classics Archives - Page 15 of 16 - Tales of Times Forgotten

Common English Words You Probably Didn’t Know Came From Ancient Greek

There is a popular perception that words derived from Greek are long, exotic-sounding, and mostly only used in discussion of science and philosophy. It’s true that there are a lot of Greek words that fit this description. For instance, very few people would use words like otorhinolaryngology, homoousian, ataraxia, or peripeteia in casual conversation.

There are, however, a lot of really simple Greek words that people use nearly every day. Some of these words don’t sound Greek at all because they have passed through so many languages that they no longer bear any of the distinctive sounds or spellings that we normally associate with Greek words, but they are still of Greek origin.

Should We Be Tearing Down Statues of Socrates and Aristotle Because of Their Views on Slavery?

You may have heard that there are bunch of statues that have been taken down recently. I think that’s a good thing. Some other people disagree. On 12 June 2020, the British comedian John Cleese—who is known as a member of the comedy group Monty Python and as the co-writer and lead actor for the sitcom Fawlty Towers—issued this tweet:

Cleese followed this up with another tweet in which he said this:

There is a lot to unpack here. Cleese is obviously joking, but, through his misunderstanding of what protesters want and why, he has inadvertently raised some very serious questions that I think are worth addressing.

Why Are the Byzantines Significant?

At the time I started writing this article, the most upvoted answer to the question “Why was the Byzantine Empire important in world history?” on Quora was an answer by Bryden Walsh that basically says that the Byzantines aren’t important in world history and that the only reason why anyone imagines that the Byzantines have any historical relevance is because people have overromanticized them due to their association with the old Roman Empire.

Walsh bitterly insists at one point in his answer, “But unlike the neighbouring Islamic civilisations, or the Catholic societies of the west, Byzantium did nothing to move human civilisation forward.” Near the end of the article, he says that the modern world doesn’t owe “anything to Byzantium” at all and that the modern world is “the opposite of everything the Byzantines believed in.”

This is, unfortunately, a reflection of the view towards the Byzantine Empire that has dominated the west for centuries. Despite its perennial appeal, this view is also totally inaccurate; the Byzantine Empire has affected the modern world in ways that few people even realize and there is much to be gained from studying it.

The Amazing Origin of the Story of Achilles’s Heel

We all know the story of “Achilles’s heel.” The story you probably learned in school goes like this: When Achilles was a baby, his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx to make him immortal and impervious to all wounds—except she held him by his heel, meaning his heel was the only part of him that was vulnerable. Many years later, near the end of the Trojan War, the Trojan prince Paris shot him in the heel with an arrow guided by the god Apollon and killed him.

This story is the source of our English phrase “Achilles’s heel,” which is often used to refer to a single fatal weakness in something that is otherwise seen as invincible. It may come as a surprise to some people that this story is not actually found in the Iliad or in any other work of classical Greek literature from before the Roman Era. In fact, in the Iliad, Achilles isn’t even invulnerable at all!

Is the United States a Democracy or a Republic?

There is considerable debate among people in the United States over whether this country is supposed to be a democracy, a republic, or both. Generally, liberals and progressives tend to argue that the United States should be both a democracy and a republic, while conservatives tend to argue that it should only be a republic.

In this article, I want to examine the history of this debate, look at the etymologies and definitions of the words republic and democracy, and decide which of these words best describes the form of government that exists in the United States.

No, “Secretary” Does Not Mean “Secret-Keeper”

There is a popular claim that has been circulating for a long time claiming that the word secretary comes from Latin meaning “keeper of secrets.” This idea stems from a misunderstanding of the meaning of the Latin word secretum, which is the source of our English word secret but usually has a slightly different meaning in Latin.

No, Nero Didn’t “Fiddle While Rome Burned”

The phrase “fiddling while Rome burns” has been in the news a lot again lately for some rather surprising reasons. As most people already know, the deadly COVID-19 epidemic is spreading across the globe. According to The New York Times, as of today, at least 973 people in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least thirty people in the United States are confirmed to have died of it. It is currently estimated that COVID-19 has a case fatality rate of around 3.4%. Meanwhile, the stock market continues to plummet at record rates.

Donald J. Trump—who is somehow the actual president of the United States—reportedly spent a large part of the weekend golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. For some reason, though, on Sunday, 8 March 2020, Trump decided that it would be a good idea to retweet a meme of himself literally playing a fiddle with the caption “My next piece is called… nothing can stop what’s coming.” Trump commented on the meme, saying, “Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me!”

Naturally, people immediately began using the meme to criticize Trump’s response to the ongoing crises, comparing him to the Roman emperor Nero (lived 37 – 68 AD), who is famously said to have played the fiddle during the Great Fire of Rome in July 64 AD, which destroyed large parts of the city of Rome. I wrote a detailed article back in November 2017 debunking the story about Nero “fiddling while Rome burned.” Given the contemporary situation, I figured I’d revisit the subject and debunk it afresh.

Did King Porus Defeat Alexander the Great?

According to all surviving ancient historical sources, King Alexandros III of Makedonia (most commonly known in English as “Alexander the Great”) defeated King Porus (whose name is conjectured to have been Puru in his native tongue) of the Indian kingdom of Paurava in the Battle of the Hydaspes in May 326 BC.

Although Alexander was ultimately victorious, Porus and his men fought valiantly. The Battle of the Hydaspes was the closest one Alexander ever came to losing and he was reportedly so impressed by Porus’s valor that he asked him how he wished to be treated. Porus replied that he wished to be treated the way Alexander would have wanted Porus to have treated him. Alexander therefore appointed Porus as satrap of his own kingdom and the lands to the southeast as well.

Until I started writing answers on Quora, I had never heard anyone try to argue that Porus actually defeated Alexander in battle. We have nothing in our sources to suggest that and, as I shall explain in a moment, we have very good reason to doubt this assertion. Nonetheless, since I started writing answers on Quora around a year ago, I have discovered that there seems to be something of an obsession among Indian and Pakistani nationalists with “proving” that Alexander really lost and that the accepted narrative is a fabrication by the Greek historians who idolized Alexander.

In the answer, I intend to examine the historical evidence supporting the historical consensus that Alexander really did win the Battle of the Hydaspes. I doubt I will convince any hardcore Indian or Pakistani nationalists, but I am not writing this answer for them; I am writing it for those who are genuinely interested in knowing what really happened.

Who Was the Strangest Roman Emperor?

A number of ancient Roman emperors have acquired reputations for being very strange. In particular, emperors such as Caligula, Nero, and Domitian are well-known for their alleged bizarre antics. It is unclear, however, to what extent these reputations for bizarreness are warranted, since many of the most famous stories concerning these emperors are apocryphal. (For instance, Nero definitely never played the fiddle while Rome burned and Caligula definitely never made his horse a senator.)

I think it is generally agreed, though, that the strangest Roman emperor—at least in terms of how he is portrayed in our extant sources—was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, known to later generations as Elagabalus. Elagabalus had a brief, but notoriously bizarre reign, which lasted from 16 May 218 AD until 11 March 222 AD. According to historical sources, Elagabalus was highly eccentric and his reign was ridden with scandal.

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.