DOCSLIB.ORG

Thomas Jefferson's Recommended Reading Ancient History

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Thomas Jefferson's Recommended Reading Ancient History 1 Thomas Jefferson's Recommended Reading Thomas Jefferson supplied lists of recommended books in letters to Robert Skipwith in 1771 and Bernard Moore about the same time, to his nephew, Peter Carr, in 1785 and 1787, to John Minor in 1814, and to several others. The following is a distillation and synthesis of his recommendations in classical studies -- history, philosophy, religion, and literature. Items in each section are in a rough suggested reading order based by Jefferson's comments. Clearly more works could be added; as Jefferson wrote to Moore: "These by no means constitute the whole of what might be usefully read in each of these branches of science. The mass of excellent works going more into detail is great indeed. But those here noted will enable the student to select for himself such others of detail as may suit his particular views and dispositions. They will give him a respectable, an useful and satisfactory degree of knowlege in these branches." Ancient History Herodotus - c. 450 BC, 'Father of History' The Histories - wealth of information about the ancient world Thucydides - c. 395 BC History of the Peloponnesian War - Athens vs. Sparta Xenophon - c. 400 BC, philosopher, student of Socrates, general Anabasis - incredible saga of a Greek army lost in the Persian Empire Hellenica - Greek history 411-362 BC Polybius – c. 150 BC The Histories – rise of the Roman Republic Julius Caesar - c. 50 BC The Gallic War - Caesar describes Gaul and its conquest. The Civil War - wars of 49–45 BC, ending with Julius as first Roman Emperor Sallust (historian) - c. 50 BC Jugurthine War - Roman war in North Africa The Conspiracy of Catiline - political intrigues of the Roman, Catiline Livy – c. 1 AD; Roman historian History of Rome Quintus Curtius Rufus - Roman Historian, c. 50 AD Life of Alexander the Great Josephus – c. 80 AD, Jewish general and historian The Jewish Wars - Jewish revolt against Rome Antiquities - history of the Jewish people Plutarch - c. 100 AD; Greek philosopher, Delphic priest, biographer, prolific writer Parallel Lives – lives of eminent Greek and Romans, paired side by side Theseus/Romulus, Lycurgus/Numa, Solon/Publicola Themistocles/Camillus, Aristides/Cato Major, Cimon/Lucullus Pericles/Fabius Maximus, Nicias/Crassus Alcibiades/Coriolanus, Lysander/Sulla Agesilaus/Pompey, Pelopidas/Marcellus Dion/Brutus, Timoleon/Aemilius Paulus Demosthenes/Cicero, Alexander/Julius Caesar Sertorius/Eumenes, Phocion/Cato the Younger Demetrius/Antony, Pyrrhus/Gaius Marius 2 Agis/Cleomenes, Tiberius/Gaius Gracchus, Philopoemen/Flamininus Aratus, Artaxerxes, Galba, Otho Suetonius - c. 100 AD Lives of the Caesars - twelve biographies, from Julius to Domitian Tacitus - c. 100 AD; Roman senator and historian Annals - history of the reigns of Tiberius and Nero Histories - Roman history from 68 to 96 AD Justin (historian) – 2nd century AD Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus Herodian – c. 210 AD History of the Roman Empire – covering 180 to 230 AD Aurelius Victor – c. 350 AD History of Rome – from Augustus to Julian Gibbons - the classic study of Rome's decline, first published in 1776 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ________________________________________ Philosophy Plato – Athens, c. 400 BC The Republic* Apology, Phaedo, Crito Symposium, Phaedrus, Meno, Charmides Sophist, Statesman, Theaetetus, Gorgias Protagoras, Philebus, Parmenides, Euthyphro Timaeus Laws First Alcibiades, Second Alcibiades, Laches, Cratylus, Critias Lysis, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Ion, Menexenus Cicero – Roman, c. 45 BC On Moral Duties (De Officiis) Tusculan Disputations (Tusculanae Quaestiones) On Ends (De Finibus) On the Republic (De Republica) On the Laws (De Legibus) On Old Age (De Senectute) On Friendship (De Amicitia) On Academic Skepticism (Academica) On the Nature of the Gods (De Natura Deorum) On Fate (De Fato) On Divination (De Divinatione) On the Orator (De Oratore) The Dream of Scipio (Somnium Scipionis) Philippics Against Marc Antony (Philippicae) Letters Orations Plutarch – Greek, c. 100 AD Morals Xenophon – Greek, c. 400 BC Memorobilia of Socrates - Xenophon's biography of his teacher, Socrates 3 Seneca – Roman statesman, Stoic philosopher, writer o Moral Epistles o Essays Epictetus – Greek Stoic philosopher writing in Roman times o The Enchiridion - a concise handbook of Stoic morality and maxims, adopted by Christianity Pythagoras o The Golden Verses of Pythagoras - probably not by Pythagoras, but nevertheless important Marcus Aurelius – Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher o Meditations Lucretius – c. 60 BC, Roman Epicurean philosopher o On the Nature of Things John Locke – one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers o An Essay Concerning Human Understanding – Locke's magnum opus on psychology Henry Home, Lord Kames o Principles of Natural Religion David Hume o Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Voltaire o Candide o Letters on the English Claude Adrien Helvétius o De l'esprit (On Mind) Conyers Middleton o Introductory Discourse and the Free Inquiry Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke Philosophical Works James Beattie o Religious and philosophical works Two further suggestions consistent with Jefferson's lists are the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius and the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. ________________________________________ Literature Homer o The Iliad o The Odyssey Virgil o The Aeneid John Milton o Paradise Lost o Areopagitica – on freedom of the press Sophocles o Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus (Oedipus trilogy) o Ajax, Trachinian Women, Philoctetes, Electra Aeschylus o Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides (Orestian Trilogy ) o The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, Prometheus Bound Euripides o The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, Medea, Iphigenia in Tauris 4 o Alcestis, Heracleidae, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, The Suppliants, Electra o Heracles, Ion, Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes, Iphigenia at Aulis, Rhesus Demosthenes – c. 340 BC; Athenian orator o The Philippics – orations against Philip of Macedon Isocrates – c. 380 BC; Athenian orator o Against the Sophists – apologia for philosophy against the bad reputation given it by certain sophists o Areopagiticus – on the necessity of tradition o On the Peace William Shakespeare o Plays o Sonnets o Other Poems Terence – c. 150 BC, Roman playwright o Plays Horace – c. 10 BC, Roman lyric poet o Poems Edward Young – English o Night Thoughts Theocritus – 3rd century BC; Greek bucolic poet o Poems Anacreon – c. 540 BC, Greek lyrical poet o Poems Joseph Addison o Cato o The Spectator Moliere – French playright o The Misanthrope o Tartuffe the Hypocrite Metastasio (Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, 1698 –1782) o The Works of Metastasio Jonathan Swift – Anglo-Irish satirist o Gulliver's Travels o A Modest Proposal o A Tale of a Tub o The Drapier's Letters Alexander Pope o Essay on Man - man in relation to God's natural order o Moral Essays o The Dunciad - a satirical epic 'Ossian' (James Macpherson) o The Poetical Works of Ossian ________________________________________ American History William Robertson o The History of America William Douglass [more] o History of the British Settlements in North America 5 Thomas Hutchison o The History of Massachusetts William Smith o History of New York Samuel Smith o History of New Jersey Benjamin Franklin o Historical Review of Pennsylvania Captain John Smith o A History of the Settlement of Virginia William Stith o History of Virginia Sir William Keith o History of the British Plantations in America Robert Beverly o History and Present State of Virginia Quotes ________________________________________ "Jefferson scarcely passed a day without reading a portion of the classics." —Rayner's Life of Jefferson p. 22. "The moral principles inculcated by the most esteemed of the sects of ancient philosophy, or of their individuals; particularly, Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca and Antoninus, related chiefly to ourselves, and the government of those passions which, unrestrained, would disturb our tranquillity of mind. In this branch of philosophy they were really great. In developing our duties to others, they were short and defective. They embraced, indeed, the circles of kindred and friends, and inculcated patriotism, or the love of our country in the aggregate, as a primary obligation; towards our neighbors and countrymen they taught justice, but scarcely viewed them as within the circle of benevolence. Still less have they inculcated peace, charity, and love to our fellow men, or embraced with benevolence the whole family of mankind." ~ Syllabus Of The Doctrines Of Jesus (1803) "To read the Latin and Greek authors in their original, is a sublime luxury; and I deem luxury in science to be at least as justifiable as in architecture, painting, gardening, or the other arts. ~ To Dr. Joseph Priestley (A sublime luxury, Philadelphia, January 18, 1800) "I think the Greeks and Romans have left us the present [purest?] models which exist of fine composition, whether we examine them as works of reason, or of style and fancy; and to them we probably owe these characteristics of modern composition. I know of no composition of any other ancient people, which merits the least regard as a model for its matter or style." ~ To Dr. Joseph Priestley (A sublime luxury, Philadelphia, January 18, 1800) "The utilities we derive from the remains of the Greek and Latin languages are, first as models of pure taste in writing.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 4 a Pocockian Moment
    77 4 A Pocockian Moment My encounter with John G. A. Pocock, not in person but in bookish mode, took place more than two decades ago in rather unexpected cir- cumstances. It was in the course of my struggle with a couple of medieval English poems that I came across The Machiavellian Moment. 1 Reading it was for me a revealing experience and helpful in making out those oth- erwise intractable pieces of work. The poems in question were by Geoffrey Chaucer, The House of Fame and The Parliament of Fowls, both belonging to the medieval poetic genre called the “dream vision,” in which the poet/narrator describes in the first person singular the con- tents of a dream. Briefly put, the visionary experience comprising The House of Fame is made up largely of three sections through which the poet/narrator goes through: (1) in the first section (called the Temple of Venus) we are given an abridged version of the story of the Aeneid as the poet/narrator sees it portrayed on the walls of the temple. It should be noted for our present purposes that the Virgilian story is an exemplary instance of the topos “translatio imperii ”; (2) in the second section, the poet/narrator undergoes a version of the cosmic flight vision, in which the visionary/narrator describes his/her flight from the earth to some higher place. Its celebrated examples include the Somnium Scipionis, Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae (esp. Book IV, metrum I), and Dante’s Paradiso. In Chaucer’s House of Fame, however, as we shall see later, what is supposed to be a transcendental cosmic flight was parodied so that the destination of the flight was neither the other side of the uni- verse (“on the outside of the swift air”) as in the case of Boethius, nor the 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Cicero's Somnium Scipionis and Chaucer's Early
    “FOR I HADDE RED OF AFFRYCAN BYFORN:” CICERO’S SOMNIUM SCIPIONIS AND CHAUCER’S EARLY DREAM VISIONS Timothy A. Shonk When Marcus Tullius Cicero began his contemplative work on the perfect state, De re publica, he confronted two questions, one public and one per- sonal, that must have consumed his psychic energies: how to remain influential in the growth of the Roman state after his year of exile in Greece, and how to ensure that his words and concomitant reputation for rhetorical power endured. To answer the first question, Cicero, removed from the office of Consul and the hall of the Senate, had little choice in continuing to work to meld the classes into an ideal functioning govern- ment but to “do so from his study.”1 To this end, he developed an imagined conversation, closely modeled on Plato’s Republic, featuring personages who loomed large in Rome’s recent history: among them, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus the Younger, Manius Manillus, Publius Rutilus Rufus, and Quintus Mucius Scaevola. The primary speaker, Scipio the Younger, following an opening discussion of the possible explanations of the recent phenomenon of two suns in one day, begins the theme that dominates the work: the three types of government—dictatorship, aristo- cratic rule, and pure democracy of rule by the people—outlining the mer- its and demerits of each system before settling on the view that Rome comes closest to perfection in balancing the three types as best as can be imagined. The second question consuming Cicero had to be his future and his name.
    [Show full text]
  • The Political and Military Aspects of Accession of Constantine the Great
    Graeco-Latina Brunensia 24 / 2019 / 2 https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2019-2-2 The Political and Military Aspects of Accession of Constantine the Great Stanislav Doležal (University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice) Abstract The article argues that Constantine the Great, until he was recognized by Galerius, the senior ČLÁNKY / ARTICLES Emperor of the Tetrarchy, was an usurper with no right to the imperial power, nothwithstand- ing his claim that his father, the Emperor Constantius I, conferred upon him the imperial title before he died. Tetrarchic principles, envisaged by Diocletian, were specifically put in place to supersede and override blood kinship. Constantine’s accession to power started as a military coup in which a military unit composed of barbarian soldiers seems to have played an impor- tant role. Keywords Constantine the Great; Roman emperor; usurpation; tetrarchy 19 Stanislav Doležal The Political and Military Aspects of Accession of Constantine the Great On 25 July 306 at York, the Roman Emperor Constantius I died peacefully in his bed. On the same day, a new Emperor was made – his eldest son Constantine who had been present at his father’s deathbed. What exactly happened on that day? Britain, a remote province (actually several provinces)1 on the edge of the Roman Empire, had a tendency to defect from the central government. It produced several usurpers in the past.2 Was Constantine one of them? What gave him the right to be an Emperor in the first place? It can be argued that the political system that was still valid in 306, today known as the Tetrarchy, made any such seizure of power illegal.
    [Show full text]
  • 1489 Macrobius
    1489 Ambrosius A.T. Macrobius –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Although the T-O diagrams were the first to be published (see 1472), other more detailed drawings in the medieval manuscripts of early scholars were copied too, notably those with climatic zones by the Roman philosopher, Ambrosius Aurelius !eodosius Macrobius. Some of these early circular woodcut maps after Macrobius are attractive miniatures, all very similar in design but differing in both their dimensions and details. The British Library !e first in this series of nine maps was printed in Venice by Johann L. Santritter in 1489 (see above). It measures 93 x 98 mm. with east and west reversed and this mistake does not much help in deciphering the topography. !e cities of Babylon, Jerusalem and Alexandria are shown pictorially, but only Babylon survives on all the later blocks and then without its name. Two mountain ranges are also indicated, the Riphaean in the north and the Atlas in Africa, but only the first is on all the later maps. !ule, Britain, Spain, France and Italy are shown in Europe and on later versions too, but Sardinia and Sicily only on the first one. Parthia, India and Taprobana are named in Asia but the last of these not again. Ethiopia in Africa is found on all versions and the Red Sea on most. !e maps which followed were of various sizes, all somewhat smaller than the first but four of them were almost the same as each other, about 80 mm. square. Although the nomenclature in the northern hemisphere was much simplified, it remained unchanged in the southern one.
    [Show full text]
  • Calendar of Roman Events
    Introduction Steve Worboys and I began this calendar in 1980 or 1981 when we discovered that the exact dates of many events survive from Roman antiquity, the most famous being the ides of March murder of Caesar. Flipping through a few books on Roman history revealed a handful of dates, and we believed that to fill every day of the year would certainly be impossible. From 1981 until 1989 I kept the calendar, adding dates as I ran across them. In 1989 I typed the list into the computer and we began again to plunder books and journals for dates, this time recording sources. Since then I have worked and reworked the Calendar, revising old entries and adding many, many more. The Roman Calendar The calendar was reformed twice, once by Caesar in 46 BC and later by Augustus in 8 BC. Each of these reforms is described in A. K. Michels’ book The Calendar of the Roman Republic. In an ordinary pre-Julian year, the number of days in each month was as follows: 29 January 31 May 29 September 28 February 29 June 31 October 31 March 31 Quintilis (July) 29 November 29 April 29 Sextilis (August) 29 December. The Romans did not number the days of the months consecutively. They reckoned backwards from three fixed points: The kalends, the nones, and the ides. The kalends is the first day of the month. For months with 31 days the nones fall on the 7th and the ides the 15th. For other months the nones fall on the 5th and the ides on the 13th.
    [Show full text]
  • When Kings Become Philosophers: the Late Republican Origins of Cicero’S Political Philosophy
    When Kings Become Philosophers: The Late Republican Origins of Cicero’s Political Philosophy By Gregory Douglas Smay A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Erich S. Gruen, Chair Professor Carlos F. Noreña Professor Anthony A. Long Summer 2016 © Copyright by Gregory Douglas Smay 2016 All Rights Reserved Abstract When Kings Become Philosophers: The Late Republican Origins of Cicero’s Political Philosophy by Gregory Douglas Smay Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology University of California, Berkeley Professor Erich S. Gruen, Chair This dissertation argues that Cicero’s de Republica is both a reflection of, and a commentary on, the era in which it was written to a degree not previously recognized in Ciceronian scholarship. Contra readings which treat the work primarily as a theoretical tract in the tradition of late Hellenistic philosophy, this study situates the work within its historical context in Late Republican Rome, and in particular within the personal experience of its author during this tumultuous period. This approach yields new insights into both the meaning and significance of the work and the outlook of the individual who is our single most important witness to the history of the last decades of the Roman Republic. Specifically, the dissertation argues that Cicero provides clues preserved in the extant portions of the de Republica, overlooked by modern students in the past bur clearly recognizable to readers in his own day, indicating that it was meant to be read as a work with important contemporary political resonances.
    [Show full text]
  • Magic and the Roman Emperors
    1 MAGIC AND THE ROMAN EMPERORS (1 Volume) Submitted by Georgios Andrikopoulos, to the University of Exeter as a thesis/dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics, July 2009. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. ..................................... (signature) 2 Abstract Roman emperors, the details of their lives and reigns, their triumphs and failures and their representation in our sources are all subjects which have never failed to attract scholarly attention. Therefore, in view of the resurgence of scholarly interest in ancient magic in the last few decades, it is curious that there is to date no comprehensive treatment of the subject of the frequent connection of many Roman emperors with magicians and magical practices in ancient literature. The aim of the present study is to explore the association of Roman emperors with magic and magicians, as presented in our sources. This study explores the twofold nature of this association, namely whether certain emperors are represented as magicians themselves and employers of magicians or whether they are represented as victims and persecutors of magic; furthermore, it attempts to explore the implications of such associations in respect of the nature and the motivations of our sources. The case studies of emperors are limited to the period from the establishment of the Principate up to the end of the Severan dynasty, culminating in the short reign of Elagabalus.
    [Show full text]
  • 582 in Altman's Two Books on Plato, Plato the Teacher
    582 Book Reviews William H. F. Altman, (2016) The Revival of Platonism in Cicero’s Late Philosophy: Platonis aemulus and the invention of Cicero. Lanham, MD; London: Lexington Books. xxxii + 351 pp. $100.00. ISBN 9781498527118 (hbk). In Altman’s two books on Plato, Plato the Teacher (2012) and The Guardians in Action (2016), we find the traditional reading of Plato, i.e., the philosopher of ‘unchanging, eternal, and transcendent Ideas’ (p. xviii), combined with a rather unique interpretation of Plato as a pedagogue, whose main goal is not to instantiate the ideal state in reality but rather to spread an enlightened form of democracy through an ennobling education program of philosophy. Altman’s interpretation of Cicero as reader of Plato naturally progresses from these two books. Cicero is not the Academic Skeptic, as recent scholarship has argued, but rather an advocate for Platonic transcendence – and one no less relevant to our own historical moment than to the crisis for which Cicero’s philosophy was immediately intended: the fallen Republic. Central to Altman’s argument on Cicero is the main theme of his earlier work on Plato: the return to the cave. According to Altman, although Plato’s belief in transcendent Ideas of the world of intelligibility is genuine, the goal of Plato as philosophical pedagogue is not transcendence but rather a return to the chaotic world of becoming, in which politics take place. Cicero then, in his emulation and rivalry of Plato, is picking up where Plato left off. He is not merely indulging in Platonic transcendence but relying on his philosophical rhetoric at its most subtle level to win over an ideologically fraught and often incredulous Roman readership to political enlightenment and devotion to the Ideas.
    [Show full text]
  • Interpretation of the Function of the Obelisk of Augustus in Rome from Antique Texts to Present Time Virtual Reconstruction
    The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLII-2/W11, 2019 GEORES 2019 – 2nd International Conference of Geomatics and Restoration, 8–10 May 2019, Milan, Italy INTERPRETATION OF THE FUNCTION OF THE OBELISK OF AUGUSTUS IN ROME FROM ANTIQUE TEXTS TO PRESENT TIME VIRTUAL RECONSTRUCTION M. Hiermanseder Hietzing Consult, Vienna, Austria - [email protected] KEY WORDS: Astronomy, Line of Meridian, Historical Texts, Archeology, Simulation, Virtual World Heritage ABSTRACT: About the astronomical use of the obelisk of Augustus on Campo Marzio in Rome, which has already been described by Pliny, well known astronomers and mathematicians like Euler, Marinoni or Poleni have given their expert opinion immediately after it's unearthing in 1748. With the prevailing opinion, based on a brief chapter in "Historia naturalis", it would constitute a line of meridian rather than a sundial, the question had been decided for more than 200 years. In 1976, however, the prominent German archeologist Edmund Buchner established once more the assumption, that the obelisk has been part of a gigantic sundial for the apotheosis of the emperor Augustus. Excavations of the German Archeological Institute in 1980/81, which brought to light parts of the inscriptions of the scale, were taken as a proof of his theory by Buchner. Since 1990 works by physicists and experts for chronometry like Schütz, Maes, Auber, et.al., established the interpretation as a line of meridian. Recent measurements and virtual reconstructions of the antique situation in 2013 provide valid evidence for this argument as well. The different approach to the problem mirrors the antagonism between interpretation of antique texts and the assessment of archeological findings in the light of far fledged historical hypotheses.
    [Show full text]
  • The Worship of Augustus Caesar
    J THE WORSHIP OF AUGUSTUS C^SAR DERIVED FROM A STUDY OF COINS, MONUMENTS, CALENDARS, ^RAS AND ASTRONOMICAL AND ASTROLOGICAL CYCLES, THE WHOLE ESTABLISHING A NEW CHRONOLOGY AND SURVEY OF HISTORY AND RELIGION BY ALEXANDER DEL MAR \ NEW YORK PUBLISHED BY THE CAMBRIDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA CO. 62 Reade Street 1900 (All rights reserrecf) \ \ \ COPYRIGHT BY ALEX. DEL MAR 1899. THE WORSHIP OF AUGUSTUS CAESAR. CHAPTERS. PAGE. Prologue, Preface, ........ Vll. Bibliography, ....... xi. I. —The Cycle of the Eclipses, I — II. The Ancient Year of Ten Months, . 6 III. —The Ludi S^eculares and Olympiads, 17 IV. —Astrology of the Divine Year, 39 V. —The Jovian Cycle and Worship, 43 VI. —Various Years of the Incarnation, 51 VII.—^RAS, 62 — VIII. Cycles, ...... 237 IX. —Chronological Problems and Solutions, 281 X. —Manetho's False Chronology, 287 — XI. Forgeries in Stone, .... 295 — XII. The Roman Messiah, .... 302 Index, ........ 335 Corrigenda, ....... 347 PROLOGUE. THE ABYSS OF MISERY AND DEPRAVITY FROM WHICH CHRISTIANITY REDEEMED THE ROMAN EMPIRE CAN NEVER BE FULLY UNDERSTOOD WITHOUT A KNOWLEDGE OF THE IMPIOUS WoA^P OF EM- PERORS TO WHICH EUROPE ONCE BOWED ITS CREDULOUS AND TERRIFIED HEAD. WHEN THIS OMITTED CHAPTER IS RESTORED TO THE HISTORY OF ROME, CHRISTIANITY WILL SPRING A LIFE FOR INTO NEW AND MORE VIGOROUS ; THEN ONLY WILL IT BE PERCEIVED HOW DEEP AND INERADICABLY ITS ROOTS ARE PLANTED, HOW LOFTY ARE ITS BRANCHES AND HOW DEATH- LESS ARE ITS AIMS. PREFACE. collection of data contained in this work was originally in- " THEtended as a guide to the author's studies of Monetary Sys- tems." It was therefore undertaken with the sole object of estab- lishing with precision the dates of ancient history.
    [Show full text]
  • The Religious World of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
    The Religious World of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus ‘A thesis submitted to the University of Wales Trinity Saint David in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy’ 2016 Jillian Mitchell For Michael – and in memory of my father Kenneth who started it all Abstract for PhD Thesis in Classics The Religious World of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus This thesis explores the last decades of legal paganism in the Roman Empire of the second half of the fourth century CE through the eyes of Symmachus, orator, senator and one of the most prominent of the pagans of this period living in Rome. It is a religious biography of Symmachus himself, but it also considers him as a representative of the group of aristocratic pagans who still adhered to the traditional cults of Rome at a time when the influence of Christianity was becoming ever stronger, the court was firmly Christian and the aristocracy was converting in increasingly greater numbers. Symmachus, though long known as a representative of this group, has only very recently been investigated thoroughly. Traditionally he was regarded as a follower of the ancient cults only for show rather than because of genuine religious beliefs. I challenge this view and attempt in the thesis to establish what were his religious feelings. Symmachus has left us a tremendous primary resource of over nine hundred of his personal and official letters, most of which have never been translated into English. These letters are the core material for my work. I have translated into English some of his letters for the first time.
    [Show full text]
  • Roman Art from the Louvre
    Roman Art from the Louvre Resource for Educators American Federation of Arts Roman Art from the Louvre Resource for Educators American Federation of Arts Roman Art from the Louvre is organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Musée du Louvre. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity American Federation of Arts 305 East 47th Street, 10th floor from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. New York, NY 10017 212.988.7700 The AFA is a nonprofit institution that organizes art exhibitions for presen- www.afaweb.org tation in museums around the world, publishes scholarly exhibition cata- logues, and develops educational materials and programs. © 2007 American Federation of Arts All materials included in this resource may be reproduced for educational purposes. Please direct questions about this resource to: Suzanne Elder Burke Director of Education American Federation of Arts 212.988.7700 x226 [email protected] Exhibition Itinerary Indianapolis Museum of Art September 23, 2007–January 6, 2008 Seattle Art Museum February 21–May 11, 2008 Oklahoma City Museum of Art June 19–October 12, 2008 Design/Production: Emily Lessard Front cover: Fragment of a Relief of a Double Suovetaurilia Sacrifice (detail), 1st or 2nd quarter of 1st century A.D. (no. 4) Back cover: Knife Handle in the Shape of a Thracian Gladiator, 2nd half of 1st century A.D. (no. 6) CONTENTS About This Resource 4 Exhibition Overview 5 Ancient Roman Society 6 History of Ancient Rome Government—The Emperor and the Senate Citizenship Non-Citizens—Foreigners, Slaves, and Freedmen Leisure 10 The Baths Roman Theater Circus Maximus The Amphitheater Religion 11 Guide to Roman Gods and Goddesses 13 Guide to Roman Vessel Forms 16 Interesting Facts about Ancient Rome 18 Selected Works of Art 19 1.
    [Show full text]