Making the Distant Past Relevant to the Present Day
Today, every time someone sees a swastika, he or she automatically thinks “Nazism” and whenever someone sees a pentagram or an upside-down cross, he or she immediately thinks “Satanism.” All three of these symbols, however, originally possessed very different meanings with far less sinister connotations.
Continue reading “What Three Hated Symbols Used to Mean Before They Were Hijacked by Extremists”
We have all heard that our country was founded on the idea that “all men are created equal.” That is certainly what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Unfortunately, ideas are often quite different from actions. The vast majority of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America owned slaves and, for many of them, their public statements stood in stark contrast with their own private actions and beliefs. Nonetheless, their views on the issue of slavery were actually quite diverse and many of them changed their views on the subject over the courses of their lives. In this article, we will examine the unvarnished truth of some of the major Founding Fathers’ views on slavery.
In 1751, Isaac Norris, the speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly commissioned the creation of a new bell for the Pennsylvania Statehouse (later known as Independence Hall) in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges in 1701.
On 15 March 44 BC, an event happened that changed history forever: a group of over thirty conspirators led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus assassinated the Roman politician and general Gaius Julius Caesar in the Theater of Pompey. It is an assassination that has gone down as one of the most famous in history. The assassination of Julius Caesar has been the subject of countless plays, books, films, television shows, and even video games.
Partially reinforced by these takes on Caesar’s assassination in popular culture, many people mistakenly believe that Julius Caesar’s last words were, “Et tu, Brute?” which means, “And you, Brutus?” in Latin—allegedly an expression of shock and horror at Marcus Junius Brutus’s betrayal. In reality, however, the historical Julius Caesar never uttered these words; no one knows what Caesar’s real last words were, but ancient writers attribute a number of different phrases to him in the moments leading up to his death.
Continue reading “Caesar’s Real Last Words”March, as most of you probably already know, is Women’s History Month. In honor of this month, I thought I would write a series of articles about famous women from the ancient world. Unfortunately, this idea has been greatly hindered by the extreme rarity of such women. In fact, the ancient world was so overwhelmingly male-dominated that only a tiny handful of women’s names have even been recorded. Fortunately, however, there are a few famous women from the ancient world whose achievements truly stand out; finding them is just more difficult. Many of these famous ancient women were poets since poetry-writing was one of the few career options that was open to them.
In fact, the very first poet whose name has been recorded was actually a woman. Her name was Enheduanna and she was the daughter of Sargon of Akkad.
Continue reading “Enheduanna: The Earliest Poet Whose Name Is Recorded”
Every year on March 17, people all across the United States celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, but only a few people actually know who Saint Patrick really was.
The historical Saint Patrick was a Christian missionary who lived during the middle part of the fifth century A.D. Most early saints do not have any extant writings. Consequently, all information about these saints can only come from records written by others, who sometimes lived much later than the saint him or herself. This, however, is not the case with Saint Patrick. Two documents written by Patrick himself have survived to the present day. The first of these documents is a brief autobiography entitled Confession. The second is a letter written to the soldiers of Coroticus. These sources provide us with a great deal of firsthand information about Saint Patrick’s life.
One thing that many people do not know about the New Testament is that it actually contains several direct quotes from certain ancient Greek writers. In fact, there are a total of at least five quotes from four different Greek writers found throughout the pages of the New Testament. The following is a list of all of all the known quotations. The verses are given in full with the quotations written in bold:
Continue reading “Greek Writers Quoted in the New Testament”
Obviously, today, most people realize that ghosts are not real. In ancient times, however, it seems that belief in ghosts and other paranormal phenomena was apparently quite widespread. In his satirical novel The Lover of Lies, the Syrian satirist Loukianos of Samosata (who wrote exclusively in ancient Greek) tells a very humorous anecdote about an elaborate prank that was allegedly pulled on the wise philosopher Demokritos of Abdera.
Continue reading “Ancient Greek Ghost Stories, Part Five: Pulling Pranks on Demokritos”
Everyone knows that a cesarean section, also known as a “C-section,” is when a child is removed from the uterus via surgery rather than by the natural birthing process. The name of the procedure, however, is misleading. Although the term cesarean section most likely does indeed come from the name of the famous ancient Roman general and dictator Gaius Julius Caesar (lived 100 – 44 BC), this is not because Julius Caesar was actually born by cesarean section, but rather because of a later legend with no factual basis claiming that he was.
Continue reading “No, Julius Caesar Was Not Born by Cesarean Section”So far in this series I have described just a few of the most popular misconceptions about classical mythology. One huge misconception that I have failed to address, however, is the very notion of “classical mythology” in general.
