May
26
The Cranky Communicator: First the Greeks, then the Romans
Posted by Jack Lilienthal at 9:26 am | Filed In Smart
My last missive extolled the virtues of Greek literature, philosophy, history, mathematics and science. Just imagine if Ptolemy’s Library at Alexandria had not been destroyed by fire – think of the many wonders like Hero’s steam engine about which we could have learned.
I’ve subsequently been asked why I am so ensorcelled by the Greeks. In Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata, the women of Greece go on a sex strike in hopes of forcing their menfolk to end the Peloponnesian War. That’s a pretty good bargaining chip in a monogamous society. While it didn’t work, you have to admit it was an imagainative strategy. (I wonder who gave in first? With the men preoccupied with matters of life and death, I’m guessing they grew a wee bit “anxious” and succumbed… so to speak.)
In Aeschylus’s Oresteia, “So Agmemnon steeled his heart to make his own daughter the sacrifice, an offering for the Achaean fleet, so he could prosecute the war to avenge that woman Helen.” Now there’s a profile in courage and leadership.
Everything was going swimmingly for the Greeks (after the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars) until they got embroiled in the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage, i.e., Tunisia. To make a long story short, Rome kicked Carthaginian butt, including Hannibal’s, and annexed Greece in the process around 175 B.C. Now, the Romans were off and running.
So whom should your reading list of Roman notables include?
- The satirists. Juvenal’s 16 extant satires and Horace’s Odest Epistles offer insightful glimpses of Roman everyday life. Juvenal is benign and maybe a bit “juvenile”; Horace is brutally frank - especially about politicians.
- The poets. Cicero, the greatest Roman orator, politican and philosopher wrote letters to Atticus, Quintus (his brother), Brutus (yes, that Brutus) and Caelius. Virgil, a pastoral poet, wrote the Ecologues and Aeneid (a national epic honoring Rome and foretelling prosperity).
Ovid wrote the Metamorphoses, a collection of myths concerned with miraculous transformations. Kind of like a treasury of modern day Disney stories. And then there were Lucretius and Catullus, somewhat minor yet worth a look. Oh, and of course, Caesar’s Commentaries. Great stuff about Gaul, the Goths and, my favorite barbarian horde, the Aduatucci. He and Marcus Aurelius are musts to read.
So there you have it: A list of the best - the Greeks and the Romans. Become familiar with this stuff and you’ll be able to fool everyone at the next cocktail party as to the quality of your breeding and the extent of your erudition. More importantly, you’ll never have to read anything else, with the exceptions of selected Shakespeare, Dante, Milton and several other luminaries, as it literally has all been said before.
Just one more thing before signing off. You really should know something about one of my all-time favorites, the Greek orator, Demosthenes. Here’s a guy who had a lot to say but his diction and delivery were awful. Legend has it he put marbles in his mouth to practice and improve his oratorical skills. Now that was commitment and probably the source of the appellation, “marble mouth,” to describe someone with impeded speech. Demosthenes was a champion of liberty but rode the wrong horse in a political conflict with Macedon. He was exiled and eventually poisoned himself rather than live in tyranny. Now that’s commitment! And maybe a lesson which we can learn pertaining to contemporary politics.
