ancient Greek culture Archives - Page 11 of 14

Were the Greeks Really Obsessed with the Golden Ratio?

The so-called “Golden Ratio,” or φ, occurs when the ratio of the greater of two quantities to the lesser of two quantities is equivalent to the ratio of the sum of the two quantities to the greater of the two quantities. Expressed using incomprehensible math symbols, it looks like this:

Many people believe that the “Golden Ratio” is the pinnacle of aesthetic perfection and that, the closer something is to the Golden Ratio, the more beautiful it is automatically. Many people also believe that the ancient Greeks were obsessed with the Golden Ratio and that they incorporated it into all their buildings and works of art. Unfortunately for those who love a good math story, we have no good evidence to support either of these conclusions.

In fact, the Golden Ratio is not even mentioned in any Greek text until as late as the early third century BC. The Greeks were arguably fascinated with the idea of using mathematical proportions in art to a certain extent, but they were by no means obsessed with the Golden Ratio in particular. The story of how we came to believe that the Greeks were obsessed with the Golden Ratio, though, is as fascinating as it is bizarre. It involves a friend of Leonardo da Vinci, an eccentric nineteenth-century German psychologist, and Donald Duck.

The Movie ‘300’ Is Fascist Propaganda

For those who don’t know, the 2006 fantasy action film 300, directed by Zack Snyder, written by Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, and Michael B. Gordan, is based on the 1998 limited comic book series 300, which was written and illustrated by the American comic book artist Frank Miller. Both the film and the comic book are very loosely based on the story of the three hundred Spartans who allegedly fought and died in the Battle of Thermopylai in 480 BC.

The film is almost entirely a work of fiction with very little basis in historical reality. Unfortunately, not everyone realizes this. Zack Snyder himself has boasted about how historically accurate the film supposedly is; he said in an interview with MTV: “… the events are 90 percent accurate. It’s just in the visualization that it’s crazy… I’ve shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it’s amazing. They can’t believe it’s as accurate as it is.”

I don’t know which “world-class historians” Snyder has been showing the film to, but I hope to demonstrate here that the film is not in any way an accurate reflection of historical reality and that it deviates markedly from the historical record in ways that clearly promote a message that is overtly racist, homophobic, ableist, and fascist.

What Did Ancient Greek Music Sound Like?

Nearly everyone loves music and the ancient Greeks loved music as much as anyone. Many of the poems that have survived to us from ancient Greece are actually song lyrics that were originally meant to be sung. Unfortunately, nearly all ancient Greek music has been irretrievably lost; no one alive will ever hear the original choruses of Aischylos, Sophokles, or Euripides sung with their original melodies.

Remarkably, though, a number of ancient Greek musical compositions have survived to the present day with musical notation, allowing us to reconstruct their original melodies—or at least something reasonably close to their original melodies. These few surviving compositions offer us a tiny window into a world of music that has been gone for well over a thousand years.

Did Abolitionism Exist in Ancient Greece and Rome?

The prevailing attitude towards slavery throughout the ancient Mediterranean world was essentially that being a slave was horrible and unpleasant, but that that was just the way things were and the way things always would be. As far as we can tell from the surviving sources, the idea that slavery even could be abolished does not seem to have occurred to most people.

There were apparently a few people in ancient Greece and Rome who thought that slavery was immoral, but these people seem to have been extremely rare, since they only appear briefly in the sources. Furthermore, we have absolutely no documentation of the existence of any large-scale, organized movement to abolish slavery in ancient Greece or Rome. Some people did criticize slavery extensively and there were probably people who wished slavery didn’t exist, but no one seems to have ever developed any realistic plans to abolish it.

Were There Any Female Rulers in Ancient Greece?

We are often accustomed to hearing how utterly oppressed women were in ancient Greece. To a large extent, it is true that the rights of women in ancient Greece were extremely restricted. Nonetheless, the picture we have of women in ancient Greece being totally excluded from any semblance of power is not completely accurate. Although female rulers were certainly very rare in ancient Greece compared to the number of male rulers, there were, in fact, surprisingly many of them overall.

Several of the ancient Greek female rulers on this list, such as Artemisia I and Artemisia II of Karia, are still relatively famous today. Many of the others on this list, such as Kratesipolis of Makedonia, are fairly obscure, but deserve more attention. For the main part of this list, I am confining myself strictly to Greek female rulers who ruled in their own names in Greece or western Asia Minor during the Classical and Hellenistic Periods, although there will be section at the end briefly listing some others who ruled outside of Greece. I am sure there are probably a few others that I have missed as well.

Was Hypatia of Alexandria Black?

A lot of people today seem to have quite a fascination with the subject of race in the ancient world. I frequently encounter questions on Quora asking whether various historical figures from ancient times were “Black” or “white.” Elsewhere online, I often encounter claims about the racial identities of people from ancient times.

Back in September 2019, I wrote an article in response to various articles I had encountered claiming that the Roman emperor Septimius Severus was Black. In that article, I concluded that, while you could certainly describe Septimius Severus as what we today would call a “person of color,” it would be misleading to describe him as Black without any kind of careful qualification.

Another historical figure from ancient times whose racial identity seems to provoke a great deal of controversy is the early fifth-century AD Neoplatonist philosopher and mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, who is often cited (quite anachronistically) as an example of a Black woman who excelled in STEM. In this article, I will answer the question: “Was Hypatia of Alexandria really Black?”

Was Aristotle an Objectivist?

Aristotle seems to get frequently brought up in conversation along with a certain twentieth-century Russian-American writer who has acquired something of a cult following among present-day Libertarians. You all of course know who I am talking about: Ayn Rand. The association between Rand and Aristotle is one Rand herself promoted—yet, as I will demonstrate, it is, for the most part, quite spurious. I think that, if Aristotle saw how egregiously Rand misconstrued his philosophy, he would not be pleased.

Greek Heroes Who Lived to Old Age

We are all accustomed to hearing stories about Greek mythological heroes who died young. Indeed, at times, it seems as though a young death is an essential element of heroism in Greek mythology. According to Book Nine of the Iliad, the young Achilleus was offered a choice: he could either live short, glorious life and live on forever in stories and songs or live a long, peaceful life and never win any glory. Achilleus chose the former option. It may come as a surprise to some people, then, that there are actually quite a few Greek heroes who are said to have lived to old age. Here are a few of the most famous:

Ancient Greek Murder Mysteries

Murder mysteries are always a subject of popular fascination. From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories to modern CSI television shows, everybody loves a good whodunit. Today, we are going to be looking at three famous murder trials from ancient Athens. We do not know the outcomes of any of these trials, which means that, from our perspective, you could classify these murders as technically “unsolved.”

Why Do Ancient Greek Sculptures All Have Such Tiny Penises?

Whenever I talk about ancient Greek sculpture, there is always one question that everyone always asks me. It is not “How did the style of Hellenistic sculptures differ from the style of earlier Classical sculptures?” Nor is it “Can you tell me more about how ancient Greek sculptures were originally painted?” No, of course, not. The question everyone always asks me is “Why do they all have such tiny penises?” I have been asked this question so many times that I feel compelled to answer it.