Author Archives: Dave Mathwin

Play for Keeps

by Dave Mathwin

It is sometimes possible to enjoy a book that one cannot understand very much of, provided that

  • The author has a great deal of fun with the subject, and
  • The author clearly and deeply understands the subject, which allows him to express his ideas clearly.

I confess to knowing nothing about almost all of the authors CS Lewis discusses in his wonderful English Literature of the Sixteenth Century. Anecdotes exist that indicate Lewis felt real heaviness and irritation in cranking this one out, but this does not come across in the writing. It reads light as a feather. Lewis generously shares his opinions about literature, but mixes these opinions with a marbling of philosophy, history, and cultural analysis. All this makes Lewis’ work come alive and relevant for today. This is some of Lewis’ best writing, and his wit and humor shine on most every page.

Lewis finds this era worthy of extended examination because it stands at a nexus of a variety of momentous shifts:

  • The early 16th century saw the last vestiges of the medieval worldview have their final say
  • The early-mid 16th century saw the high water mark of Renaissance humanism and classicism
  • The entire 16th century saw tumultuous religious upheaval caused by the Reformation, followed on by the Counter-Reformation.

Lewis keeps his focus on the literature, as is proper, but his opening chapters also set the stage historically and culturally. For the historian, Lewis goes to great lengths to reset the balance between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but I have covered that topic elsewhere. His basic point for in these opening chapters involves prepping us for the fact that literature at a nexus of cultural death and rebirth tends not to be very good. Things eventually sorted themselves out with Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, but the early to middle part of the century left much to be desired. The main fault of the writers of this time involved a hyper-exaggeration of a certain strengths of cultural movements, which robbed much of their writing of life and merit.

To be sure, the political, cultural and religious tumult eventually settled into a new equilibrium, and after that, writers could borrow from different literary genres much more freely and productively, but until that happened, very little of anything transcendent value got written.

This dynamic makes sense to us if we scale down this larger point to something more tangible to our own experience of, for example, adolescence. Our early teen years involve an ending of childhood and the beginning of something else, akin to a larger scale cultural breakdown and rebirth in our immediate personal experience.

I grew up playing drums and listening to a lot of my dad’s music. This was a pre-headphone era, so we all heard what he played on the living room stereo. I got a healthy dose of the Beatles, Otis Redding, Willie Nelson, and Beethoven, among others. I enjoyed almost all of it. But as a 16 year old drummer, I wanted something else (unfortunately it took a few more years before I appreciated Ringo and Al Jackson), and a way to distinguish myself. One day, my cousin’s friend played for me the opening 30 seconds of Rush’s “The Spirit of Radio,” and it was all over for me. I was enchanted. I had never heard progressive rock, so I dove in headfirst. I immediately went to Tower Records and bought Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, and Hemispheres.* For the next year, I then decided that everything about my drumming, and many other things about my life besides, must conform to Neil Peart’s particular style.

This improved my drumming in certain small ways but ruined it in others. Things got misshapen. If one believes (as I did), that even when drumming for my high school jazz band I should act like Neil Peart, you sound like an idiot. It took hearing a recording of my playing at the county jazz festival, and the judges comments, to make me realize I needed to snap out of it. I spent the following summer listening Glenn Miller and Count Basie, and at least partially fixed things for my senior year.

This was a classic, “It’s not you, it’s me,” problem. Neil Peart has much to teach any drummer, but not if you become enslaved to his aura. In that state, one plays drums essentially to convince an audience, and you lose all sense of proportion.

Times of personal and cultural death and rebirth offer many opportunities. In separating certain aspects of life from a larger context, we can see them with more clarity, and this is exciting. I’d like to think that in college, I could throw in occasional progressive wrinkles without being bound by them. Unfortunately our internal instability in those moments of initial discovery make it very difficult for us to take fruitful advantage of whatever insights we gain. The same applies to a culture at large. In the midst of breakdown, when things come apart, we notice what we had never seen before. This is great as far it goes, but it has to kept in balance.

Lewis shows us how this dynamic plays out in the literature of the period.

Oftentimes, what seems like an era in the fullness of its strength actually ends up being something akin to “terminal lucidity,” a burst of energy many dying patients experience before passing. For example, the 1980’s seemed like the crest of a wave of American confidence. We had Reagan-era optimism. We won the Cold War. We grew economically. We wore bright colors and made our hair big. But look again, and we see that some of what we were about shows an uncomfortable exaggeration of a theme. We should never have attempted, for example, “Hands Across America.” Big hair is one thing, and glam-metal fashion ca. 1988 quite another.

This “hyper-extension” of cultural posturing naturally collapsed, leading to completely opposite atmosphere. Now we had grunge music with lyrics about how bad things were, loose clothes (anyone who tucked in their shirt at my high school in 1990 would have been hopelessly labeled as a nerd), and “heroin chic.”

In neither era do men or women look particularly normal, with both exaggerating certain ideas to a point of being ridiculous.**

I much prefer medieval literature to that of the Renaissance, but by the end of the Middle Ages, we saw the same kind of unfortunate exaggerations. Lewis suggests that Scotland’s king James IV perfectly encapsulates the problem with the period. “Peak” medieval chivalry ca. 1350 had much to commend it. It ennobled men, and greatly elevated the status of women.^ The courtly love tradition had its good parts, though the best literature of the period grappled with some of the contradictions and tensions involved in knightly service of ladies. The literary figure of Lancelot encapsulates this well.

James IV (b. 1473, d. 1513) had many good qualities. He was open hearted, high spirited, and generous in the best spirit of chivalry. He had courage, but a variety of contemporaries remarked that he had too much courage to be king. He needed more prudence and policy. Many of his contemporaries felt that James never should have fought the Battle of Flodden, where he met his death (in Henry IV, Pt. 1 Shakespeare may have had James IV as a model in mind for Hotspur). As to the service of ladies, James IV almost parodies the medieval complexity and tension by abandoning himself to countless prostitutes and fathering a variety of illegitimate children. His exaggerated chivalric ideals made chivalry itself look ridiculous.

So too, late medieval literature had little balance and often none of the sense of play of the best medieval prose from previous decades. Lewis cites the work of John Fisher, who drank heavily from the medieval moral sense, but alas, could not let an idea go once he fixed himself upon it. In his The Perfect Religion, he instructs a nun to be

  • Grateful for being created to live in a Christian society. As Lewis states, this is well and proper. But Fisher continues, telling the nun to be
  • Grateful for being created at all. This is still a good sentiment, but perhaps was already covered in the first injunction? Fisher doesn’t stop there, however, urging that she remain
  • Grateful that she was created as a human being, and not a toad, and tops this off with the counsel that
  • She be grateful that she was created instead of all the other people that might have been created instead of her.

Lewis rightly points out that by the third injunction, Fisher has descended into absurdity (“she” could never be a toad—not an option for a human being,) and by the fourth, a work intended to promote Catholic orthodoxy seems to promote a gnostic heresy of the pre-existence of souls and the separation of the body from personhood. Lewis writes, “Fisher’s sincerity is undoubted, but his intellect is not as hard at work as he supposes. We can’t hold Fisher accountable for not answering his questions, but he doesn’t seem to know that he is raising them.”

This lack of balance spilled over into the religiously polemical works of Fisher and Thomas More. Both wrote defenses of purgatory, and both in their zeal latched onto certain rogue strands of late-medieval asceticism. In Dante, the souls in Purgatory sing psalms joyfully, and their bodies suffer in service of redemption, and is in fact an integral part of their redemption. For Fisher and More, we have denigration of the body, so that the purgation is for the sake of purgation itself, and their vision of purgatory means a practically pointless circle of suffering.

We should expect this tendency to exaggeration during times of cultural fragmentation. What was once solid now moves apart. The bell curve of ABC, CBS, and NBC turns into a thousand scattered points, first with cable news, then with the internet. When this scattering happens, we naturally lose our bearings and find what we can to latch onto. What we latch onto, however, will be isolated from a larger context, and thus will lose its relationship to the broader whole.

I have mentioned two late-medieval/early modern Catholics, now for some early Reformation humanists (though it was certainly possible to be a Catholic humanist, i.e. Erasmus). John Colet wished to return to a more pure age, and thus urged a strict “anti-body,” morality upon his readers. He saw no real difference between marital union and fornication, and in fact wished that no one would get married. Marriage and the body proved to messy for his taste. He acknowledged that no marriage would mean the end of the human race on earth, but oh well, these things happen.

The humanists loved classical culture, either for its perceived purity, hardy innocence, or merely because the classical age was not feudal and medieval, the worst of all sins. This meant that he abandoned allegorical or symbolic interpretations of the Bible in search of a platonic “pure” meaning of the text. Others shared these views, but his thoughts on the subject of Latin take him into absurdity in a similar way to Fisher. On the one hand, as mentioned, he was a strict moralist with gnostic tendencies. This led to a distrust of much of pagan literature. On the other, he hated all things medieval, and that meant hating medieval church Latin, which had been “corrupted” from the past that was pure, not in morality, perhaps, but in its use of language. Lewis writes,

{For Colet] the spirit of the classical writers was to be avoided like the plague, and their form to be imposed as an indispensable law. When he founded St. Paul’s school, the boys were to be guarded from every word that did not occur in Vergil or Cicero, and equally, from every idea that did. No more deadly or irrational scheme could have been propounded. Deadly, because it cut the boys off from all the best literature in the Latin world, and irrational, because it put absurd value on certain arbitrary elements dissociated from the spirit which begot them, and for whose sake they existed. For Colet, this seemed a small price to pay for excluding all barbarism, all corruption, all “adulterated” Latin.

We noted above that when something reaches its end, it can mimic strength through one final, exaggerated effort. It might seem on the one hand that Latin had no greater champion than Colet, who sought to emphasize only the “best” Latin. But Lewis points out that all of the efforts of the Renaissance humanists to preserve the purity of latin in fact killed it. A variety of medieval people actually spoke latin (churchmen and merchants), or at least some version of latin. Only a very few scholars knew classical Latin, and fewer still spoke it, and then only in the academy. The attempt to save Latin destroyed it.

It is usually more fun to read a review where the critic pans rather than praises. I have focused on the first half of the book, where the literature, with a few exceptions, stunk. But we should remember that the century ended with some of England’s greatest writers, and with Shakespeare we have an “all-timer.” When we recall Shakespeare’s best work, we see how much more comfortable he was with tension and play than the previous generation. He incorporated medieval and modern elements without going out of his way to defend either. Stylistically, he stuck to certain meters and forms, but not all the time. He could happily dance between them. His characters are rich, both particular to his time and universal.

This can give us hope for our own future. We live in an era where many of the old categories of meaning and belonging have vanished. As a result we see the same kinds of intensification and exaggeration that beset the 16th century. But they learned, and so might we. The path forward comes from Thomas More’s most famous and least understood work, his Utopia. As mentioned previously, Lewis felt that much of More’s polemical work fell prey to the vices of the age. Those vices, he argues, cloud our perception of Utopia. Many moderns attempt to find a point to the work, obscured or otherwise, that will clue us in to More’s meaning in the text. Much of More’s other work had a definite argument. So too must Utopia, right? Was More secretly supporting communism, or was he a closet Protestant? Or perhaps he sought to make some other political point buried in code?

Lewis points out, however, that any attempt to pin the book down specifically one way or another will fail, because More writes in this text like a medieval. Given that medievalism was practically dead at this point, it is no wonder that even his contemporaries remained confused. But Lewis argues the book has no particular point. It’s meant as a romp of this and that, no more, no less. The medievals loved to bandy ideas about and put them in tension and opposition to one another. For them, this was fun–and that signifies of a more healthy age than either our own or the early 16th century. They were more interested in play, we in logical, deductive writing that makes a point and gets somewhere definite.

For us, as for the 16th century, the way out of our predicament involves not stronger arguments, but a greater sense of fun. More shows us that even politics, whatever our position may be, can bear the weight of humor in any age.

*I also bought what was at that time their most recent album, Hold Your Fire. Rush fans may relate to my utter shock, bewilderment, and even anger at going from “Red Barchetta” to “Time Stand Still” in the space of 30 seconds. To this day I still feel that Hold Your Fire is a ridiculous album. Not until Counterparts would I start to forgive them.

**At first glance no two things could seem further apart than the late 80’s and early 90’s aesthetic. But both participate in the same cultural breakdown, and are likely, therefore to share some crucial commonalities. A second glance shows that, surprise, surprise, they have androgyny in common. In glam metal, a lot of guys dressed similarly to women (tight pants, makeup, etc.) and in grunge, a lot women looked like men (short hair, lack of showering, no care for appearance, etc.) No doubt grunge devotees would have been horrified to learn that they shared a crucial similarity with hair metal, but there you go.

In one section of the book, Lewis shows that Thomas More (Catholic) and William Tyndale (Protestant), who wrote page after page attacking one another, actually had a lot in common. Both had similar economic ideas. And on Henry VIII annulment and remarriage to Anne Boleyn, the hot-button issue of the day, they were in lock-step agreement. Both seem to have missed this fact at the time.

^For an example of this, note the famous story from Froissart about how Edward III heeded his wife’s call for clemency for the population of Calais.

12th Grade: “The Center Cannot Hold. . .”

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we looked at the beginnings of the Vietnam war under Kennedy and Johnson, up until the significant troop buildups of 1965.

One of my main goals with this unit is to avoid finger-pointing.  Hindsight is so often 20/20.  In truth the conflict in Vietnam posed questions that no one would wish to answer.  Vietnam’s dilemmas give no good answers, only hopefully less bad solutions.  When I think of the controversy surrounding the conflict, I am reminded of a comment of a monk named Columba Cary-Elwes, who wrote to a friend and professional historian in 1940,

I find we live in so criticizing an age that I spend my time summing people up — public figures, judging the motives of their actions and though I had the whole thing mapped out before me, as God must have, and I certainly have not.  We are always being given vulgar and crude and unkind judgments of people and peoples in the newspaper, and it becomes second nature.  I am going to try and not get caught up in this perfidious habit.  This arose out of Fr. Dunstan’s reminder that we are “near nothing” and we ourselves must try and imitate God, who is infinitely merciful.

We ourselves bear culpability for what happened in Vietnam, but to understand this we need to understand events in Europe in the aftermath of W.W. II England led the way in divesting themselves of their colonial empire.  To be fair, England emerged from the war with its reputation generally intact, whereas France humiliated itself in its capitulation to the Nazi’s.  Much of our modern image of France comes from this singularity, but for the previous 1000 years, France had the pre-eminent military in Europe, with luminaries such as Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, St. Joan of Arc, and Napoleon to their credit.  Their post-war agenda did not leave room for looking any weaker than they already appeared.  They were keeping their empire, thank you very much.  That included Indochina.

Some within Indochina looked to the U.S. for aid in their bid for independence.  After all, we too rebelled at one point from a European colonial power.  We declined.  Truman felt it more important to appease France (who wanted very much to join NATO to keep them out of the communist fold).  Unfortunately for us, (though not perhaps for the Vietnamese), this came back to bite us when France lost in Indochina and left NATO anyway.  A possible golden opportunity slipped away.

Historians debate the nature of this turning point in Asia.  Some assert that if FDR had lived, he would have made a different choice.  There are some intriguing quotes from FDR about how Europe was basically dead and how Asia represented the future.  But all we can do is speculate.

In the aftermath the U.N. created four nations, Cambodia, Laos, North and South Vietnam.  The division between north and south was certainly artificial, done for political reasons and not historical or cultural ones.  Was Vietnam within the purview of our strategic interests?  What kind of aid should we give them?

To understand our commitment to Vietnam, we need to go back to the Korean conflict.  Many believe now, and believed at the time, that our neglect to publicly proclaim our commitment to South Korea may have encouraged the North to invade.  We wanted to learn from the past, and so Eisenhower made our commitment to South Vietnam plain.  This, we hoped, would forestall an invasion from the north.

Well, it failed to do, which left us with a series of terrible dilemmas.

  • We could let South Vietnam collapse.  But what about then, our pledge to defend it?
  • We could give aid to the South and try and “prop them up.”  But how much aid should we give, and what form should it take?  Moreover, would the aid we gave them really solve the problems that South Vietnam had?

Johnson and his advisors knew full well that any aid to South Vietnam might be counter-productive.  We couldn’t keep them on life-support forever.  But eventually a new idea emerged.  Perhaps military engagement might force the South to get its act together.  If that didn’t happen, our military involvement might at least slow the North down and create a level playing field between the two nations.  While the South might not be better off, at least the North wouldn’t pose as much of a threat.

Such is the logic of war.  What I hope the students recognize is that not every story needs a dastardly villain.  Sometimes nations, as well as individuals, face only a series of bad choices, and have to make the best of it.  This, however, is not to say that the U.S. did in fact make the best of a bad situation, as we shall see.

We also looked at the 1960 presidential debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, important for many reasons in our political history.  Most that heard the debate on the radio thought Nixon won.  Those that watched on TV (the majority) believed Kennedy won.  We saw a brief clip of the debate and discussed why that might be the case.

  • Nixon wore no makeup, while Kennedy did
  • Nixon looked much less comfortable on camera.  He shifted his eyes and smiled awkwardly.  Of course it’s not hard to miss his infamous sweating (towards the end of the clip).
  • Nixon wore a blase grey suit, Kennedy the classic politician dark blue.

This may also have helped originate many common tactics of candidates in debates, where candidates try to “stay on message” no matter what the question.  If you watch the clip, you see this perhaps more with Kennedy than Nixon.

Many of us lament the current state of our political discourse, and nearly all would agree that our modern presidential debates hardly dignify the word.  But the reality of our situation raises some interesting questions:

  • In the modern era, to what extent do we need presidents to be “actors,” and project a certain image?  Should it be an unwritten qualification for leadership?
  • TV is an inherently visual medium, and thus does not do well communicating written or spoken words (this was one of Neil Postman’s point in his Amusing Ourselves to Death).  Whether we like this or not, it is a reality of our culture and not likely to change soon.  Do we adjust the way we think of politics because of it?
  • If this concern for image has at least some legitimacy, what has it cost us as a democracy?

Later we will switch gears and look at the changes in music as a mirror for the changes in culture between W.W. II – Mid – 60’s.  I wanted the students to see our transition from broad based group oriented culture to a more individual/niche orientation.  Think for example of Glenn Miller.  He headlines, but the band is the star, and not him.  The music aims for a broad acceptance of broad cross-section of the population.  Culture in general happened on a big, broad scale.  Think of Cecil B. DeMille movies with their grand sets and dramatic scores, or Fred Astaire pictures with their big dance numbers.  Fewer African-Americans were bigger stars than Cab Calloway, but look how quickly he steps aside for the Nicholas brothers incredible dancing in this clip (certainly worth watching in its entirety — Fred Astaire himself called this the greatest dance number ever filmed):

Here is Fred Astaire himself in perhaps his most famous clip, a tribute to Bojangles.

The swing music of Glenn Miller, most popular in the 1940’s, showcased the big, broad, ensemble sound.

Overall, the theme here is akin to the summer movie blockbuster.  Go big or go home.

As we move into the late 50’s this begins to change, and we see this change first beginning in jazz music.  Ornette Coleman comes up with a different idea of what a musical note is. Coleman’s ensemble allowed for the musicians to each put their own individual, emotional interpretation on the music.

Thelonious Monk’s angular rhythms hit anything but the broad middle.  He created a sound totally his own.

In general, we see soloists rise in prominence in music, and this will presage the rise of individuals in society as a whole.  We should be careful.  The difference between an ensemble based sound and a preference for solos is not a moral one, so much as a change of emphasis.  We exist as members of groups and as individuals.  Both have importance, and our cultural expressions reflect both of these realities.  But, the change in emphasis does reflect broader changes in general.

We also saw how the niche of blues music morphs into the mainstream with rock and roll.  Artists like Elvis and the Beatles obviously gained huge followings.  But some of the British groups like The Who and The Kinks foreshadow disenchantment with the prevailing ethos.  Listen to “Everybody’s Going to be Happy,” and you can feel the intensity.  It’s not, “Everyone’s Going to be HAPPY! (YAY!) but “EVERYONE’S Going to be Happy.”  The Who appear to be harbingers of zany disregard for everything.  The song is called “Happy Jack,” and there are happy-sounding “la-la-la’s,” but the mood of the song gives a different message.

The music no longer aims for the broad middle.  As W.B. Yeats wrote in his famous poem, “the center cannot hold.”  Why did this happen, and what will be the results?  We will explore these questions next week.

Blessings,

Dave M

Mankind, Armies, and Strategy

by Dave Mathwin

I have always had great sympathy for Louis XVI. As far as moral character goes, he far outstripped his two predecessors. He had a genuine Christian faith and a genuine love for his family. The first several years of his reign show a movement towards humanitarian and scientific improvements throughout the country, and he sought to limit spending and the Versailles fluffery that characterized Louis XIV-XV. It seems ironic and almost non-sensical that the French Revolution should have come for him. It makes sense, however, when one realizes that for all his virtues, Louis could not play the role of King when it counted most. He had the very common foibles of indecisiveness, and wanting to be liked a bit too much. One can easily pass over such flaws in a common person, but at the wrong place and time, those in power with such flaws receive no mercy from history.

One can see this crucial difference between the three monarchs in their portraits. First, Louis XIV, then Louis XV:

Louis XV would have washed out as anybody but a king. His flaws would have overborne him as a blacksmith, lawyer, or baker. But . . . he could fill the royal robes. Whatever one can say about him, he cared little what others thought.*

Louis XVI in the same pose

comes up short. He shows the required leg, with none of the confidence. While Louis XIV and XV seem to leap out of the frame, Louis XVI wants us to go away so he can go back to fixing his clocks. Alas that 1789 came for such a decent, normal person. Pressed in trying times to puff out his chest and stand firm, he could not. Let us not say that he lacked the courage for this, for he proved at his trial and death to have plenty of it. Rather, we might say that leopards cannot change their spots. Faced with situations entirely unsuited to his temperament, he blundered into bad move after bad move, vacillating here and there in the process.

Some years ago I came across Edward Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, a title that, at the time, struck me as bizarre yet intriguing on its face. I thought, like many, that the Byzantines blundered around willy-nilly for some centuries, with their hesitations and diplomatic ploys betraying a complete lack of strategy. But Luttwak masterfully pointed out that

  • Most wars of any people are unnecessary, and should be avoided if possible. Investing in diplomacy as the Byzantines did costs far less in cash and in human lives.
  • The Byzantines faced enormous problems of different kinds on. multiple fronts for centuries that called for flexible and careful thought.
  • Like anyone, they made mistakes, but their survival for 1000 years as essentially 1/2 of the Roman Empire shows that they had great success overall in managing their resources with accuracy and effectiveness.

Luttwak performs a similar turn with his The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. Emperors of varied quality came and went over the centuries. But, the Romans had a method to how they comprised and used their army. Again, having a strategy won’t always mean that one stays faithful to it, or even that they have a good strategy. But a method, unconscious or no, existed for the Roman Empire, independent of good generals and emperors.

His introduction lays out his basic approach regarding the use of force:

The superiority of the empire, and it was vast, . . . derived from the whole complex of ideas and traditions that informed the organization of Roman military force and it harnessed the power of the empire to a political purpose. The firm subordination of tactical priorities, martial ideals, and warlike instincts to political priorities was the essential condition of success. . . . In the imperial period at least, force was recognized for what it is, an essentially limited instrument of power, costly and brittle. Much better to conserve force, and use military power indirectly.

As an example . . . Romans considered the loss of a military standard something akin to a national tragedy. The Parthians captured a few such standards at Crassus’ disaster at Carrhae. Luttwak writes,

Augustus did not try and avenge the great defeat inflicted by the Parthians . . . in 53 B.C. Instead, in 20 B.C. he reached a compromise settlement under which Armenia was to be ruled by a king of the Arascid family, who would receive his investiture from Rome. Behind the neatly balanced formula there was strategy, for Parthian troops would thereby be kept out of a neutralized Armenia and far from undefended Anatolia and valuable Syria. There was also politics. The standards lost at Carrhae would be returned to Rome and received with great ceremony. Augustus issued coins falsely proclaiming the “capture” of Armenia.

Not very dramatic or inspiring, but Sun Tzu proclaimed that the best generals win without fighting.**

Luttwak organizes the book into a few different eras, i.e., the Julio-Claudians, the Flavians to the Severi, and so on. He examines the military composition at the time, what that should mean for how they used those forces, and to what degree the tactical situation on the ground matched policy in Rome. Certain eras interested me more than others, so what follows reflects that.

During the heyday of the Republic era, Rome’s legions had some variety and flexibility built within them, with light infantry (effective) and cavalry (not as much) attached to the standard Roman heavy infantry. As Rome underwent political changes, so too its army changed. During the early years of the principate they coalesced their forces to make them “heavier”–gone more or less were the javelin throwers and the horses. Exactly why this happened is hard to say, but interestingly, the centralization of political power mirrored itself in the centralization of the army.

However true this may be, it cannot explain everything–a diplomatic method existed behind it. Rome used client states to aid in their security, and used the militaries of the client states to supplement their own. So–Rome provided the main course, so to speak, and their clients the rest. Luttwak writes,

It is the absence of a perimeter defense that is the key to the entire system of Roman security during this period. There were neither border defenses nor local forces to guard against the “low intensity” threats of petty infiltration, transborder incursions, or localized attack. . . . such protection was provided, by indirect and non-military means. By virtually eliminating the burden of maintaining continuous frontier defenses, the net “disposable” military power generated by the imperial forces was maximized. . . . Thus, the empire’s potential military power could be converted into actual political control at a high rate of exchange.

Luttwak adds the following visual, which helps explain the idea of what he calls the “Hegemonic Empire.”

The weakness of such a system lies in that it requires someone with deft political skills to manage it, but Augustus possessed these in abundance. Some of his successors entirely lacked anything like it, but they ruled for a short time–i.e., Caligula. Others, like Tiberius, had sufficient ability, even if they lacked brilliance. Rome all in all prospered under this system because they had “good enough” emperors rule long enough to cover over the disasters. Rome tended to trust its clients and spent few resources watching over them. In turn, this meant that Rome made itself vulnerable to collapse if multiple clients rebelled at once. But again, the strength of the system and the overall competence of leadership made such a result quite unlikely.

In turn, the structure of the army and the attending political realities mean that,

the Roman army was clearly best equipped to serve an an instrument of warfare against enemies with fixed assets to protect–primarily cities, but also such things as arable lands or even irrigation systems. Conversely, Roman capabilities [declined] when enemies assets were not fixed, or at any rate, not concentrated.

This makes Roman disasters like Teutoburg Forest more understandable. You had Varus in command, one who lacked sufficient political ability in Germany. Perhaps more importantly, you had the Roman army far from any help from client states to supplement their ranks, and thus, able to fight well only against fixed assets. When the Germans under Arminius made his own army less “fixed” by “retreating” into the forest, the Romans got mauled. Rome won battles in subsequent years against certain German tribes, but the lack of fixed assets explains why they never could really conquer Germany, nor Parthia and the Sassanids. Grand strategic nuggets like this make Luttwak’s book a real gem.

Luttwak adds that at times the army could prevail in battle even against those lacking a majority of fixed assets. But such situations called forth the dark side of Roman power, writing that

the Romans could [not] apply their strength effectively against the widely dispersed rural base of warrior nations whose strength did not depend on the survival of city-based economic and social structure. Consequently, if the Romans persisted in their efforts, their only real alternative meant attacking the population base itself, in a war of extermination. . . . Thus at the conclusion of Domitian’s campaign against the Nasamones of North Africa, he reported to the Senate that the war had been won, and that the Nasamones has ceased to exist.

Though Luttwak’s analyzes almost everything dispassionately, one can see an example of the truth of St. Maximos’ dictum that man is a macrocosm of the universe, and that we should therefore interpret history through the lens of the human person. For example, I remember years ago when I tried my hand at fixing a plumbing problem in our house. I have no plumbing skills, but the problem seemed simple enough for me to try. Three trips to Home Depot and various tirades worthy of the dad in A Christmas Story later, I called a plumber, who humored me when he arrived by saying that he had seen worse.

My point here is that it would have been much better for me had the plumbing issue been bad enough that I never would have tried to fix it at all. Instead, it hovered in a tempting in-between space. Having waded in, I lost perspective and my cool. The same thing happened more or less to Roman armies in Parthia. And I can remember feeling akin to the Romans against the Nassamones–that if I bashed the pipes to oblivion, I could tell my wife that we had no more problem with the sink. Louis XVI had courage, and humility as well. In the case of serious invasion of France by a foreign enemy, I can imagine him deferring entirely generals while standing firm in an appropriately kingly way. In that case, the situation would have had clarity for him. When he tried to wade into managing internal social and political dynamics, he stumbled badly and tens of thousands died.

In time, Rome switched from a “Hegemonic Empire” to a “Territorial Empire,” to use Luttwak’s term. They switched from a “defense in depth” to having all the eggs in the “border security” basket. This mean that Rome either annexed, absorbed, or abandoned client states. Luttwak masterfully helps us not attach moral categories to this choice, or even to judge immediately the effectiveness of the switch. Rather, this choice involved different risks and problems.

The most common fallacy of analyses is the tendency to evaluate defensive systems in absolute terms. . . . Defensive systems should instead be evaluated in relative terms: their cost in resources should be compared to their military “output.”

Luttwak, p. 61

One can surmise that the “Territorial Empire” had the advantage of simplifying certain problems. More unity meant more control over various factors of defense. Rome need not have emperors equipped with cunning and subtlety to manage the empire effectively. A bulldog would do just fine. But–any penetration of the line brought a significant crises, and if the armies got either lazy or turned on each other–as (the latter) happened frequently in the 3rd century A.D., disaster would follow.

In my view, we should see the “Hegemonic” model of empire as a holdover from the Republic era. It’s flexible fringe with its solid core mirrors that of the structure of the Republic itself. We can see with hindsight that he principate system inaugurated by Augustus fell in between the stools of Republic and Empire, for which the Territorial model makes more sense.

For our own time . . . the NATO alliance in theory projects maximum deterrence and maximum fragility, akin to the Territorial model above. If someone does anything to any member of NATO, all in theory will respond. Possibly, the penetration of one of its members (by Russia) would rally everyone in the ranks for a defense. Possibly as well, an attack at any point might actually reveal the fragility of the system. NATO might abandon one of its own to prevent a general war, which would effectively end NATO as a viable entity.

A third possibility exists . . . one that shows that NATO in facts functions hegemonically. Perhaps the U.S, acting as NATO’s hegemon, might instead delegate defense based on complex diplomatic relationships. Such a move offers us a way out of the either/or of our current situation, and prevent a general war. But it also requires better political leadership than either or current or previous president could provide. If no one more deft arrives on the scene in 2024, we are stuck with the pro’s . . . and con’s of having all of our eggs in the “Territorial” basket.

Dave

*Incidentally, Charles II of England, a distracted (though certainly intelligent) debauchee much like Louis XV, also could transform himself. He knew how to be a king when it really counted, as this brief clip perfectly captures. If Louis XVI could have acted similarly in 1789 with the Estates General, perhaps things would have been different.

**I have nothing to add to the Russia-Ukraine situation except to say that hopefully, Ukraine can find something akin to a military standard to offer to Russia. It would have be something of little value to them, enormous value to Russia. I don’t know if anything like that exists between them.

8th Grade: The Values of the Republic, The Practice of the Army

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we continued our look at Rome by looking at the establishment of the Republic in 508 B.C., and how that related to power sharing between Patricians and Plebians.

We can see a variety of similarities between Rome’s revolution, and our own, and this comparison surely would have pleased on our own founding fathers.  But that does not necessarily mean that we should see democracy, in the technical sense of the word, in either time.    The Romans came to object to their kings for the following reasons:

1. Arbitrary and Personal Power

Ultimately, Roman kings did not have to use law as the basis of their rule.  They could, in the end, do as they pleased.  Law had the advantages of being public and stable.  Rulers could now be accountable to something outside of themselves

2. Secret Power

When kings make decisions, they often do so in secret,  perhaps with a few advisors.  Whether he took counsel or not, the reasons behind the decision would be unknown.  The Romans wanted to create a government where decisions got made in an open forum, with open debate.

3. Concentrated Power

In the pure monarchies all power flows from one source at all times.  The Romans took political power and divided it among various offices and branches.  They then made sure that they always had more than one person serving in a particular office.  Finally, each of their offices had only one year terms, and while they did not outright forbid serving multiple terms, they frowned sternly  upon it.

The best way to think about what the Romans did is to go to the technical definition of a Republic – a “Res Publica” – a “Public Thing.”  Laws, expectations, debates, all these things were out in the open for the Romans.  We should not expect to see the kind of democracy that Athens practiced here, though Rome’s republic certainly had democratic elements.  Their main priority lay in making sure that the government was “public” — open to debate, open to observation, etc.

This does not mean that the Romans established a democracy, though they did broaden the base of political power.  Still, for the most part power stayed in the hands of the Patricians, Rome’s aristocracy.  This happened not necessarily by design, but certain factors heavily contributed to it.

  • The Senate (comprised almost entirely of Patricians) had almost complete control of War and Peace.  Rome was often at war, and often won, which naturally enhanced the prestige and power of the Senate.  We have seen in our own democracy that whenever a foreign policy crisis strikes, domestic issues invariably take a back-seat.  Such was the relationship between the Assembly and the Senate in Rome.
  • As we noted last week, Rome was strongly traditional in its cultural leanings, and the Patricians had a vested interest in maintaining tradition.
  • The differences in wealth between Patricians and Plebians remained modest for most of the Republic’s history.  As we shall see in a few weeks, when this begins to change the Patricians faced more challenges to their power.
  • Finally, nothing succeeds like success.  For centuries, Rome grew and prospered under the general guidance of patricians.

The argument went deeper than this, however.  At root the question of, “What is Rome,” ran underneath the surface arguments.  For Patricians, Rome was an idea.  Rome’s ideals made Rome great, and Rome could only stay great if the people who led had dedication to those ideals.  For Plebians, Rome’s people made Rome great, and so Rome’s people deserved a greater share of power.  This tension would bubble beneath the surface for a long time, and how Rome eventually dealt with the problem would contribute to the unraveling of the Republic itself.

We also looked the basic grid plan of Roman cities, and discussed what they reflect about Rome.

Nothing shocks us here, but the methodical nature of the design reflects a few key Roman values, such as simplicity and unity.  The design pushes people toward the center, with an emphasis on togetherness.  The grid plan may also hint at the idea of equality, or at least equality under the law.

As Rome expanded they “cut and pasted” their city design into the conquered areas.  Rome valued habit, tradition, and togetherness.  They tended to look down on “going your own way” in general, and as we might expect, in the army as well.  The key to their military success lie in the fact that everyone stayed together, everyone did what they were told.

The values that went into the formation of their government and city design also went into their army, whether consciously or not. The standard Roman military formation looks somewhat like its city design, with the men spread out in checkerboard fashion:

Rome’s design gave them more flexibility of movement in the field, but each “maniple,” or individual grouping, had a high level of discipline.  This clip below, manages in 1:30 to show some of those values (warning: not bloody, but violent).

Greece, being a more individualistic society, had a long history of heroic individuals.  In Roman stories, the hero is Rome itself.  The clip illustrates a few key ideas along these lines:

  • When the whistle blows, the front lines move back, and others move up.  Normally soldiers would fight in front for much longer than the clip shows, but the principle is clear: we all share the burden equally.
  • Roman tactics, like their other values, were simple.  Block with the shield, strike with the sword around the enemy’s waist, step back into formation.  With this basic move they conquered much of the world around them.
  • No one gets out of line.  They do not tolerate even the successful “hero.”  Rome itself will always get the credit.  The cohesiveness of the line reflects the cohesive nature of their society.  And these cohesive military formations gave them a great advantage over other less cohesive, more heroically oriented tribes surrounding them.  In these kinds of circumstances, Rome simply did not lose.

Here is a clip from Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, where you see the Roman army advance in their maniples.  The message seems to be that the city of Rome itself has come to fight as they fan out into their grid pattern.

Next week we will begin to look at Rome’s conflict with Carthage, a struggle that would define the destinies of both societies.

Have a great weekend,

Dave

The Secret of Fiery Women

by Dave Mathwin

Though issues surrounding COVID and race occupy our present discourse, we will likely see the question of women in our society revisited soon. Questions about patriarchy and equal pay have not played themselves out yet, and democracy, which often favors abandoning tradition and rapid change, will likely provide a platform for us to hash these issues out more fully.

Camille Paglia–certainly no conservative–has argued that women in traditional societies actually had a great deal of power, maybe even more than in the modern west. Coming from an Italian background, she observed large family gatherings and saw women deciding the course of events, the menu, etc. while the men mostly stood around and looked under the hoods of cars.*

We think of Rome as a masculine society, with its emphasis on conquest, the ‘pater familias,’ and their Senate. And yet, it appears that the most important job in Rome belonged to women–their Vestal Virgins.

We moderns might blanch at such a statement. We rarely talk about the importance of religion, and certainly never would dream of thinking about virginity as even remotely resembling a civilizational issue. But Robin Lorsch Wildfang (who doesn’t wish that their own name was Robin Lorsch Wildfang?) reminds us in her useful book Rome’s Vestal Virgins: A Study of Rome’s Vestal priestesses in the late Republic and early Empire, that the Romans were not moderns. We have borrowed so much from Rome for our political and legal system. And yet, anyone perusing this book knows a vast gulf separates our two civilizations.

I give credit to Wildfang for telegraphing exactly the nature of her work. As a reader, one knows that the author will give you densely packed facts with gobs of footnotes, with little overall agenda. We read these books for enjoyment no more than we eat those sawdust-like “power bars” for the taste. But both deliver on their promise. So many other books fail on this account.

Several times Wildfang mentions that, “Without the Vestals and their cult, in the eyes of Romans there would be no Rome.” Roman Vestals had unique privileges among women in Rome especially regarding their property rights. They could also suffer the most severe forms of punishment. But their duties seem to boil down to:

  • Their maintenance of the sacred fire, which always had to stay lit
  • Their oversight of a secret storeroom/offerings of basic crops
  • The continuation of the virginity as long as they served (Vestals usually began their service between 8-10 years old, and had to serve for 30 years at least, but could leave after that time).

How we interpret these duties will say much about how one interprets the past.

For the fire . . .

Ovid, Cicero, Dionysius of Hallicanarsus, and Plutarch all agree that the Vestals maintained the sacred fire because fire consumes rather than bears fruit. The “dryness” of fire would be linked then with their virginity. The ancient authors talk of two fires, one of Vulcan, the other of Vesta, goddess of the hearth.

But Wildfang looks for an alternative explanation. Rather than delve into the symbolism here for an explanation, she stresses the antiquity of the rite. Since the Vestal cult predated Rome’s founding, we should see only Rome’s desire to maintain its ties to antiquity, and the various associations some make to virginity and fruitfulness (or its lack) become unnecessary.

I admire Wildfang’s thoroughness and academic integrity, but I rarely approve of Occam’s razor as it applies to historical conclusions. Here at least, it just seems to convenient, too much of an “easy out” for us moderns.

I think that we gain interesting insights by taking these sources along with the scope of Rome’s history. This in turn might lead to understanding the sources in a different way. Wildfang mentions in a few places that Vestals entered into the order via “abduction” somewhere between 6-10 years old. This abduction rite happened with the father’s consent, as the girls were taken from their families in front of their father in a prepared ceremony of sorts. We may blanch at the fact that the girls likely rarely consented themselves, but this in itself gives an important clue as to the meaning of their order for Rome.

Of all the peripheral clues she gives as to the meaning of the abduction ceremony, Wildfang never deal with the story of Rome’s founding, which happened in part through the abduction of Sabine women. Romulus and his male cohorts invite a variety of women on the pretext of a religious festival. They then basically kidnap them and “marry” them–no doubt forcibly for many of them. In the telling Livy refuses to sugarcoat or condemn the deed. He seems to shrug his shoulders over it. Simply put, the Roman state could not have a future without families and children. Maybe this tale has within it some deep symbolism. Maybe the practical Romans just stated the facts and expected one to deal with it. Whatever the case, the abduction into the Vestal order mirrors this event rather evenly. This comparison makes more sense to me when we recall that Romulus’ mother Rhea was a Vestal herself, and begat her twin boys either through the rape/seduction of Mars or some other guy, depending on the tale.

Thus, I think we can say that the Vestals “married” Rome when they entered the order. So I am not sure that we should view the fire they had to maintain so precisely as “sterile.” If the Romans thought of this fire as “fruitless” why punish them so severely for letting it go out?**

If we think of fire as a “heavenly” substance of the “air” and we recall their duty to maintain the sacred storehouse of food, we might see these two elements as a reflection of marriage itself, a union of the masculine and feminine, of Sky father and Earth mother. Relations with another man would effectively then become adultery to Rome itself. The women maintain the fire possibly because women in general are the foremost keepers of the marriage institution. For example, Penelope worked harder to maintain her marriage than Odysseus did.

No Vestal rites means no marriage of heaven and earth, and so no families, and no “future” for Rome. Thus, the Romans took the extinguishing of the Vestal fire after the Battle of Cannae as a worse omen than the massive death toll of the battle itself.

We see Wildfang employ Occam’s razor again with another related issue. If the vestals had sexual relations, they faced a charge of “incestum.” Certainly by the time period covered in the book, the word had just the meaning we would assume–sex with a family member. Wildfang can’t grasp the sense of this. Why would having sex with average Joe Roman be specifically incestuous? Seeking clarity, she suggests that “incestum” didn’t mean “incest,” but “impurity.” The Latin for impurity is “incastum,” so it “makes sense” to Wildfang that, because incastum predates incestum as a word, “incestum” need not be a special, more horrible form of impurity. Best to translate “incestum” in this case as simply impurity, i.e., incastum.

Again, I protest. If “incestum” was not a such an unusual crime, why the unusual punishment of being buried alive? Also, let us assume the Romans meant what they said, when they said it. They had two different words, and distinguished between them. Whatever the original context, in the time period Wildfang examines they had different words with different meanings. Finally, I think the natural meaning of “incestum” could make sense within my interpretation of the vestals “marrying” Rome. Maybe, to have relations with any Roman meant, then, having relations with a family member.

Consider this line of thought above speculative. I am obviously no expert. But I think this makes certain odd pieces of the vestal puzzle fit together.

Wildfang talks briefly about the political influence vestals had on rare occasions. Normally they stayed out of politics, but every so often they intervened. Why didn’t the vestals intervene more, or if they had only a religious function, why intervene at all? If we think of the vestals as married to Rome, per my earlier suggestion, our own experience of family dynamics helps explain this difficulty Wildfang mentions.

I had one set of grandparents who had a lot of influence over family events and dynamics. This influence came not from frequent edicts. They had no need to issue them, and certainly they did not look to control anyone. Their influence came by our love and respect for them. My grandfather might occasionally make a pronouncement or two. Of course we listened, but with my grandfather, we might discuss or mildly argue with him.

My grandmother made “pronouncements” even more rarely than my grandfather, but when she spoke that meant the end of the matter. In my world, challenging or even disagreeing with my grandmother simply was not possible (though please understand that she was the sweetest person in the world–everyone she knew thought that they were her favorite person–she had that effect on people). When I found out that she was a Yankee fan around the age of 9-10 I could not have been more stunned, or had my world more shaken (my dad spent formative years in Brooklyn and we were Dodger fans by birth). With my grandfather, I might have argued the case. Yet, I received this news from my grandmother in silence. I could conceive of no other reaction.^

The vestals likely had a similar power, but if used too frequently it would likely have diminished. When a plant blooms, what secures its life lies hidden in the earth. So too, the vestals kept their symbolic fruits of the earth hidden as part of their duties. They likely thought that the power of women remained greatest when they chose to conceal rather than reveal. Even the masculine, patriarchal Romans seem to have understood this. Perhaps it was just this overt masculinity allowed them to see the importance of the feminine with clarity.

Dave

*Paglia, an self-described atheist and also a lesbian, can speak fondly of ‘tradition’ because of her appreciation for paganism. Perhaps these days, even a pagan could qualify as some kind of conservative.

**I criticize Wildfang for not trusting the ancient sources in regards to “incestum,” but one could throw a similar charge back at me in this instance. Ovid makes a direct reference to linking the flame with the fact that a vestal “yields no seeds.” Dionysius of Halicanarsus makes a similar suggestion, but asserts it only as a suggestion. Plutarch follows Dionysius in making this interpretation one option among many.

In my defense, I would say the following:

  • Ovid seems to play fast, loose, and as he pleases with his material. I see him as something of a prankster. This does not mean he lied or was inaccurate, but I would not trust him on a point of historical accuracy. That was not his aim.
  • Dionysius and Plutarch have more gravitas, but both of them give only “some say” credence to this interpretation.

I think that the general sense of the vestal’s history and Rome’s history guide us better than these texts by themselves. The “first” of Rome’s vestals, Rhea, did “bear fruit” in birthing Romulus. When we combine this fact with the parallel to the abduction of the Sabine women, well . . . that’s my argument for my interpretation. It may not fit with with Ovid, but I don’t think it absolutely goes against the others.

^Another story to illustrate this point . . . I collected baseball cards for a few years growing up. When my grandparents visited she would sometimes take me to the local baseball card shop to make a purchase for me. I remember driving home one day from such a trip–I was about 11 years old–and we saw a beautiful motorcycle pass us on the road. She asked if I liked the motorcycle and I said absolutely I did. She stated, “Those are not safe. If you decide to buy a motorcycle, no more trips to the baseball card store.”

In one sense her comment did not make much sense. By the time I was old enough for a motorcycle she would not be taking me to buy baseball cards (nor would I be collecting them).

But her comment absolutely stuck with me. I put all thoughts of motorcycle riding out of my head immediately. I still hear her voice whenever I take wistful middle-aged man glances at a Harley. But in my 30+ years of knowing her on Earth, this was one of only two times she ever told me not to do something. She shot very, very few “bullets” but those hit their mark and left an indelible impression

The American “Prestige”

by Dave Mathwin

 

In our senior Government class, we spend a good amount of time discussing the question, “What is America?” throughout the year.  The question is deceptively simple, and we have a difficult time answering it.  We discussed Book 1, Ch. 4 from The Prince recently in class, and it spurred some interesting discussion.

The text reads as follows . . .

Why The Kingdom Of Darius, Conquered By Alexander, Did Not Rebel Against The Successors Of Alexander At His Death

CONSIDERING the difficulties which men have had to hold a newly acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great became the master of Asia in a few years, and died whilst it was yet scarcely settled (whence it might appear reasonable that the whole empire would have rebelled), nevertheless his successors maintained themselves, and had to meet no other difficulty than that which arose among themselves from their own ambitions.

I answer that the principalities of which one has record are found to be governed in two different ways: either by a prince, with a body of servants, who assist him to govern the kingdom as ministers by his favour and permission; or by a prince and barons, who hold that dignity by antiquity of blood and not by the grace of the prince. Such barons have states and their own subjects, who recognize them as lords and hold them in natural affection. Those states that are governed by a prince and his servants hold their prince in more consideration, because in all the country there is no one who is recognized as superior to him, and if they yield obedience to another they do it as to a minister and official, and they do not bear him any particular affection.

The examples of these two governments in our time are the Turk and the King of France. The entire monarchy of the Turk is governed by one lord, the others are his servants; and, dividing his kingdom into sanjaks, he sends there different administrators, and shifts and changes them as he chooses. But the King of France is placed in the midst of an ancient body of lords, acknowledged by their own subjects, and beloved by them; they have their own prerogatives, nor can the king take these away except at his peril. Therefore, he who considers both of these states will recognize great difficulties in seizing the state of the Turk, but, once it is conquered, great ease in holding it. The causes of the difficulties in seizing the kingdom of the Turk are that the usurper cannot be called in by the princes of the kingdom, nor can he hope to be assisted in his designs by the revolt of those whom the lord has around him. This arises from the reasons given above; for his ministers, being all slaves and bondmen, can only be corrupted with great difficulty, and one can expect little advantage from them when they have been corrupted, as they cannot carry the people with them, for the reasons assigned. Hence, he who attacks the Turk must bear in mind that he will find him united, and he will have to rely more on his own strength than on the revolt of others; but, if once the Turk has been conquered, and routed in the field in such a way that he cannot replace his armies, there is nothing to fear but the family of the prince, and, this being exterminated, there remains no one to fear, the others having no credit with the people; and as the conqueror did not rely on them before his victory, so he ought not to fear them after it.

The contrary happens in kingdoms governed like that of France, because one can easily enter there by gaining over some baron of the kingdom, for one always finds malcontents and such as desire a change. Such men, for the reasons given, can open the way into the state and render the victory easy; but if you wish to hold it afterwards, you meet with infinite difficulties, both from those who have assisted you and from those you have crushed. Nor is it enough for you to have exterminated the family of the prince, because the lords that remain make themselves the heads of fresh movements against you, and as you are unable either to satisfy or exterminate them, that state is lost whenever time brings the opportunity.

Now if you will consider what was the nature of the government of Darius, you will find it similar to the kingdom of the Turk, and therefore it was only necessary for Alexander, first to overthrow him in the field, and then to take the country from him. After which victory, Darius being killed, the state remained secure to Alexander, for the above reasons. And if his successors had been united they would have enjoyed it securely and at their ease, for there were no tumults raised in the kingdom except those they provoked themselves.

But it is impossible to hold with such tranquillity states constituted like that of France. Hence arose those frequent rebellions against the Romans in Spain, France, and Greece, owing to the many principalities there were in these states, of which, as long as the memory of them endured, the Romans always held an insecure possession; but with the power and long continuance of the empire the memory of them passed away, and the Romans then became secure possessors. And when fighting afterwards amongst themselves, each one was able to attach to himself his own parts of the country, according to the authority he had assumed there; and the family of the former lord being exterminated, none other than the Romans were acknowledged.

When these things are remembered no one will marvel at the ease with which Alexander held the Empire of Asia, or at the difficulties which others have had to keep an acquisition, such as Pyrrhus and many more; this is not occasioned by the little or abundance of ability in the conqueror, but by the want of uniformity in the subject state.

Machiavelli’s distinction helps make sense of other historical events.  We can look, for example, at Napoleon and Hitler’s invasion of Russia/Soviet Union.  At first glance, Russia must have seemed akin to Persia in Napoleon’s eyes.  After all, Czar Alexander I certainly looked like most other autocrats in history.  But . . . for most of Russia’s existence it resembled France.  Tales in the old Russian folk-epics reveal a shaky relationship of the people to their ruler, but more importantly, old Russia had several distinct provinces/cities that competed for precedence and had their own history and identity.  Napoleon found Russia easy to enter but hard to hold.  The Nazi’s found the same true even 130 years later.  When force no longer sufficed to hold the Soviet Union together ca. 1989-91, the old identities resurfaced almost immediately.

“Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” also has some of the same logic behind it.  A country like China has the appearance of resembling Persia, just as Russia did.  But most of China’s history reveals competing provinces, dialects, and an uncertain relationship to the emperor until later in its existence.

So we asked the question, “Which kind of kingdom is America?”  Does it resemble France, or Persia?  In contrast to Russia, China, or France,  Persia did not have a long, zig-zag run-up to the height of its power.  Their civilization had a jump-start, meteoric rise under Cyrus the Great, who immediately set a pattern of charismatic dominance over the whole of his empire.  In future generations the Persians took their cue it seemed almost entirely from future dynamic leaders like Darius.  Their reliance on this pattern shows even in the failed rebellion of Cyrus the Younger, who fit this mold of dynamic leader better than his brother Artaxerxes II.  The fact that he almost succeeded with no other claim to rule besides his personality says a lot about Persia.

Some students thought that America had a beginning akin to that of France or Russia.  We had different colonies in different parts of the Atlantic coast that developed entirely apart from each other.  These colonies came together only to fight against a common enemy, but essentially remained separate kingdoms until sometime after the Civil War — perhaps not even until into the Great Depression.

The majority thought otherwise.  True, the first colonies hardly interacted with one another, but they came to America with similar purposes from similar cultures.  At the core, they were about the same thing, which is why the French-Indian War could so easily unite them and start us thinking about the “people.”  When examining the history of China, Russia, or France one sees a host of regularly occurring rivalries, small conflicts, and so on.  But America we only see one big blowup  — the Civil War.  The Civil War showed that obviously, we differed on much.  But it was the kind of big blowup that occurs in families, when often unity exists. It was the exception that proved the rule.

I acknowledge much merit in the “France” argument, but in this case I sided with the majority.  Tocqueville noticed back in the 1830’s the tendency towards centralization in our democratic experiment, and the already growing power of the majority.  He wrote,

The very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute sovereignty of the majority; for there is nothing in democratic states that is capable of resisting it.

We have different political opinions, but in no political election is any fundamental question of identity at stake.  Many rejoice/lament the election of a particular president.  But whoever may win the election, the next day our lives remain unchanged.

In Book Five of his Poliitcs Aristotle speculates that democratic constitutions* remain most safest when threats to said constitution remain either far away or very close.  The first seems obvious.  When nothing threatens us we live at ease, and it’s easy to have peace with others.  A very near threat like an invasion would bind us together quickly.    This kind of threat might also be merely an obvious one, like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which immediately united a divided country in the war effort.

The in-between threats, however, pose a real challenge.  Since the danger is neither obvious or near, we can easily divide not just on how to respond but whether or not to respond.  We might think of the Vietnam War as an example of this, and sure enough, it brought on significant internal changes to our constitution.  The “War on Terror” fits into a similar mold. Should we intervene here or there?  Should we increase surveillance or not, what about privacy rights, and so on.  And, true to Aristotle’s form, we see increased political polarization with this “intermediate” threat.

But our class speculated on exactly what an “invader” — whatever form that might take — would find.  Once Cyrus the Younger died in the Battle of Cunaxa his cause died with him.  Once Darius III died, Alexander had essentially conquered Persia.  But at what would America’s enemies take aim?  Not the president, surely, for at any given time half the country will not like him.  Not the capital, either.  As the British discovered in 1813, burning D.C. did little to aid their war effort.  One could hypothetically detonate a strong EMP in the atmosphere to knock out our electrical system.  But that would take out any first or second world country and so that answer lacks enough specificity to the United States.  This “absolute sovereignty of the majority,” would be hard to pin down.  Where is it?  And how would one attack it?  Get too close, and the unity of the people to defend their “constitution” would quickly emerge.

The “prestige” in magic is the trick’s big reveal, and of course sometimes what is revealed is nothing at all.  This would happen perhaps to an invader, who might never find the rabbit inside the hat.  Rather, as Aristotle suggests, and the experience of Rome certainly plays out, democracies will be far more likely to erode themselves from within as opposed to without.

Dave

 

*By “constitution” he does not mean merely a written document, but our way of relating to one another in general.

 

 

The Mirror Crack’d

by Dave Mathwin

Some years ago I saw a video about the emergence of Greek culture and the talking heads discussed the magnificent achievements of Greek drama.  Before talking about the drama itself, they mentioned the origins of drama, though only very briefly.  After all, Greek drama began in the worship of Dionysius, a confusing and strange subject for modern ears. I found it fascinating to watch the speakers deal with this aspect of Greek civilization.  They hated being on unfamiliar territory — unfamiliar not so much intellectually, that is, but ideologically and experientially.

Briefly,

  • Dionysian worship started with women sneaking off illegally, or at least shamefully, for their rites. Dionysius himself occupied, at minimum, the barest fringe of Greek religion.  Some of the commentators latched onto this, for it promised a narrative we could identify with.  “Aha!  A sisterhood of oppressed women, sharing radical beliefs! And observe the vital contribution they made to their society and the world at large, etc.”  But Dionysian rites also involved men, too, so they couldn’t press that narrative too far.
  • The Dionysian rites for women also seemed to involve ecstatic experiences invoking bulls, snakes, wine, and so on. This too got the barest mention, for the “oppressed sisterhood” narrative didn’t really match the fact that Dionysius was a fertility god.  So the women may have been praying and dancing furiously for the chance to have children, a very traditional “role” (ha!) for women to play.
  • To add insult to injury, male Dionysian worship may have invoked blessings to “survive ordeals.”  This got no mention at all.  It appears that these “rebels” danced around madly and got drunk to attempt to fulfill the most prosaic of traditional gender roles of “tough guy,” and “nurturing mother.”  This square peg had no place in their round hole interpretations.

So, after passing over all this in the quickest fashion, finally smiles came to their faces as they talked about the drama itself. Here they felt far more comfortable.  Greek drama “allows for the community to come together and deal with issues of importance,” or something like that.  Ah, yes, the “humanism” of the Greeks.  This we understand, so this they talked about at length.  Gone were any of the unusual religious associations involving Dionysius.  The important thing to us is the emergence of drama, for without the emergence of drama, how could we watch Dumb and Dumber today instantly on Netflix?*  And we very naturally assume that what is important to us must have been of prime importance to the Greeks.  Dionysian worship, then, got relegated to a mere carrying device for what we understand and what we feel is important.  As a friend of mine stated, whenever we use a word to describe an ancient people that they themselves did not use (in this case, the word “humanism”), we will likely reach false conclusions. The talking heads are not unusual. Most of us unfortunately avoid confrontations with the “other.”

I’m not an Alfred Lord Tennyson fan (to be fair I’ve read hardly anything he wrote), but his poem “The Lady of Shallot” intrigues me in one way.  The Lady in question deals with a curse, and can only look at reflections in a mirror to ascertain reality.  The mirror of course serves as a poor substitute of reality, and later cracks upon her sad and untimely death.

Out flew the web and floated wide-

The mirror crack’d from side to side;

“The curse is come upon me,” cried

The Lady of Shalott.

Tennyson’s work came from the same spiritual place as the dreaded pre-Raphaelites, whose paintings reveal an intense desire to recover something of antiquity.  And yet the grossly over-dramatized version of the past in their eyes reveals far more about themselves, with their aspirations fit perhaps for the teenage soul more than an adult world (hence L.M. Montgomery has her young Anne of Green Gables grow fascinated with the “Lady of Shallot”).

All of us tend to distort reality to fit our own images of it, but the way the Parthenon has been interpreted over time stands as one of the more curious episodes of this typical human folly.  Joan Breton Connelly chronicles this and gives her own interpretation of the architectural masterpiece in her recent book, The Parthenon Enigma.  The building occupies pride of place in the history of western civilization.  Its marble facade inspired those who saw it to grand notions of ideal beauty.  The building’s perfect proportions inspired noble visions of clarity and a sense of true humanity.  Certain technical achievements of the building are practically unparalleled.

But we made the building in our own image, and Connelly writes to set the record straight.  Ever since the Enlightenment we have seen the Parthenon as reflecting the “humanism” of the Athenians.  We have some justification for this.  If you trace the religion of the Athenians one sees a clear descent from Aeschylus (who takes religion seriously) to Thucydides (who didn’t).  The Athenians elected Pericles to multiple terms of their highest office, and he certainly fits the humanist mold. Observers therefore assumed, as the Parthenon was Pericles’ project that it would reflect his values.  Then again, maybe not.

She has two main arguments, with the first drawn from the he Parthenon friezes, long thought to depict contemporary Athenians mingling with the gods.  Connelly has an ironclad argument that Athens instead hearkens to not to its present but its mythological past.  At Athens’ founding it had a king named Erechtheus, who had three daughters that sacrificed themselves that Athens might survive (images below on a Parthenon frieze).  Athens makes an explicit statement, and explicit prayer of hope, that death might come from life with the Parthenon.

Amidst our wondering at the architectural genius of the building and the democratic (and therefore mostly familiar) practices of the Athenians, we forget that the Parthenon was a temple to Athena.  Excavations show that they built the Parthenon on top of an older temple, so clearly the Parthenon was sacred space, and not merely civic space with a civic purpose.

Corinthian_Column_Head_JerashModern eyes miss many such death-life associations in Greece.  For example, look up any article on Corinthian columns and you will likely see something about their fancy, or perhaps excessive, ornamentation.  Certainly Corinthian columns do not fit with Enlightenment sensibilities about classical decorum and proportion — such people always prefer the Ionic column (I prefer the Ionic — to the right — as well so I don’t mean to cast stones).  But Connelly points out that the plants in Corinthian columns hearken back to ancient myths about death and rebirth in their city.  Articles may describe Corinthian columns as “one example of a Greek votive column” (as one site does) without paying any attention at all to the fact that “votive” columns, like votive candles, have a distinctly religious purpose.  It’s almost as if they use the big words to obscure the meaning.  We will have the Greeks be “humanists” by hook or crook.

A fascinating sub-plot is the length Victorian society went to deny that the Parthenon originally was painted.  Evidence after evidence turned up, mostly brushed aside and denied with too much protest.  A painted Parthenon would overturn all of their ideas of classical beauty and classical purity.  Whole artistic theories got erected on an unpainted Parthenon, and they could not let it go.  This in turn clouded their vision in other areas, and allowed false ideas about the Parthenon to persist well into the 20th century.

725-1422641769E21CEBE6B

Did the Parthenon have no contemporary political meaning?  Perhaps . . . perhaps Pericles wanted to heal the fractious wounds of a prosperous democracy.  Success has never sat well with democracies, and it would make sense that Athens would want to go back to its founding and a story of sacrifice for the common good.  All this rings partially true, but the bulk of the evidence makes the Parthenon an overtly religious shrine — one that seeks life from death.  Plenty of evidence exists that Athenians saw it this way themselves.  For example, during the plague that struck during the Peloponnesian War, sick Athenians came to the Parthenon for refuge, as well as for healing, and possibly, to die.  It would be hard to imagine them doing so if the Parthenon was their equivalent of our Capitol or Washington Monument.

But this interpretation also challenges my own thoughts regarding the Parthenon.  The “humanist” interpretation fit how I tended to see the late 5th century Athenians as essentially worshippers of themselves.  This view gets lots of support from seeing contemporary Athenians mixed with gods on the Parthenon friezes.  With the Parthenon cast in this new light, I think that interpretation gets challenged but not overthrown.  I think other evidence exists for seeing the Athenians as self-worshippers, and perhaps the Parthenon itself still supports that view.  But this will need rethinking on my part.

The lesson of this book is the peril of using history rather than receiving and letting it change you. Self-idolatry is alas, not only confined only to the Greeks, or the Enlightenment and Victorian eras.

Dave

*To be fair, this is actually a pretty good movie . . .

8th Grade: All Good Things Must Come to an End

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we saw the great golden age of Periclean Athens collapse into the abyss of the Peloponnesian War.  We began the week by asking why “Golden Ages” tend to last not much longer than a generation.

  • Some suggest that the success and power a golden age brings would bring about the envy of others, and this envy could turn into a threat.
  • Another might suggest that the generation that grew up with the ‘golden age’ in place would likely have a much different experience than their parents.  I found this comment especially perceptive.  As we saw last week, golden ages usually arise from a creative response to a particular challenge.  Those that grow up without the challenge won’t have the experience or ‘training’ to continue what their parents started.
  • Last week we also noted how golden ages require a variety of factors coming together at once, some physical and others psychological.  No one can reasonably keep all the plates spinning for long.  Eventually nature dictates that something will begin to spin off the axis sooner or later, and this will drag other things down with it.

Some of their comments did in fact apply directly to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, especially#1.  Athens went from plucky underdog in 490 B.C. to the then equivalent of the New York Yankees or New England Patriots by 431 B.C.  Many city-states lined up against them with Sparta. We did not spend a great deal of time on the war itself, as during their senior year we devote a few weeks entirely to this conflict and the issues it raises, but we did touch on a few key points

1. How in war the unexpected and unforeseen can occur

Of course the unforeseen can always occur, in war or at any other point.  But since war requires a great deal of planning, many assume that the conflict will go as we wish.  The making of the plans itself creates that expectation.  Yet, in war as in life, things rarely go according to our preconceived version of events.

2. Peace treaties may not be what they seem

After 10 years of intermittent conflict, both Athens and Sparta signed a treaty called the Peace of Nicias.  But treaties in name may not be in fact.  Some treaties bring real peace, some only reflect a desire to call a ‘time out’ in the fighting.  Unfortunately for Athens, this treaty turned out to be one of the latter.

3. War Stresses Democracy

War will put stress on any form of government and any society.  Some wars brought down monarchies — like W.W. I.  We assume that democracies are more stable, but the Peloponnesian War brought out many weaknesses within Athenian democracy and for a time ended it within Athens.  We looked at how desperation and panic act on a democratic people in the battle of Arginusae.  The Athenians won this battle, but the generals failed to pick up the dead and give them proper burial, something that could be considered sacrilege, and sacrilege could be punished by death.  Grief stricken, the city put the generals on trial, found them guilty, and executed them.  A few days later they regretted their actions. They put the lawyer who prosecuted the generals on trial for murder, found him guilty, and executed him also.

Ostensibly, Sparta won the Peloponnesian War.  But in truth the war had no real winners in Southern Greece.  All exhausted themselves in the conflict.  Thebes, involved in the conflict but slightly to the north, emerged as the strongest party in the more immediate aftermath of the war.  But it would be Macedon, further still to the north, and never involved in the fighting at all, that would eventually assert absolute supremacy over Greece in the person of Phillip of Macedon and his son Alexander.  We’ll look at them next week.

You can see the geography of it below here, with everything pink or yellow caught up in the fighting (with even blue areas involved sporadically), and Macedon waiting patiently above in brown.

Peloponnesian War

For those of you who have seen From Russia with Love, the scene where “Number 1” talks about the Siamese Fighting Fish is a good parallel, if we think of Macedon as the fish who stays out of the fight.

8th Grade: Finding the Persian Center of Gravity

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we focused on The Persian Wars, a conflict that historians claim marks a transition point between Eastern and Western dominance.  Persia staked a lot of their invasion, and their failure would lead to the rise of Greece in general, and Athens in particular.  Our main focus Thursday and Friday lay with  the Battle of Salamis, one of the more crucial naval engagements of the ancient world.  As I mentioned back in September, one of the things we focus on this year and throughout the history curriculum is how to make choices.  This can be applied in a  variety of different settings, and this week I wanted the students to consider that on the level of strategy and tactics.
  • The Fleets

The Persian fleet was bigger, with a variety of incorporated Greek city-states that had surrendered to Persia.  Ionians, Phonecians, Egyptians and more went into the mixture.  In general, their ships were lighter and faster.  Athens controlled the Greek fleet, and in general they had heavier, bulkier ships.  But the weight of the ships did perhaps produce an innovation, that of a ramming prow.  This in turn, led to a change in how the Athenians fought.  Whereas most ancient navies wanted to get close and board other ships, the Athenians wanted to use their prow to ram other ships and sink them with a broadside charge.The Persians had sacked Athens, and the Athenians in desperation abandoned their city, got in their boats, and headed for the island of Salamis.

  • The Questions:
  1. Would an immediate battle be more to the Persians advantage, or the Greeks?
  2. If a battle were to be fought, what side would have the advantage in wide open water?  What about in more narrow confines?

I enjoyed the student responses to this question, and most of them did get around to seeing that

  • Battle now definitely favored the Greeks, and
  • The geography of the Bay of Salamis definitely favored the Greeks.
 Bay of Salamis
  • Why?
The Athenians needed a battle.  The Persians did not.  With Athens abandoned they could have simply occupied the city, and hemmed in the fleet at Salamis.  If they wait eventually a tired and bedraggled fleet would have to come out of hiding and face the Persians on their terms.  Fighting in the bay itself would mean narrower corridors where the Persians could not use their numbers and speed to their full effect.  Think of a heavier boxer vs. a lighter, quicker opponent.  The heavier one (Athens) seeks to trap or corner the other to take away his advantage.  By fighting in the bay, the Persian fleet gave up much of its advantage.
  • The Result
Again, with so many of our choices there are no guarantees.  We must weigh the options and make our best guess. But it is important not to choose blindly.  So why then, did the Persians attack the Greeks?Here we are back, at least possibly, to the personality of Xerxes.   We saw that both Herodotus and the Book of Esther show us a king who was not wicked, but perhaps indolent, and someone who tended to flit from one thing to another.  Note that Esther 1 begins by describing lavish parties amidst opulent splendor. Herodotus mentions that Xerxes wanted the invasion over as soon as possible.  Ideally, of course, the Persians should have bottled up the fleet, entrenched themselves in the city, and watch Athens suffocate to death.  When Themistocles sent a messenger to lie to the Persians about the disorder in the Greek ranks, the Persians jumped at the chance and moved into the bay to attack.  Xerxes seems a suggestible, impatient type.  “Let’s get this over with. . .”  The result was a complete victory for the Greeks.  It turned the tide of the whole Persian invasion.  Having been smacked on the nose, Xerxes decided enough was enough.  He withdrew most of his navy from the region.  His infantry at current levels could not live off the land in Greece, and besides, winter approached.  Without the navy to supply them, Xerxes withdrew a good portion of his troops back to Persia.  The Battle of Platea in 479 BC would, for all intents and purposes, finish them off.
  • The “Center of Gravity”
Clausewitz used the term “center of gravity” to describe what one colonel described as a “factor of balance” in a campaign.  This does not have to be something purely physical, but in this case, the “factor of balance” in the Persian Wars would surely include control of the sea.  In invading Greece en masse as they did, Persia made naval superiority a key to the campaign.  But for about 75 years prior to this they concentrated their strength on their infantry.  They did not play to their strength. But we might also conclude that the whims of Xerxes would constitute part of the “center of gravity.”  The Book of Esther gives us clues.  Note how casually he decides on the Jews destruction, and how quickly he reverses course.  Of course, it’s good that he changed his mind!  My point, however, is that Xerxes never seemed fitted for the role of a noble kingly persona.  He would much rather not be bothered.  In every conflict, the hidden factor can often be each combatant’s internal political system.  In this case, the nascent democracy of Athens had an advantage over the indolent monarchy of Persia.

The Garments of Court and Palace

by Dave Mathwin

Despite ourselves, Machiavelli fascinates us. He writes with an enviable brevity and clarity, and then supplies a pertinent historical example to back up his point. Had he been a worse writer, we would care much less about him. There exists as well an easy transference of his thought–he fires the imagination of the global strategist and everyone who has played Risk.

The Garments of Court and Palace has a grand air about it. The title comes from a phrase of Machiavelli, describing his perception of how one had to don a different persona, in a sense, to enter into the political realm. One can write rather easily how Machiavelli advocated for a dangerous amoralism in statecraft. One could also write about how a conflicted Machiavelli seemed a chameleon of sorts depending on time and place. Again–such books would be easy to write and have no reason to exist. But Philip Bobbitt has an entirely different approach, arguing that

  • Not only was Machiavelli not a amoral thinker, and
  • Not only was he not a chameleon, but
  • He was a consistent thinker with a distinct aim of promoting virtue, whose teachings fit easily within a Christian worldview

Now there’s an argument for you. This is a book worth writing.

I have great respect for Bobbitt. I found his Shield of Achilles revelatory and prophetic in certain ways. He takes big swings and at his best writes with the clarity of Machiavelli. I found Bobbitt’s argument ultimately a bridge too far. To go along with him fully, one would have to agree that essentially all of Machiavelli’s contemporaries, and nearly every political philosopher since then, had him wrong. For me, there exists too many areas of Machiavelli’s thought one can’t quite stuff into Bobbitt’s construction, leaving Bobbitt’s only option to impersonate Michael Palin’s befuddled George Bernard Shaw, i.e., “What Machiavelli merely meant . . . “

Still, Bobbitt succeeds in getting one to see Machiavelli more clearly within his time. And while I do not agree with the totality of Bobbitt’s argument, the book reveals the problems of the modern state in fresh ways. Bobbitt rightly argues that Machiavelli had prophetic insight far ahead of his time, and we must grapple honestly with him.

Machiavelli’s world faced great changes, changes that, as usual, were not immediately obvious to nearly everyone living through them. The Black Plague and the breakdown of the Church meant that the personal connections that guided law and culture in the feudal era no longer applied–however much some still wished to make it so. Bobbitt sees Machiavelli clearly perceiving this shift, and attempting to orient Italy and all of Europe towards a new constitutional order. But periods of transition bring great uncertainty, and the need for attendant flexibility. Bobbitt writes,

Imagine you wish to train yourself to be a professional poker player. Part of that training must involve learning all the tricks of the trade, marking cards, palming a card, dealing from the bottom, and so on. But must you practice these tricks yourself? I suppose it depends on how good your game is, and whether the persons with whom you are playing will enforce the rules once you have exposed the cheat. To the question, “Must it be this way? Can’t we do better?” the answers do not lie entirely within your power.

In sum, Bobbitt sees Machiavelli playing a slippery game of poker, both in his personal life and in his writings–yet, with an ultimately just and moral goal in mind. “Republics must be founded by one man,” as Machiavelli wrote in his Discourses. So,

  • First, the chaos must end, and existing structures cannot end it. It takes someone operating outside those structures to bring order, and then
  • A republic can emerge, one that governs communally and perhaps abstractly, rather than personally

Of Machiavelli’s two major works, one can very broadly say that The Prince attempted to accomplish the first goal, and The Discourses the latter. Machiavelli must sometimes, then, assume the appearance of Janus, the Roman god who faced in opposite directions.

We can consider the idea of deception. On the face of it, people should never lie or deceive. But few people would actually make this an absolute claim. You might not like your wife’s dress, but if she loves it, you’ll say you think it looks great. In the Bible, men of faith use deception. King David pretended insanity amongst the Philistines. Ehud manipulated King Eglon so that he might kill him. Rahab protects the spies by lying. We praise them for such actions. But we know the difference between “good” lies and true lies. While David rightly deceives the Philistines, he wrongly deceives Uriah, husband of Bathsheba, and suffers for it. Bobbitt places Machiavelli within a traditional moral structure because virtuous people know how and when to deceive for the common good. Machiavellian morality is “good” morality, because he flexibly orients it towards the formation of a virtuous state. Bobbitt makes other such arguments throughout with different aspects of Machiavelli’s thought, and it has merit up to a point.

At root, Bobbitt believes that states evolve and that wise and “good” rulers adapt to changing circumstances to maintain the supremacy of “good” states over bad ones. The state will be formed via “strategy, law, and history,” to use Bobbitt’s terms, and one must use Machiavellian wisdom to appropriately ride the crest of the wave. Republics have a much better chance of adaptation because of their composite nature. Machiavelli cites the Roman example of Fabius and Cicero. Fabius was right in 218 BC to adopt his cautious approach to Hannibal, but a few years later, the situation had changed. Yet–Fabius had not changed with the changing situation. Indeed, few can do so. But because Rome was a Republic, they had the more aggressive Scipio at their disposal. And, because of the Republic’s ability to pool wisdom from a large group, they chose correctly with Scipio. A monarchy or principality had more limitations, and indeed, Hannibal, for all his greatness, could not quite adopt changes in his own strategy when his fortunes started to ebb.

Again, so far so good. But we should go deeper into the nature of the new state Machiavelli heralded and why we should remain uncomfortable with a full embrace of his ideas. I think the final answer lies in the fact that the state Machiavelli saw coming and wanted to bring about would not allow one to safely and wisely live out his advice. So, in what follows below, I make my own grand, foolhardy attempt to solve the Machiavelli conundrum.

The feudal kingdoms that Machiavelli saw retreating from the scene had a few things in common:

  • Relationships, more so than laws, determined the way of life in a particular region
  • Particular land was not so much owned, but held in a trust, of sorts with the surrounding culture and people
  • While various leaders had certain boundaries of church, custom, etc., power resided in people, not principles, ideas, or even laws.

Machiavelli hoped for, and foresaw, a state that would

  • Be governed more by laws than specific people
  • Be governed more by procedures of representative bodies than by people directly
  • Have a more Roman/absolute/legal concept of ownership of land

The modern state, therefore, would be more fixed and abstract in nature.

Though in many ways a modern, Machiavelli still had some roots in the traditional pre-modern world. He understood that sometimes the hero has to go the margins of behavior–like King David. He understood that when facing the evil of disintegration one sometimes has to fight fire with fire. Sometimes society’s solid moral core cannot defeat the monster. You need Godzilla to battle Ghidorah. The law can do nothing to Terry Benedict, so we cheer when “Ocean’s Eleven” take him down. But we should still remember that the guys of “Ocean’s Eleven” are not really good guys. You cannot build a society on Danny, Rusty, and the Mormon twins.

If one sees Machiavelli’s advice within this traditional pattern of reality–a Core, Fringe, and the Chaos beyond, a lot of his advice in The Prince makes sense. People can make difficult moral judgments. People can experience different levels of reality and process them accordingly. Hence–for all of its “radical” nature, The Prince can actually make sense within a traditional society, where governing relationships remain distinctly personal and not abstract.

Machiavelli reacted strongly against the medieval approach, but the irony might be that The Prince is actually a treatise that might find a place in the pre-modern world under certain circumstances.

Machiavelli’s problem . . . modern states cannot experience life this way. We remain too distant from reality with the multitude of hedges of laws and institutions. People can make judgment calls–laws cannot. Bobbitt himself declares that states get their formation through the intersection of “strategy, law, and history.” But he leaves out, “personal relationships.” Modern states have very little to do with personal connections and much more to do with contract, procedure, and so on.*

What about Machiavelli’s Discourses, which many, Bobbitt included, see as a great treatise for modern democratic-republics? The Discourses has many insightful things to say, but we must remember that Rome is the subject. The “imminence” of pagan religion shines through in Livy’s work. The Roman self, Roman religion, and Roman politics all seem intertwined. One could say that Rome worshipped Rome (I include an excerpt from the Discouses below which I think illustrates this). Thus, when the Roman state “moved” the Romans “moved” with it. Of course, if the identity of the state lies in the King/Prince, then when he “moves” we can move with him, because we have a personal tie to him, and he physically embodies the principality/realm where we live.

Not so in the modern age, which still have some tension between the state and that which resides outside the state. It can take various forms across the spectrum, including:

  • A strong sense of the Kingdom of God residing within and without the state
  • A strong sense of the autonomous individual
  • No coherent cultural “north” on the compass
  • A sense of the “destiny” or purpose of the nation, which lies at least somewhat outside the actions of the nation–this has different manifestations on the right and the left.

I believe this explains our frustration and puzzlement with Machiavelli. We recognize his wisdom. We feel that we should apply at least some of it, but our detachment from our institutions won’t allow us to access it.

Dave

*Hence–suburbia and why we do not know our neighbors, disembodied forms of exchange, and so on.

Machiavelli on Roman Religion

Auguries were not only, as we have shown above, a main foundation of the old religion of the Gentiles, but were also the cause of the prosperity of the Roman commonwealth. Accordingly, the Romans gave more heed to these than to any other of their observances, in undertaking new enterprises; in calling out their armies; in going into battle; and, in short, in every business of importance, whether civil or military. Nor would they ever set forth on any warlike expedition, until they had satisfied their soldiers that the gods had promised them victory.

Among other means of declaring the auguries, they had in their armies a class of soothsayers, named by them pullarii, whom, when they desired to give battle, they would ask to take the auspices, which they did by observing the behaviour of fowls. If the fowls pecked, the engagement was begun with a favourable omen. If they refused, battle was declined. Nevertheless, when it was plain on the face of it that a certain course had to be taken, they take it at all hazards, even though the auspices were adverse; contriving, however, to manage matters so adroitly as not to appear to throw any slight on religion; as was done by the consul Papirius in the great battle he fought with the Samnites wherein that nation was finally broken and overthrown. For Papirius being encamped over against the Samnites, and perceiving that he fought, victory was certain, and consequently being eager to engage, desired the omens to be taken. The fowls refused to peck; but the chief soothsayer observing the eagerness of the soldiers to fight and the confidence felt both by them and by their captain, not to deprive the army of such an opportunity of glory, reported to the consul that the auspices were favourable. Whereupon Papirius began to array his army for battle. 

But some among the soothsayers having divulged to certain of the soldiers that the fowls had not pecked, this was told to Spurius Papirius, the nephew of the consul, who reporting it to his uncle, the latter straightway bade him mind his own business, for that so far as he himself and the army were concerned, the auspices were fair; and if the soothsayer had lied, the consequences were on his head. And that the event might accord with the prognostics, he commanded his officers to place the soothsayers in front of the battle. It so chanced that as they advanced against the enemy, the chief soothsayer was killed by a spear thrown by a Roman soldier; which, the consul hearing of, said, “All goes well, and as the Gods would have it, for by the death of this liar the army is purged of blame and absolved from whatever displeasure these may have conceived against it.” And contriving, in this way to make his designs tally with the auspices, he joined battle, without the army knowing that the ordinances of religion had in any degree been disregarded.

But an opposite course was taken by Appius Pulcher, in Sicily, in the first Carthaginian war. For desiring to join battle, he bade the soothsayers take the auspices, and on their announcing that the fowls refused to feed, he answered, “Let us see, then, whether they will drink,” and, so threw them into the sea. After which he fought and was defeated. For this he was condemned at Rome, while Papirius was honoured; not so much because the one had gained while the other had lost a battle, as because in their treatment of the auspices the one had behaved discreetly, the other with rashness . . . 

8th Grade: Enslaving Others, Enslaving the Self

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we looked at Spartan civilization and began our look at the beginnings of democracy in Athens.  We will have a test next week on Early Greece.

We began our look at Sparta by examining its geography.  They had access to a limited water supply via a river, but otherwise a variety of mountains nestled them inland, and they had little contact with the sea.  We have seen this kind of geography before — in Assyria.  Geography never commands, but it does suggest, and like Assyria, Sparta developed with an almost exclusive focus on warfare.  One historian commented

When the Spartans found their ploughlands too narrow for their population, they did not turn their eyes to the sea, like the Corinthians or Megarians.   The sea is not visible either from Sparta city or at any point on the Spartan plain.  The natural feature which dominates the Spartan landscape is the towering mountain range of Taygetus.

Archeological records indicate a significant shift in Spartan civilization sometime around the year 730 B.C.  According to tradition a group of Dorian Greeks invaded Sparta successfully, and became the “new” Spartans, enslaving the locals called Messenians.  But they quickly faced a problem.  The Messenians vastly outnumbered them and had already attempted one revolt.  It seemed likely that other revolts would follow, and eventually they would overwhelm their conquerors.

The Spartans could have retreated, or they could have simply slaughtered the inhabitants and moved on somewhere else.  But their solution to the problem seems uniquely Greek to me.  They transformed their society by militarizing it, making every male a soldier, allowing themselves to continually have a challenge to master.  All this provided extra opportunity for showing “arete,” or, “excellence.”  No longer could one choose to be a shoemaker, farmer, and so on.  By 620 B.C., after the second war between Sparta and its enslaved population, every male now carried a spear, and the slaves grew the food.  Herodotus records one  Greek commenting to the Persians in 480 B.C. that

Free though the Spartans are, they are not free altogether.  They too serve a master in the shape of Law.  They show this by doing whatever their master orders, and his orders are always the same: ‘In action it is forbidden to retire in the face of the enemy forces of whatever strength.  Troops are to keep their formation and either conquer or die.

They sacrificed everything to make this happen.  Making every male a soldier, and using the slaves to farm did consolidate their conquest.  But 1) All traces of cultural creativity disappeared, 2) No personal freedom of job, lifestyle, or travel, was allowed, 3) Boys were separated from their families at a young age, 4) Slave economies lack effeciency, so resources were precious.  Any infant deemed physically unfit was usually killed, and so on.  Spartan society  ‘stopped’ in sense.  But they developed the most feared heavy infantry force in ancient Greece, and that was enough to give them power and influence.

This ideal impacted their marriages.  They arranged to have the strongest men marry the strongest women to create the best chances of strong sons.  If marriages did not produce strong children, they were encouraged to look elsewhere.  Women bought into this ideal as well.  They spent their time training their bodies to have children.

Their society had all the strength of a high powered rifle bullet.  Powerful, yes, but narrow in its application.  The Spartans sacrificed what most would consider to be the things that made life worth living, such as personal freedoms, family life, cultural experiences, etc.  Truly, you are what you worship.

Was it worth it?  Some might argue that their slaves lived better lives than the Spartans.  It appears they had more variety in their diet, and possibly more personal freedom as to who they married.  Of course, they had harsh lives under the constant watch of Spartan overlords, but did the Spartans live much better?  The Spartan world and lifestyle had all the narrowness of slavery.  The old adage, “This will hurt me more than it hurts you,” might stand true for the Spartan regime.

Aristotle wrote the best epitaph of the Spartan system, saying,

Peoples ought not to train themselves in the art of war with an eye to subjugating neighbors who do not deserve subjugation. . . . The paramount aim of any social system should be to frame military institutions, like all social institutions, with an eye to peace-time, when the soldier is off duty; and this proposition is borne out by the facts of experience.  For militaristic states are apt to survive only so long as they remain at war, while they go to ruin as soon as they complete their conquests.  Peace causes their metal to lose its temper; and the fault lies with the social system which does not teach its soldiers what to make of their lives when off duty.

Arnold Toynbee concurred and wrote,

The superhuman–or inhuman–fixity of Sparta’s posture, like the [doom] of Lot’s wife, was manifestly a curse and not a blessing.

Blessings,

Dave

Democratic Personalities and Democratic Laws

by Dave Mathwin

I posted originally some years ago–you will see the dated references–and repost it now in conjunction with our Government class discussions this week.

The original post is follows . . .

******************

Barring any unusual excitement at the Democratic and Republican conventions, it appears that many Americans will feel caught between a rock and a hard place regarding their two main choices for president.  Many blanch at the thought of “President Trump,” and I wondered if history might suggest hope for such a possibility.

Our founders may have had Republican Rome as their model, but as the U.S. continues to approach a more immediate democracy perhaps we should look to ancient Athens for a historical parallel. Athenian democracy experienced several points of crisis, with perhaps the most notorious coming after their defeat in the Peloponnesian War when they put Socrates on trial.

Many reasons have been given as to Socrates died at the hands of the Athenians. I am intrigued by the theory Mark Munn expounds in his book The School of History.  Munn argues that by 399 B.C. Athens searched desperately for stability.  Their democracy had transformed significantly under Pericles ca. 450-435 B.C., then switched to a partial oligarchy after the Sicilian disaster in 411 B.C., then back to a democracy by 410, then back to oligarchy in 404-03, then to a restored democracy once more.  But the democracy that ruled Athens ca. 400 B.C. was not the same that Athens experienced a generation earlier.

It seems a reasonable conclusion its heyday, Athenian democracy was driven by great personalities and not by procedures.  Pericles stands as the foremost example of this, but others come to mind.  Herodotus and Thucydides’ histories give us a picture of dynamic men acting on inspiration.  Callimachus votes to attack at Marathon. Themistocles devises his own plan apart from the generals to win the Battle of Salamis.  Even lesser men like Nicias, Alcibiades, and Cleon sparkle on the page.*  Exact fidelity to the law itself did not concern the demos.  At their worst, the Athenians may have just wanted a diversion from their politics out of boredom, but another interpretation might point to the fact that the Athenians in this period of their history trusted in inspirational leadership of the moment, as opposed to fidelity to the expression of the “general will” embodied in law.  One might even call it a humble characteristic of Athenian democracy.  “The People” passed laws but willingly stepped aside at points in the face of “personality.”

But in time the plague, the disaster in Sicily, and their ultimate defeat by Sparta exacted a heavy psychological toll.

With the final restoration of democracy in Athens in 401, Athens moved away from dynamic leadership and towards the exacting nature of the enthronement of law.  Law offered a clear path and if nothing else, stability.  Munn argues that this passion for law and this movement away from “personality” put Socrates afoul of the will of the people.  The orator Aeschines, born in 389 B.C., wrote,

In fact, as I have often heard my own father say, for he lived to be 95 years old and had shared in all the toils of the city, which he often described to me in his leisure hours–well, he said that in the early days of the reestablished democracy , in any indictment for an illegal motion came into court, the matter was no sooner said than done . . .. It frequently happened that they made the clerk str and told him to read to the the laws and the the motion a second time; and they convicted a man of making an illegal proposal not because he had overleaped the laws entirely, but that one syllable only was contravened.

Socrates probably did run afoul of the exacting nature of Athenian religious law after 401 B.C., and he certainly ran directly counter to the spirit behind such laws with his claims to personal, divine inspiration that transcended any earthly authority/law.  He was a throwback to time associated with chaos, and to be frank, military disaster.

Of course democracies traditionally have the “rule of law” as a bedrock principle, and we should prefer exacting rule of law to the whims of a despot.  But few civilizations can match the cultural achievements of Athens in 5th century.  Also, the personality driven democracy of the 5th century certainly outperformed the law driven democracy of the 4th century.**  Perhaps one lesson we might draw from this is that a mixing forms and styles of government might outperform monochromatic governments, much like mutts are generally healthier and less crazy than pure-brads.^

Observers of Trump often comment that, aside from his ideas on immigration, he seems to have no particular policies (others would disagree).  Yet, unquestionably, he is a “personality,” one that much of the media, for all their antipathy towards him, cannot resist.  Is it possible that such an injection of “personality” might be what could help us from stale rigidity in our political life?  Certainly we have plenty of bureaucracy, plenty of incomprehensible law, as it stands now.

That would be the best case scenario for this next election cycle.  Unfortunately, there are many other directions in which it might go.

Dave

*Cleon’s expedition and victory in Pylos during the Peloponnesian War is evidence of this preference for personality over procedure.  It was technically illegal for Cleon to even lead the expedition in the first place, but the Assembly could not resist enjoying the personal rivalry between Nicias and Cleon, and allowed/shamed Cleon into having his chance, which he then took advantage of.

**The great achievements of the 5th century came to a halt during the Peloponnesian War, a self-inflicted wound if there ever was one.  But the 4th century did no better, succumbing to Macedon after decades of vanilla tapioca laziness (as the traditional interpretation has it, anyway) in 338 B.C.

^Some might argue on behalf of the 4th century by citing that it produced Plato and Aristotle, luminaries 1 and 1a in western philosophy.  This argument should not be pushed too far.  A glance at the history of philosophy shows that most advances in this field occur in times of societal breakdown or even decay.  This is in contrast, I think to other areas of cultural achievement, whose health usually parallels that of the rest of society.  The 4th century had no Parthenon, no Euripides, etc.

Valleys of Neptune

by Dave Mathwin

Several years ago I attended a conference in which Dr. Peter Kreeft was one of the featured speakers.  I have read a few of Dr. Kreeft’s works and liked them all, and especially enjoyed his essay on surfing, one of his great loves.

During one of the lunch breaks I had the immense good fortune to find myself sitting next to Dr. Kreeft at one the random round tables in the dining area.  I asked him for some surfing tips and he proved gracious and helpful.  Based on his love for the sea I also wanted to run a pet theory of mine by him.

The theory runs something like this. . .

Mankind’s greatest feats of creativity have always come near water.

  • Egypt had the Nile and the Mediterranean
  • Babylon had the Tigris and Euphrates
  • Greece had the Mediterranean
  • Northern Europe gave birth to the Gothic Age, by the English Channel and the North Sea
  • London then led the way with the Channel, North Sea, etc.
  • The Dutch had a brief but brilliant golden age, again right on the water
  • In America the great cultural centers have always been Boston, New York, L.A., etc.

Even when sometimes you think of an exception, the theory still holds. Chicago is in the middle of the U.S., but has the Great Lakes.  Twain invented American Literature in the Mid-West. . . but his formative years were spent on the Mississippi.

And so on, and so on.

Assyria was in the Ancient Near East, but not creative in many ways that contributed to humanity. They did not live near any great body of water. The Greek city-state of Sparta was one of the few far away from the Mediterranean, and their culture stagnated.  Rome obviously had lots of power, but came to the Mediterranean late in their game and thus borrowed a great deal from everyone. Their creative cultural contributions pale in comparison to Greece, but also Egypt and probably Babylon as well.

Some might suggest that the key is majestic expanse, not just water.  But I disagree.  The Great Plains have majestic expanse in spades and have not led the way in creative impulse.  The Himalayas have the tallest mountains on Earth but have not produced great thinkers, architects, etc.  Sparta was surrounded by mountains on all sides and may have been one of the more culturally stagnant of all civilizations.  Of course mountains and plains have a beauty all their own and can inspire, but they do not appear to have the universal impact of water.  I still think there must be something to water itself.

A purely rational or mechanical view of this would probably put the emphasis on the fact that living near water would inevitably result in overseas trade, which would blend cultures and ideas to a degree that would naturally lead to creativity.

But I think that this puts the cart before the horse.  For a civilization to think of something beyond survival and necessity, it has to think outside of itself, and for that it needs inspired.  It is this sense of inspiration that opens them up to travel, other cultures, and other things.  In other words, substantial bodies of water subconsciously unlocks our creativity and then civilizations take advantage of the opportunities before them.

“What do you think?” I asked Dr. Kreeft.

“I agree.”

There followed a pregnant pause but all I could think was, “He agreed!  Yee-ha!”

He continued (I paraphrase his words), “There is something about water that ties us to creation itself.  It is where we came from.”  And with that, he politely excused himself.

Part of me wanted him to say more, but upon reflection he had in fact said it all.  I doubt very much that by the “where we came from” comment he meant anything in a purely Darwinian sense.  Genesis 1 talks of creation being drawn up through water.  Our new creation involves the waters of baptism.  1 John 5 talks mysteriously of the three-fold agreement of the Spirit, water and blood.  I know of a physics teacher who begins the year by looking at ancient views of creation and the cosmos, and mentions Thales’ idea that all matter comes from water.  The students tend to scoff until they re-read Genesis 1.  There is the Tradition of the Church which portrays Mary hearing the Annunciation, with the attendant re-creation of all things through the Incarnation, sitting by a well.  The creation of the “new Adam” would obviously take us back to Genesis 1, just as St. John does in the opening of his gospel.

In the Odyssey (13.102-112) Homer refers to a cave sacred to nymphs which contains “ever flowing springs of water.”  Also in the cave are “jars made of stone,” along with “looms, likewise of stone, in which the nymphs weave sea-purple garments.”  The Neo-Platonic philosopher Porphyry writes,

The “garments of sea-purple” are obviously the flesh, which is woven together from blood; the sea-purple dye is derived from blood, and the wool that it colors is also the vital fluids of animals.  All flesh is thus fashioned from blood through blood . . .

To this day Jimi Hendrix stands firmly entrenched as the greatest electric guitarist of all time.  He did things with the guitar that still no one else can equal.  I don’t think it coincidental that some of his most intriguing songs (“Rainy Day, Dream Away,” “Castles Made of Sand,” “May This be Love,” “1983 . . .A Merman I Should Be”) involve water.  Perhaps in some way he understood the power and meaning of water as Peter Kreeft did that day at lunch, a serendipitous moment for me if there ever was one.

8th Grade: Victory and Defeat

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we looked at the Trojan War and its aftermath in Greece.

In some ways the Trojan War belongs to province of literature rather than history, because no real “history” books describe the events as we know them.  But that does beg the question, what is evidence?  Is Homer’s Illiad a kind of historical evidence for the Trojan War?   That of course depends.  As part of our study of the Trojan War we looked at different kinds of historical evidence, and the strengths of each.

The points in favor of “Historical Accounts” seem obvious to most:

  • We know the author, and we assume that either he was a eyewitness himself, or had access to eyewitnesses, or access to the records of eyewitnesses.
  • The fixed nature of the text means the story cannot change over time.

But we should be careful not to discount Oral Tradition

  • Do we unnecessarily give undue weight to books merely because they are written down?  Why is reading a book more trustworthy than hearing a story?
  • Books have a fixed text, but many times we remain at the author’s mercy.  He may  twist and distort the truth in his writing, and we give it extra weight because it is writing.
  • Books are the product of one man, but oral tradition comes from whole communities.  Thus, some argue, oral tradition has more external checks upon its veracity than texts.

Archeological evidence is both the strongest and weakest of the three

  • Archeology gives us direct access to the past, often times unfiltered.
  • But, in contrast to texts or traditions, archeology usually gives us only a fragment of the story, and must be fitted into a larger context that archeology often cannot provide.

The best extended treatment I have seen of the evidence for the Trojan War is Michael Wood’s In Search of the Trojan War.  Unfortunately, this video series is nearly 35 years old and parts of it stand outdated.  Time has tended to confirm and extend evidence for the conflict.  If interested you can view a more “popular” (and shorter) account here

The aftermath of the conflict did not turn out as the Greeks no doubt hoped.  We know the Greeks plundered Troy for gold, jewels, and slaves, and we might expect that this sudden influx of cash, and the long-awaited return of its leaders might lead Greece into a golden age.

In fact the opposite happened, and Greece descended into a dark age that lasted somewhere between two and four centuries.  It certainly appears at least that the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War brought general dissolution to the Greek mainland.

Why did this happen?

In the end we can do little better than speculate, but in class we advanced a few theories:

  • In winning the war, Greece won the lottery.  But by a decent margin, lottery winners report that their winnings made them less happy, not more.  The added wealth brings added stress, and conflict over that wealth with much higher stakes.  Perhaps the same thing happened to Greece on a grand scale.
  • Civilizations, like individuals,  tend to thrive when responding to a challenge.  Greece especially emphasized this through their doctrine and practice of arete.  But the massive cash infusion might have made them rest on their laurels, making them less vigilant about things in general.
  • The Trojan War took most of Greece’s leaders away for 10+ years, according to tradition.  When parents go out for the night they have a talk with their kids — “be good to your babysitter, or when I get home I’ll ask how you behaved and then you will be punished.”  Thus, babysitters have a delegated, proxy authority in the eyes children.  But what if mom and dad never came home?  Would the sitter still have authority?

I asked students to envision what would happen if, on their block, every parent went out for the night, and everyone had a sitter.  But, only 2/3 of the parents returned to their homes, leaving the sitters there permanently.  Without mom and dad to enforce the sitters’ word, their authority would collapse almost immediately.  What would happen to the block?  If even just five parents did not return, what would happen to the “society” of the block, and its social interaction?  When we realize that many “parents” of various Greek provinces did not return from Troy, we can imagine the results for the whole of Greek society.

Dark Ages usually occur when fear and instability lead to isolation, and then isolation leads to a breakdown in the way society functions.  Perhaps this is what happened with Greece.  Dealing with failure requires careful thought and wise action, but so to does dealing with success.

Next week we will leapfrog a few centuries and focus on how Sparta and Athens emerge from the Dark Ages.

Blessings,

Dave

8th Grade: Water and Mountains in Greece

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we began Greek civilization.

We began where we began where we began our look at Egyptian civilization, with geography.

Greek geography has three dominant features I wanted the students to notice: water, mountains, and climate (below is rough topography of the region)

MapTopoGreece

I believe water had a few key impacts on the Greeks:

1. Psychological — it is nearly universal human reaction to be drawn out by large bodies of water.   At least I tend to think it is.  Most of us have probably vacationed at the beach before.  Have most of you, like me, stood looking at the horizon of the sea and thought, “One day I shall go forth and seek out boldly new lands and new places”?

Alright, maybe not for everybody.

But why does waterfront property sell at such a high price?  Water may not call us all to adventure, but it does seem to impact our psyche in some way.

2. Water also serves as a means to communicate and interact with others.  So those that live near water tend to explore and trade, and this in turn creates vibrant economies and cultures.  England, the Netherlands, and Venice might be examples of this.

In the end, we can see why great cultural explosions often come from places near water if we combine the possible psychological and obvious practical effects (Greece, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch, England)  Of course like most things, this has its limits.  Witness, for example, classical music from Bach though Strauss, Russian music and literature, etc. in essentially land-locked places.  Still — it seems to me that there may be a connection between water and a civilization’s creativity.  I expand on these possibilities here for those interested.

Mountains and Soil

1. Greece had farmers, but in general the soil was rockier and poorer than in the Fertile Crescent.  This in turn, of course, might only serve to push them outwards all the more.

2. The mountains divided them geographically, which in turn divided them politically.  These mostly independent communities may have helped originate, or at least broaden, the concept of self-government.  All of the civilizations we have studied so far have chosen the ‘big’ route to success, partly through choice and partly through circumstance.  In contrast, the Greek philosopher Aristotle believed the ideal political community should have more than 5000 citizens.

Climate

If most people could pick their ideal climate it would probably be between 50-80 degrees, light breeze, low humidity.  This would be a general description of a Mediterranean climate, and one impact this had on the Greeks was that they lived life outdoors.  So — as they interacted with other areas throughout Greece and the Mediterranean, they also interacted a lot with each other, and this too might have helped contribute to the creativity of ancient Greek civilization.

After looking at geography we went to another key foundation of ancient Greece and looked at their concept of ‘Arete,’ which I think can be best translated as ‘excellence.’  ‘Excellence’ is an amoral concept.  The Greeks admired people who were ‘excellent’ people.  Odysseus was excellent at cleverness and like a cat, always landing on his feet.  Achilles is admired because no one can best him in battle.  But neither would be considered moral people in any Christian sense.  Arete tells you to continually pursue excellence, to never rest on one’s laurels.  One of the problems with arete, however, is that it does not tell you when to stop, something that we will see working itself out in Greek civilization.

We have discussed before that what a civilization worships is what it follows after at all costs, and this may not be found ultimately in the gods themselves.  One question I posed to the students was, which came first, the Greek gods, or Greek arete?  Greek gods have power and beauty, but not morality.  In Greek sculpture their is not much difference between how gods and men are depicted.  This one is of Poseidon:

Posiedon

And another famous one of the discus thrower (stance obviously different, but the ‘body’ is the same:

I should say that the students were right to point out some minor differences, as the gods usually tend to look more imposing or regal, but in general the gods were just somewhat better versions of mankind.

We can contrast this with the Egyptian gods.

Egyptian Gods

The difference is more than mere artistic technique.  When they wanted, the Egyptians could be quite expressive, as this tomb painting with birds shows.

Often times the Greeks depicted the gods in motion, perhaps reflecting the fluid nature of their civilization.  The Egyptians, in contrast, often showed their deities in a static posed, often with arms crossed, reflecting the more stable, tradition oriented nature of the Egyptians.

Next week we will look at the Trojan War and the possible historical roots of the conflict.

Thanks again,

Dave