowadays commonplace to associate the Greek-Roman antiquity with orgies. But is this historically accurate?Christian-Georges Schwentzel, Professeur d'histoire ancienne, Université de LorraineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047512023-07-04T20:07:54Z2023-07-04T20:07:54Z‘I gave birth but did not bring a child to life’: for millenia, women expressed their pain through a belief in demonic, female monsters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534238/original/file-20230627-15-7mwt03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C32%2C2643%2C2680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An incantation bowl with an Aramaic inscription around a demon from Nippur, Mesopotamia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sarah Clegg’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75367019-woman-s-lore">Woman’s Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi</a> is about ancient demonic figures, expressly the infamous child-killing monsters of the Near East and Mediterranean. Intimately tied to childbirth and infant and child mortality, such monsters were female in form. </p>
<p>Often, they were negatively connected to female sexuality. Chronicled over centuries, monsters such as the Mesopotamian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lamashtu">Lamashtu</a>, the Greek <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Ther/Lamia.html">Lamia</a>, and the Hebrew (and Mesopotamian) <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lilith">Lilith</a> are, in Clegg’s thesis, a significant part of women’s lore, “a tradition kept alive by women, that tells the story of women’s lives, from 2000 BC to the present day”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Woman’s Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi – Sarah Clegg (Bloomsbury)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Clegg begins with Lamashtu. Born of divine parents but quickly disowned because of her inherently evil nature, Lamashtu was the subject of curses written on clay tablets designed to drive her away from vulnerable mothers and children.</p>
<p>Included in the spells are some spectacularly graphic descriptions of her, such as the excerpt below, which comes from one of the oldest extant incantations (c. 1800 BCE):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She has hardly any palms but very long fingers <br> </p>
<p>And very long claws.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amulet with a Lamashtu demon ca. early 1st millennium BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Met, Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The spell describes her as having the face of a dog, and as slithering along “like a snake”. This physiognomy made Lamashtu perfectly designed to wreak havoc on her intended victims; her long fingers and claws were used to tear at babies’ stomachs to generate infection and to reach into mothers’ wombs and cause premature birth and miscarriage. </p>
<p>Belief in this figure of abjection and fear extended beyond Mesopotamia and there was a robust trade in amulets made of diverse materials, reflecting a belief in Lamashtu across different socio-economic groups. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A plaque used for protection against Lamashtu. Neo-Assyrian, 10th-7th century BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">World History Encyclopedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lamashtu’s body was subject to change, depending on the source. <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/32627001">Clegg includes an amulet</a>, from 800–500 BCE, which depicts her with the head of a lion (a traditionally male symbol in Mesopotamian culture), clutching snakes and suckling animals. </p>
<p>She has bird talons for feet and stands atop a donkey (this donkey, it was hoped, would carry Lamashtu to the Netherworld and away from her victims). </p>
<p>Her embodiment as the antithesis of the archetypal mother is evident in her suckling animals, a dog and a pig, in a parody of the maternal figure who nurtures human babies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-enheduanna-princess-priestess-and-the-worlds-first-known-author-109185">Hidden women of history: Enheduanna, princess, priestess and the world's first known author</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Beauties and demons</h2>
<p>The ancient Greeks and Romans had their own equivalent to Lamashtu: Lamia, “a direct descendent of the Mesopotamian child-and mother-killing demon” (Clegg notes the etymological connection between the names Lamashtu and Lamia).</p>
<p>Lamia was also a seducer of young men – a skill she managed by concealing her monstrously snaky lower body parts. She also ate babies and children and, like other Mediterranean monsters, such as <a href="https://www.ancientgreecereloaded.com/files/ancient_greece_reloaded_website/legendary_monsters/mormo.php">Mormo</a> and <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Phasma/Empousai.html">Empousa</a>, was a shapeshifter. </p>
<p>Mythologies surrounding the origins of Lamia are redolent with themes of female loss and pain. In one version of how Lamia came into being, Durius of Samos, writing in the third century BCE, explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lamia was a beautiful woman in Libya. Zeus had sex with her. Because of Hera’s envy towards her she destroyed the children she bore. Consequently she became misshapen through grief, snatched other people’s children and killed them.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lamia, oil on canvas by John William Waterhouse, 1909, based on the Keats poem Lamia from 1820.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While other accounts have Lamia as a fearsome and destructive monster from the start, Durius’ story highlights the vulnerability of women as subject to rape and subsequent punishment. Such plot lines are common in Greek and Roman myths, pointing to the casualisation of rape in certain socio-political circumstances. </p>
<p>Clegg’s first two chapters on these creatures examine women’s lore through the monstrous feminine. And, along the way, her book provides a host of related cultural history on magic, ritual, and ghost traditions, offering a series of poignant insights into women’s lives in these ancient societies. An excerpt from an incantation against Lamashtu composed for a woman to recite, reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was pregnant, but unable to bring my child to term; I gave birth but did not bring a child to life. May a woman who can grant success release me […] may I have a straightforward pregnancy […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Herein is the pain of a woman who did not carry her baby to term, the grief of still birth, and the desperation to bear a healthy child. </p>
<p>Such insights into women’s lived experiences are also evident in the category of demons called the Lilitus, whom, Mespotamians believed were “the spirits of young girls who had died still virgins, before marriage and before children”. </p>
<p>Robbed of a future, the Lilitus were forever seeking to fulfil sexual initiation or male contact, driving them to visit sleeping men. These visits were the Mesopotamian aetiology for wet dreams and night discharge. Clegg regards Lilitus as more to be pitied than hated, citing an incantation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She [a Lilitu] is a woman who has never seen a city feast, nor ever raises her eyes, who never rejoiced with the other girls, who was snatched away from her spouse, who had no spouse, nor bore a son.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-ovids-metamorphoses-and-reading-rape-65316">Guide to the classics: Ovid's Metamorphoses and reading rape</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Feisty Lilith</h2>
<p>Clegg’s book is divided into nine chapters, each covering a specific culture and demon or selection of demons (with some, such as Lilith, the first wife of Adam in Jewish folklore, occupying several chapters). There is also a useful timeline for readers without detailed knowledge of the chronology and a fascinating epilogue on contemporary remnants of these beliefs. </p>
<p>Judaic Lilith, like her sister-demons, has an aetiology that helps us understand her, albeit with a sense of fear or anxiety. As Clegg discusses, Lilith – as a prototypical feminist of sorts – flees the Garden of Eden when her husband denies her equality (in short: he refuses to let her “on top” during sex). </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lady Lilith, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1886.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She wreaks her revenge by hanging outside the walls of Eden, attacking pregnant women and children, and – no surprise – seducing men. </p>
<p>This manifestation of Lilith, its first extant documentation appearing in the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/alphabet-of-ben-sira">Alphabet of Ben Sira</a> (c. ninth or 10th century CE), intricately associates her with Eve as a kind of oppositional paradigm. While the feisty Lilith refuses to submit to patriarchy, a submissive Eve accepts the order of things. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/spirituality/what-kabbalah">Kabbalistic</a> tradition as it developed in the early modern era (c. 13th century) as illustrated in <a href="http://jewishchristianlit.com/Topics/Lilith/jacob_ha_kohen.html">The Treatise on the Left Emanation</a>, Lilith is permitted to justify her protest:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I cannot return because of what is said in the Torah – ‘Her former husband who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled,’ that is, when he was not the last to sleep with her. And the Great Demon has already slept with me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Herein, Lilith is given a voice and tells us that she did not, in fact, flee but was sent away by Adam. Additionally, once banished, a woman can never return. But, then again, who can trust the words of a demon?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adam clutches a child in the presence of the child-snatcher Lilith. Fresco by Filippino Lippi, basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Enduring spells</h2>
<p>Clegg also discusses the ancient Greek demon, <a href="https://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Mythology/en/Gello.html">Gello</a> who is, like the Lilitus, “a jealous ghost who murdered children and young women”. Traditionally associated with old wives’ tales – nursery stories to frighten and thereby control naughty children – Gello was the ghost of a young virgin who had died before fulfilling her social role of wife and mother. As a cultural signifier, Clegg explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gello, then, was a prematurely dead girl causing the premature deaths of other girls; a hideous, warped form of reproduction, whereby instead of having the children she so wanted, Gello turned other hopeful young girls into thwarted, jealous monsters like herself.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/byzantine-empire">Byzantine era</a>, however, scepticism grew as to the existence of such beings. Church law, writes Clegg, insisted that these monsters were “a deception of the devil, and not to be believed”. Nevertheless, Clegg notes, these traditions continued, often among women, who continued to believe in the effectiveness of magic for protection against such forces. </p>
<p>Like the curse tablets designed to drive away Lamashtu and the amulets made to protect individuals from her, there were also <a href="https://thegemara.com/article/naming-demons-the-aramaic-incantation-bowls-and-gittin/">demon (or incantation) bowls</a>, used in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria from the sixth to the eighth centuries CE. These earthenware bowls were inscribed with spells (mostly in Jewish-Aramaic) and magical images, such as crudely drawn pictures of the target of the spell, including Lilith. </p>
<p>They were designed to entice and then trap evil forces, and thus rid the bowl’s owner of danger, especially disease. </p>
<p>While magic was largely practised by men throughout the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean, Clegg includes several examples of women inscribing their own demon bowls.</p>
<p>For example, there is a cache of bowls written by the same woman, Giyonay (otherwise unknown). Giyonay writes one bowl spell to drive Lilith away from her husband and herself and others to protect members of her family. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demon bowl.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Museum no. BM 135563</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Melusine and contemporary incarnations</h2>
<p>Clegg also examines mermaids, particularly in Medieval traditions, tracking their connections to earlier demons, such as the Lamia who, as Clegg notes, were believed to swim the waters of the Greek islands until the 1980s. </p>
<p>We also meet Melusine, a beautiful, serpentine female from Europe (particularly France, Luxembourg, and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/summary/Low-Countries">Low Countries</a>). Clegg suggests that she is also a successor to Mediterranean and Eastern demons, including Byzantine fantasies of Gello possessing a snake-tail. She is, however, more akin to the fairy or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy">fae</a> creatures of Europe and Britain (which Clegg does concede).</p>
<p>Melusine’s backstory reads like a classic fairy tale, complete with feminine deception and a narrative taboo. Told by <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/miniature-of-an-aristocratic-marriage-from-jean-darrass-roman-de-melusine">Jean d’Arras</a> in <em>Roman de Mélusine</em> (The Story of Melusine) in the 14th century, it chronicles Melusine’s marriage to the mortal, Raymond. Like most marriages between mortals and non-mortals, Melusine and Raymond’s union ends in tears. While the couple are initially happy, their marital bliss ends when Raymond breaks the one taboo that Melusine insists on: not to enter her chambers on a Saturday.</p>
<p>The act, which reveals Melusine in her true form as she enjoys a bath, sets in chain a series of disasters, culminating in Raymond cursing her – at which point she transforms into a dragon and flies away forever. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Melusine’s secret discovered, illustration from folio 19 of the illuminated manuscript of The Romance of Melusine by Jean d'Arras, 15th century.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Melusine may be a monster, Clegg points out the positive aspects of her, including the cultural capital she brings to the mortal family tied to her. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A child or a descendent of these fairy marriages was viewed as something to be proud of: a sign of greatness much like being a child or descendent of a god in ancient Greece or Rome. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Additionally, Melusine builds, albeit by magic, some pretty impressive infrastructure for her husband, including – or so the story goes – the very real, <a href="https://www.frenchchateau.net/chateaux-of-poitou-charentes/chateau-de-lusignan.html">Château de Lusignan</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Clegg’s final chapters deal with later receptions of these terrifying, seductive, bewitching, destructive and ultimately intriguing female monsters. </p>
<p>In chapter nine the reader meets some of these creatures in contemporary guises. Herein, Lilith dominates. We meet her as a symbol of second wave feminism through to the latest manifestations of the same and also an icon of modern spiritual worship. We read of the origins of the Australian feminist research journal, <a href="http://www.auswhn.org.au/lilith/">Lilith</a>, and the appropriation of the demon by <a href="https://www.octaviabutler.com/">Octavia E. Butler</a> in her <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/LilithsBrood">Lilith’s Brood</a> trilogy.</p>
<p>Clegg also includes a revisioning of the tricksy Melusine, transformed in Serge Ecker’s 2013 statue, erected in Luxembourg for the city’s 1050th anniversary.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A modern statue of Melusine by Serge Ecker in Luxembourg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">World History Encyclopedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Clegg rightly observes, these ancient figures: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>have proven enormously adaptable to women’s causes – symbolizing everything from the need to leave home and husband to find equality to sexual freedom and LGBTQ rights.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From snake-like creatures with claws to jealous virgin ghosts, female monsters have long been a part of women’s lore. Such figures were Intimately tied to childbirth, sexuality and child mortality.Marguerite Johnson, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2080422023-06-20T16:11:19Z2023-06-20T16:11:19ZHow the ancient Greeks kept ruthless narcissists from capturing their democracy – and what modern politics could learn from them<p>Ancient Greece was in many ways a brutal society. It was almost perpetually at war, slavery was routine and women could only expect a low status in society. </p>
<p>However, there is one important sense in which ancient Greeks were more advanced than modern European societies: their sophisticated political systems. The citizens of ancient Athens developed a political system that was more genuinely democratic than the present day UK or US. </p>
<p>Our modern concept of democracy is actually a degradation of the original Greek concept and has very little in common with it. Modern democracy is merely representative, meaning that we elect officials to make decisions on our behalf, who become members of legislative bodies like the British parliament or the US Congress.</p>
<p>The ancient Greeks practised direct democracy. It literally was “<a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/power-to-the-people">people power</a>”. And they took measures specifically to ensure that ruthless, narcissistic people were unable to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-athenians-voted-kick-politicians-out-if-enough-people-didnt-them-180976138/">dominate politics</a>. </p>
<p>Recent political events show that we have a great deal to learn from the Athenians. Arguably, a key problem in modern times is that we aren’t stringent enough about the people we allow to become politicians. </p>
<p>There’s a great deal of research showing that people with negative personality traits, such as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797613491970">narcissism</a>, ruthlessness, amorality or <a href="https://www.redpillpress.com/shop/political-ponerology-expanded/">a lack of empathy and conscience</a>, are attracted to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1002/per.1893">high-status roles</a>, including politics.</p>
<p>In a representative democracy, therefore, the people who put themselves forward as representatives include a sizeable proportion of people with disordered personalities – people who crave power because of their malevolent traits. </p>
<p>And the most disordered and malevolent personalities –the most ruthless and amoral – tend to rise to the highest positions in any political party, and in any government. This is the phenomenon of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-darkness-of-boris-johnson-a-psychologist-on-the-prime-ministers-unpalatable-personality-traits-177662">“pathocracy”</a>, which I discuss at length in my new book <a href="https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/iff-books/our-books/disconnected-roots-human-cruelty-connection-heal-world">DisConnected</a>.</p>
<p>Numerous American mental health professionals have <a href="https://www.change.org/p/trump-is-mentally-ill-and-must-be-removed">argued</a> that Donald Trump has a serious personality disorder which made him unfit for the role of president. This included the president’s niece, Mary Trump – a qualified psychologist. </p>
<p>One of the key concerns was his apparent failure to take responsibility <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Too-Much-and-Never-Enough/Mary-L-Trump/9781471190162">for his actions or mistakes</a>. Under Trump, the US government effectively became a pathocracy.</p>
<p>In the UK, Boris Johnson has shown similar personality traits. The most recent example was his <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12179339/Boris-Johnsons-resignation-letter-quits-MP.html">petulant, narcissistic reaction</a> to the House of Commons report that found he had deliberately misled parliament on multiple occasions while in office. </p>
<p>Time and again, Johnson has arguably shown a self-deluded inability to admit to mistakes or take responsibility for his actions – along with traits of dishonesty and glibness – which are characteristic of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-darkness-of-boris-johnson-a-psychologist-on-the-prime-ministers-unpalatable-personality-traits-177662">“dark triad” personality</a>.</p>
<h2>Ancient democratic practices</h2>
<p>The ancient Athenians were very aware of the danger of unsuitable personalities attaining power. Their standard method of selecting political officials was <a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=107594">sortition</a> – random selection by lot. This was a way of ensuring that ordinary people were represented in government, and of safeguarding against corruption and bribery.</p>
<p>The Athenians were aware that this meant a risk of handing responsibility to incompetent people but mitigated the risk by ensuring that decisions were made by groups or boards. Different members of the group would take responsibility for different areas and would act as a check on each other’s behaviour.</p>
<p>Athenian democracy was direct in other ways too. Political decisions, such as whether to go to war, the election of military leaders or the nomination of magistrates, were made at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ecclesia-ancient-Greek-assembly">massive assemblies</a>, where thousands of citizens would gather. </p>
<p>A minimum of 6,000 citizens was required to pass any legislation. Citizens usually voted by showing hands – also sometimes with stones or pieces of broken pottery – and decisions were carried by simple majority. </p>
<p>The ancient Athenians also practised a system of ostracism, not dissimilar to some egalitarian <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X19301174">hunter-gatherer groups</a> (who were also aware of the danger of alpha males dominating the group). Ostracisms took place annually, when disruptive people who threatened democracy were nominated for expulsion. </p>
<p>If a sufficient number of citizens voted in favour, the disruptors would be banished from the city for ten years. In a sense, the decision to deny Johnson a former member’s parliamentary pass can be seen as a form of ostracism to protect against his corrupting influence. </p>
<h2>A return to direct democracy</h2>
<p>Sortition is still used in modern democracies, most notably in jury service, but these ancient democratic principles could be used much more widely to positive effect.</p>
<p>In fact, in recent years, many political thinkers have recommended reviving sortition in government. In 2014, Alexander Guerrero, professor of philosophy at Rutgers University, published an influential <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/papa.12029">paper</a> advocating what he called “lottocracy” as an alternative to representative democracy. </p>
<p>In this system, government is undertaken by “single-issue legislatures” assemblies that focus on specific issues such as agriculture or healthcare. Members of the legislatures are chosen by lot and make decisions after consulting experts on the relevant topic. </p>
<p>The political scientists <a href="https://politicalscience.yale.edu/people/h-l-ne-landemore">Hélène Landemore</a> has advocated a similar model in which assemblies of randomly selected citizens (ranging in size from a 150 to 1,000) make political decisions. </p>
<p>Landemore’s model of <a href="https://politicalscience.yale.edu/publications/open-democracy-reinventing-popular-rule-twenty-first-century">“open democracy</a>” also includes referendums and “crowd-sourced feedback loops” (when large numbers of people discuss policies on internet forums, and the feedback is passed to legislators). </p>
<p>In addition, the political philosopher John Burnheim has used the term <a href="https://www.imprint.co.uk/product/the-demarchy-manifesto/">demarchy</a> for a political system made of small randomly selected “citizen’s juries” who discuss and decide public policies. </p>
<p>Such measures would be a way of reducing the likelihood of people with personality disorders attaining power since they would make leadership positions less attractive to ruthless and amoral people. </p>
<p>Direct democracy means less individual power and more checks and limitations to individual authority. Governments and organisations become less hierarchical, more cooperative than competitive, based on partnership rather than power. </p>
<p>This means less opportunity for disordered people to satisfy their craving for dominance in the political sphere. We would then become free of pathocracy, and all of the chaos and suffering it causes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Those who seek power for the sake of power are less attracted to high office when more people get a say.Steve Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2044872023-06-06T12:27:40Z2023-06-06T12:27:40ZSportsmen in ancient Greece and Rome were celebrities who won grand prizes, toured and even unionised<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522780/original/file-20230425-24-hnja3e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1899%2C1250&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pollice Verso (With a Turned Thumb) by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1872).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Leon_Gerome_Pollice_Verso.jpg">Phoenix Art Museum</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Paid to play, travelling internationally and enjoying celebrity status: the lifestyle of a modern elite professional sportsperson, but also that of some <a href="https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/games-people-played">elite sportsmen in ancient Greece and Rome</a>.</p>
<p>Ancient Greeks lived in perhaps 1,000 autonomous communities stretching, in modern terms, from Spain in the west to Afghanistan in the east, from Ukraine in the north to Egypt in the south. Many of these settlements held regular festivals which combined religious celebration <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781118609965">with athletic events</a>, especially discus and javelin throwing, running, wrestling and chariot racing.</p>
<p>There were hundreds of festivals, sufficient for circuits to develop in which athletes could participate in local festivals as well as one of the more significant events, <a href="https://yalebooks.co.uk/page/detail/?k=9780300159073">such as those held at Olympia</a>. The athletes travelled to participate because they made money. There was no word for amateur in the Ancient Greek sporting lexicon and virtually <a href="https://escholarship.org/content/qt8kz2w130/qt8kz2w130_noSplash_3d677418edfea5c97925c757d8861a5e.pdf?t=mjyh8a">all elite performers were professionals</a>. </p>
<p>Some were full time athletes, but all competed for prizes. The victor in the footrace at the Panathenaic Games won 100 amphoras of olive oil, the sale of which could have bought half a dozen slaves.</p>
<p>Talented athletes were sponsored by civic benefactors and city authorities and the more successful – who brought renown to their city – gained public pensions after they retired from competitive sport.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522781/original/file-20230425-1269-hrryvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Greek vase depicting runners at the Panathenaic Games c. 530 BC. Vase is terracotta and the runners are black." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522781/original/file-20230425-1269-hrryvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522781/original/file-20230425-1269-hrryvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522781/original/file-20230425-1269-hrryvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522781/original/file-20230425-1269-hrryvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522781/original/file-20230425-1269-hrryvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522781/original/file-20230425-1269-hrryvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522781/original/file-20230425-1269-hrryvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greek vase depicting runners at the Panathenaic Games c. 530 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greek_vase_with_runners_at_the_panathenaic_games_530_bC.jpg">Matthias Kabel</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So keen were some cities to gain victories, that they persuaded star performers to change their citizenship. The most successful athletes (like <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/theagenes-thasos-legendary-olympic-fighter-god-healer-007386">Theagenes of Thasos</a> who allegedly won over 1,000 times) had odes commissioned and statues erected to commemorate their feats.</p>
<p>Winning athletes also “unionised”, forming an international association to defend their interests in regard to rights and rewards.</p>
<h2>Ancient chariot racers</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09523367.2020.1782385?journalCode=fhsp20">Roman chariot racing</a> was an organised international business, with charioteers drawn from across the empire. Horses were bred in private and imperial studs in Spain, Sicily, Thessaly, North Africa and Turkey.</p>
<p>By the fourth century, Rome itself held 63 race days a year, each with 24 races, often with crowds of over 100,000 spectators. Staging chariot races was the responsibility of four racing factions which were business entities from at least the first century BC.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522782/original/file-20230425-18-4s5b8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A modern painting of a chariot race showing horses racing on the track and kicking up dust." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522782/original/file-20230425-18-4s5b8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522782/original/file-20230425-18-4s5b8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522782/original/file-20230425-18-4s5b8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522782/original/file-20230425-18-4s5b8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522782/original/file-20230425-18-4s5b8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522782/original/file-20230425-18-4s5b8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522782/original/file-20230425-18-4s5b8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chariot race by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1876).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean_Léon_Gérôme_-_Chariot_Race_-_1983.380_-_Art_Institute_of_Chicago.jpg">Art Institute of Chicago</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Initially the faction managers were private entrepreneurs, but from the late third century, they were run by professional managers. Promoters of a race meeting would provide substantial prize money and pay the factions for supplying entries and drivers.</p>
<p>Charioteers received fees and – even for those who were slaves – a percentage of any prize money. At the extreme end of the earnings spectrum was Spanish charioteer, <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/secret-base/22228648/gaius-appuleius-diocles-richest-ever-athlete">Gaius Appuleius Diocles</a>, who won 1,462 of his 4,257 races over a 24-year career. Like some star Greek athletes, he went where the money was and over his career raced for all four factions. Others ventured out of Rome to race at the dozens of circuses throughout the empire.</p>
<h2>Ancient Roman gladiators</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30038038">Roman gladiators</a> were highly trained, skilled, professional sportsmen, though generally, they were not free citizens, but condemned criminals, prisoners of war, or slaves. Their career structure was based on a ranking system. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522784/original/file-20230425-3279-ym7ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Roman mosaic showing a gladiator in a silver shiny helmet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522784/original/file-20230425-3279-ym7ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522784/original/file-20230425-3279-ym7ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522784/original/file-20230425-3279-ym7ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522784/original/file-20230425-3279-ym7ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522784/original/file-20230425-3279-ym7ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522784/original/file-20230425-3279-ym7ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522784/original/file-20230425-3279-ym7ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mosaic depicting a gladiator fight in the House of the Gladiators, Cyprus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kourion10.jpg">Peter D Klaus</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sportsmen used stage names and practised overt showmanship, gaining followers who identified them in gladiatorial graffiti. Gladiators belonged to establishments of fighters whose managers hired them out to promoters who organised combats. These promoters paid a hiring fee which was between 10% and 20% of the gladiator’s value, but had to pay the full cost if he was killed or seriously wounded.</p>
<p>As well as being housed and fed by the stable manager, win or lose all gladiators were entitled to 20% of their hiring fee and often obtained a share of prize money awarded. They could also receive presents from fans or gamblers.</p>
<p>At least 300 amphitheatres around the Mediterranean area hosted gladiatorial fights. Until the first century, these combats were usually small scale affairs but by the second century some of the contests involved hundreds of pairs of gladiators fighting over several days or even weeks.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-there-gladiators-in-roman-britain-an-expert-reviews-the-evidence-201352">Were there gladiators in Roman Britain? An expert reviews the evidence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Combats did not take the form of sacrifices or executions, but dramatic contests, usually lasting 10 to 15 minutes. They appealed to audiences in part because they were carefully thought out contests that demanded skill and training.</p>
<p>Death was always a possibility, but combat was controlled by referees. Fighters were able to submit and ask for mercy. As fatalities would prove expensive for promoters, fewer gladiators were killed than <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYNUOkqzcVA">“thumbs down” mythology</a> suggests.</p>
<p>A few exceptional characters fought over 50 times, though most top-ranked gladiators participated in less than 20 combats. For this latter group career earnings were less than two year’s wages for an unskilled worker, scant reward for risking life and limb, but sufficient perhaps to buy freedom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wray Vamplew is the author of Games People Played: A Global History of Sport, published by Reaktion Books. </span></em></p>Death was always a possibility, but gladiator combat was controlled by referees.Wray Vamplew, Emeritus Professor of Sport, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000682023-05-18T12:42:10Z2023-05-18T12:42:10Z‘Rhetoric’ doesn’t need to be such an ugly word – it has a lot to teach echo-chambered America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522678/original/file-20230424-28-b71nkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C9%2C2131%2C1385&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Rhetoric' has a bad rap – but some of the original rhetoricians' techniques can actually help foster productive conversations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/election-debate-royalty-free-illustration/1187192599?phrase=debate%20podium&adppopup=true">smartboy10/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Early on in my <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/profile/ryan-leack/">writing courses</a>, I ask students to define their sense of rhetoric. Responses range from “persuasion” to “manipulation,” but they tend to share a negative connotation. Little wonder: In America today, the word is often used to dismiss a political opponent. Whereas a Democrat may find a favorite candidate’s speech inspiring, a Republican might call it “mere rhetoric,” implying a lack of substance or even honesty.</p>
<p>But what is rhetoric, really? More importantly, what does rhetoric do? </p>
<p>Today, rhetoric is often associated with one-sided arguments that cater to a particular corner of an echo chamber. Writing something off as “rhetoric” is often a power play, more about putting down an opponent than really seeking truth. Yet the earliest sense of the word, from the first rhetoricians 2,500 years ago, may help us listen to, learn from and even see validity in other perspectives. </p>
<h2>The famous triad</h2>
<p>Do some digging on rhetoric and you’ll run into Aristotle, who literally <a href="https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/stasis/2017/honeycutt/aristotle/rhet1-2.html">wrote the book on rhetoric</a>. The Greek philosopher defined it as an ability to discern <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/">what would be persuasive to a particular audience</a> and move them toward some desired opinion or action.</p>
<p>In fact, if my students know anything about rhetoric’s roots, it’s <a href="https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/rhetorical_situation/aristotles_rhetorical_situation.html">Aristotle’s three rhetorical appeals</a>. Aristotle said that rhetoric could appeal to an audience in three main ways: through emotion, called pathos; through moral arguments or character, called ethos; and through logic or reason, called logos.</p>
<p>But Aristotle didn’t invent rhetoric himself. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-rhetoric/">His teacher Plato</a> probably coined the Greek term, which meant the “art of speaking,” and used it to describe the practices of an even older group of thinkers and orators: the Sophists.</p>
<h2>Wandering teachers</h2>
<p>The Sophists roamed Greek city-states some 70 years before Aristotle, teaching effective communication skills and sometimes antagonizing people along the way. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/protagoras/">Protagoras, the first Sophist</a>, was also the first person on record to have his writing burned by a public authority.</p>
<p>Although the Sophists’ teachings’ varied, they were alike in important ways, such as challenging the notion that timeless truth exists. What people can determine, they argued, is what is relatively better or worse.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522675/original/file-20230424-16-xq2wpo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A marble statue of a bearded man with curly hair in a toga-like garment." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522675/original/file-20230424-16-xq2wpo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522675/original/file-20230424-16-xq2wpo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522675/original/file-20230424-16-xq2wpo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522675/original/file-20230424-16-xq2wpo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522675/original/file-20230424-16-xq2wpo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1181&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522675/original/file-20230424-16-xq2wpo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1181&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522675/original/file-20230424-16-xq2wpo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1181&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of a Sophist teacher from the ancient Greek city of Smyrna, which is now the Turkish city of Izmir.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_a_sophist_%28a_teacher_of_philosophy_and_rhetoric%29,_from_Smyrna,_AD_193%E2%80%93211,_Izmir_Museum_of_History_and_Art,_Turkey_%2845300180414%29.jpg">Carole Raddato/Izmir Museum of History and Art/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both Plato and Aristotle condemned the Sophists, whom they viewed as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3810678">a threat to objective truth</a> and thus to philosophy itself. Platonists believed they could determine what was objectively right and wrong, good and evil, true and false.</p>
<p>Centuries later, modern scholars have reassessed the Sophists and pieced together <a href="https://hackettpublishing.com/philosophy/ancient-philosophy/the-older-sophists">fragments of their work</a>. The Sophists’ rhetorical practices acknowledge the diversity of cultural, moral and political values but avoid “anything goes” relativism. I’d argue that these qualities make their ideas particularly relevant for U.S. society today, which is divvied up into <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-problem-of-living-inside-echo-chambers-110486">ideological echo chambers</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Man is the measure’</h2>
<p>Protagoras is most remembered by one line: “Man is the measure of all things.” In other words, he claims that <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/protagoras/#ManMeasThes">human beings are the judges of values</a> and ideas, of what is to be believed and not to be believed.</p>
<p>But in my view, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/292215.pdf">the “man-measure doctrine</a>” does more than say “It’s all relative.” It can prompt people to reflect on what standards, or criteria, we should use to make decisions.</p>
<p>The Sophists’ interest in rhetoric – effective communication – was not abstract. <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/sophists/">They were teachers and “orators</a>,” arguing cases in Greek city-states’ courts and governments. They were concerned with practical action. Just as one uses a measuring stick as a criterion of length or width, Sophists used one’s sense of value to determine what constitutes a better or worse action.</p>
<p>Protagoras emphasized, however, that not all measures are equal; some are superior to others in any given situation. In a country where democracy is valued, for instance, certain policies objectively strengthen or weaken democratic action. But those same policies may not work well in differently organized countries. There is no one-size-fits-all measure: Values must be repeatedly defined, debated and implemented.</p>
<p>In the modern context, this doctrine may help avoid the “anything goes” dangers of relativism, but also the “my way or the highway” danger of moral certitude. The question for Protagoras is not necessarily “What is true?” but “What is best for the moment?”</p>
<h2>Doing 180s</h2>
<p>It’s not enough to choose a measure and defend it, though. To have a real conversation, people must discuss, compare and test competing values.</p>
<p>Here, too, the Sophists may be of help. The “Dissoi Logoi” is an anonymous work related to Protagoras’ methods, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805479.039">written around 400 B.C.E.</a>, whose title means “contrasting arguments.” This is an exercise in which a rhetoric teacher would ask students to outline one of their firmest convictions, then ask them to defend the opposing view.</p>
<p>This practice tests students to argue a view from all sides – challenging different ideas to arrive at the strongest conclusion. Using dissoi logoi in any setting is valuable for understanding someone else’s positions and commitments, whether one is persuaded or not.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522680/original/file-20230424-16-mwgdqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bone-colored carving of five men in toga-like garments, with one holding a tablet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522680/original/file-20230424-16-mwgdqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522680/original/file-20230424-16-mwgdqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522680/original/file-20230424-16-mwgdqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522680/original/file-20230424-16-mwgdqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522680/original/file-20230424-16-mwgdqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522680/original/file-20230424-16-mwgdqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522680/original/file-20230424-16-mwgdqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A relief from a sarcophagus portraying a rhetoric teacher with pupils.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/roman-civilization-4th-century-a-d-early-christian-news-photo/122319848?adppopup=true">Dea/A. Dagli Orti/De Agostini via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s ‘probably’ true</h2>
<p>Whereas philosophers of Plato’s time were searching for absolute truth, the Sophists often taught pupils to act on what is probably the case. Enter “eikos,” or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98482-3_3">probable reasoning</a>.</p>
<p>The Sophist Gorgias, for example, argues from probability in a famous case called <a href="https://scaife.perseus.org/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0593.1st1K002.1st1K-grc1:1-5/">the Defense of Palamedes</a>, a mythological figure. According to a common legend, Palamedes had been killed for treason. Gorgias was the first writer to challenge this assumption, illustrating that Palamedes’ guilt was improbable because of a lack of motive and an unlikely chain of events.</p>
<p>Today, almost 2,500 years later, probable reasoning is more significant than ever because of the sheer amount of rapid, often contradictory information that floods the world each day – not to mention methods for manipulating <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/increasing_threats_of_deepfake_identities_0.pdf">photos, videos, voices and the like</a>. What seems reasonable or true today may be cast into doubt tomorrow.</p>
<p>Moreover, our world is chock-full of mutually exclusive beliefs, from religion to politics. It may not be useful to argue about what is absolutely “true,” but the Sophists help shift our focus to evidence about <a href="https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823256389/sophistical-practice/">what “probably” is or is not the case</a>, enabling us to act amid complexity and confusion.</p>
<p>There is one certain fact: There is a diverse but perplexing variety of views on any given issue. Absolute truth may exceed our grasp, but a measure of humility and caution may make it possible to responsibly navigate uncertainty, and the ancient Sophists’ techniques provide ways to do so – but only if people discuss their differences in good faith.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Leack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ancient Greek philosophers despised the Sophists’ rhetoric because it searched for relative truth, not absolutes. But learning how to do that thoughtfully can help constructive debates.Ryan Leack, Lecturer of Writing & Rhetoric, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2044492023-05-08T19:32:15Z2023-05-08T19:32:15ZMothers’ lives in ancient Greece were not easy – but celebrations of their love have survived across the centuries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524694/original/file-20230505-17-vy1pdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C711%2C1017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An ancient Greek relief depicting a baby with its mother and grandmother. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ancient-greek-relief-depicting-a-baby-with-its-mother-and-news-photo/640271111?adppopup=true">David Lees/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a father of three and the husband of an amazing woman, I know that one day a year is far too little to recognize everything mothers do. But my work as <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=1be7ee967d45605afddf7da9ad4ca2c049a26c0b">a scholar of ancient Greek literature</a> has shown me how much harder it was to be a mother in antiquity. </p>
<p>The ancient Greeks may not have had the kind of Mother’s Day celebrated in the United States and United Kingdom today – holidays that began <a href="https://nationalwomenshistoryalliance.org/resources/commemorations/history-of-mothers-day/">at the turn of the 20th century</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/17343360">in the Middle Ages</a>, respectively. But they did have festivals to honor motherhood, focused primarily on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Daedala">the goddess Hera</a> or <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Phrygios/Kybele.html">the earth mother Cybele</a> – though more often than not, women did the lion’s share of the <a href="https://womeninantiquity.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/the-cults-of-hera/">labor for those events</a>. </p>
<p>The stories that remain of both real and mythical mothers let us know how important they were. Thanks in part to their connection to the life cycle, women in ancient Greece were both <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1085&context=classics_papers">symbols of mortality</a> and a force to humanize heroes.</p>
<h2>Historical lives</h2>
<p>What we know of women’s lives in ancient Greece is generally not good. According to the poet Hesiod, typically dated to around 700 B.C., it was thought good practice for women to be married off to older men “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+WD+695&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0132">four or five years after puberty</a>.” Philosophical and medical traditions of the time saw women as inferior and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Hippocrates-Woman-Reading-the-Female-Body-in-Ancient-Greece/King/p/book/9780415138956">defined by their ability to give birth</a>, even though the popular notion was that male semen contained <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/blame-it-on-aristotle-how-science-got-into-bed-with-sexism">everything needed for a baby</a>. </p>
<p>We have uncertain evidence for what lives were like after marriage. Some accounts estimate an average of <a href="https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1994/1994.12.02/">six births per woman</a>, and as many as 40% of infants <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4502068">may not have survived</a> to a marriageable age, though estimates of infant mortality vary. Most historians agree that child loss was common enough in antiquity to be an expectation rather than a surprise.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524236/original/file-20230503-19-e9d5rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A carved relief shows a standing man holding a swaddled infant, with a woman seated beside them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524236/original/file-20230503-19-e9d5rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524236/original/file-20230503-19-e9d5rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524236/original/file-20230503-19-e9d5rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524236/original/file-20230503-19-e9d5rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524236/original/file-20230503-19-e9d5rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524236/original/file-20230503-19-e9d5rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524236/original/file-20230503-19-e9d5rm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A marble tombstone dated 420 B.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/marble-tombstone-of-timarete-the-tombstone-depicts-the-news-photo/1314616517?adppopup=true">Photo12/Ann Ronan Picture Library/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Information about maternal mortality is equally obscure, though demographic data suggests that at times <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4502068">more than 30% of mothers died from complications related to childbirth</a>. But there is anecdotal evidence from funeral inscriptions gathered from all over antiquity’s Greek-speaking world. The 21-year-old Prakso, wife of Theocritus, <a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2022/06/25/another-casualty-of-childbirth-2/">died in labor</a> and left a 3-year-old behind. <a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2023/03/09/lost-to-childbirth-at-18-and-20-two-funerary-inscriptions-3/">Kainis died from prolonged childbirth</a> at 20, “just barely experienced in life.” Plauta also passed away at 20, <a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2021/03/11/gone-at-20-in-childbirth-mourned-evermore/">during her second birth</a> – but her fame “sings on, as deep as her dear husband’s endless grief,” according to her tombstone.</p>
<p>Classics students often learn that ancient Greek men did not usually spend much time with very young children, given the high rate of loss. Some ritual practices may have been responses to <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/79426554.pdf">the precariousness of early life</a>, such as holding a naming ceremony only on the 10th day after birth or officially registering the child as a member of the father’s family in municipal records during the first year.</p>
<p>As a parent, however, I am less convinced that high rates of loss led parents to be more distant. I suspect that the sense of uncertainty made children more precious to all family members and that those early years only tightened the bonds between mothers and children in particular.</p>
<h2>Women in stories</h2>
<p>When people think of the field I study, epic poetry, I suspect they generally think of violent male heroes and victimized women. While this image is certainly not wrong, it overlooks other ways that women, and mothers in particular, were crucial to the world of Greek poetry and myth. </p>
<p>Ancient Greece had a whole genre of catalog poetry – basically, lists of people and their stories in brief – dedicated to telling the stories of heroic families based <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Text/HesiodCatalogues.html">on brides and mothers</a>, which helped humanize heroes for their audiences.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524243/original/file-20230503-26-rgplib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A carved plaque shows a seated woman with her head in her hands surrounded by men." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524243/original/file-20230503-26-rgplib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524243/original/file-20230503-26-rgplib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524243/original/file-20230503-26-rgplib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524243/original/file-20230503-26-rgplib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524243/original/file-20230503-26-rgplib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524243/original/file-20230503-26-rgplib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524243/original/file-20230503-26-rgplib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A plaque from the 5th century B.C. shows Odysseus returning to Penelope, harassed by suitors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/terracotta-plaque-classical-ca-460-450-b-c-greek-melian-news-photo/1296614367?adppopup=true">Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In “The Odyssey,” for example, Odysseus taps into this tradition during a voyage to the underworld and tells the stories of all the heroic mothers he met among the dead – listing his own mother as one of the first. During his brief visit to speak with the dead, he <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D11%3Acard%3D180">learns that his mother, Anticleia</a>, died of a broken heart over his long absence. And throughout the epic, Odysseus spends much of his time struggling to get home to Penelope: his wife, but also a protective mother of their son, Telemachus. </p>
<p>In “The Iliad,” the powerful warrior Achilles’ mother, Thetis, is instrumental in appealing to Zeus on his behalf when Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D345%20%22%22">dishonors him</a>. Once the almost invincible fighter goes to face Hektor, Thetis laments his short life nearing its end. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524242/original/file-20230503-22-4eb1k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting shows a man in formal battle wear handing off a naked infant to a woman in a blue tunic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524242/original/file-20230503-22-4eb1k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524242/original/file-20230503-22-4eb1k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524242/original/file-20230503-22-4eb1k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524242/original/file-20230503-22-4eb1k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524242/original/file-20230503-22-4eb1k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524242/original/file-20230503-22-4eb1k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524242/original/file-20230503-22-4eb1k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A painting of Andromache intercepting Hektor before he goes off to battle, by Fernando Castelli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/andromache-intercepting-hector-at-the-scaean-gate-by-news-photo/150620659">A. De Luca/De Agostini via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout the stories of war and honor in “The Iliad,” mothers remind listeners of the real consequences of war. In one arresting moment, Hektor, the prince of Troy, waits to face Achilles and likely death. Hecuba, his mother, stands on the walls of the city and bares her breast to her son, begging him to <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+22.100&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134">remember the care he received from her</a> and to stay in the city to protect her. </p>
<p>But the one scene that has driven me to tears are the words of Hektor’s wife, Andromache, after she learns of her husband’s death. <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Il.+22.600&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134">She laments their son’s future suffering as an orphan</a>, denied a seat at other men’s tables, left to wander and beg. This moment was even more heart-wrenching for ancient audiences who knew the fate of their son, Astyanax: After Troy fell to the Greeks, he was hurled from the walls of the city. </p>
<p>Heroic mothers helped ancient Greeks define themselves and understand their place in the world, almost always to their own detriment. They remind listeners of the meaning of labor and sacrifice. </p>
<p>As a son, as well as a father, I know how complex family relationships can get. We generally see the modern world as being so very different from the past, but there is still little in human life as transformative as giving birth or raising a child.</p>
<p>Some words from ancient playwrights drive home how much remains the same. In one fragment, referred to as 685, <a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2015/06/03/three-sophoklean-fragments-on-parents-and-children/">Sophocles claims</a> that “children are the anchors of a mother’s life.” In a fragment of his own, 358, <a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2014/11/14/fragmentary-friday-euripides-confuses-himself-on-women/">Euripides writes</a>, “Love your mother, children, there’s no love anywhere that could be sweeter than this.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Greek epic poetry often uses mothers and wives to humanize its heroes, reminding listeners of the meaning of sacrifice.Joel Christensen, Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034512023-04-25T17:32:33Z2023-04-25T17:32:33ZFrom rags and pads to the sanitary apron: a brief history of period products<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522746/original/file-20230425-26-nzw4m7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=260%2C35%2C5721%2C3952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tampons-feminine-sanitary-pads-pattern-on-2185561705">Skrypnykov Dmytro/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Period blood: it’s not something many people want to talk about. Taboos around menstruation and menstrual blood have been around for centuries. Even today, despite menstrual blood being <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565646/">featured in contemporary art</a>, this basic part of many women’s identities still isn’t something that can be easily mentioned in public. </p>
<p>Menstruation is generally seen as something to be managed and contained – with period leaks considered <a href="https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a19938692/period-leaks-in-public/">a source of embarrassment</a>. This is despite <a href="https://periodpositive.com/">campaigns</a> aimed to help younger people feel more able to talk about menstruation. </p>
<p>For many women, the time of the month means relying on tampons, pads or a menstrual cup to collect the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279294/">two to three tablespoons of blood</a> that are lost over the four to five days of their period.</p>
<p>But a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/13/cloth-cow-dung-cups-how-the-worlds-women-manage-their-periods">2019 study</a> of how women around the world manage menstruation showed that many still use leaves, sheep’s wool, newspaper, grass or even cow dung, as an absorbent substance. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5y1_pgqTow8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>A <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/globally-periods-are-causing-girls-be-absent-school">2016 report from Unesco</a> found that 10% of young women in Africa did not attend school during their periods. Indeed, one way of avoiding leaks is simply not to go outside the home when menstruating, which is why menstruation still has important consequences for women’s education. </p>
<h2>Periods of the past</h2>
<p>It’s likely that <a href="https://www.getty.edu/news/education-periods-facts-women-medieval-history-past-before-pads-tampons/">women in the past</a> had fewer periods, with <a href="https://helloclue.com/articles/culture/what-was-it-like-to-get-your-period-in-ancient-greece">lighter bleeding</a>, not only because they spent more of their lives pregnant but also because their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/06/women-losing-their-periods-because-of-restrictive-diets-and-excessive-exercise">diet was poor</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522753/original/file-20230425-3095-mvgd9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Early period pad." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522753/original/file-20230425-3095-mvgd9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522753/original/file-20230425-3095-mvgd9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522753/original/file-20230425-3095-mvgd9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522753/original/file-20230425-3095-mvgd9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=221&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522753/original/file-20230425-3095-mvgd9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522753/original/file-20230425-3095-mvgd9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522753/original/file-20230425-3095-mvgd9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sanitary napkin from around 1942 – from military stocks for nurses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminine_hygiene#/media/File:Camelia_Popul%C3%A4r_sanitary_napkins_from_stocks_of_the_Wehrmacht_Third_Reich_with_acceptance_stamping_-_Intim_hygiene_supply_nurses_around_1942_-_content_10_pieces_per_pack_-_D.R._WZ_No._378543_and_386768_-_Image_002.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet medical texts going back to <a href="https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:937408/FULLTEXT01.pdf">ancient Greece</a> seem to propose that the ideal bleed should be heavy. This was due to the belief that menstruation happened because women’s bodies had a more spongy texture compared to men’s bodies, so their flesh absorbed more fluid from what they ate and drank. Blood that did not come out was even thought to <a href="https://diotima-doctafemina.org/translations/links-to-translations/the-illness-of-maidens/">cause mental illness</a>. </p>
<p>Medical texts up to the 19th century still reflected these ideas from ancient Greece, but there is evidence from early modern Europe that men were comfortable discussing menstruation. The 17th-century man of letters Samuel Pepys even mentioned his wife’s menstrual cycle <a href="http://earlymodernmedicine.com/review-menstruation-and-the-female-body/">in his diary</a>. </p>
<p>As for dealing with the bleeding, historian <a href="http://earlymodernmedicine.com/review-menstruation-and-the-female-body/">Sara Read</a> has concluded that at this time most women just bled on their clothes. Rags placed between the thighs or attached to clothing were also used. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522748/original/file-20230425-14-3hj3h.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sanitary belt shown in black and white." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522748/original/file-20230425-14-3hj3h.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522748/original/file-20230425-14-3hj3h.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522748/original/file-20230425-14-3hj3h.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522748/original/file-20230425-14-3hj3h.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522748/original/file-20230425-14-3hj3h.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522748/original/file-20230425-14-3hj3h.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522748/original/file-20230425-14-3hj3h.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early commercial menstrual product in the form of a menstrual belt. Illustration from 1911.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminine_hygiene">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was in the 19th century that the market for special menstrual clothing was developed: from belts and pads to the <a href="http://www.mum.org/sanapron.htm">“sanitary apron”</a> which was worn over the buttocks to stop leakage onto clothing when sitting down. Until disposable cotton pads were developed in the late 1890s, pads still needed to be washed out and dried (though reusable pads have recently made a comeback). </p>
<p>From the late 1960s, the use of a sticky strip meant that pads could be secured in the underwear rather than needing to be fixed to a special belt. </p>
<h2>Return to reuse</h2>
<p>Historian <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/399411/pdf">Lara Freidenfelds</a> has shown that in the US by the 20th century, menstruation was increasingly seen as a normal part of life – no longer requiring a few days of rest as was previously the case. And commercially produced products came to be valued as a status symbol.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522751/original/file-20230425-2394-ff4dto.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Diagram showing folded fabric." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522751/original/file-20230425-2394-ff4dto.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522751/original/file-20230425-2394-ff4dto.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1731&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522751/original/file-20230425-2394-ff4dto.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1731&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522751/original/file-20230425-2394-ff4dto.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1731&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522751/original/file-20230425-2394-ff4dto.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=2176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522751/original/file-20230425-2394-ff4dto.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=2176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522751/original/file-20230425-2394-ff4dto.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=2176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Instructions on how to fold a piece of fabric for a menstrual pad. At the bottom, how to fasten the pad with a cord to the waistband is demonstrated – from the German book The Woman as a family doctor, 1911.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminine_hygiene">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 1930s the <a href="http://www.mum.org/faxAd.htm">first tampons</a> came onto the market. They were described as “internal sanitary napkins”. Menstrual cups made from rubber also date back to the 1930s – although they have largely been replaced these days by silicone cups which come in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-menstrual-cup/">wide range of sizes</a>. The risk of leakage with a cup of the correct dimensions appears to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-menstrual-cup/">be lower</a> than with a pad or tampon. </p>
<p>Modern menstrual products damage the environment. Tampon applicators and wrappers are made of plastic and pads contain it too. There is also an increased awareness of the <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.122-A70">risks of chemicals</a>, such as dioxins, used in both tampons and pads. This has boosted the market for products containing natural materials. </p>
<p>Disposable or reusable menstrual discs are also available – basically, a round silicone disc that collects blood. And period pants, invented in 2017, are sold as <a href="https://www.modibodi.co.uk/pages/howitworks">“better for the planet”</a>. </p>
<p>Rather than marketing commercial products in the world’s poorest countries, charities such as <a href="https://www.actionaid.org.uk/our-work/period-poverty/reusable-sanitary-pads-and-sustainability">ActionAid</a> run training sessions on making your own pads. Women in wealthier countries have been <a href="https://www.actionaid.org.uk/blog/2019/06/05/would-you-make-and-wear-your-own-reusable-sanitary-pads?gclid=Cj0KCQjwuLShBhC_ARIsAFod4fJvB_9i5cFjtYAvqacKtiWwfevD7n4TRyl4XGdWfgAIeE9fzkpK7e0aAqWBEALw_wcB">surprised</a> at how comfortable these are to wear. </p>
<p>Today’s promotion of reusable pads or period pants is a return to a past way of dealing with menstruation – though it’s clearly now much easier for most women to wash and dry these items. </p>
<p>Their use suggests our attitude to menstrual blood may be shifting. Indeed, seeing menstrual products as “waste” that needs to be hidden and disposed of “hygienically” doesn’t go with the idea of washing out your pads and hanging them up to dry on the line.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Breaking the taboo: the fascinating history of menstrual products.Helen King, Professor Emerita, Classical Studies, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2026962023-04-25T12:28:22Z2023-04-25T12:28:22ZWhat Socrates’ ‘know nothing’ wisdom can teach a polarized America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521089/original/file-20230414-24-tyvncl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C9%2C2082%2C1400&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The most important part of knowledge, in Socrates' view? Knowing how much you don't know.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/socrates-statue-royalty-free-image/521822255?phrase=socrates&adppopup=true">Yoeml/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A common complaint in America today is that politics and even society as a whole <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/american-system-broken/616991/">are broken</a>. Critics point out endless lists of what should be fixed: the complexity of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-need-rewrite-tax-code-scratch">the tax code</a>, or <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/immigration/calling-on-congress-fix-americas-broken-immigration-system">immigration reform</a>, or the inefficiency of government.</p>
<p>But each dilemma usually comes down to polarized deadlock between two competing visions and everyone’s conviction that theirs is the right one. Perhaps this white-knuckled insistence on being right is the root cause of the societal fissure – why everything seems so irreparably wrong.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/rs/faculty/jt27">religion</a> and <a href="https://www.uml.edu/fahss/philosophy/faculty/kaag-john.aspx">philosophy</a> scholars, we would argue that our apparent national impasse points to a lack of “epistemic humility,” or intellectual humility – that is, an inability to acknowledge, empathize with and ultimately compromise with opinions and perspectives different from one’s own. In other words, Americans have stopped listening.</p>
<p>So why is intellectual humility in such scarce supply? Of course, the quickest answer might be the right one: that humility runs against most people’s <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-be-wrong/id1603230204">fear of being mistaken</a>, and the zero-sum view that being right means someone else has to be totally wrong. </p>
<p>But we think that the problem is more complex and perhaps more interesting. We believe <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wisdom/">epistemic humility</a> presents something of a twofold danger that makes being humble frightening – and has, ever since Socrates first put it at the heart of Western philosophy.</p>
<h2>Knowing you don’t know</h2>
<p>If your best friend told you that you were the wisest of all human beings, perhaps you would be inclined to smile in agreement and take the dear friend for a beer. But when the ancient Athenian Socrates was delivered this news, he responded with sincere and utter disbelief – even though his friend had confirmed it with the <a href="https://historycooperative.org/the-oracle-of-delphi/">Delphic oracle</a>, the fortune-telling authority of the ancient world. </p>
<p>This nascent humility – “No, get out of here, I’m definitely not the wisest” – helped spark what became arguably <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/">the greatest philosophical life of all time</a>. Despite relative old age, Socrates immediately embarked on a journey to find someone wiser than himself and spent many days seeking out the sages of the ancient world, a quest Plato recounts in his “<a href="https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/plato-the-apology-of-socrates-sb/">Apology of Socrates</a>.”</p>
<p>The problem? He discovered that the sages thought they knew more than they actually did. Eventually, Socrates concluded that he himself was, in fact, the wisest of all men, because at least he “knew that he didn’t know.”</p>
<p>This is not to say that Socrates knew nothing: He demonstrates time and again that he knows a lot and routinely demonstrated good judgment. Rather, he acknowledged there were definite limitations to the knowledge he could claim. </p>
<p>This is the birth of “epistemic humility” in Western philosophy: the acknowledgment that one’s blind spots and shortcomings are an invitation for ongoing intellectual investigation and growth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521090/original/file-20230414-16-lfypqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A coffee mug, pencils, pen and cookies next to a note reading 'The only thing I know is that I know nothing – Socrates.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521090/original/file-20230414-16-lfypqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521090/original/file-20230414-16-lfypqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521090/original/file-20230414-16-lfypqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521090/original/file-20230414-16-lfypqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521090/original/file-20230414-16-lfypqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521090/original/file-20230414-16-lfypqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521090/original/file-20230414-16-lfypqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reminder to self: Keep it humble.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-only-thing-i-know-is-that-i-know-nothing-quote-royalty-free-image/1289867552?phrase=socrates&adppopup=true">tumsasedgars/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Provoking the powerful</h2>
<p>But this mindset can feel dangerous to other people – especially if they feel absolutely certain in their convictions.</p>
<p>In ancient Athens, as much as in the U.S. today, being perceived as right translated into money and power. The city-state’s culture was dominated by the Sophists, who taught rhetoric to nobles and politicians, and the Poets, ancient playwrights. Greek theater and epic poetry <a href="https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/greece/gr1180e.html">were closely related to religion</a>, and their creators were treated as <a href="https://www.vast-project.eu/theatre/">mouthpieces for aesthetic and moral</a> truth.</p>
<p>What’s more, theater and poetry were also major moneymakers, which motivated artists to adopt a mentality of “fail fast, fail better,” with an eye to eventually proving correct and getting paid.</p>
<p>By critically interrogating the idols and polarized views of his culture, Socrates threatened the power holders of his city. A constantly questioning figure is a direct threat to individuals who spend their lives defending unquestioned belief – whether it’s belief in themselves, their superiors or their gods.</p>
<p>Take Euthyphro, for example, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1642/1642-h/1642-h.htm">one of Socrates’ principal interlocutors</a>. Euthyphro is so sure that he knows the difference between right and wrong that he is bringing his own father to trial. Socrates quickly disabuses him of his certainty, famously debating him about the true meaning of piety.</p>
<p>Or take Meletus, the man who eventually <a href="http://www.historyshistories.com/the-trial-of-socrates.html">brought Socrates to trial</a> on accusations of corrupting youth. In Plato’s account of the trial, it takes Socrates no time to show this “good patriot,” as Meletus calls himself, that he does not understand what patriotism truly means. Without any pretensions to knowing the absolute truth, Socrates is able to shed light on the underlying assumptions around him.</p>
<p>It’s frustrating to read <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plato/index.htm">the Platonic dialogues</a>, the works of philosophy that recount Socrates’ life and teaching, in part because Socrates rarely claims the final word on any subject. In short, he gives more questions than answers. But what remains constant is his openness to uncertainty that keeps his inquiry on the move, pushing his inquiries further and deeper.</p>
<h2>Paying the price</h2>
<p>The second danger of epistemic humility is now probably in view. It’s the danger that Socrates faced when he was brought to trial for corrupting Athens’ youth – the danger to the humble skeptics themselves.</p>
<p>He is brought up on <a href="http://www.historyshistories.com/the-trial-of-socrates.html">two very serious charges</a>. The first was an accusation that he taught students to make the weaker argument appear to be the stronger – which is actually what the Sophists did, not Socrates. The second was that he had invented new gods – again, he didn’t do that; poets and playwrights did.</p>
<p>What was he really guilty of? Perhaps only this: Socrates criticized the arrogant self-assertion of his culture’s influencers, and they brought him to trial, which concluded in his death sentence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521091/original/file-20230414-24-tna6by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Vibrant red and purple flowers behind a statue of a slumped-over man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521091/original/file-20230414-24-tna6by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521091/original/file-20230414-24-tna6by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521091/original/file-20230414-24-tna6by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521091/original/file-20230414-24-tna6by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521091/original/file-20230414-24-tna6by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521091/original/file-20230414-24-tna6by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521091/original/file-20230414-24-tna6by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">He asked the big questions, and he paid a price.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/sokrates-statue-in-the-parco-civico-of-lugano-royalty-free-image/519981918?phrase=socrates%20dying&adppopup=true">Roland Gerth/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Socrates taught that <a href="https://philosophynow.org/issues/53/Socratic_Humility">being humble about one’s own views</a> was a necessary step in searching for truth – perhaps the most essential one. That was and perhaps still is a revolutionary view, because it forces us to challenge preconceived ideas about what we believe, what we worship and where we tap meaning. He placed himself in the middle of Athenians’ sharply polarized debates about what truth and goodness were, and he was the one who got hit.</p>
<p>“Humility like darkness,” wrote American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Walden/49qWhJ0gjZQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Humility+like+darkness+Thoreau&pg=PA346&printsec=frontcover">reveals the heavenly lights</a>.” Put another way, humility about the verity, accuracy and wisdom of one’s ideas can reveal the fact that others have understandable reasons for thinking as they do — as long as you try to see the world as they are seeing it. In contrast, arrogance tends to extinguish the “heavenly light” about what we still don’t fully understand. </p>
<p>Being humble about one’s position in the world is not an invitation for a post-truth, anything-goes opinion free-for-all. Truth – the idea of truth – matters. And we can pursue it together, if we are always open to being wrong.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article was produced with support from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and the John Templeton Foundation as part of the GGSC's initiative on Expanding Awareness of the Science of Intellectual Humility.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>J. W. Traphagan and John J. Kaag do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointments.</span></em></p>Athens was deeply polarized over big-picture questions, and Socrates was never hesitant to question both sides’ assumptions – or his own.J. W. Traphagan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, The University of Texas at AustinJohn J. Kaag, Professor of Philosophy, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2003772023-03-08T11:37:06Z2023-03-08T11:37:06ZDid clitorises strike fear into the Greeks and Romans?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513926/original/file-20230307-18-8tmo8x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C555%2C372&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mosaic in the entrance to the caldarium of the House of Menander, Pompei, 1st century A.D.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Pompeii_-_House_of_Menander_-_Caldarium_-_Mosaic_1.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If an anatomical description of the clitoris only appeared in some French school text books as recently as 2017, that’s because the seat of female pleasure, known by this name since at least 1559, was deeply taboo for so long.</p>
<p>Through history, anything pertaining to female arousal has often been erased, or regarded as dangerous or obscene – and Antiquity was no exception on this front.</p>
<p>In the TV series <em>Rome</em>(2005-7), legioniary Titus Pullo gives some advice to centurian Lucius Vorenus, who wants to give pleasure to his wife Niobe.</p>
<p>“Tell her she looks beautiful, all the time, even when she doesn’t,” Pullo says.</p>
<p>“Anything else?” Vorenus asks.</p>
<p>“Yes,” says Pullo. “When you make love to her, touch the button between her thighs and she’ll open up like a flower”</p>
<p>“How do you know Niobe has this button?” asks Vorenus.</p>
<p>“Every woman has one”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zMV-GdAeBpU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The scene parodies <em>The Art of Love</em>, the erotic masterpiece by Roman poet Ovid which is set out as a seduction guide. In the first part, the author offers his tips to men who want to conquer a woman – sweet affectionate gestures, kisses, tender words, compliments… By these means, a suitor can make himself agreeable to a woman and bring her pleasure.</p>
<p>The poet doesn’t mention the clitoris in this work. Perhaps he alludes to it, nevertheless, when he writes: “Shame stops a woman from bringing on certain caresses: but it’s delicious for her to receive them when someone else takes the initiative” (<em>The Art of Love</em>, Book I, 705-706).</p>
<h2>Nymphs and clitorises – ancient medics’ views</h2>
<p>Even if Ovid doesn’t specifically feature it, the clitoris is very present in Greek and Latin medical literature. Soranos of Ephesus, author of <em>Gynaikeia</em>, a book about women’s health from the 2nd century AD, sets out a description of women’s sex organs.</p>
<p>He calls the clitoris ‘numphé’, or nymph – a word that denotes either an unmarried girl or a married young woman. This isn’t out of decorousness however: it relates the clitoris, which would normally be hidden by surrounding flesh, to the young female face. “If one calls this part the nymph”, the writer explains, “it’s because it hides under the lips, like young girls hide under their veil”.</p>
<p>The Greek word ‘kleitoris’ is used by Rufus of Ephesus, a contemporary of Soranos, author of anatomy book <em>The Name of Body Parts</em>. Without doubt linked to the verb ‘kleio’ (‘I shut’) the term also conjures the idea of an invisible organ, held prisoner within a confined space.</p>
<p>If the ‘nymph’ isn’t sufficiently demure but more or less protrudes, <a href="https://odilefillod.wixsite.com/clitoris/histoire">Soranos considers</a>, that’s an anomaly needing surgical correction. The doctor advises slicing it off with a scalpel, taking care of avoiding too heavy a bleed.</p>
<p>This operation was performed at that time in Egypt, as the geographer Strabo describes (<em>Geography</em>, Book XVII, 2, 5). The author doesn’t name the clitoris but speaks of a form of female circumcision, conveyed by the Greek verb ‘ektemnein’ (‘removing by cutting’).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513714/original/file-20230306-26-5s6ipt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513714/original/file-20230306-26-5s6ipt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513714/original/file-20230306-26-5s6ipt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513714/original/file-20230306-26-5s6ipt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513714/original/file-20230306-26-5s6ipt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513714/original/file-20230306-26-5s6ipt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513714/original/file-20230306-26-5s6ipt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Niobé (Indira Varma) in the <em>Rome</em> series.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Obscene mosaics</h2>
<p>In Latin, ‘numphé’ is translated as ‘landica’, a term one finds in the Latin version of a Soranos of Ephesus <a href="https://books.google.fr/books?id=GDP9VHGbF1AC&hl=fr&source=gbs_book_other_versions">treatise by 5th century AD Roman doctor Caelius Aurelianus</a>. Etymologically, the word might hint at the idea of a ‘little gland’ (‘glandicula’ in Latin).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513715/original/file-20230306-1360-snc4l3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513715/original/file-20230306-1360-snc4l3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513715/original/file-20230306-1360-snc4l3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513715/original/file-20230306-1360-snc4l3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513715/original/file-20230306-1360-snc4l3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513715/original/file-20230306-1360-snc4l3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513715/original/file-20230306-1360-snc4l3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1040&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mosaic in the entrance to the <em>caldarium</em> of the House of Menander, Pompei, 1st century A.D.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Pompeii_-_House_of_Menander_-_Caldarium_-_Mosaic_1.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A mosaic in the opulent House of Menander in Pompei offers us an artistic rendering. It adorns the entrance to the Caldarium – the dedicated area for hot baths. One sees four cleaning implements, bronze scrapers, arranged around a vial of oil which is hanging from straps. These were objects routinely used by the Greeks and Romans in their sporting activities.</p>
<p>The bather walking into the room probably wouldn’t have been surprised by the subject matter, although the composition of the objects might strike him as a bit curious. It’s only when you leave the room that the artist’s undoubted intention becomes clear. Seen from the other direction, the image evokes a vulva. Around the clitoris, represented by the vial of oil, the scrapers take the form of labia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513717/original/file-20230306-24-oc4slg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513717/original/file-20230306-24-oc4slg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513717/original/file-20230306-24-oc4slg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513717/original/file-20230306-24-oc4slg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=192&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513717/original/file-20230306-24-oc4slg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513717/original/file-20230306-24-oc4slg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513717/original/file-20230306-24-oc4slg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mosaic in the entrance to the <em>caldarium</em> of the House of Menander, Pompei, 1st century A.D. The image alternatively represents a vial of oil between scrapers or a clitoris enveloped by layers of labia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dessin : Christian-Georges Schwentzel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the upper part of the mosaic, a young African servant is running, holding two phallic vases, while his big penis bursts from his tight loincloth. It’s certainly a way to get a laugh out of onlookers with the juxtaposition of this comically virile image with the suggestion of the female organ, made up of items of men’s sports equipment.</p>
<h2>Pig with a prickle</h2>
<p>In contrast to the phallus – a veritable lucky charm with all kinds of beneficial properties in the thinking of the time - the clitoris was seen as a potential danger to men.</p>
<p>On the House of Menander mosaic, the vial of oil, seen from one side, takes on the appearance of a sharp weapon – a kind of dagger. It chimes with the definition of the clitoris given by Greek poet of the 1st century AD Nicarchus, a writer of satiric epigrams. Casting scorn on a certain Demonax, skilled at cunnilingus, Nicarchus wrote, “The pig (‘khoiros’) has a fearsome prickle (‘akantha’)”.</p>
<p>“Pig” is a slang term for the vulva, while “prickle” refers to the clitoris, seen as a miniature penis spelling danger to men’s lips. Demonax, licker-out of vaginas, runs serious risk of hurting and bloodying his mouth.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513716/original/file-20230306-22-kcfe6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513716/original/file-20230306-22-kcfe6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513716/original/file-20230306-22-kcfe6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513716/original/file-20230306-22-kcfe6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513716/original/file-20230306-22-kcfe6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513716/original/file-20230306-22-kcfe6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1267&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513716/original/file-20230306-22-kcfe6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513716/original/file-20230306-22-kcfe6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1267&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses</em>, by John William Waterhouse, 1891.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Circe_Offering_the_Cup_to_Odysseus.jpg%20%22%22">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A myth of female dominance</h2>
<p>In the <em>Odyssey</em> (Book X, 389) Circe the enchantress has a little sceptre called a “rhabdos”, ancestor of the sorcerer’s magic wand.</p>
<p>The object doesn’t represent Circe’s clitoris but it is does symbolise a magician’s powers. Circe seduces men – she lures them to her palace where she makes them lose their humanity, transforming them into pigs. She makes them submit, in a symbolic manner, to the power of her “pig”, her vulva, making them slaves to it.</p>
<p>Happily for Ancient Greek patriarchy, Odysseus ends up by conquering and bringing to submission Circe’s vulva. He possesses it, using his phallus, and defuses the wielder of the magic wand, symbol of harmfulness.</p>
<p>Today, in a 180 degree shift away from those negative classical world representations, artists are celebrating clitoral power. The organ has become a symbol of the vindication of women’s rights – for example in the sculpture, jewellery and other work by Brooklyn-based Sophia Wallace for her <a href="https://yescliteracy.com">Cliteracy project</a></p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was translated from French by <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshNeicho">Joshua Neicho</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200377/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian-Georges Schwentzel ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Even if Ovid leaves it out, the female sex organ is well-attested in Greek and Latin medical literature.Christian-Georges Schwentzel, Professeur d'histoire ancienne, Université de LorraineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1994682023-02-15T17:18:52Z2023-02-15T17:18:52ZDebate: Sorry, British Museum, a loan of the Parthenon Marbles is not a repatriation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508669/original/file-20230207-27-ph3gcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C833&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Increasingly, the mood in the UK is leaning towards repatriating the Parthenon Marbles.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/consciousvision/3388915151">Justin Norris/Creative Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the last few weeks, we have been regularly reminded that secret talks have been taking place between the Greek government and the British Museum over the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/aad9827f-a552-49d4-a462-06425b9f86e3">return of the Parthenon marbles to Greece</a>. As soon the discussions became public knowledge, a wave of optimism swept the media, culminating in <em>The London Times</em> congratulating the former British chancellor and chair of the British Museum, George Osborne, on <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-an-elgin-marbles-deal-homeward-bound-6zzgvb9c2">brokering the deal</a>. But as accolades were prematurely showered on the British Museum, I watched in astonishment and bit my lip.</p>
<p>As an international legal expert who spent the past two years working on the merits of the repatriation claim for my book <a href="https://catharinetiti.com/The-Parthenon-Marbles-and-International-Law/"><em>The Parthenon Marbles and International Law</em></a>, I had a sneaking suspicion that this was not <em>it</em> yet. Or was I missing something? The general euphoria must have been triggered by something grander than Osborne’s modest concession that <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/britain-and-greece-could-strike-deal-to-share-elgin-marbles-george-osborne-tells/">“there’s a deal to be done”</a> and his apparent willingness to <em>loan</em> the marbles to Greece? Surely by now we know better than to place our hopes in silky rhetoric of this kind that seems to make promises it has not made?</p>
<p>Apparently, we don’t. The need to make-believe is so strong that we grasp at the slightest opportunity and imagine that at last the marbles will be going home. The British journalist Andrew Marr recently captured this mood of exasperation in <em>The New Statesman</em>, when he <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2023/01/andrew-marr-elgin-marbles-greece-british-museum">called on the museum to return the marbles</a>: “Give them back. For goodness’ sake, just give them back.”</p>
<h2>Possession vs. ownership</h2>
<p>If a loan is what’s on offer, then Greece cannot accept it. A loan would mean that the British Museum does not only possess the marbles but it also owns them – a beautiful illustration of the legal slogan “Possession is nine tenths of the law”, if you possess them, you own them. But Greece does not recognise what the museum does not have: ownership. The museum has nine tenths of the law. It has possession. And the museum knows that. An offer of a loan is a bait with consequences for the Greek claim under international law and the Greeks are right to beware of the British Museum bearing gifts. A loan is not repatriation and does not deal with the underlying matter of ownership.</p>
<p>Let’s stop hiding behind our thumbs. The dispute about the Parthenon marbles is not just about where they should best be located. It is also <em>primarily</em> a dispute about ownership. It is a dispute about rights and wrongs, and the need to redress a past wrong.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2006/02/01/germanys-heidelberg-university-returns-parthenon-fragment-to-greece">Heidelberg University</a> and the <a href="https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/exhibition-programs/first-return-parthenon-sculpture-abroad-new-acropolis-museum">Antonino Salinas Museum</a> in Palermo have already handed to Athens the Parthenon fragments previously kept in their collections. In December last year, Pope Francis announced that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/world/europe/vatican-parthenon-marbles-greece.html">Vatican will be returning its fragments</a>. The British Museum, which holds about half the surviving sculpture from the Parthenon, will have to follow their example. Does anyone imagine that 200 years from now, the Greeks will still have to clamour for the marbles’ return? I don’t. It is inevitable that the marbles will go home soon, although I don’t believe that the museum knows that yet.</p>
<h2>Shifting attitudes</h2>
<p>Both the museum and the current government continue to resist repatriation. But how long can they hold out against mounting opposition? Something has been fundamentally changing and it will become impossible for the British Museum and the government to cling on to the marbles for much longer. Attitudes internationally toward the return of cultural heritage have been evolving. Changing attitudes matter. They show that what was acceptable in the past, no longer is. Changing attitudes also shape international law. Societies evolve. The law changes in consequence.</p>
<p>Now is the time for the noble grand gesture, and it has the support of the British public. Ed Vaizey said it: returning the marbles would be <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-vaizey-stunning-treasures-await-if-british-museum-returns-the-elgin-marbles-77n5zn8lv">“the big thing to do”</a>. It would be the magnanimous thing to do.</p>
<p>Alternatives do exist. Remember what happened to <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1756-0619-1">Hans Sloane’s bust</a> in the British Museum? Hans Sloane was the museum’s founding father, and his bust was once proudly displayed. But he was also a slave-owner. A scandal erupted a couple of years ago about the display of his bust in the British Museum. Oliver Dowden, then British culture secretary, warned national museums against <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letter-from-culture-secretary-on-hm-government-position-on-contested-heritage">removing contested cultural objects from their collections</a>. And the British Museum responded: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54325905">we will not</a>.</p>
<p>Sure, technically, Sloane’s bust was not removed. But where is it now? It was quietly transferred to a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/british-museum-moves-bust-founder-who-profited-enslavement-180975680/">glass cabinet, and Sloane was described as a slave owner</a>. For two years, I lived on a London street named after Sloane, and for close to ten in a neighbourhood strewn with streets and buildings named after him or members of his family. I never gave it a second thought. I honestly had no idea who Sloane was. But now I know. The museum’s initial resistance to the removal of Sloane’s bust did more harm to it than swiftly taking responsibility and acting accordingly would have done. Welcome to changing times.</p>
<h2>The future of <em>deaccessioning</em> under debate</h2>
<p>A practical detail remains, a thorny issue of possible conflict between the government and the museum. How should the marbles be repatriated? Should national museums have the right to “deaccession” items in their collections on legal or moral grounds? In October last year, the government decided to delay the entry into force of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/charities-act-2022-implementation-plan">two provisions of the Charities Act 2022</a> that would allow national museums subject to statutory bans on deaccessioning (the British Museum is one of them) to remove items from their collections on moral grounds.</p>
<p>Should the museum return them or should parliament pass an act transferring them to Athens? From a legal viewpoint, I’d much rather the UK government passed an act transferring the marbles to Greece. <a href="https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/nineteenth-century/1816-56-george-3-c-99-the-elgin-marbles-act/">An act vested their curation in the British Museum</a>. An act can send them back home. Better while it is still the magnanimous thing to do. With pomp. History will remember.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catharine Titi ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>An international legal expert explains why the Greeks are right to be wary of the British Museum’s offer to loan them the Parthenon marbles.Catharine Titi, Research Associate Professor, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Université Paris-Panthéon-AssasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1941332022-12-15T13:06:07Z2022-12-15T13:06:07ZWhy early Christians wouldn’t have found the Christmas story’s virgin birth so surprising<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500114/original/file-20221209-41413-3bblu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C7%2C997%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The Nativity,' circa 1406-10, by Lorenzo Monaco</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-nativity-circa-1406-10-artist-lorenzo-monaco-news-photo/1206224323?phrase=nativity&adppopup=true">Heritage Images/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/por-que-a-los-primeros-cristianos-no-les-habria-sorprendido-tanto-el-nacimiento-virginal-de-la-historia-de-navidad-219875"><em>Leer en español</em></a>. </p>
<p>Every year on Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of their religion’s founder, Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. Part of this celebration includes the claim that Jesus was born from <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+1%3A18&version=NIV">a virgin mother named Mary</a>, which is fundamental to the Christian understanding that Jesus is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%201&version=NIV">the divine son of God</a>.</p>
<p>The virgin birth may seem <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/15/opinion/believe-it-or-not.html">strange</a> to a modern audience – and not just because it runs counter to the science of reproduction. Even in the Bible itself, the idea is rarely mentioned.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4ufVq8gAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">a scholar of the New Testament</a>, however, I argue that this story’s original audiences would not have been put off by the supposed “strangeness” of the virgin birth story. The story would have felt much more familiar to listeners at that time, when the ancient Mediterranean was full of tales of legendary men born of gods – and when early Christians were paying close attention to the Hebrew Bible’s prophecies.</p>
<h2>What the Bible does – and doesn’t – say</h2>
<p>Strikingly, the New Testament is relatively silent on the virgin birth except in two places. It appears only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, written a few decades after Jesus’ death.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%201&version=NIV">Book of Matthew</a> explains that when Joseph was engaged to Mary, she was “found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.” The writer links this unexpected pregnancy to an Old Testament prophecy <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+7%3A14&version=NIV">in Isaiah 7:14</a>, which states “the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will call him Immanuel.” According to the prophet Isaiah, this child would be a sign to the Jewish people that God would protect them from powerful empires.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A faded illustration shows an angel looking down at a woman kneeling on the ground in a cloak, surrounded by rays of light." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A depiction of the Annunciation to Mary at Our Lady of the Assumption Church.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-annunciation-our-lady-of-the-assumption-church-royalty-free-image/538214856?phrase=the%20annunciation&adppopup=true">Catherine Leblanc/Stone via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now the majority of early Christians outside of Judea and throughout the Roman empire did not know the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, but rather a Greek translation known as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint">the Septuagint</a>. When the Gospel of Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, it uses the Septuagint, which includes the term “parthenos,” commonly understood as “virgin.” This term differs from the Hebrew Old Testament, which uses the word “almah,” properly translated as “young woman.” The slight difference in <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/nt/43/2/article-p144_3.xml">translation</a> between the Hebrew and the Greek may not mean much, but for early Christians who knew Greek, it provided prophetic proof for Jesus’ birth from the Virgin Mary. </p>
<p>Was the belief in the virgin birth based on a mistranslation? Not necessarily. Such terms were sometimes synonymous in Greek and Jewish thought. And the same Greek word, “parthenos,” is also found in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%201&version=NIV">Luke’s version of the story</a>. Luke does not cite the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14. Instead, this version of the Nativity story describes the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she will give birth even though she is a virgin. Like in Matthew’s version of the story, Mary is told that her baby will be the “son of God.”</p>
<h2>Human and divine?</h2>
<p>For early Christians, the idea of the virgin birth put to rest any rumors about Mary’s honor. It also contributed to their belief that Jesus was the Son of God and Mary the <a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum03.htm">Mother of God</a>. These ideas became even more important during the second century, when some Christians were <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103126.htm">debating Jesus’ origins</a>: Was he <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103321.htm">simply born</a> <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103126.htm">a human being</a> but became the Son of God after <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+1&version=NIV">being baptized</a>? Was he a <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103111.htm">semi-divine being</a>, not really human? Or was he both fully divine and fully human?</p>
<p>The last idea, symbolized by the virgin birth, was most accepted – and is now standard Christian belief. But the relative silence about it in the first few decades of Christianity does not necessarily suggest that early Christians did not believe it. Instead, as biblical scholar <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140088/the-birth-of-the-messiah-a-new-updated-edition/">Raymond Brown</a> also noted, the virgin birth was likely not a major concern for first-century Christians. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+1&version=NIV">They affirmed</a> that Jesus was <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=philippians+2&version=NIV">the divine Son of God</a> who <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hebrews+2&version=NIV">became a human being</a>, without trying to explain exactly how this happened.</p>
<h2>Greco-Roman roots</h2>
<p>Claiming that someone was divinely born was not a new concept during the first century, when Jesus was born. Many Greco-Roman heroes had divine birth stories. Take three famous figures: Perseus, Ion and Alexander the Great.</p>
<p>One of the oldest Greek legends affirms that Perseus, an ancient ancestor of the Greek people, was born of <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D4">a virgin mother named Danaë</a>. The story begins with Danaë imprisoned by her father, the king of Argos, who feared her because it was prophesied that his grandson would kill him. According to the legend, the Greek god Zeus transformed himself into golden rain <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0162%3Abook%3DP.%3Apoem%3D12">and impregnated her</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A painting shows a nude woman reclining on a bed with soft rain behind her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A painting of Danaë, showing the golden rain above her, by Andrea Schiavone (1522-1563). From the collection of Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/danae-mid-of-16th-cen-found-in-the-collection-of-museo-di-news-photo/1155650935?phrase=danae&adppopup=true">Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Danaë gave birth to Perseus, they escaped and eventually landed on an island where he grew up. He eventually became a famous hero who killed the snake-haired Medusa, and <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028:book=4:card=604&highlight=medusa%2C">his great-grandson</a> <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D4%3Asection%3D8">was Hercules</a>, known for his strength and uncontrollable anger.</p>
<p>The playwright Euripides, who lived in the fifth century B.C., describes the story of Ion, whose father was the Greek god Apollo. Apollo raped Creusa, Ion’s mother, who abandoned him at birth. Ion grew up unaware of his divine father, but eventually reconciled with his Athenian mother and became known as <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Eur.+Ion+1-75&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0110">the founder</a> of various Greek cities in modern-day Turkey.</p>
<p>Lastly, legends held that Zeus was the father of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian ruler who conquered his vast empire before age 33. Alexander was supposedly conceived the night before his mother consummated her marriage with the king of Macedon, when Zeus impregnated her with <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0243%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D2">a lightning bolt from heaven</a>. Philip, the king of Macedon, raised Alexander as his son, but suspected that there was something different about his conception.</p>
<h2>A familiar type of hero</h2>
<p>Overall, divine conception stories were familiar in the ancient Mediterranean world. By the second century A.D., Justin Martyr, a Christian theologian who defended Christianity, recognized this point: that virgin birth <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm">would not have been considered as “extraordinary</a>” in societies familiar with Greco-Roman deities. In fact, in an address to the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius and philosophers, Justin <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm#:%7E:text=Chapter%2022.%20Analogies,done%20by%20%C3%86sculapius.">argued</a> that they should tolerate Christian belief in the virgin birth just as they did belief in the stories of Perseus. </p>
<p>The idea of the divine participating in the conception of a child destined for greatness wouldn’t have seemed so unusual to an ancient audience. Even more, early Christians’ interpretation of the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 from the Septuagint supported their belief that Jesus’ origin was not only divine, but foretold in their prophetic scriptures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea of virgin birth has been part of Christianity since the start, but its significance has shifted over time.Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, Assistant Professor of the New Testament, Vanguard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1936962022-11-15T13:20:45Z2022-11-15T13:20:45ZWhat Greek myth tells us about modern witchcraft<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494727/original/file-20221110-21-v7dffc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C53%2C5982%2C3916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fear about women's power was an essential part of ancient anxiety about witchcraft.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/women-practicing-witchcraft-by-burning-candle-in-royalty-free-image/720119557?phrase=witches&adppopup=true">Vinicius Rafael / EyeEm via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Living on the North Shore in Boston in the fall brings the gorgeous turning of the leaves and pumpkin patches. It is also a time for people to <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/travel/2022/10/19/heres-what-its-like-to-live-in-salem-in-october/">head to</a> nearby Salem, Massachusetts, home of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-witches-are-women-because-witch-hunts-were-all-about-persecuting-the-powerless-125427">17th century infamous witch trials</a>, and visit <a href="https://salemwitchmuseum.com/">its popular museum</a>. </p>
<p>Despite a troubled history, there are people today who consider themselves witches. Often, modern witches share their lore, craft and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-63403467?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=5069cbb55d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_10_31_01_45&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-5069cbb55d-400094317">stories on TikTok</a> and other social media platforms. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=1be7ee967d45605afddf7da9ad4ca2c049a26c0b">scholar who works on myth and poetry</a> from ancient Greece – and as a native of New England – I have long been fascinated by the cultural conversations about witches. Witch trials in the Americas and Europe were in part about <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-witches-are-women-because-witch-hunts-were-all-about-persecuting-the-powerless-125427">enforcing power structures</a> and persecuting the weak. From ancient Greece through Puritan New England, witches functioned as easy targets for cultural anxieties about gender, power and mortality. </p>
<h2>Ancient witches: gender and power</h2>
<p>While modern witchcraft is inclusive of many different genders and identities, witches in ancient myth and literature were almost exclusively women. Their stories were in part about navigating gender roles and power in a patriarchal system.</p>
<p>Fear about women’s power was an essential part of ancient anxiety about witchcraft. This fear, moreover, relied on traditional expectations about the abilities innate to a person’s gender. As early as the creation narrative in Hesiod’s “Theogony” – a poem hailing from a poetic tradition between the eighth and fifth centuries B.C. – male gods like Cronus and Zeus were depicted with physical strength, while <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400849086-012/pdf">female figures were endowed with intelligence</a>. In particular, women knew about the mysteries of childbirth and how to raise children. </p>
<p>In the basic framework of Greek myth, then, men were strong and women used intelligence and tricks to cope with their violence. This gendered difference in traits combined with ancient Greek views of bodies and aging. While women were seen to move through stages of life based on biology – childhood, adolescence via menstruation, childbearing and old age – the aging of men was connected to their relationship to women, particularly in getting married and having children.</p>
<p>Both Greek and Latin have a single word for man and husband – “aner” in Greek and “vir” in Latin. Socially and ritually, men were essentially seen as adolescents until they became husbands and fathers. </p>
<p>Female control over reproduction was symbolized as a kind of <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2010/10/from-greek-myth-to-medieval-witches-infertile-women-as-monstrous-and-evil/">ability to control life and death</a>. In ancient Greece, women were expected to bear all responsibilities during early child rearing. They also were the ones to exclusively take on special roles in mourning the dead. Suspicion, anxiety and fear about mortality were then put on to women in general.</p>
<h2>Powerful women</h2>
<p>This was true especially for women who did not fit into typical gendered roles like the virtuous bride, the good mother or the helpful old maid. </p>
<p>While ancient Greek does not have a word that directly translates as “witch,” it does have “pharmakis” (someone who gives out drugs or medicine), “aoidos” (singer, enchantress) and “graus” or “graia” (old woman). Of these names, graus is probably closest to later European stereotypes: the mysterious old woman who is not part of a traditional family structure.</p>
<p>Much like today, foreignness invited suspicion in the ancient world as well. Several of the characters who may qualify as mythical witches were women from distant lands. Medea, famous for killing her children when her husband, Jason, proposes marrying someone else in <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0006,003:1249">Euripides’ play</a>, was a woman from the east, a foreigner who did not adhere to the expectations for a woman’s behavior in Greece.</p>
<p>She started her narrative as a princess who used <a href="https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/potions-and-poisons-classical-ancestors-of-the-wicked-witch-part-2/">concoctions and spells</a> to help Jason. Her powers increased male virility and life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494731/original/file-20221110-15-969u88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white engraved illustration of Medea, known as a sorceress in Greek literature, as Jason prepares the departure of the expedition of the Argonauts." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494731/original/file-20221110-15-969u88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494731/original/file-20221110-15-969u88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494731/original/file-20221110-15-969u88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494731/original/file-20221110-15-969u88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494731/original/file-20221110-15-969u88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494731/original/file-20221110-15-969u88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494731/original/file-20221110-15-969u88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Medea killed her children when her husband, Jason, proposes marrying someone else in Euripides’ play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/old-engraved-illustration-of-the-sorceress-medea-royalty-free-image/1277624941?phrase=Medea%20greek&adppopup=true">mikroman6/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Medea allegedly learned her magical craft from her aunt, Circe, who shows up in Homer’s “Odyssey.” She lived alone on an island, luring men to her cabin with seductive food and drink to turn them into animals. Odysseus defeated her with an antidote provided by the god Hermes. Once her magic failed, Circe believed she had no choice but to submit to Odysseus. </p>
<h2>Witches over time</h2>
<p>Elsewhere in the “Odyssey” there are similar themes: the Sirens who sing to Odysseus are enchantresses who try to take control of the hero. Earlier in the epic, the audience witnesses Helen, whose departure with the Trojan prince Paris was the cause of the Trojan War, add <a href="https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/weaving-pseudea-homoia-etumoisin-false-things-like-to-real-things-5-helens-good-drug/">an Egyptian drug called nepenthe</a> to the wine she gives <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D4%3Acard%3D219">to her husband, Menelaos, and Odysseus’ son</a>, Telemachus. This wine was so strong, it made people forget about the pain of losing even a loved one. </p>
<p>In each of these cases, women who practice magic threaten to exert control over men with tools that can also be part of a pleasurable life: songs, sex and families. Other myths of monstrous women reinforce how misogynistic stereotypes animate these beliefs. The <a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2020/10/26/the-child-killing-lamia-whats-really-scary-on-halloween-is-misogyny-3/">ancient figure Lamia</a>, for example, was a once beautiful woman who stole and killed infants because her children had died. </p>
<p><a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2017/10/21/ancient-greek-vampires-empousa-and-lamia/">Empousa</a> was a vampiric creature who fed on the sex and blood of young men. Even Medusa, well-known as the snake-haired Gorgon who turned men to stone, was reported in some sources to have actually been a woman so beautiful that Perseus cut her head off <a href="https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/10/08/an-alternate-telling-of-medusa-male-discourse-leads-to-sexual-violence/">to show it off to his friends</a>.</p>
<p>These examples are from myth. There were many living traditions of women’s healing and song cultures that have been lost over time. Many academic authors have traced the modern practices of witchcraft <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674663244">to ancient cults</a> and the survival of pagan traditions outside of mainstream Christianity. Recent <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20411/20411-h/20411-h.htm">studies of ancient magical practices</a> show how widespread and varied they were. </p>
<p>While ancient women were likely subject to suspicion and slander for witchcraft, there is no evidence that they faced the kind of widespread persecution of witches that swept Europe and the Americas a few centuries ago. The later 20th century, however, saw renewed interest in witchcraft, often in concert with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1300/J015v16n02_13">movements empowering women</a>. </p>
<p>Modern witches are crossing international borders and learning from each other without leaving their homes by creating communities on social media, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-63403467">like TikTok</a>. If fear about women’s power led to paranoia in the past, exploring and embracing witchcraft has become part of reclaiming women’s histories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From ancient Greece to modern-day TikTok witchcraft, the world of witches has been a changing one.Joel Christensen, Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1917192022-10-27T15:14:30Z2022-10-27T15:14:30ZWhat is the difference between a populist and a dictator? The ancient Greeks have answers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489615/original/file-20221013-9673-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A statue of Plato.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Panasevich/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Giorgia Meloni is Italy’s new <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2022/10/25/giorgia-meloni-sets-out-vision-for-italy-in-maiden-speech-as-pm">prime minister</a>. Her party, Fratelli d’Italia, received 26% of the vote and, as part of a far-right <a href="https://www.termometropolitico.it/1176989_tutti-i-partiti-centrodestra.html">coalition</a>, now controls a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2022/sep/25/italian-election-2022-live-official-results">majority</a> in both chambers of the legislature.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/wahlen-in-italien--ist-giorgia-meloni-die-gefaehrlichste-frau-europas--32742572.html">Stern</a> magazine, Meloni is the “most dangerous woman in Europe”. One <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2022/sep/24/giorgia-meloni-is-a-danger-to-italy-and-the-rest-of-europe-far-right">concern</a> is that her party are a “neo-fascist” organisation and so pose a danger to democracy in Europe. </p>
<p>Her victory poses an old question: how can we tell the difference between a democratic populist and an aspiring tyrant? </p>
<p>Twentieth-century experience suggests that highly ideological and totalitarian parties, such as Mussolini’s Fascists, represent the greatest threat to democracy. But <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/policy-and-engagement/documents/authoritarian-regimes-provocation-paper-v5-002.pdf">we can better identify</a> threats to democracy in the modern world using a wider range of historical examples. The 21st-century “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674660069">despots</a>” and “<a href="https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/august-september-2022/confusing-populism-with-tyranny/">strongmen</a>” resemble an older model of authoritarian rule: the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/03/23/the-rise-of-personalist-rule/">personalist dictator</a> or tyrant, in which power is vested more in an individual than a party or ideological group.</p>
<p>The first people to examine the puzzle of how to recognise a future dictator, and the first theorists of tyranny, were <a href="https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/43261?login=false">the ancient Greeks</a>. Classical theorists, including Plato and Aristotle, identified two truths that have since been neglected by the western world.</p>
<p>First, tyranny is primarily <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/agpt/38/2/article-p208_3.xml">defined</a> not by ideology or behaviour but by the distribution of power within a state. Constitutions in the ancient world were categorised by who was sovereign (thus democracy is a state where the people, <em>demos</em>, have power, <em>kratos</em>). In a tyranny, one individual and his closest supporters have a monopoly of power and wealth. To identify a tyranny, the key question is not whether a politician is a demagogue but whether the state’s structures allow him or (much less frequently) her to consolidate power.</p>
<p>The second basic principle is that power corrupts and the distribution of power determines behaviour. If so, the tyrant – who possesses excessive power – will in time be corrupted morally. This observation is <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+3.80&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126">recorded</a> first by the Greek historian Herodotus (around 430BC). Herodotus claimed that certain Persian nobles debated what constitution they should adopt (in around 522BC). One of those nobles, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otanes">Otanes</a>, observed that the absence of effective legal checks led even good people to yield to the temptation of abusing power over time.</p>
<h2>Separation of powers</h2>
<p>Modern data goes some way towards confirming these observations. Authoritarian regimes tend to be associated with higher levels of corruption and worse governance than functioning democracies. At the most extreme end, “personalist” dictatorships (of which Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a current egregious example) are characterised by erratic decision-making, high levels of <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/706049?casa_token=ohirMfOf4cEAAAAA%3A1pn_g7qdZk5to4lydwTk72m-zdwpGieZhZrSUugavVSns36zjfTETc2rYujC1lKBI25gb9iakns">repression</a> internally and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/strongmen-and-straw-men-authoritarian-regimes-and-the-initiation-of-international-conflict/4352949B5F1550DD67076468BFB1BB8F">belligerence</a> externally.</p>
<p>The key is to examine the separation (or concentration) of power in particular countries. The overall health of democratic institutions, with or without nationalist politics, determines whether states are susceptible to democratic decay. An important factor (as demonstrated by data on <a href="http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4x.htm">regime transitions</a>) is how long these institutions last. Established democracies are far less likely to move towards authoritarianism than democracies in which constitutions are new or routinely altered.</p>
<p>Aspiring tyrants do not generally remove institutions: they prevent them from functioning properly. <a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2896">Populists</a> mistrust institutions, dictators use them. In the ancient world a tyrant such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisistratus">Pisistratus of Athens</a> (ruled around 546-526BC) did not need to abolish the existing laws. One <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0046%3Achapter%3D16">anecdote</a> tells how Pisistratus attended a trial for murder as a defendant. The prosecutor, however, did not. He was intimidated into dropping the case. Tyrants can act this way, because they control who holds state offices. They also often possess a personal militia or means of coercion. One of Pisistratus’ first moves was to persuade the Athenians to grant him a bodyguard. Tyranny is thus a state where the law does not rule, but the tyrant rules by means of law.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-a-laureate-a-classicist-explains-the-words-roots-in-ancient-greek-victors-winning-crowns-of-laurel-leaves-191407">What's a laureate? A classicist explains the word's roots in Ancient Greek victors winning crowns of laurel leaves</a>
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<p>Modern analysts tend to focus less on the distribution of power and more on leaders’ ideologies, public pronouncements and leadership styles. In Meloni’s case, any resemblance to 1930s fascism in Italy sparks alarm. Many point to the origins of Meloni’s party in the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/italy-election-meloni-far-right/">neo-fascist</a> Movimento Sociale Italiano. </p>
<p>Aspiring and established dictators come from all ideological backgrounds. Nationalist politics do not necessarily lead to authoritarianism. While xenophobia is often a tool of dictators, Fratelli d’Italia’s <a href="https://www.fratelli-italia.it/about-us/">promotion</a> of national sovereignty is also mainstream conservatism.</p>
<p>Victor Orban’s Hungary is an example of where a right-wing party (Fidesz) has not only won elections but has been able to <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/hungary">concentrate power</a> to a worrying degree. The government has increasing (though not universal) control over the media, there are widespread allegations of corruption. Judicial independence is now questionable and unlawful surveillance has been reported.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/italys-election-is-a-case-study-in-a-new-phase-for-the-radical-right-92198">Italy's election is a case study in a new phase for the radical right</a>
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<p>Criticism of Orban has focused on ideological elements of his programme, such as traditional Christian views on sexuality. This has helped Fidesz to rally support from the right. The EU, through its attempts at aggressive economic coercion, has also turned Orban into something of a <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1405479/Eu-news-viktor-orban-fidesz-epp-Matteo-salvini-afd-germany-weber">martyr</a> for those concerned by European federalism. For opponents of the European project, Orban and Putin are fighting a common enemy.</p>
<p>Based on these definitions, Meloni is not a dictator, and neither is Orban, although the second is edging closer as he seeks to control the major institutions of power.</p>
<h2>How to respond to populism</h2>
<p>Overreaction to nationalist populism in democracies can backfire. Orban has won four elections in 12 years. Meloni’s triumph shows that the politics of Europe remain unstable. A more conciliatory approach is needed to diffuse the toxic belief, held by many on the right, that the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/26/democracy-rigged-trump-biden">system is rigged</a> against them. </p>
<p>It was possible to predict Putin’s monopolisation of power would lead to increasingly aggressive behaviour. Aristotle <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0058:book=5:section=1313b&highlight=war">noted</a> that “the tyrant is a stirrer-up of war, with the deliberate purpose of keeping the people constantly in need of a leader”. </p>
<p>Policymakers and the media need to distinguish between movements or individuals that legitimately challenge the political status quo in a democracy and those that are a genuine threat to democracy itself. </p>
<p>Democracy, demagogues and tyrants are all words used by the Greeks. Demagogues, or populists, are an inherent feature of democracy where all have equal rights. For <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520251687/whats-wrong-with-democracy">many theorists</a>, from Aristotle to the US Founding Fathers, this is a key weakness of democracy. But if western societies are to remain democracies, it is also an unavoidable part of politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edmund Stewart receives funding from UKRI Policy Fund. </span></em></p>The first people who studied tyranny were the ancient Greeks, an expert says.Edmund Stewart, Assistant Professor in Ancient Greek History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1870522022-10-17T12:31:56Z2022-10-17T12:31:56ZHow Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of ‘imitatio’ to craft some of the most original songs of his time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485594/original/file-20220920-3449-34rib1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=979%2C386%2C2016%2C1504&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dylan’s complex creative process is unique among contemporary singer-songwriters.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/bob-dylan-takes-a-break-during-the-recording-of-the-album-news-photo/74261708?adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the course of six decades, Bob Dylan steadily brought together popular music and poetic excellence. Yet the guardians of literary culture have only rarely accepted Dylan’s legitimacy.</p>
<p>His <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/arts/music/bob-dylan-nobel-prize-literature.html">2016 Nobel Prize in Literature</a> undermined his outsider status, challenging scholars, fans and critics to think of Dylan as an integral part of international literary heritage. My new book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-One-Meet-Imitation-Originality/dp/0817321411">No One to Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan</a>,” takes this challenge seriously and places Dylan within a literary tradition that extends all the way back to the ancients.</p>
<p><a href="https://english.umbc.edu/core-faculty/raphael-falco/">I am a professor of early modern literature</a>, with a special interest in the Renaissance. But I am also a longtime Dylan enthusiast and the co-editor of the open-access <a href="https://thedylanreview.org/">Dylan Review</a>, the only scholarly journal on Bob Dylan. </p>
<p>After teaching and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raphael-Falco">writing about</a> early modern poetry for 30 years, I couldn’t help but recognize a similarity between the way Dylan composes his songs and the ancient practice known as “<a href="http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Dionysian_imitatio">imitatio</a>.” </p>
<h2>Poetic honey-making</h2>
<p>Although the Latin word imitatio would translate to “imitation” in English, it doesn’t mean simply producing a mirror image of something. The term instead describes a practice or a methodology of composing poetry.</p>
<p>The classical author Seneca <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_84">used bees</a> as a metaphor for writing poetry using imitatio. Just as a bee samples and digests the nectar from a whole field of flowers to produce a new kind of honey – which is part flower and part bee – a poet produces a poem by sampling and digesting the best authors of the past. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Bee collects pollen from a white flower." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485588/original/file-20220920-3660-b2boni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485588/original/file-20220920-3660-b2boni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485588/original/file-20220920-3660-b2boni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485588/original/file-20220920-3660-b2boni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485588/original/file-20220920-3660-b2boni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485588/original/file-20220920-3660-b2boni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485588/original/file-20220920-3660-b2boni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To Seneca, the poetry writing process was akin to a bee making honey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/honey-bee-is-collecting-pollen-on-a-beautiful-royalty-free-image/1125283046?adppopup=true">K_Thalhofer/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Dylan’s imitations follow this pattern: His best work is always part flower, part Dylan. </p>
<p>Consider a song like “<a href="https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/hard-rains-gonna-fall/">A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall</a>.” To write it, Dylan repurposed the familiar Old English ballad “<a href="https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/lord-randall/">Lord Randal</a>,” retaining the call-and-response framework. In the original, a worried mother asks, “O where ha’ you been, Lord Randal, my son? / And where ha’ you been, my handsome young man?” and her son tells of being poisoned by his true love. </p>
<p>In Dylan’s version, the nominal son responds to the same questions with a brilliant mixture of public and private experiences, conjuring violent images such as a newborn baby surrounded by wolves, black branches dripping blood, the broken tongues of a thousand talkers and pellets poisoning the water. At the end, a young girl hands the speaker – a son in name only – a rainbow, and he promises to know his song well before he’ll stand on the mountain to sing it.</p>
<p>“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” resounds with the original Old English ballad, which would have been very familiar to Dylan’s original audiences of Greenwich Village folk singers. He first sang the song in 1962 at <a href="https://bedfordandbowery.com/2016/12/the-story-of-the-gaslight-cafe-where-dylan-premiered-a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall/">the Gaslight Cafe</a> on MacDougal Street, a hangout of folk revival stalwarts. To their ears, Dylan’s indictment of American culture – its racism, militarism and reckless destruction of the environment – would have echoed that poisoning in the earlier poem and added force to the repurposed lyrics.</p>
<h2>Drawing from the source</h2>
<p>Because Dylan “samples and digests” songs from the past, <a href="https://thedylanreview.org/2022/08/04/interview-with-scott-warmuth/">he has been accused of plagiarism</a>. </p>
<p>This charge underestimates Dylan’s complex creative process, which closely resembles that of early modern poets who had a different concept of originality – a concept Dylan intuitively understands. For Renaissance authors, “originality” meant not creating something out of nothing, but <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Origin_and_Originality_in_Renaissance_Li/1OmCQgAACAAJ?hl=en">going back to what had come before</a>. They literally returned to the “origin.” Writers first searched outside themselves to find models to imitate, and then they transformed what they imitated – that is, what they found, sampled and digested – into something new. Achieving originality depended on the successful imitation and repurposing of an admired author from a much earlier era. They did not imitate each other, or contemporary authors from a different national tradition. Instead, they found their models among authors and works from earlier centuries.</p>
<p>In his book “<a href="https://archive.org/details/lightintroyimita0000gree/page/n5/mode/2up">The Light in Troy</a>,” literary scholar Thomas Greene points to a 1513 letter written by poet Pietro Bembo to Giovanfrancesco Pico della Mirandola.</p>
<p>“Imitation,” Bembo writes, “since it is wholly concerned with a model, must be drawn from the model … the activity of imitating is nothing other than translating the likeness of some other’s style into one’s own writings.” The act of translation was largely stylistic and involved a transformation of the model.</p>
<h2>Romantics devise a new definition of originality</h2>
<p>However, the Romantics of the late 18th century wished to change, and supersede, that understanding of poetic originality. For them, and the writers who came after them, creative originality meant going inside oneself to find a connection to nature. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Natural_Supernaturalism/-ygCZmrJ2E4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=natural+supernaturalism&printsec=frontcover">As scholar of Romantic literature M.H. Abrams explains</a> in his renowned study “Natural Supernaturalism,” “the poet will proclaim how exquisitely an individual mind … is fitted to the external world, and the external world to the mind, and how the two in union are able to beget a new world.” </p>
<p>Instead of the world wrought by imitating the ancients, the new Romantic theories envisioned the union of nature and the mind as the ideal creative process. Abrams quotes the 18th-century German Romantic <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/novalis/">Novalis</a>: “The higher philosophy is concerned with the marriage of Nature and Mind.”</p>
<p>The Romantics believed that through this connection of nature and mind, poets would discover something new and produce an original creation. To borrow from past “original” models, rather than producing a supposedly new work or “new world,” could seem like theft, despite the fact, obvious to anyone paging through an anthology, that poets have always responded to one another and to earlier works. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485905/original/file-20220921-13134-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Image of New York City street with banner reading 'Gaslight Poetry Cafe.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485905/original/file-20220921-13134-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485905/original/file-20220921-13134-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485905/original/file-20220921-13134-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485905/original/file-20220921-13134-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485905/original/file-20220921-13134-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485905/original/file-20220921-13134-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485905/original/file-20220921-13134-sikp9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=858&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Dylan performed at New York City’s Gaslight Cafe, a popular folk music venue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/new-york-ny-gaslight-poetry-cafe-116-mcdougal-st-daily-news-photo/514678712?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Unfortunately – as Dylan’s critics too often demonstrate – this bias favoring supposedly “natural” originality over imitation continues to color views of the creative process today. </p>
<p>For six decades now, Dylan has turned that Romantic idea of originality on its head. With his own idiosyncratic method of composing songs and his creative reinvention of the Renaissance practice of imitatio, he has written and performed – yes, imitation functions in performance too – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_written_by_Bob_Dylan">over 600 songs</a>, many of which are the most significant and most significantly original songs of his time.</p>
<p>To me, there is a firm historical and theoretical rationale for what these audiences have long known – and the Nobel Prize committee made official in 2016 – that Bob Dylan is both a modern voice entirely unique and, at the same time, the product of ancient, time-honored ways of practicing and thinking about creativity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raphael Falco does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Because Dylan draws from songs from the past, he has been accused of plagiarism. But this view has been colored by a distorted understanding of the creative process.Raphael Falco, Professor of English, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.