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Often appears with: fate, destiny, and necessity · history and the writing of history · conquest, plunder, and captives · religious persecution and toleration · myth and the gods of the nations · diplomacy and embassies · justice as a virtue · species, variation, and descent · custom and the manners of a people · counsel and advisers to rulers · the fear of death · strategy and the aims of war
Usually: detachment (60) · the fall of the great (58) · narrative (57) · argument (47) · skepticism (43) · wonder (33) · sudden reversal of fortune (32) · curiosity (28) · reflection (22) · commentary or gloss (15)
“Of happiness the chiefest part Is a wise heart: And to defraud the gods in aught With peril’s fraught. Swelling words of high-flown might Mightily the gods do smite. Chastisement for errors past Wisdom brings to age at last.” Sophocles, Plays of Sophocles: Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Col · insight
“Therefore a second time Philippi saw The Roman hosts with kindred weapons rush To battle, nor did the high gods deem it hard That twice Emathia and the wide champaign Of Haemus should be fattening with our blood.” Virgil, The Georgics · observation
“No slaughter yet was greater made e'er in this island, of people slain, before this same, with the edge of the sword;” (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; translator/editor) James Ingram, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle · observation
“It was by the aid of these causes, exclusive zeal, the immediate expectation of another world, the claim of miracles, the practice of rigid virtue, and the constitution of the primitive church, that Christianity spread itself with so much success in the Roman empire.” Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire · insight
“While so engaged he raised his eyes and saw that his master had halted, and was trying with the point of his pike to lift some bulky object that lay upon the ground.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote · vivid
“This head, Señor Don Quixote, has been made and fabricated by one of the greatest magicians and wizards the world ever saw, a Pole, I believe, by birth, and a pupil of the famous Escotillo of whom such marvellous stories are told.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote · observation
“For me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him; it was his to act, mine to write; we two together make but one, notwithstanding and in spite of that pretended Tordesillesque writer” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote · insight
“...warn them, and, as best thou canst, say to them: Hold off! ye weaklings; hold your hands! Adventure it let none, For this emprise, my lord the king, Was meant for me alone.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote · precept
“Natural selection acts solely through the preservation of variations in some way advantageous, which consequently endure.” Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selecti · insight
“Undoubtedly if one species has any advantage whatever over another, it will in a very brief time wholly or in part supplant it; but if both are equally well fitted for their own places in nature, both probably will hold their own places and keep separate for almost any length of time.” Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selecti · insight
“A nation, with which we might have a treaty of commerce, could with much greater facility prevent our forming a connection with her competitor in trade, though such a connection should be ever so beneficial to ourselves.” Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison, The Federalist Papers · observation
“And in Sweden the parties were alternately bought by France and England in so barefaced and notorious a manner that it excited universal disgust in the nation, and was a principal cause that the most limited monarch in Europe, in a single day, without tumult, violence, or opposition, became one of the most absolute and uncontrolled.” Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison, The Federalist Papers · vivid
A Qur’anic passage about the next life and divine knowledge introduces the Sura on Saba, then shifts into stories of David and Solomon, Djinn labor, Saba’s gardens, flood of Irem, and dispersal as punishment for ingratitude, ending with eschatological claims about true guidance.
5 Paradise. 6 Verses 27, 28 are to be noted, as defining the proportion to be observed in rewards and punishments, the severity of the latter being only in proportion to the crime, the excellence of the former being above and beyond its strict merits. 7 But rather your own lusts. The Muhammadans believe that idols will be gifted with speech at the day of judgment. 8 The ordinary Arabic word for to die seems to be …
Pepys records multiple dated incidents: Sir Richard Fanshaw’s sudden arrival from Portugal, talk in London of French-Dutch war plans, visits and purchases of art, court sports and offices, and repeated worries about weather, plague, and politics in Parliament.
the great limner in little. [ Samuel Cooper, the celebrated miniature painter, Ob. 1672.] Sir Richd. Fanshaw is come suddenly from Portugal, and nobody knows what his business is about. To Faithorne's, [William Faithorne, the well known engraver Ob. 1691.] and there bought some pictures of him; and while I was there, comes by the King's life-guard, he being gone to Lincoln's Inne this afternoon to see the Revells t…
Pepys records discussions about the French king’s dispute with the Pope and likely war, personal talks with the Duke about Monmouth’s Portsmouth trip, and court rumours of favourites and precedence disputes.
which Mr. Montagu challenges, it was given to my Lord Chesterfield. So that I perceive he goes down the wind in honor as well as every thing else, every day. 26th. I met with Monsieur Raby, who is lately come from France. I had a great deal of very good discourse with him, concerning the difference between the French and the Pope, and the occasion, which he told me very particularly, and to my great content; and of…
Hermocrates of Syracuse argues to the Camarinaeans that Athens’ aim is to replace local control and ultimately enslave allies, warning that isolation will lead to defeat city by city.
Syracuse, and Euphemus and others from the Athenians; and an assembly of the Camarinaeans having been convened, Hermocrates spoke as follows, in the hope of prejudicing them against the Athenians: “Camarinaeans, we did not come on this embassy because we were afraid of your being frightened by the actual forces of the Athenians, but rather of your being gained by what they would say to you before you heard anything …
Euphemus the Athenian ambassador replies that Ionian-speaking leaders rule by necessity, claiming they freed themselves from Sparta after the Median War and now protect allies by self-interest and fear.
of having the courage to revolt and sacrifice their property as we did when we abandoned our city, chose to be slaves themselves, and to try to make us so. “We, therefore, deserve to rule because we placed the largest fleet and an unflinching patriotism at the service of the Hellenes, and because these, our subjects, did us mischief by their ready subservience to the Medes; and, desert apart, we seek to strengthen o…
With Gylippus and Sicanus arriving and Syracusans renewing attacks, Athenians secretly prepare to sail away, but an eclipse and Nicias’s divination delays departure, leading to defeat and disaster in the harbor.
Nineteenth Year of the War—Battles in the Great Harbour—Retreat and Annihilation of the Athenian Army While the Athenians lingered on in this way without moving from where they were, Gylippus and Sicanus now arrived at Syracuse. Sicanus had failed to gain Agrigentum, the party friendly to the Syracusans having been driven out while he was still at Gela; but Gylippus was accompanied not only by a large number of troo…
In a council of the Olympian gods, Zeus recalls Aegisthus’ unjust killing of Agamemnon after Hermes’ warning, then Athena pleads for Odysseus, who is trapped on the island of Calypso in order to forget Ithaca. Poseidon is said to be away among the Ethiopians.
of Helios Hyperion: but the god took from them their day of returning. Of these things, goddess, daughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard thereof, declare thou even unto us. Now all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction, were at home, and had escaped both war and sea, but Odysseus only, craving for his wife and for his homeward path, the lady nymph Calypso held, that fair goddess, in her…
Nestor tells how Aegisthus cajoled Clytemnestra while Menelaus was delayed after Troy, how Apollo killed Menelaus’ steersman, how Menelaus’ fleet scattered, and how Orestes later returned to kill Aegisthus.
wickedness; but we were over there, fighting hard at Troy, and Aegisthus, who was taking his ease quietly in the heart of Argos, cajoled Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra with incessant flattery. “At first she would have nothing to do with his wicked scheme, for she was of a good natural disposition;30 moreover there was a bard with her, to whom Agamemnon had given strict orders on setting out for Troy, that he was to k…
Agamemnon and Achilles recount the lavish mourning for Achilles: Thetis arrives with immortal nymphs, the muses sing, the funeral lasts days, and there are sacrifices and burning rites before Hermes brings the suitors’ ghosts to them.
checked them saying, ‘Hold, Argives, fly not sons of the Achaeans, this is his mother coming from the sea with her immortal nymphs to view the body of her son.’ “Thus he spoke, and the Achaeans feared no more. The daughters of the old man of the sea stood round you weeping bitterly, and clothed you in immortal raiment. The nine muses also came and lifted up their sweet voices in lament—calling and answering one anot…
In their introduction to the Odyssey’s composition and plot, Butcher and Lang explain the poem’s material as later shaped legends around the Trojan war, then outline Odysseus’s ten-year wanderings and the final six weeks of Ithacan events.
artistic whole, is one of the chief proofs of the unity of authorship of that poem. We now go on to sketch the plot, which is a marvel of construction. Odysseus was the King of Ithaca, a small and rugged island on the western coast of Greece. When he was but lately married to Penelope, and while his only son Telemachus was still an infant, the Trojan war began. It is scarcely necessary to say that the object of this…
They continue the plot outline by listing major episodes—Cyclopes and Poseidon’s revenge, Aeolus’s winds, the Laestrygonians, Circe, the descent to Hades, and the Sirens/Scylla—culminating in Calypso’s eight-year captivity and the wooers in Ithaca.
days’ voyage from the southern point of Greece, brought Odysseus into an unexplored region of fairy-land. Egypt, of which Homer had some knowledge, was but five days’ sail from Crete. Lotus-land, therefore, being ten days’ sail from Malea, was well over the limit of the discovered world. From this country Odysseus went on till he reached the land of the lawless Cyclôpes, a pastoral people of giants. Later Greece fei…
Darwin argues that centuries of unconscious and methodical human selection explain why many long-cultivated plants lack known wild ancestors, and why colonies with few “anciently civilised” traditions produced few improved plants.
what splendid fruit we should eat; though we owe our excellent fruit, in some small degree, to their having naturally chosen and preserved the best varieties they could anywhere find. A large amount of change in our cultivated plants, thus slowly and unconsciously accumulated, explains, as I believe, the well-known fact, that in a vast number of cases we cannot recognise, and therefore do not know, the wild parent-s…
Darwin argues that natural selection preserves advantageous variations while over time rare forms decline, become extinct, and that closely competing, allied species—often via domesticated examples like cattle breeds—can be displaced.
coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may be effected in the long course of time by nature’s power of selection. *Extinction*.—This subject will be more fully discussed in our chapter on Geology; but it must be here alluded to from being intimately connected with natural selection. Natural selection acts solely through the preservation of variati…
Darwin continues the diagrammatic argument: extinction removes intermediate forms and earlier varieties, improved related descendants supplant predecessors, and some lineages persist only if they occupy distinct countries or stations without competition.
and simplified manner), we get eight species, marked by the letters between *a*14 and *m*14, all descended from (A). Thus, as I believe, species are multiplied and genera are formed. In a large genus it is probable that more than one species would vary. In the diagram I have assumed that a second species (I) has produced, by analogous steps, after ten thousand generations, either two well-marked varieties (*w*10 and…
Darwin concludes that larger, triumphant groups tend to keep increasing, smaller groups go extinct leaving few descendants, and over remote geological time only very few ancient species contribute lineages to the present.
will have descended from two species of the original genus; and these two species are supposed to have descended from one species of a still more ancient and unknown genus. We have seen that in each country it is the species of the larger genera which oftenest present varieties or incipient species. This, indeed, might have been expected; for as natural selection acts through one form having some advantage over othe…
He explains why new species formed on Galápagos islands often fail to spread to neighboring islands, due to ocean separation, competition, and the idea that similarly well-adapted species can remain distinct.
different islands. Some species, however, might spread and yet retain the same character throughout the group, just as we see on continents some species spreading widely and remaining the same. The really surprising fact in this case of the Galapagos Archipelago, and in a lesser degree in some analogous instances, is that the new species formed in the separate islands have not quickly spread to the other islands. Bu…
Darwin argues that natural selection preserves the most divergent offspring, allowing small varietal differences to grow into distinct species and explaining hierarchical groupings of life without invoking independent creation.
species—in which respects they resemble varieties. These are strange relations on the view of each species having been independently created, but are intelligible if all species first existed as varieties. As each species tends by its geometrical ratio of reproduction to increase inordinately in number; and as the modified descendants of each species will be enabled to increase by so much the more as they become mor…
Noah’s sons and their descendants are listed after the Flood, tracing lineages through Japheth, Ham (including Nimrod), and Shem, ending with the peoples that filled the world.
These are the generations of the sons of Noe: of Sem, Ham and Iapheth, which begat them children after the flood. The sons of Iapheth were: Gomir, Magog, Madai, Iavan, Tuball, Mesech and Thyras. And the sons of Gomir were: Ascenas, Riphat and Togarma. And the sons of Iavan were: Elisa, Tharsis, Cithim, and Dodanim. Of these came the Isles of the gentiles in their countries, every man in his speech, kindred and nation…
Abraham marries Keturah, names her sons, gives Isaac his inheritance and sends concubine-sons east; Abraham then dies, and Isaac blesses and continues the genealogies of Ishmael and Isaac with Esau and Jacob.
Abraham took him another wife called Ketura, which bare him Simran, Iacksan, Medan, Midian, Iesback and Suah. And Iacksan begat Seba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Assurim, Letusim and Leumim. And the sons of Midian were Epha, Epher, Hanoch, Abida and Elda. All these were the children of Bethura. {Ketura} But Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. And unto the sons of his concubines he gave gifts, and sent t…
Balaam, inspired by God, blesses Israel as lion-like strength and foretells a star and scepter from Jacob/Israel, then he prophesies against Amalek and others before going back home while Balak leaves.
And when Balac heard that Balam was come he went out against him unto a city of Moab that stood in the border of Arnon, which was the utmost part of his country. And Balac said unto Balam: did I not send for thee, to call thee? wherefore camest thou not unto me? thinkest thou that I am not able to promote thee unto honour? And Balam said unto Balac: Lo I am come unto thee. But I can say nothing at all save what God p…
Herzl’s worsening heart condition culminates in his death in 1904 after a final trip, his farewell words about giving his heart’s blood, and instructions to bury him until Jews can move his remains to Palestine.
interested and was seeking a way out; but the devious route of political action, once started, could not so easily be halted; Herzl found himself chained to a political reality. Throughout his Zionist life, Herzl suffered from a heart ailment which became more and more acute as he was taken up by the excitements and activities of the Movement. He became aware of his illness soon after he had written "The Jewish Stat…
He supports the argument with historical examples, saying deputies of the United Provinces were purchased and citing Chesterfield and Sweden, where France and England bought parties and helped enable an absolute monarchy.
by the power of hindering the doing what may be necessary, and of keeping affairs in the same unfavorable posture in which they may happen to stand at particular periods. Suppose, for instance, we were engaged in a war, in conjunction with one foreign nation, against another. Suppose the necessity of our situation demanded peace, and the interest or ambition of our ally led him to seek the prosecution of the war, wi…
Venus confronts Jupiter, complaining that Aeneas’s Italian hopes and promised Roman future are undone by endless storms, and Jupiter responds with a prophecy of successive Roman kingship leading to Augustus and Augustan peace.
length on Libyan realms he fix’d his eyes: Whom, pond’ring thus on human miseries, When Venus saw, she with a lowly look, Not free from tears, her heav’nly sire bespoke: “O King of Gods and Men! whose awful hand Disperses thunder on the seas and land, Disposing all with absolute command; How could my pious son thy pow’r incense? Or what, alas! is vanish’d Troy’s offence? Our hope of Ita…
The story of Camilla’s origin is told: Metabus saves her from Privernum by throwing her as a floating spear to Latonian Phoebe/Diana, raising her in the wild, and then Phoebe/Opis arms her for revenge and death.
robe the royal infant lies. His foes in sight, he mends his weary pace; With shout and clamours they pursue the chase. The banks of Amasene at length he gains: The raging flood his farther flight restrains, Rais’d o’er the borders with unusual rains. Prepar’d to plunge into the stream, he fears, Not for himself, but for the charge he bears. Anxious, he stops a while, and thinks in haste; …
The commentary discusses why “Maximè” is read as "especially" and clarifies how the passage connects Roman greatness—especially after Hannibal’s era—to later calamities.
[44] By deputation--*Procuratione*. He was to consider himself only the *procurator*, manager, or deputed governor, of the kingdom. [45] Kindred--and relatives--*Cognatorum--affinium*. *Cognatus* is a blood relation; *affinis* is properly a relative by marriage. [46] Hereditary--*Ab stirpe*. [47] Next to this--*Secundum ea*. "Priscianus, lib. xiii., de praepositione agens, *Secundum*, inquit, *quando pro [Greek: *…
The commentary argues that “Statim” is used loosely: Jugurtha’s adoption/nominal placement likely did not occur immediately, given the timing between Numantia’s fall and Micipsa’s death.
sake of giving confidence--*Fidei causâ.* "In order that Jugurtha might have confidence in Bestia, Sextius the quaestor was sent as a sort of hostage into one of Jugurtha's towns." *Cortius.* [105] As if by an evident majority of voices--_Quasi per saturam exquisitis sententiis._ "The opinions being taken in a confused manner," or, as we say, *in the lump*. The sense manifestly is, that there was (or was said to be)…
Plutarch introduces the Lives as pairwise comparisons, warning that earlier ages may be fables, and then sets up Theseus to be compared with Romulus, citing their shared divine-sounding origins and similar crimes.
Plutarch's Lives The following are the names of the chapters. These names, in all capitals, are found only once in the text, at the start of the chapter. THESEUS ROMULUS COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS LYCURGUS NUMA POMPILIUS COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS SOLON POPLICOLA COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON THEMISTOCLES CAMILLUS PERICLES FABIUS COMPARISON OF PERICLES WITH FABIUS ALCIBIADES CORIOLANUS COMPARISO…
Plutarch traces Theseus’s ancestry and youth: his lineage from Erechtheus and Pelops, Pittheus’s role in Troezen, Aegeus’s Delphi oracle, and Aethra’s concealment and delivery of Theseus.
are both of them said to have incurred great odium with their countrymen, if, that is, we may take the stories least like poetry as our guide to the truth. The lineage of Theseus, by his father's side, ascends as high as to Erechtheus and the first inhabitants of Attica. By his mother's side he was descended of Pelops. For Pelops was the most powerful of all the kings of Peloponnesus, not so much by the greatness …
Plutarch compares Roman commanders’ battlefield outcomes, contrasting Lucullus’ success against Mithridates and Tigranes with Cimon’s earlier Persian victories, concluding that near-miraculous favor and luck affect judgments of greatness.
the same pain as surgeons' bandages do in bringing dislocated bones to their natural position. Both of them, perhaps, come off pretty much with an equal acquittal on this count. Lucullus very much outwent him in war being the first Roman who carried an army over Taurus, passed the Tigris, took and burnt the royal palaces of Asia in the sight of the kings, Tigranocerta, Cabira, Sinope, and Nisibis, seizing and overwh…
After Pharsalia, Cicero—threatened for refusing command at Dyrrachium—returns to Brundusium waiting for Caesar, is met and honored by Caesar at Caesar’s landing, and later withdraws into philosophy under monarchy.
being killed, young Pompey and his friends calling him traitor, and drawing their swords upon him; only that Cato interposed, and hardly rescued and brought him out of the camp. Afterwards, arriving at Brundusium, he tarried there sometime in expectation of Caesar, who was delayed by his affairs in Asia and Egypt. And when it was told him that he was arrived at Tarentum, and was coming thence by land to Brundusium,…
Renier of Trit is confirmed dead Emperor Baldwin, prompting deep mourning among barons, but Henry’s forces depart from Stanimac; soon after, Henry is crowned emperor in Constantinople as Johannizza resumes ravaging and sieges Demotica again.
[Note: soldiers born of a Turkish father and a Greek mother] The barons quartered themselves in a very good city that lay at the foot of the castle, and had aforetime besieged the castle. Then said the barons that they had often heard tell that the Emperor Baldwin had died in Johannizza’s prison, but that they did not believe it. Renier of Trit, however, told them of a truth that the emperor was dead, and then they …
Paine closes with personal political views: he calls independence America’s natural right, says he writes to be useful rather than seek fame, prays Americans won’t be defeated, and then begins “The Crisis III.”
find its way there; and though it may put one party on their guard, it will inform the other, and the nation in general, of our design to help them. Thus far, sir, I have endeavored to give you a picture of present affairs: you may draw from it what conclusions you please. I wish as well to the true prosperity of England as you can, but I consider INDEPENDENCE as America's natural right and interest, and never could…
Paine claims independence grew from the shock of the battles of Lexington and the broader spread of sentiment toward independence, while Tories either disappeared or attacked General Gage.
wars. O! ye fallen, cringing, priest-and-Pemberton-ridden people! What more can we say of ye than that a religious Quaker is a valuable character, and a political Quaker a real Jesuit. Having thus gone over some of the principal points in support of independence, I must now request the reader to return back with me to the period when it first began to be a public doctrine, and to examine the progress it has made amo…
He continues criticizing British reliance on divine providence and royal optimism, speculates the passage may predate Cornwallis’s capture, and urges Americans to prepare for war or peace with unity and confidence in their justice.
asks no more. She has risen into greatness without the knowledge and against the will of England, and has a right to the unmolested enjoyment of her own created wealth. "I will order," says the speech, "the estimates of the ensuing year to be laid before you. I rely on your wisdom and public spirit for such supplies as the circumstances of our affairs shall be found to require. Among the many ill consequences which …
Paine praises America’s rise despite adversity, urging it to preserve a fair national reputation in peace as equal to wartime virtue, and argues the revolution enlightened the world and freed mankind.
her rich, and her oppression of millions made her great. But America need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she rose to empire. The remembrance, then, of what is past, if it operates rightly, must inspire her with the most laudable of all ambition, that of adding to the fair fame she began with. The world has seen her great in adversity; struggling, without a thought of yielding, ben…
Paine describes his personal role in writing for the American cause, claiming he avoided office and party ties, and then ends by taking leave because the war’s scenes are closed and independence has succeeded.
is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS--our inferior one varies with the place. So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed to conciliate the affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep the mind of the country together; and the better to assist in this foundation work of the revolution, I have avoided all pla…
Don Quixote and Sancho find a heavy, rotten valise and saddle-pad with gold crowns, fine linen, and a memorandum book containing a sonnet and love letter(s) left by a dead or murdered traveler.
to carry, emptying the sack and packing his paunch, and so long as he could go that way, he would not have given a farthing to meet with another adventure. While so engaged he raised his eyes and saw that his master had halted, and was trying with the point of his pike to lift some bulky object that lay upon the ground, on which he hastened to join him and help him if it were needful, and reached him just as with th…
Two days after leaving the grove, Don Quixote and Sancho reach the river Ebro and discover an empty bark tied to a tree; Don Quixote declares it enchanted for a knight’s rescue, while Sancho suspects fishermen.
OF THE FAMOUS ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED BARK p29a.jpg (127K) Full Size By stages as already described or left undescribed, two days after quitting the grove Don Quixote and Sancho reached the river Ebro, and the sight of it was a great delight to Don Quixote as he contemplated and gazed upon the charms of its banks, the clearness of its stream, the gentleness of its current and the abundance of its crystal waters…
Don Antonio takes Don Quixote into a locked room, claims an enchanted bronze head will answer truthfully, and explains it was built by a Pole who works through Friday’s schedule.
Don Quixote then gave them a minute account of the whole affair of Sancho’s government, with which he greatly amused his hearers. On the cloth being removed Don Antonio, taking Don Quixote by the hand, passed with him into a distant room in which there was nothing in the way of furniture except a table, apparently of jasper, resting on a pedestal of the same, upon which was set up, after the fashion of the busts of …
A continuation records Don Quixote’s deathbed scene and the fate of his authorship: Alonso Quixano is declared dead naturally, Cide Hamete’s “pen” is told to warn against counterfeit sequels, claiming Don Quixote is born for a single pair to write and act.
remain long ages hence, unless presumptuous or malignant story-tellers take thee down to profane thee. But ere they touch thee warn them, and, as best thou canst, say to them: Hold off! ye weaklings; hold your hands! Adventure it let none, For this emprise, my lord the king, Was meant for me alone. For me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him; it was his to act, mine to write; we two together make but one, notw…
The army marches to the Euxine Sea at Trapezus, halts about thirty days to ravage Colchis from that base, sacrifices to Zeus Saviour and Heracles, and holds gymnastic contests under Dracontius.
(In the preceding portion of the narrative a detailed account is given of all that the Hellenes did, and how they fared on the march up with Cyrus; and also of all that befell them on their march subsequently, until they reached the seaboard of the Euxine Sea, or Pontus, and the Hellenic city of Trapezus, where they duly offered the sacrifice for safe deliverance which they had vowed to offer as soon as they set foot…
Durkheim rejects searching for religion’s exact first beginning, but instead aims to identify enduring causes behind essential religious thought by studying less complex societies near their origins, using them to test how religion shapes knowledge.
religions, the religious fact still visibly carries the mark of its origins: it would have been well-nigh impossible to infer them merely from the study of the more developed religions. The study which we are undertaking is therefore a way of taking up again, *but under new conditions*, the old problem of the origin of religion. To be sure, if by origin we are to understand the very first beginning, the question has…
Durkheim argues that totemism includes a full cosmological system: sacred things are classified across phratries and clans, so all nature is mapped onto social organization like “the Great Tribe.”
TOTEMIC BELIEFS--*continued* *The Cosmological System of Totemism and the Idea of Class* We are beginning to see that totemism is a much more complex religion than it first appeared to be. We have already distinguished three classes of things which it recognizes as sacred, in varying degrees: the totemic emblem, the animal or plant whose appearance this emblem reproduces, and the members of the clan. However, this …
Durkheim broadens the argument beyond Central Australia by listing reincarnation-like beliefs across Australian groups and then North America, concluding that these support his general explanation of the soul.
in human form when a favourable occasion presents itself."[836] Mathews even affirms that "the belief in the reincarnation or transmigration of souls is strongly enrooted in all the Australian tribes."[837] If we pass to the northern regions we find the pure doctrine of the Arunta among the Niol-Niol in the north-west; every birth is attributed to the incarnation of a pre-existing soul, which introduces itself into …
The chronicle inserts a long poetic account of the 937/Brumby fight: Athelstan and Edmund slay kings and earls, pursue Scottish clans and fleets, and describe a massive earlier slaughter, ending with Athelstan’s death in Gloucester and Edmund’s accession.
Athelstan and Edmund his brother led a force to Brumby, and there fought against Anlaf; and, Christ helping, had the victory: and they there slew five kings and seven earls.)) A.D. 938. Here Athelstan king, of earls the lord, rewarder of heroes, and his brother eke, Edmund atheling, elder of ancient race, slew in the fight, with the edge…
Gibbon links Severus’s Caledonian invasion to the British legend of Fingal and Ossian, then contrasts Roman revenge under Severus and Caracalla with the supposed clemency and virtues of the Caledonians.
13 (return) [ Ossian’s Poems, vol. i. p. 175.] 14 (return) [ That the Caracul of Ossian is the Caracalla of the Roman History, is, perhaps, the only point of British antiquity in which Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Whitaker are of the same opinion; and yet the opinion is not without difficulty. In the Caledonian war, the son of Severus was known only by the appellation of Antoninus, and it may…
Gibbon attributes Diocletian’s palace description to modern travellers and argues that the ruins show artistic decline; he then links learning’s decline to civil wars, soldier license, barbarian inroads, and despotism.
into the market-place. St. John the Baptist has usurped the honors of Æsculapius; and the temple of Jupiter, under the protection of the Virgin, is converted into the cathedral church. For this account of Diocletian’s palace we are principally indebted to an ingenious artist of our own time and country, whom a very liberal curiosity carried into the heart of Dalmatia. 121 But there is room to suspe…
Gibbon summarizes his explanation of Christianity’s spread in the Roman Empire, listing secondary causes like zeal, expectation of another world, miracles, rigid virtue, and the primitive church’s organization.
149 (return) [ Cyprian Epist. 69.] 1492 (return) [ This supposition appears unfounded: the birth and the talents of Cyprian might make us presume the contrary. Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus, Carthaginensis, artis oratoriæ professione clarus, magnam sibi gloriam, opes, honores acquisivit, epularibus cænis et largis dapibus assuetus, pretiosa veste conspicuus, auro atque purpura fulgens, fa…
Gibbon details Julian’s secret apostasy, his decade of disguising his religion, and his eventual open enmity toward Christ and Constantius, portraying toleration as a strategic policy and dissimulation as painful.
p. 71.) Gregory supposes that they were frightened, but the priests declared that they were indignant. The reader, according to the measure of his faith, will determine this profound question.] 25 (return) [ A dark and distant view of the terrors and joys of initiation is shown by Dion Chrysostom, Themistius, Proclus, and Stobæus. The learned author of the Divine Legation has exhibited their words,…
Gibbon reports Procopius’ account that Arcadius’ testament made the Persian monarch Jezdegerd guardian of Theodosius, then questions the claim due to lack of contemporary confirmation.
the locusts, which spread a dark cloud, between heaven and earth, over the land of Palestine. Seasonable winds scattered them, partly into the Dead Sea, and partly into the Mediterranean.] The historian Procopius 63 has indeed illuminated the mind of the dying emperor with a ray of human prudence, or celestial wisdom. Arcadius considered, with anxious foresight, the helpless condition of his son Th…
This is a repeated fragment summarizing that an unequal partition of Armenia and a territorial acquisition strengthened the “declining empire” of Theodosius II.
though unequal, partition of the ancient kingdom of Armenia: 8712 and a territorial acquisition, which Augustus might have despised, reflected some lustre on the declining empire of the younger Theodosius. 82 (return) [ This account of the ruin and division of the kingdom of Armenia is taken from the third book of the Armenian history of Moses of Chorene. Deficient as he is in every qualification o…
Gibbon continues describing Attila’s power and mythic religion, mentions Bleda’s death attributed to supernatural impulse, and emphasizes Attila’s dominance as evidence for the scale of his victories.
life. Yet even this cruel act was attributed to a supernatural impulse; and the vigor with which Attila wielded the sword of Mars, convinced the world that it had been reserved alone for his invincible arm. 12 But the extent of his empire affords the only remaining evidence of the number and importance of his victories; and the Scythian monarch, however ignorant of the value of sci…
This passage reiterates that Genseric, after his victory, ruled as “tyrant of the sea,” reconquering provinces in Africa and ultimately witnessing the final extinction of the Western Empire.
to the number of his provinces; and before he died, in the fulness of years and of glory, he beheld the final extinction of the empire of the West. 90 87 (return) [ This promontory is forty miles from Carthage, (Procop. l. i. c. 6, p. 192,) and twenty leagues from Sicily, (Shaw’s Travels, p. 89.) Scipio landed farther in the bay, at the fair promontory; see the animated description of Livy, xxix. 2…
Ricimer controls parts of Rome and besieges Anthemius for three months; after assault on the bridge of Hadrian (St. Angelo), Anthemius is dragged out and massacred, then Ricimer dies of disease and is succeeded by Gundobald.
Alani, (Jornandes, c. 45, p. 678.) His sister had married the king of the Burgundians, and he maintained an intimate connection with the Suevic colony established in Pannonia and Noricum.] 103 (return) [ Galatam concitatum. Sirmond (in his notes to Ennodius) applies this appellation to Anthemius himself. The emperor was probably born in the province of Galatia, whose inhabitants, the Gallo-Grecians…
Gibbon frames Augustulus’s fall as the extinction of the Western empire, describes Odoacer’s clemency and exile arrangements, and recounts the later transformation of Lucullus’s Campanian castle into a church for St. Severinus’s relics.
Legat. p. 93) this extraordinary embassy from the senate to Zeno. The anonymous fragment, (p. 717,) and the extract from Candidus, (apud Phot. p. 176,) are likewise of some use.] In the space of twenty years since the death of Valentinian, nine emperors had successively disappeared; and the son of Orestes, a youth recommended only by his beauty, would be the least entitled to the notice of posterit…
Gibbon claims the Franks uniquely sustained continuity from Western Rome’s conquerors, but that their conquest was followed by centuries of anarchy and slow scholarly study of French antiquities.
Perhaps it would not be easy, within the same historical space, to find more vice and less virtue. We are continually shocked by the union of savage and corrupt manners.] 62 (return) [ M. de Foncemagne has traced, in a correct and elegant dissertation, (Mem. de l’Academie, tom. viii. p. 505-528,) the extent and limits of the French monarchy.] The Franks, or French, are the only people of Europe who can …
The author proposes the original tale may have blended human and mythic elements, then explains how fifth-century historical events—Burgundian defeats by Huns—shaped legends of the fall of the Nibelungs and Gundahar/Gunther.
in detail in the "Nibelungenlied". The dragon legend probably originated in the Cimbrian peninsula, where the "Beowulf" saga, in which the dragon fight plays such an important part, likewise arose. There thus stand sharply opposed to each other two theories, one seeing in the Siegfried saga a personification of natural forces, the other tracing it back to a purely human story of murder through greed. It may be, that…
Einstein contrasts Newton’s prediction of a star-density maximum at a center with a universe of roughly uniform density, criticizes the resulting “finite island” cosmos, and discusses Seeliger’s proposed modification of Newton’s law.
XXX. COSMOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES OF NEWTON’S THEORY the universe is infinite. There are stars everywhere, so that the density of matter, although very variable in detail, is nevertheless on the average everywhere the same. In other words: However far we might travel through space, we should find everywhere an attenuated swarm of fixed stars of approrimately the same kind and density. This view is not in harmony with…
He claims that at European discovery much of North America functioned as a “great desert” because Indigenous groups hunted rather than farmed, and he interprets European arrival as the start of Indigenous decline culminating in colonization.
traced the character of a primitive people, yet it cannot be doubted that another people, more civilized and more advanced in all respects, had preceded it in the same regions. An obscure tradition which prevailed among the Indians to the north of the Atlantic informs us that these very tribes formerly dwelt on the west side of the Mississippi. Along the banks of the Ohio, and throughout the central valley, there ar…
Tocqueville says the U.S. federal government endures because states share interests, origin, language, and similar stages of civilization, and he argues that war typically strengthens governments by exposing federal weakness.
only subsists upon the map, and their discrepancies would soon be perceived if an attempt were made by a central authority to prescribe the same laws to the whole territory. One of the circumstances which most powerfully contribute to support the Federal Government in America is that the States have not only similar interests, a common origin, and a common tongue, but that they are also arrived at the same stage of …