The son of Demetrius II and Chryseis, Philip was nine years old at his father's death in 229 BC. His cousin, Antigonus Doson, administered the kingdom as regent until his death in 221 BC when Philip was seventeen years old.
On his ascent to the throne, Philip quickly showed that while he was young, this did not mean that Macedon was weak. In the first year of his rule, he pushed back the Dardani and other tribes in the north of the country.
In the Social War (220 BC-217 BC), the Hellenic League of Greek states was assembled at Philip V’s instigation in Corinth. He then led the Hellenic League in battles against Aetolia, Sparta and Elis. At the same time he was able to stamp on his own authority amongst his own ministers. His leadership during the Social War made him well-known and respected both within his own kingdom and abroad.
After the Peace of Naupactus in 217 BC, Philip V tried to replace Roman influence along the eastern shore of the Adriatic, forming alliances or lending patronage to certain island and coastal provinces such as Lato on Crete. He first tried to invade Illyria from the sea, but with limited success. His first expedition in 216 BC had to be aborted, while he suffered the loss of his whole fleet in a second expedition in 214 BC. A later expedition by land met with greater success when he captured Lissus in 212 BC.
In 215 BC he entered into a treaty with Hannibal, the Carthaginian general then in the middle of an invasion of Roman Italy. Their treaty defined spheres of operation and interest, but achieve little of substance or value for either side.
Philip became heavily involved in assisting and protecting his allies from attacks from the Spartans, the Romans and their allies.
Rome's alliance with the Aetolian League in 211 BC effectively neutralised Philip's advantage on land. The intervention of Attalus I of Pergamum on the Roman side further exposed Philip's position in Macedonia.
Kingdom of Macedon under Philip V.
Philip was able to take advantage of the withdrawal of Attalus from the Greek mainland in 207 BC, along with Roman inactivity and the increasing role of Philopoemen, the strategos of the Achaean League. After sacking Thermum, the religious and political centre of Aetolia, Philip was able to force the Aetolians to accept his terms in 206 BC. The following year he was able to conclude the Peace of Phoenice with Rome and its allies.
Following an agreement with the Seleucid king Antiochus III to capture Egyptian held territory from the boy king Ptolemy V, Philip was able to gain control of Egyptian territory in the Aegean Sea and in Anatolia. This expansion of Macedonian influence created alarm in a number of neighbouring states, including Pergamum and Rhodes. Their navies clashed with Philip’s off Chios and Lade (near Miletus) in 201 BC. At around the same time, the Romans were finally the victorious over Carthage.
In 200 BC, with Carthage no longer a threat, the Romans declared war on Macedon arguing that they were intervening to protect the freedom of the Greeks. After campaigns in Macedonia in 199 BC and Thessaly in 198 BC, Philip and his Macedonian forces were decisively defeated at the Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 BC. The war also proved the superiority of the Roman legion over the Greek phalanx formation.
The resulting peace treaty between Philip V and the Romans confined Philip to Macedonia and required him to pay 1000 talentsindemnity, surrender most of its fleet and provide a number of hostages, including his younger son Demetrius. After this, Philip cooperated with the Romans and sent help to them in their fight against the Spartans under King Nabis in 195 BC. Philip also supported the Romans against Antiochus III (192 BC-189 BC).
In return for his help when Roman forces under Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and his brother Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus moved through Macedon and Thrace in 190 BC, the Romans forgave the remaining indemnity that he had to pay and his son Demetrius was freed. Philip then focused on consolidating power within Macedon. He reorganised the country's internal affairs and finances, mines were reopened and a new currency was issued.
However, Rome continued to be suspicious of Philip's intentions. Accusations by Macedon's neighboring states, particularly Pergamum, led to constant interference from Rome. Feeling the threat growing that Rome would invade Macedon and remove him as king, he tried to extend his influence in the Balkans by force and diplomacy. However, his efforts were undermined by the pro-Roman policy of his younger son Demetrius, who was encouraged by Rome to consider the possibility of succession ahead of his older brother, Perseus. This eventually led to a quarrel between Perseus and Demetrius which forced Philip to reluctantly decide to execute Demetrius for treason in 180 BC. This decision had a severe impact on Philip's health and he died a year later at Amphipolis.
He was succeeded by his eldest son Perseus, who ruled as the last king of Macedon.
Marcus Antonius (in Latin: M·ANTONIVS·M·F·M·N[1]) (c. January 14, 83 BC–August 1, 30 BC), known in English as Mark Antony, was a Romanpolitician and General. He was an important supporter and the loyal friend of Gaius Julius Caesar as a military commander and administrator, being Caesar's second cousin, once removed, by his mother Julia Antonia. After Caesar's assassination, Antony formed an official political alliance with Octavian (Augustus) and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, known to historians today as the Second Triumvirate.
The triumvirate broke up in 33 BC. Disagreement between Octavian and Antony erupted into civil war, the Final War of the Roman Republic, in 31 BC. Antony was defeated by Octavian at the naval Battle of Actium, and in a brief land battle at Alexandria. He and his lover Cleopatra committed suicide shortly thereafter.
A member of the Antoniagens, Antony was born in winter 87-6 BC,[citation needed] probably in Sulla's army besieging Athens during the Mithridatic War. His father was his namesake, Marcus Antonius Creticus, the son of the great rhetoricianMarcus Antonius Orator who had been murdered and decapitated by order of Gaius Marius at the end of 87 B.C. His mother Julia was a daughter of Lucius Caesar (consul 90, censor 89), another Marian victim slain with Antonius the orator. His father (praetor 74) died in 71 B.C. during his command against Mediterranean piracy, and Julia soon remarried to Publius Cornelius Lentulus (Sura) (consul 71), an eminent patrician politician and co-leader of the infamous Conspiracy of Catiline named after the latter.
According to authorities like Plutarch, he spent his teenage years wandering the streets of Rome with his brothers and friends, most notably Gaius Curio (the later tribune 50 B.C.), with whom he is said to have had a long term homosexual liaison. Plutarch writes that before Antony reached 20 years of age, he was already indebted to the sum of 250 talents.[2] (About $5 million in today's money.[3])
After this period of recklessness, Antony fled to Greece to escape his creditors and to study rhetoric. After a short time spent in attendance on the philosophers at Athens, he was summoned by Aulus Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, to take part in the campaigns against Aristobulus II in Judea, and in support of King Ptolemy XII Auletes in Egypt. In the ensuing campaign, he demonstrated his talents as a cavalry commander and distinguished himself with bravery and courage.
Indeed, Antony's life was a mixture, often simultaneous, of astounding military honor along with equally astounding debauchery. In a similar vein, Plutarch noted that while his generosity helped raise him to the heights of power, he was equally hindered by his countless faults. [4]
In 54 BC, Antony became a member of the staff of Caesar's armies in Gaul and early Germany. He again proved to be a competent military leader in the Gallic Wars, but his personality caused instability wherever he went. Antony and Caesar were said to be best of friends as well as being fairly close relatives. Antony made himself ever available to assist Caesar in carrying out his military campaigns.
Raised by Caesar's influence to the offices of quaestor, augur, and tribune of the plebeians (50 BC), he supported the cause of his patron with great energy. Caesar's two proconsular commands, during a period of ten years, were expiring in 50 BC, and he wanted to return to Rome for the consular elections. But resistance from the conservative faction of the Roman Senate, led by Pompey, demanded that Caesar resign his proconsulship and the command of his armies before being allowed to seek re-election to the consulship.
This Caesar would not do, as such an act would at least temporarily render him a private citizen and thereby leave him open to prosecution for his acts while proconsul. It would also place him at the mercy of Pompey's armies. To prevent this occurrence Caesar bribed the plebian tribune Curio to use his veto to prevent a senatorial decree which would deprive Caesar of his armies and provincial command, and then made sure Antony was elected tribune for the next term of office. Antony exercised his tribunician veto, with the aim of preventing a senatorial decree declaring martial law against the veto, and was violently expelled from the senate with another Caesar adherent, Cassius, who was also a tribune of the plebs. Caesar crossed the river Rubicon upon hearing of these affairs which began the Republican civil war. Antony left Rome and joined Caesar and his armies at Ariminium, where he was presented to Caesar's soldiers still bloody and bruised as an example of the illegalities that his political opponents were perpetrating, and as a casus belli. Tribunes of the Plebs were meant to be untouchable and their veto inalienable according to the Roman mos maiorum (although there was a grey line as to what extent this existed in the declaration of and during martial law). Antony commanded Italy whilst Caesar destroyed Pompey's legions in Spain, and led the reinforcements to Greece, before commanding the right wing of Caesar's armies at Pharsalus.
When Caesar became dictator for a second time, Antony was made Master of the Horse, the dictator's right hand man, and in this capacity he remained in Italy as the peninsula's administrator in 47 BC, while Caesar was fighting the last Pompeians, who had taken refuge in the province of Africa. But Antony's skills as an administrator were a poor match for his generalship, and he seized the opportunity of indulging in the most extravagant excesses, depicted by Cicero in the Philippics. In 46 BC he seems to have taken offense because Caesar insisted on payment for the property of Pompey which Antony professedly had purchased, but had in fact simply appropriated. Conflict soon arose, and, as on other occasions, Antony resorted to violence. Hundreds of citizens were killed and Rome itself descended into a state of anarchy. Caesar was most displeased with the whole affair and removed Antony from all political responsibilities. The two men did not see each other for two years. The estrangement was not of long continuance, with Antony meeting the dictator at Narbo (45 BC) and rejecting the suggestion of Trebonius that he should join in the conspiracy that was already afoot. Reconciliation arrived in 44 BC, when Antony was chosen as partner for Caesar's fifth consulship.
Whatever conflicts existed between the two men, Antony remained faithful to Caesar at all times. On February 15, 44 BC, during the Lupercalia festival, Antony publicly offered Caesar a diadem. This was an event fraught with meaning: a diadem was a symbol of a king, and in refusing it, Caesar demonstrated that he did not intend to assume the throne.
On March 14, 44 BC, Antony was alarmed when a Senator named Cicero told him the gods would strike down Caesar. The following day, the Ides of March, he went down to warn the dictator but the Liberatores reached Caesar first and he was assassinated on March 15, 44 BC. In the turmoil that surrounded the event, Antony escaped Rome dressed as a slave; fearing that the dictator's assassination would be the start of a bloodbath among his supporters. When this did not occur, he soon returned to Rome, discussing a truce with the assassins' faction. For a while, Antony, as consul, seemed to pursue peace and an end to the political tension. Following a speech by Cicero in the Senate, an amnesty was agreed for the assassins.
Then came the day of Caesar's funeral. As Caesar's ever-present second in command, co-consul and cousin, Antony was the natural choice to give the eulogy. In his speech, he made accusations of murder and ensured a permanent breach with the conspirators. Showing a talent for rhetoric and dramatic interpretation, Antony snatched the toga from Caesar's body to show the crowd the stab wounds, pointing at each and naming the authors, publicly shaming them. During the eulogy he also read Caesar's will, which left most of his property to the people of Rome, demonstrating that, contrary to the conspirator's assertions, Caesar had no intention of forming a royal dynasty. Public opinion turned, and that night, the Roman populace attacked the assassins' houses, forcing them to flee for their lives.
Roman aureus bearing the portraits of Mark Antony (left) and Octavian (right). Struck in 41 BC, this coin was issued to celebrate the establishment of the Second Triumvirate by Octavian, Antony and Marcus Lepidus in 43 BC. Both sides bear the inscription "III VIR R P C", meaning "One of Three Men for the Regulation of the Republic".[5]
Antony was left as sole Consul, he surrounded himself with a bodyguard of Caesar's veterans and forced the senate to transfer to him the province of Cisalpine Gaul, which was then administered by Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, one of the conspirators. Brutus refused to surrender the province and Antony set out to attack him in October 44 BC, besieging him at Mutina. Encouraged by Cicero, the Senate denounced Antony and in January 43 they granted Octavian imperium (commanding power), which made his command of troops legal and sent him to relieve the siege, along with Hirtius and Pansa, the consuls for 43 BC. In April 43, Antony's forces were defeated at the Battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina, forcing Antony to retreat to Transalpine Gaul. However, both consuls were killed, leaving Octavian in sole command of their armies.
When they knew that Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius were assembling an army in order to march on Rome, Antony, Octavian and Lepidus allied together in November 43 BC, forming the Second Triumvirate to stop Caesar's assassins. Brutus and Cassius were defeated by Antony and Octavian at the Battle of Philippi in October 42 BC. After the battle, a new arrangement was made between the members of the Second Triumvirate: while Octavian returned to Rome, Antony went on to govern the east. Lepidus went on to govern Hispania and the province of Africa. The triumvirate's enemies were subjected to proscription including Mark Antony's archenemy Cicero who was killed on December 7 43 BC.
Antony summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus in October 41 BC. There they formed an Alliance and became lovers. Antony returned to Alexandria with her, where he spent the winter of 41 BC - 40 BC. In spring 40 BC he was forced to return to Rome following news of his wife Fulvia's Civil war. Fulvia died while Antony was en-route to Sicyon (where Fulvia was exiled). Antony made peace with Octavian in September 40 BC and married Octavian's Sister Octavia Minor. The Parthian Empire had supported Brutus and Cassius in the civil war, sending forces which fought with them at Philippi; following Antony and Octavian's victory, the Parthians invaded Roman territory, occupying Syria, advancing into Asia Minor and installing Antigonus as puppet king in Judaea to replace the pro-Roman Hyrcanus. Antony sent his general Ventidius to oppose this invasion. Ventidius won a series of victories against the Parthians, killing the crown prince Pacorus and expelling them from the Roman territories they had seized. Antony now planned to retaliate by invading Parthia, and secured an agreement from Octavian to supply him with extra troops for his campaign. With this military purpose on his mind, Antony sailed to Greece with Octavia, where he behaved in a most extravagant manner, assuming the attributes of the GreekgodDionysus (39 BC). But the rebellion in Sicily of Sextus Pompeius, the last of the Pompeians, kept the army promised to Antony in Italy. With his plans again disrupted, Antony and Octavian quarreled once more. This time with the help of Octavia, a new treaty was signed in Tarentum in 38 BC. The triumvirate was renewed for a period of another five years (ending in 33 BC) and Octavian promised again to send legions to the East.
But by now, Antony was skeptical of Octavian's true support of his Parthian cause. Leaving Octavia pregnant with her second child Antonia in Rome, he sailed to Alexandria, where he expected funding from Cleopatra, the mother of his twins. The queen of Egypt lent him the money he needed for the army, and after capturing Jerusalem and surrounding areas in 37 BC, he installed Herod as puppet king of Judaea, replacing the Parthian appointee Antigonus. Antony then invaded Parthian territory with an army of about 100,000 Roman and allied troops but the campaign proved a disaster. After defeats in battle, the desertion of his Armenian allies and his failure to capture Parthian strongholds convinced Antony to retreat, his army was further depleted by the hardships of its retreat through Armenia in the depths of winter, losing more than a quarter of its strength in the course of the campaign.
Meanwhile, in Rome, the triumvirate was no more. Lepidus was forced to resign after an ill-judged political move. Now in sole power, Octavian was occupied in wooing the traditional Republican aristocracy to his side. He married Livia and started to attack Antony in order to raise himself to power. He argued that Antony was a man of low morals to have left his faithful wife abandoned in Rome with the children to be with the promiscuous queen of Egypt. Antony was accused of everything, but most of all, of "going native", an unforgivable crime to the proud Romans. Several times Antony was summoned to Rome, but remained in Alexandria with Cleopatra.
Again with Egyptian money, Antony invaded Armenia, this time successfully. In the return, a mock Roman Triumph was celebrated in the streets of Alexandria. The parade through the city was a pastiche of Rome's most important military celebration. For the finale, the whole city was summoned to hear a very important political statement. Surrounded by Cleopatra and her children, Antony was about to put an end to his alliance with Octavian. He distributed kingdoms between his children: Alexander Helios was named king of Armenia, Media and Parthia (which were never conquered by Rome), his twin Selene got Cyrenaica and Libya, and the young Ptolemy Philadelphus was awarded Syria and Cilicia. As for Cleopatra, she was proclaimed Queen of Kings and Queen of Egypt, to rule with Caesarion (Ptolemy XV Caesar, son of Julius Caesar), King of Kings and King of Egypt. Most important of all, Caesarion was declared legitimate son and heir of Caesar. These proclamations were known as the Donations of Alexandria and caused a fatal breach in Antony's relations with Rome.
Distributing insignificant[citation needed] lands among the children of Cleopatra was not a peace move, but it was not a serious problem either.[citation needed] What did seriously threaten Octavian's political position, however, was the acknowledgment of Caesarion as legitimate and heir to Caesar's name. Octavian's base of power was his link with Caesar through adoption, which granted him much-needed popularity and loyalty of the legions. To see this convenient situation attacked by a child borne by the richest woman in the world was something Octavian could not accept. The triumvirate expired on the last day of 33 BC and was not renewed. Another civil war was beginning.
During 33 and 32 BC, a propaganda war was fought in the political arena of Rome, with accusations flying between sides. Antony (in Egypt) divorced Octavia and accused Octavian of being a social upstart, of usurping power, and of forging the adoption papers by Caesar. Octavian responded with treason charges: of illegally keeping provinces that should be given to other men by lots, as was Rome's tradition, and of starting wars against foreign nations (Armenia and Parthia) without the consent of the Senate. Antony was also held responsible for Sextus Pompeius' execution with no trial. In 32 BC, the Senate deprived him of his powers and declared war against Cleopatra - not Antony, because Octavian knew that another civil war would lose him popular support. Both consuls (Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Gaius Sosius) and a third of the Senate abandoned Rome to meet Antony and Cleopatra in Greece.
In 31 BC, the war started. Octavian's loyal and talented general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa captured the Greek city and naval port of Methone, loyal to Antony. The enormous popularity of Octavian with the legions secured the defection of the provinces of Cyrenaica and Greece to his side. On September 2, the naval battle of Actium took place. Antony and Cleopatra's navy was destroyed, and they were forced to escape to Egypt with 60 ships.
Octavian, now close to absolute power, did not intend to give them rest. In August 30 BC, assisted by Agrippa, he invaded Egypt. With no other refuge to escape to, Antony committed suicide by stabbing himself with his sword in the mistaken belief that Cleopatra had already done so (30 BC). When he found out that Cleopatra was still alive, his friends brought him to Cleopatra's monument in which she was hiding, and he died in her arms.(However, some sources claim that he did not commit suicide, but was killed by an Egyptian priest who was in favour of Octavian). Cleopatra was allowed to conduct Antony's burial rites after she had been captured by Octavian. Realising that she was destined for Octavian's triumph in Rome, she made several attempts to take her life and was finally successful in mid-August. Antony's children by Cleopatra were spared, but paraded through the streets of Rome by Octavian. Antony's daughters by Octavia were spared, as was his son, Iullus Antonius. But his elder son, Marcus Antonius Antyllus, was killed by Octavian's men while pleading for his life in the Caesarium.
Socrates (pronounced /ˈsɒkrətiːz/; Greek: Σωκράτης, Sōkrátēs; c. 469 BC–399 BC[1]) was a Classical Greekphilosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students. Plato's dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.[2]
Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions are asked not only to draw individual answers, but to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. It is Plato's Socrates that also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic, and the influence of his ideas and approach remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy that followed.
As one recent commentator has put it, Plato, the idealist, offers "an idol, a master figure, for philosophy. A Saint, a prophet of the 'Sun-God', a teacher condemned for his teachings as a heretic."[3] Yet, the 'real' Socrates, like many of the other Ancient philosophers, remains at best enigmatic and at worst unknown.
Forming an accurate picture of the historical Socrates and his philosophical viewpoints is problematic at best. This issue is known as the Socratic problem.
Socrates did not write philosophical texts. The knowledge of the man, his life, and his philosophy is based on writings by his students and contemporaries. Foremost among them is Plato; however, works by Xenophon, Aristotle, and Aristophanes also provide important insights.[4] The difficulty of finding the “real” Socrates arises because these works are often philosophical or dramatic texts rather than straightforward histories. Aside from Thucydides (who makes no mention of Socrates or philosophers in general), there is in fact no such thing as a straightforward history contemporary with Socrates that dealt with his own time and place. A corollary of this is that the sources which do mention Socrates don't necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are often partisan (those who prosecuted and convicted Socrates have left no testament). Historians therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various texts that come from these men to create an accurate and consistent account of Socrates' life and work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily realistic, merely consistent. In general, Plato is viewed as the most reliable and informative source about Socrates' life and philosophy.[5] At the same time, in some works Plato pushed his literary version of "Socrates" far beyond anything the historical Socrates was likely to have done or said. Parsing which Socrates—the "real" one, or Plato's own mouthpiece—Plato is using in any given dialogue can be a matter of much debate.
However, it is also clear from other writings, and historical artifacts that Socrates was not simply a character, or invention, of Plato. The testimony of Xenophon and Aristotle, alongside some of Aristophanes' work within The Clouds, can be usefully engaged in fleshing out our perception of Socrates beyond Plato's work; at the very least, Socrates was a popular manifestation of a common rhetorical tool of the era, that of using argumentum ad verecundiam by having a hypothetical teacher make the argument for the philosopher.
Life
Carnelian gem imprint representing Socrates, Rome, 1st century BC-1st century AD.
Details about Socrates derive from three contemporary sources: the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon (both devotees of Socrates), and the plays of Aristophanes. He has been depicted by some scholars, including Eric Havelock and Walter Ong, as a champion of oral modes of communication, standing up at the dawn of writing against its haphazard diffusion.[6]
Aristophanes' play The Clouds portrays Socrates as a clown who teaches his students how to bamboozle their way out of debt. Most of Aristophanes' works, however, function as parodies. Thus, it is presumed this characterization was also not literal.
According to Plato, Socrates' father was Sophroniscus[7] and his mother Phaenarete[8], a midwife. Though characterized as unattractive in appearance and short in stature, Socrates married Xanthippe[9], who was much younger than he. She bore for him three sons[10], Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus. His friend Crito of Alopece criticized him for abandoning his sons when he refused to try to escape before his execution[11].
It is unclear how Socrates earned a living. Ancient texts seem to indicate that Socrates did not work. In Xenophon's Symposium, Socrates is reported as saying he devotes himself only to what he regards as the most important art or occupation: discussing philosophy. In The Clouds Aristophanes portrays Socrates as accepting payment for teaching and running a sophist school with Chaerephon, while in Plato's Apology and Symposium and in Xenophon's accounts, Socrates explicitly denies accepting payment for teaching. More specifically, in the Apology Socrates cites his poverty as proof he is not a teacher. According to Timon of Phlius and later sources, Socrates took over the profession of stonemasonry from his father. There was a tradition in antiquity, not credited by modern scholarship, that Socrates crafted the statues of the Three Graces, which stood near the Acropolis until the second century AD.[12]
Several of Plato's dialogues refer to Socrates' military service. Socrates says he served in the Athenian army during three campaigns: at Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium. In the SymposiumAlcibiades describes Socrates' valour in the battles of Potidaea and Delium, recounting how Socrates saved his life in the former battle (219e-221b). Socrates' exceptional service at Delium is also mentioned in the Laches by the General after whom the dialogue is named (181b). In the Apology, Socrates compares his military service to his courtroom troubles, and says anyone on the jury who thinks he ought to retreat from philosophy must also think soldiers should retreat when it looks like they will be killed in battle.
In 406 he was a member of the Boule, and his tribe the Antiochis held the Prytany on the day the Generals of the Battle of Arginusae, who abandoned the slain and the survivors of foundered ships to pursue the defeated Spartan navy, were discussed. Socrates was the Epistates and resisted the unconstitutional demand for a collective trial to establish the guilt of all eight Generals, proposed by Callixeinus. Eventually, Socrates refused to be cowed by threats of impeachment and imprisonment and blocked the vote until his Prytany ended the next day, whereupon the six Generals were condemned to death.
In 404 the Thirty Tyrants sought to ensure the loyalty of those opposed to them by making them complicit in their activities. Socrates and four others were ordered to bring a certain Leon of Salamis from his home for unjust execution. Socrates quietly refused, his death averted only by the overthrow of the Tyrants soon afterwards.
Socrates lived during the time of the transition from the height of the Athenianhegemony to its decline with the defeat by Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnesian War. At a time when Athens sought to stabilize and recover from its humiliating defeat, the Athenian public may have been entertaining doubts about democracy as an efficient form of government. Socrates appears to have been a critic of democracy, and some scholars interpret his trial as an expression of political infighting.
Despite claiming loyalty to his city, Socrates clashed with the current course of Athenian politics and society.[13] He praises Sparta, archrival to Athens, directly and indirectly in various dialogues. But perhaps the most historically accurate of Socrates' offenses to the city was his position as a social and moral critic. Rather than upholding a status quo and accepting the development of immorality within his region, Socrates worked to undermine the collective notion of "might makes right" so common to Greece during this period. Plato refers to Socrates as the "gadfly" of the state (as the gadfly stings the horse into action, so Socrates stung Athens), insofar as he irritated the establishment with considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness. His attempts to improve the Athenians' sense of justice may have been the source of his execution.
According to Plato's Apology, Socrates' life as the "gadfly" of Athens began when his friend Chaerephon asked the oracle at Delphi if anyone was wiser than Socrates; the Oracle responded that none was wiser. Socrates believed that what the Oracle had said was a paradox, because he believed he possessed no wisdom whatsoever. He proceeded to test the riddle through approaching men who were considered to be wise by the people of Athens, such as statesmen, poets, and artisans, in order to refute the pronouncement of the Oracle. But questioning them, Socrates came to the conclusion that, while each man thought he knew a great deal and was very wise, they in fact knew very little and were not really wise at all. Socrates realized that the Oracle was correct, in that while so-called wise men thought themselves wise and yet were not, he himself knew he was not wise at all which, paradoxically, made him the wiser one since he was the only person aware of his own ignorance. Socrates' paradoxical wisdom made the prominent Athenians he publicly questioned look foolish, turning them against him and leading to accusations of wrongdoing. Socrates defended his role as a gadfly until the end: at his trial, when Socrates was asked to propose his own punishment, he suggests a wage paid by the government and free dinners for the rest of his life instead, to finance the time he spends as Athens' benefactor.[14] He was, nevertheless, found guilty of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and sentenced to death by drinking a mixture containing poison hemlock.
Darius III (Artashata) (c. 380–330 BC, Persian داریوش Dāriūš, pronounced [dɔːriˈuːʃ]) was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia from 336 BC to 330 BC. It was under his rule that the Persian Empire was conquered during the Wars of Alexander the Great (for more information on the name, see the entry for Darius I.)
Artaxerxes III of Persia and all of his sons except one, Arses, were killed off through the assassination plots of a Vizier named Bagoas, who installed Arses on the throne as a puppet king. When he found out Arses couldn’t be controlled, however, Bagoas killed him off as well in 336 BC, and installed to the throne a man named Codomannus, the last surviving legitimate heir to the Persian throne. Codomannus was a distant relative of the royal house who had distinguished himself in a combat of champions in a war against the Cadusii[1] and was serving at the time as a royal courier[2]. Codomannus was the son of Arsames, son of Ostanes, one of Artaxerxes's brothers and Sisygambis, daughter of Artaxerxes II Memnon. He took the throne at the age of 46.
Codomannus took the regnal name Darius III, and quickly demonstrated his independence from his assassin benefactor. Bagoas then tried to poison Darius as well, when he learned that even Darius couldn't be controlled, but Darius was warned and forced Bagoas to drink the poison himself[3]. The new king found himself in control of an unstable empire, large portions of which were governed by jealous and unreliable satraps and inhabited by disaffected and rebellious subjects, such as Khabash in Egypt. Compared to his ancestors and his fellow heirs who had since perished, Darius had a distinct lack of experience ruling an empire, and a lack of any previous ambition to do so. Darius was a ruler of entirely average stamp, without the striking talents and qualities which the administration of a vast empire required during that period of crisis [4].
In 336 BC Philip II of Macedonia was authorized by the League of Corinth as its Hegemon to initiate a sacred war of vengeance against the Persians for desecrating and burning the Athenian temples during the Second Persian War. He sent an advance force into Asia Minor under the command of his generals Parmenion and Attalus to "liberate" the Greeks living under Persian control. After they took the Greek cities of Asia from Troy to the Maiandros river, Philip was assassinated and his campaign was suspended while his heir consolidated his control of Macedonia and Greece.
In the spring of 334 BC, Philip's heir, Alexander the Great, who had himself been confirmed as Hegemon by the League of Corinth, invaded Asia Minor at the head of a combined Macedonian army. This invasion, which marked the beginning of the Wars of Alexander the Great, was followed almost immediately by the victory of Alexander over the Persians at Battle of the Granicus. Darius never showed up for the battle, because there was no reason for him to suppose that Alexander intended to conquer the whole of Asia, and Darius may well have supposed that the satraps of the ‘lower’ satrapies could deal with the crisis,[5] so he instead decided to remain at home in Persepolis and let his satraps handle it.
Darius did not actually take the field against Alexander’s army until a year and a half after Granicus, at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC. His forces outnumbered Alexander's soldiers by at least a 2 to 1 ratio, but Darius was still outflanked, defeated, and forced to flee. It is told by Arrian that at the Battle of Issus the moment the Persian left went to pieces under Alexander’s attack and Darius, in his war-chariot, saw that it was cut off, he incontinently fled – indeed, he led the race for safety [6]. On the way, he left behind his chariot, his bow, and his royal mantle, all of which were later picked up by Alexander. Greek sources such as Diodorus Siculus' Library of History and Justin's Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum recount that Darius fled out of fear at the Battle of Issus and again two years later at the Battle of Gaugamela despite commanding a larger force in a defensive position each time.[7] At the Battle of Issus, Darius III even caught Alexander by surprise and failed to defeat the Macedonian forces.[8] Darius fled so far so fast, that Alexander was able to capture Darius’s headquarters, and take Darius’s family as prisoners in the process. Darius petitioned to Alexander through letters several times to get his family back, but Alexander refused to do so unless Darius would acknowledge him as the new emperor of Persia. In 331 BC, Darius' sister-wife Statira, who had otherwise been well-treated[9], died in captivity, reputedly during childbirth[10].
Circumstances were more in Darius’s favor at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC. He had a good number of troops who had been organized on the battlefield properly, he had the support of the armies of several of his satraps, and the ground on the battlefield was almost perfectly even, so as not to impede movement. Despite all these beneficial factors, he still fled the battle before any victor had been decided and deserted his experienced commanders as well as one of the largest armies ever assembled.[11] Another source accounts that when Darius perceived the fierce attack of Alexander, as at Issus he turned his chariot around, and was the first to flee [12], once again abandoning all of his soldiers and his property to be taken by Alexander. Many Persian soldiers lost their lives that day, so many in fact that after the battle the casualties of the enemy ensured that Darius would never again raise an imperial army [13]. Darius then fled to Ecbatana and attempted to raise a third army, while Alexander took possession of Babylon, Susa, and the Persian capital at Persepolis. Darius reportedly offered all of his empire west of the Euphrates River to Alexander in exchange for peace several times, each time denied by Alexander against the advice of his senior commanders.[14] Alexander could have declared victory after the capture of Persepolis, but he instead decided to pursue Darius.
Darius did attempt to restore his once great army after his defeat at the hands of Alexander, but he failed to raise a force comparable to that which had fought at Battle of Gaugamela, partly because the defeat had undermined his authority, and also because Alexander’s liberal policy, for instance in Babylonia and in Persis, offered an acceptable alternative to Persian domination [13].
When at Ecbatana Darius learned of Alexander's approaching army, he decided to retreat to Bactria where he could better use his cavalry and mercenary forces on the more even ground of the plains of Asia. He led his army through the Caspian Gates, the main road through the mountains that would work to slow a following army.[15] The Persian forces became increasingly demoralized with the constant threat of a surprise attack from Alexander, leading to many desertions and eventually a coup led by Bessus, a satrap, and Nabarzanes, who managed all audiences with the King and was in charge of the palace guard.[16] The two men suggested to Darius that the army regroup under Bessus and that power would be transferred back to the King once Alexander was defeated. Darius obviously did not accept this plan, and his conspirators became more anxious to remove him for his successive failures against Alexander and his forces. Patron, a Greek mercenary, encouraged Darius to accept a bodyguard of Greek mercenaries rather than his usual Persian guard to protect him from Bessus and Nabarzanes, but the King could not accept for political reasons and grew accustomed to his fate.[17] Bessus and Nabarzanes eventually bound Darius and threw him in an ox-cart while they ordered the Persian forces to continue on. According to Curtius' History of Alexander, at this point Alexander and a small, mobile force arrived and threw the Persians into a panic, leading to Bessus and two other conspirators, Satibarzanes and Barsaentes, wounding the king with their javelins and leaving him to die.[18]
Alexander covers the corpse of Darius with his cloak (18th-century engraving)
A Macedonian soldier found Darius either dead or dying in the wagon shortly thereafter—a disappointment to Alexander, who wanted to capture Darius alive. Alexander saw Darius’s dead body in the wagon, and took the signet ring off the dead king’s finger. Afterwards he sent Darius’s body back to Persepolis and ordered that he be buried, like all his royal predecessors, in the royal tombs.[19] Alexander gave Darius a magnificent funeral and eventually married Darius' daughter Statira at Opis in 324 BC. According to historian Plutarch, Alexander also took on as eromenos one of Darius' catamites, the eunuchBagoas.[20]
With the old king defeated and given a proper burial, Alexander's rulership of Persia became official. So ended Darius’s life, with his last purpose being to serve as a vehicle for Alexander’s ascension to the throne of Asia. The idea of Darius as ’great and good’ is belived by most scholars to be a fiction of legend. He may have possessed the domestic virtues, but otherwise he was a poor type of despot, cowardly and inefficient [21], and under his rulership, the entirety of the Persian Empire fell to a foreign invader.
After killing Darius, Bessus took the regal name Artaxerxes V and began calling himself the King of Asia [13]. He would later be captured by Alexander, and subsequently tortured and executed.
The Persians referred to Alexander’s castle in Persia as the “Kelah-i-Dive-Sefid,” meaning Castle of the White Demon,[22] with Alexander representing the Div-e Sepid of the Shahnameh epic.
According to Xenophon's story, Socrates purposefully gave a defiant defense to the jury because "he believed he would be better off dead". Xenophon goes on to describe a defense by Socrates that explains the rigors of old age, and how Socrates would be glad to circumvent them by being sentenced to death. It is also understood that Socrates also wished to die because he "actually believed the right time had come for him to die".
Xenophon and Plato agree that Socrates had an opportunity to escape, as his followers were able to bribe the prison guards. He chose to stay for several reasons:
He believed such a flight would indicate a fear of death, which he believed no true philosopher has.
If he fled Athens his teaching would fare no better in another country as he would continue questioning all he met and undoubtedly incur their displeasure.
Having knowingly agreed to live under the city's laws, he implicitly subjected himself to the possibility of being accused of crimes by its citizens and judged guilty by its jury. To do otherwise would have caused him to break his "social contract" with the state, and so harm the state, an act contrary to Socratic principle.
The full reasoning behind his refusal to flee is the main subject of the Crito.
Socrates' death is described at the end of Plato's Phaedo. Socrates turned down the pleas of Crito to attempt an escape from prison. After drinking the poison, he was instructed to walk around until his legs felt numb. After he lay down, the man who administered the poison pinched his foot. Socrates could no longer feel his legs. The numbness slowly crept up his body until it reached his heart. Shortly before his death, Socrates speaks his last words to Crito: "Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt." Asclepius was the Greek god for curing illness, and it is likely Socrates' last words meant that death is the cure—and freedom, of the soul from the body. The Roman philosopher Seneca attempted to emulate Socrates' death by hemlock when forced to commit suicide by the Emperor Nero.
Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. He was the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.
Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the biological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the nineteenth century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late nineteenth century into modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially Eastern Orthodox theology, and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"),[1] it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.[2]
Aristotle was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, in 384 BC, about 55 km (34 mi) east of modern-day Thessaloniki.[3] His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was trained and educated as a member of the aristocracy. At about the age of eighteen, he went to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. Aristotle remained at the academy for nearly twenty years, not leaving until after Plato's death in 347 BC. He then traveled with Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. While in Asia, Aristotle traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Hermias's adoptive daughter (or niece) Pythias. She bore him a daughter, whom they named Pythias. Soon after Hermias' death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander the Great in 343 B.C.[4]
Early Islamic portrayal of Aristotle
Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave lessons not only to Alexander, but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander. In his Politics, Aristotle states that only one thing could justify monarchy, and that was if the virtue of the king and his family were greater than the virtue of the rest of the citizens put together. Tactfully, he included the young prince and his father in that category. Aristotle encouraged Alexander toward eastern conquest, and his attitude towards Persia was unabashedly ethnocentric. In one famous example, he counsels Alexander to be 'a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants'.[5]
By 335 BC he had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stageira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus. According to the Suda, he also had an eromenos, Palaephatus of Abydus.[6]
It is during this period in Athens from 335 to 323 BC when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works.[4] Aristotle wrote many dialogues, only fragments of which survived. The works that have survived are in treatise form and were not, for the most part, intended for widespread publication, as they are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students. His most important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the Soul) and Poetics.
Aristotle not only studied almost every subject possible at the time, but made significant contributions to most of them. In physical science, Aristotle studied anatomy, astronomy, economics, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology, physics and zoology. In philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics, ethics, government, metaphysics, politics, psychology, rhetoric and theology. He also studied education, foreign customs, literature and poetry. His combined works constitute a virtual encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. It has been suggested that Aristotle was probably the last person to know everything there was to be known in his own time.[7]
Near the end of Alexander's life, Alexander began to suspect plots against himself, and threatened Aristotle in letters. Aristotle had made no secret of his contempt for Alexander's pretense of divinity, and the king had executed Aristotle's grandnephew Callisthenes as a traitor. A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but there is little evidence for this.[8]
Upon Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens once again flared. Eurymedon the hierophant denounced Aristotle for not holding the gods in honor. Aristotle fled the city to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, explaining, "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy,"[9] a reference to Athens's prior trial and execution of Socrates. However, he died in Euboea of natural causes within the year (in 322 BC). Aristotle named chief executor his student Antipater and left a will in which he asked to be buried next to his wife.[10]
Logic
Aristotle portrayed in the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle as a 15th-century-A.D. scholar
With the Prior Analytics, Aristotle is credited with the earliest study of formal logic, and his conception of it was the dominant form of Western logic until 19th century advances in mathematical logic. Kant stated in the Critique of Pure Reason that Aristotle's theory of logic completely accounted for the core of deductive inference.
History
Aristotle "says that 'on the subject of reasoning' he 'had nothing else on an earlier date to speak of'".[11] However, Plato reports that syntax was devised before him, by Prodicus of Ceos, who was concerned by the correct use of words. Logic seems to have emerged from dialectics; the earlier philosophers made frequent use of concepts like reductio ad absurdum in their discussions, but never truly understood the logical implications. Even Plato had difficulties with logic; although he had a reasonable conception of a deducting system, he could never actually construct one and relied instead on his dialectic.[12] Plato believed that deduction would simply follow from premises, hence he focused on maintaining solid premises so that the conclusion would logically follow. Consequently, Plato realized that a method for obtaining conclusions would be most beneficial. He never succeeded in devising such a method, but his best attempt was published in his book Sophist, where he introduced his division method.[13]
What we today call Aristotelian logic, Aristotle himself would have labeled "analytics". The term "logic" he reserved to mean dialectics. Most of Aristotle's work is probably not in its original form, since it was most likely edited by students and later lecturers. The logical works of Aristotle were compiled into six books in about the early 1st century AD:
Categories
On Interpretation
Prior Analytics
Posterior Analytics
Topics
On Sophistical Refutations
The order of the books (or the teachings from which they are composed) is not certain, but this list was derived from analysis of Aristotle's writings. It goes from the basics, the analysis of simple terms in the Categories, the analysis of propositions and their elementary relations in On Interpretation, to the study of more complex forms, namely, syllogisms (in the Analytics) and dialectics (in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations). The first three treatises form the core of the logical theory stricto sensu: the grammar of the language of logic and the correctness rules of reasoning. There is one volume of Aristotle's concerning logic not found in the Organon, namely the fourth book of Metaphysics..[12]
Aristotle's scientific method
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Forms.
Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle, however, found the universal in particular things, which he called the essence of things, while Plato finds that the universal exists apart from particular things, and is related to them as their prototype or exemplar. For Aristotle, therefore, philosophic method implies the ascent from the study of particular phenomena to the knowledge of essences, while for Plato philosophic method means the descent from a knowledge of universal Forms (or ideas) to a contemplation of particular imitations of these. For Aristotle, "form" still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is "instantiated" in a particular substance (see Universals and particulars, below). In a certain sense, Aristotle's method is both inductive and deductive, while Plato's is essentially deductive from a priori principles.[14]
In Aristotle's terminology, "natural philosophy" is a branch of philosophy examining the phenomena of the natural world, and includes fields that would be regarded today as physics, biology and other natural sciences. In modern times, the scope of philosophy has become limited to more generic or abstract inquiries, such as ethics and metaphysics, in which logic plays a major role. Today's philosophy tends to exclude empirical study of the natural world by means of the scientific method. In contrast, Aristotle's philosophical endeavors encompassed virtually all facets of intellectual inquiry.
In the larger sense of the word, Aristotle makes philosophy coextensive with reasoning, which he also would describe as "science". Note, however, that his use of the term science carries a different meaning than that covered by the term "scientific method". For Aristotle, "all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical" (Metaphysics 1025b25). By practical science, he means ethics and politics; by poetical science, he means the study of poetry and the other fine arts; by theoretical science, he means physics, mathematics and metaphysics.
If logic (or "analytics") is regarded as a study preliminary to philosophy, the divisions of Aristotelian philosophy would consist of: (1) Logic; (2) Theoretical Philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics, Mathematics, (3) Practical Philosophy and (4) Poetical Philosophy.
In the period between his two stays in Athens, between his times at the Academy and the Lyceum, Aristotle conducted most of the scientific thinking and research for which he is renowned today. In fact, most of Aristotle's life was devoted to the study of the objects of natural science. Aristotle's metaphysics contains observations on the nature of numbers but he made no original contributions to mathematics. He did, however, perform original research in the natural sciences, e.g., botany, zoology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, meteorology, and several other sciences.
Aristotle's writings on science are largely qualitative, as opposed to quantitative. Beginning in the sixteenth century, scientists began applying mathematics to the physical sciences, and Aristotle's work in this area was deemed hopelessly inadequate. His failings were largely due to the absence of concepts like mass, velocity, force and temperature. He had a conception of speed and temperature, but no quantitative understanding of them, which was partly due to the absence of basic experimental devices, like clocks and thermometers.
His writings provide an account of many scientific observations, a mixture of precocious accuracy and curious errors. For example, in his History of Animals he claimed that human males have more teeth than females[15] and in the Generation of Animals he said the female is as it were a deformed male.[16]
In a similar vein, John Philoponus, and later Galileo, showed by simple experiments that Aristotle's theory that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter object is incorrect.[17] On the other hand, Aristotle refuted Democritus's claim that the Milky Way was made up of "those stars which are shaded by the earth from the sun's rays," pointing out (correctly, even if such reasoning was bound to be dismissed for a long time) that, given "current astronomical demonstrations" that "the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth and the distance of the stars from the earth many times greater than that of the sun, then...the sun shines on all the stars and the earth screens none of them."[18]
In places, Aristotle goes too far in deriving 'laws of the universe' from simple observation and over-stretched reason. Today's scientific method assumes that such thinking without sufficient facts is ineffective, and that discerning the validity of one's hypothesis requires far more rigorous experimentation than that which Aristotle used to support his laws.
Aristotle also had some scientific blind spots. He posited a geocentric cosmology that we may discern in selections of the Metaphysics, which was widely accepted up until the 1500s. From the 3rd century to the 1500s, the dominant view held that the Earth was the center of the universe (geocentrism).
Since he was perhaps the philosopher most respected by European thinkers during and after the Renaissance, these thinkers often took Aristotle's erroneous positions as given, which held back science in this epoch.[19] However, Aristotle's scientific shortcomings should not mislead one into forgetting his great advances in the many scientific fields. For instance, he founded logic as a formal science and created foundations to biology that were not superseded for two millennia. Moreover, he introduced the fundamental notion that nature is composed of things that change and that studying such changes can provide useful knowledge of underlying constants
Pericles (also spelled Perikles) (c. 495 – 429 BC, Greek: Περικλῆς, meaning "surrounded by glory") was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. He was descended, through his mother, from the powerful and historically influential Alcmaeonid family.
Pericles had such a profound influence on Athenian society that Thucydides, his contemporary historian, acclaimed him as "the first citizen of Athens". Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429 B.C, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", though the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars, or as late as the next century.
Pericles promoted the arts and literature; this was a chief reason Athens holds the reputation of being the educational and cultural centre of the ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious project that built most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis (including the Parthenon). This project beautified the city, exhibited its glory, and gave work to the people.[1] Furthermore, Pericles fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics call him a populist.[2][3]
It was under his own rule that the empire embraced all previous civilized states of the ancient Near East,[8] expanded vastly, and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much of Central Asia, from Egypt and the Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, to create the largest empire the world had yet seen.[9]
The reign of Cyrus lasted 29 to 30 years. Cyrus built his empire by fighting and conquering first the Median Empire, then the Lydian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Either before or after Babylon, he led an expedition into central Asia, which resulted in major campaigns that brought "into subjection every nation without exception."[10] Cyrus did not venture into Egypt, as he himself died in battle, fighting the Massagetae along the Syr Darya in December 530 BC.[11][12] He was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II, who managed to add to the empire by conquering Egypt, Nubia, and Cyrenaica during his short rule.
As a military leader, Cyrus left an everlasting legacy on the art of leadership and decision-making and he attributed his success to "Diversity in counsel, unity in command."[13] Cyrus the Great respected the customs and religions of the lands he conquered.[14] It is said that, in universal history the role of the Achaemenid empire founded by Cyrus lies in its very successful model for centralized administration and establishing a government working to the advantage and profit of its subjects.[8] In fact, the administration of the empire through satraps and the vital principle of forming a government at Pasargadae were the work of Cyrus.[15] Aside from his own nation, Iran, Cyrus also left a lasting legacy on Jewishreligion (through his Edict of Restoration), human rights, politics, and military strategy, as well as on both Eastern and Western civilizations.
Cleopatra VII, the Last Pharaoh of Egypt
Daughter of the Pharaoh
Cleopatra VII was born in 69 BC in Alexandria, Egypt. Her father was Egypt's pharaoh, Ptolemy XII, nicknamed Auletes or "Flute-Player." Cleopatra's mother was probably Auletes's sister, Cleopatra V Tryphaena. (It was commonplace for members of the Ptolemaic dynasty to marry their siblings.)There was another Cleopatra in the family -- Cleopatra VII's elder sister, Cleopatra VI. Cleopatra VII also had an older sister named Berenice; a younger sister, Arsinoe; and two younger brothers, both called Ptolemy. The family was not truly Egyptian, but Macedonian. They were descended from Ptolemy I, a general of Alexander the Great who became king of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC.Ptolemy XII was a weak and cruel ruler, and in 58 BC the people of Alexandria rebelled and overthrew him. He fled to Rome while his eldest daughter, Berenice, took the throne. She married a cousin but soon had him strangled so that she could marry another man, Archelaus. At some point during Berenice's three-year reign Cleopatra VI died of unknown causes. In 55 BC Ptolemy XII reclaimed his throne with the help of the Roman general Pompey. Berenice was beheaded (her husband was executed, as well).Cleopatra VII was now the pharaoh's oldest child. When her father died in 51 BC, leaving his children in Pompey's care, Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII inherited the throne.
Queen of Egypt
Cleopatra was 17 or 18 when she became the queen of Egypt. She was far from beautiful, despite her glamorous image today. She is depicted on ancient coins with a long hooked nose and masculine features. Yet she was clearly a very seductive woman. She had an enchantingly musical voice and exuded charisma. She was also highly intelligent. She spoke nine languages (she was the first Ptolemy pharaoh who could actually speak Egyptian!) and proved to be a shrewd politician.In compliance with Egyptian tradition Cleopatra married her brother and co-ruler, Ptolemy XIII, who was about 12 at the time. But it was a marriage of convenience only, and Ptolemy was pharaoh in name only. For three years he remained in the background while Cleopatra ruled
alone.Ptolemy's advisors - led by a eunuch named Pothinus - resented Cleopatra's independence and conspired against her. In 48 BC they stripped Cleopatra of her power and she was forced into exile in Syria. Her sister Arsinoe went with her.
Background
Prior to the establishment of the Roman Republic, Rome had been ruled by kings. Brutus led the revolt that overthrew the last king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, after the rape of the noblewoman (and kinswoman of Brutus) Lucretia at the hands of Tarquin's son Sextus Tarquinius. The account is from Livy's Ab urbe condita and deals with a point in the history of Rome prior to reliable historical records (virtually all prior records were destroyed by the Gauls when they sacked Rome under Brennus in 390 BC or 387 BC). According to Livy, Brutus had a number of grievances against the king, amongst them was the fact that Tarquin had orchestrated the murder of his brother.
Brutus gained the trust of Tarquin's family by feigning slow-wittedness (in Latin brutus translates to dullard), thereby allowing the Tarquins to underestimate him as a potential threat. He accompanied Tarquin's sons on a trip to the Oracle of Delphi. The sons asked the oracle who would be the next ruler of Rome. The Oracle responded the next person to kiss his mother would become king. Brutus interpreted "mother" to mean the Earth, so he pretended to trip and kissed the ground.[1] Upon returning to Rome, Brutus was forced to fight in one of Rome's unending wars with neighboring Italian tribes. Brutus returned to the city once he heard about the rape of Lucretia. Lucretia, believing that the rape dishonored her and her family, committed suicide by stabbing herself with a dagger after confessing all to a gathering of the extended family (including Brutus). According to legend, Brutus grabbed the dagger from Lucretia's breast after her death and immediately shouted for the overthrow of the Tarquins. Soon, Brutus would achieve this goal, causing Tarquin Superbus and his family to flee back to their ancestral home of Etruria in exile. In place of kings, Brutus declared power to be in the hands of the Senate, with him as one of the first two Praetors, executive officers that would later become the Roman office of Consul.
Brutus and Lucretia's widowed husband, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, were elected as the first consuls of Rome (509 BC). Brutus' first acts during his consulship, according to Livy, included administering an oath to the people of Rome to never again accept a king in Rome (see below) and replenishing the number of senators to 300 from the principal men of the equites. The new consuls also created a new office of rex sacrorum to carry out the religious duties that had previously been performed by the kings.
His consulship came to an end during a battle with the Etruscans, who had allied themselves with the Tarquins to restore them to power in Rome. Brutus's death is romantically described by Livy during the battle. Arruns Tarquinius, the king's son, challenged Brutus from across the battlefield on horseback. Charging at one another, without any thought to their own defense, both were impaled upon one another's spears.
There is some confusion as to the details of Brutus' life. His consulship, for example, may have been a later embellishment to give the republican institutions greater legitimacy by associating them with the overthrower of the kings. Similarly the tale of Brutus' execution of his own sons for failing in their military duties may well have been a later invention.
Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos (Greek: Πύρρος, Pyrros; 319-272 BC) was a Greek[1][2][3] general of the Hellenistic era.[4] He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians[3], of the royal Aeacid house[5] (from ca. 297 BC), and later he became King of Epirus (306-302, 297-272 BC) and Macedon (288-284, 273-272 BC). He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. Some of his battles, though successful, cost him heavy losses, from which the term "Pyrrhic victory" was coined. He is the subject of one of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
Tribes of Epirus in antiquity.
Pyrrhus was the son of Aeacides and Phthia, a Thessalian woman, and a second cousin of Alexander the Great (via Alexander's mother, Olympias). Pyrrhus was only two years old when his father was dethroned, in 317 BC, his family taking refuge with Glaukias, king of the Taulantians, one of the largest Illyrian tribes.[4]Pyrrhus was raised[6] by Beroea[7] Glaukias's wife, one of the MollosianAeacide.
Glaucias restored Pyrrhus to the throne in 306 BC until the latter was banished again, four years later, by his enemy, Cassander. Thus, he went on to serve as an officer, in the wars of the Diadochi, under his brother-in-law Demetrius Poliorcetes. In 298 BC, Pyrrhus was taken hostage to Alexandria, under the terms of a peace treaty made between Demetrius and Ptolemy I. There, he married Ptolemy I's stepdaughter Antigone (daughter of Berenice, Ptolemy's mistress, and a Macedonian noble) and, in 297 BC, with Ptolemy I's financial and military aid, restored his kingdom in Epirus and had Neoptolemus II, puppet of the now-deceased Seleucus and Pyrrhus' co-ruler for a short while, murdered.
In 295 BC Pyrrhus transferred the capital of his kingdom to Ambrakia (modern Arta). Next, he went to war against his former ally and brother-in-law Demetrius and by 286 BC he had taken control over the kingdom of Macedon. Pyrrhus was driven out of Macedon by Lysimachus in 284 BC.
A marble bust, reputedly of Hannibal, originally found at the ancient city-state of Capua in Italy. Some historians doubt the authenticity of the portrait.[1][2][3][4][5]
Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca,[n 1] (248–183 or 182 BC[n 2]), commonly known as Hannibal (in Punic: Annobal,[dubious– discuss] meaning "Ba'al's grace/help/blessing", Greek: ο Άννίβας)[7][8][9][10], was a Carthaginian military commander and tactician who is popularly credited as one of the most talented commanders in history. His father Hamilcar Barca was the leading Carthaginian commander during the First Punic War, his younger brothers were Mago and Hasdrubal, and he was brother-in-law to Hasdrubal the Fair.
Hannibal lived during a period of tension in the Mediterranean, when Rome (then the Roman Republic) established its supremacy over other great powers such as Carthage, and the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedon, Syracuse, and the Seleucid empire. One of his most famous achievements was at the outbreak of the Second Punic War, when he marched an army, which included war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy. In his first few years in Italy, he won three dramatic victories Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae and won over several Roman allies. Hannibal occupied much of Italy for 15 years, however a Roman counter-invasion of North Africa forced Hannibal to return to Carthage, where he was decisively defeated by Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama. Scipio studied Hannibal's tactics and brilliantly devised some of his own, and finally defeated Rome's nemesis at Zama having previously driven Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, out of Spain.
After the war Hannibal successfully ran for the office of suffete. He enacted political and financial reforms to enable the payment of the war indemnity imposed by Rome. However, Hannibal's reforms were unpopular with members of the Carthaginian aristocracy and Rome, and he fled into voluntary exile. During his exile, he lived at the Seleucid court, where he acted as military advisor to Antiochus III in his war against Rome. After Antiochus met defeat and was forced to accept Rome's terms, Hannibal fled again, making a stop in Armenia. His flight ended in the court of Bithynia, where he achieved an outstanding naval victory against a fleet from Pergamum. He was afterwards betrayed to the Romans.
Often regarded as the greatest military tactician and strategist in history, Hannibal would later be considered as one of the greatest generals of antiquity, together with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Scipio, and Pyrrhus of Epirus. Plutarch gives that, when questioned by Scipio as to who was the greatest general, Hannibal is said to have replied either Alexander, Pyrrhus, then himself,[11] or, according to another version of the event, Pyrrhus, Scipio, then himself.[12] Military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge once famously called Hannibal the "father of strategy",[13] because his greatest enemy, Rome, came to adopt elements of his military tactics in its own strategic arsenal. This praise has earned him a strong reputation in the modern world and he was regarded as a "gifted strategist" by men like Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington. His life has been the basis for a number of films and documentaries.
He has been attributed with the famous quotation, "We will either find a way, or make one.
This bust of Scipio Africanus the Elder is at the National Museum in Naples, Italy.
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus also known as Scipio Africanus, Scipio the Elder, and Africanus the Elder (235–183 BC) was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic. He was best known for defeating Hannibal at the final battle of the Second Punic War at Zama, a feat that earned him the agnomenAfricanus, the nickname "the Roman Hannibal", as well as recognition as one of the finest commanders in military history. An earlier great display of his tactical abilities had come already at the Battle of Ilipa.
Early years
Publius Cornelius Scipio, later Africanus from his victory at the Battle of Zama, the founder of the Africanus branch of the Cornelii Scipiones, was born by Caesarian section[1] in the Roman year 236/5 BC in Rome into the Scipio branch of the Cornelia gens. The birth year is calculated from a series of statements made by multiple ancient historians of how old he was when certain events in his life occurred. The statements all seem to agree or be reconcilable: if he was 17 when he led a charge to his father's rescue at the Battle of Ticinus (218 BC), and 24 when he volunteered to take over the army in Hispania when no one else would (211 BC), after the defeat and death there of his uncle and father, the two consuls, and 27 when he led a victorious campaign against the city of New Carthage on the coast of Hispania (209 BC), then he must have been born in 236/5, usually stated as 236 BC.[2] The year was 517 from the foundation of Rome.
The extended family that brought him into the world and raised and educated him was patrician, with a record of successful public service in the highest offices (these entailed per se both military and civilian duties) extending back at least to the early Roman Republic. Before then the historical trail is lost, although the family may have known what it was. Several ancestors had been consuls successively, and his great-grandfather, Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, had been patrician censor in 280 BC. The Cornelii were counted among the six major patrician families—the others being the Manlii, the Fabii, the Aemilii, the Claudii, and the Valerii—and at the time Scipio Africanus lived, the Scipiones were probably its most prominent branch, at least in the hindsight of the historians, who have only glowing reports of his family and career. He was unquestionably one of the leading characters of Roman history.
Scipio was the elder son of Publius Cornelius Scipio, praetor and consul by his wife Pomponia, who was of a prominently knightly and plebeian family. He had an older brother, Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, and a friend since boyhood, Gaius Laelius, who served with him in the military and whom the historian, Polybius, was able to question concerning the life and character of the great man after his death.
'Pindar (Greek: Πίνδαρος,Pindaros; Latin: Pindarus) (ca. 522–443 BC), was an Ancient Greeklyric poet. Of the canonicalnine lyric poets of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence".[1]
However, not all the ancients shared Quintilian's enthusiasm. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis is said to have remarked that the poems of Pindar "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning".[2]
Modern tastes also have tended to vary between either enthusiasm or polite disinterest, especially since the discovery in 1896 of some poems by Pindar's rival Bacchylides, which allowed for useful comparisons. Till then, it was assumed by many scholars that Pindar's work was not only abstruse but also of questionable value artistically. Comparisons however led to the realization that some peculiarities of composition, evident in his Victory Odes, were typical of the genre rather than of the man.[3] The brilliance of his poetry began then to be more widely appreciated and yet there are still idiosyncracies in his style that challenge the reader and he continues to be a largely unread, even if admired poet.[4]
Pindar is the first Greek poet whose works reflect extensively on the nature of poetry and on the poet's role.[5] Like other poets of the Archaic Age, he reveals a deep sense of the vicissitudes of life and yet, unlike them, he also articulates a passionate faith in what men can achieve by the grace of the gods, most famously expressed in his conclusion to one of his Victory Odes:[6]
The main events in Pindar's life[9][10] are here set out in reverse chronological order, a device frequently employed by Pindar himself in his narratives.
Every night after the poet's death, the priest of Apollo at Delphi used to intone as he closed the temple doors: Let Pindar the poet go unto the supper of the gods. Pindar had himself been elected to the priesthood there and the iron chair, on which he had always sat during the festival of the Theoxenia, long remained one of the temple's prized exhibits. He had lived in an era when poets were considered to have an almost priestly function as interpreters to men of their place in the world and thus one of his odes, composed in honour of the athlete Diagoras of Rhodes, is said to have been copied in letters of gold on a temple wall in Lindos.
Pindar lived to about eighty years of age and died sometime around 440 BC while attending a festival at Argos. It is said that his musically-gifted daughters, Eumetis and Protomache, took his ashes back home to Thebes. Nothing is recorded about his wife and son except their names, Megacleia and Daiphantus. The poet's house was located near a shrine to Alcman, the oracular son of the hero and oracle, Amphiaraus. Pindar seems to have stored some of his personal wealth there and he records in one of his odes (Pythian 8) that he had recently encounted Alcman on a journey to Delphi and received from him a prophecy - though he doesn't say what was prophesied. The house became a Theban landmark, especially when Thebes was demolished about a century later on the orders of Alexander the Great, the conqueror sparing the poet's house in gratitude for the verses he had composed in praise of his ancestor, king Alexander I of Macedon.[11]
Pindar's fame as a poet introduced him to the troubled world of Greek politics, where he was often required to tread subtly between conflicting interests. His poems often reflect this, as in the following examples.
Athens was a major, expansionist power and a long-term rival of Aegina, where he had many patrons, friends and admirers - about a quarter of his Victory Odes were commissioned by Aeginetans. In one of his last odes (Pythian 8), commissioned by Aeginetan patrons, he refers to the downfall of the giants Porphyrion and Typhon and this is thought to be a subtle celebration of a recent defeat of Athens by Thebes at the Battle of Coronea.[12] The same ode ends with a prayer for Aegina's freedom, long threatened by Athenian ambitions, yet there is no open condemnation of Athens.
Pindar was possibly the Theban proxenos or consul for Aegina and/or Molossia, as indicated in another of his odes (Nemean 7).[13] The ode celebrates the heroic virtues of their legendary hero Neoptolemus. Pindar seems to have composed it in order to allay any ill feelings over his portrayal of Neoptolemus in an earlier poem (Paean 6) commissioned by the priests at Delphi. The paean had depicted the hero's disgraceful death, killed by the priests of Delphi in a fight over sacrificial meat.
Pindar celebrated Greek victories against foreign powers, as in his first Pythian ode, which includes mentions of the Athenian and Spartan-led victories against Persia in the Battle of Salamis and Battle of Plataea, as well as victories by the western Greeks, led by the kings Hieron of Syracuse and Theron of Acragas, against Carthage at the Battle of Himera and against the Etruscans in the Battle of Cumae. His own countrymen in Thebes however had sided with the Persians and they had incurred many losses and privations as a result of their defeat. Consequently they looked with disfavour on Pindar's friendship with rich foreign kings like Hieron. One of his odes (Pythian 11), composed shortly after his return from a visit to the court of Hieron, includes a denunciation of the rule of tyrants (i.e. rulers like Hieron) and praise of moderate, co-operative government (such as existed at Thebes), and this was probably an attempt to disarm his own critics in Thebes.[14]
Thebes was a long-term rival of Athens and the poet's praise of Athens, the liberator of Greece, with such epithets as bullwark of Hellas (fragment 76) and city of noble name and sunlit splendour (Nemean 5), is said to have induced his annoyed countrymen to fine him 5000 drachmae, which the Athenians are sais to have subsequently offset with a gift of 10000 drachmae.
Pindar also appears to have used his odes to advance his personal interests and those of his friends.[15] He composed two odes in honour of Arcesilas, king of Cyrene, (Pythians 4 and 5), pleading for the return from exile of a friend, Demophilus. In the latter ode Pindar proudly mentions his own ancestry, which he shared with the king, as an Aegeid or descendent of Aegeus, the legendary king of Athens. Branches of the Aegeid clan were found in many parts of the Greek world, intermarrying with ruling families in Thebes, in Sparta and in colonies established by Sparta, such as Cyrene. Membership in the clan contributed to Pindar's success as the poet of an international elite and it informed his political views, marked by a conservative preference for oligarchic governments of the Doric kind.
Pindar's poetry also reflects rivalry with other poets, notably Simonides and his nephew Bacchylides. The competition for commissions included denigration of each other's abilities. Thus for example Olympian 2 and Pythian 2, composed in honour of the Sicilian tyrants Theron and Hieron, refer respectively to ravens and an ape, apparently signifying his rivals, engaged in a campaign of smears against him.[16] His original treatment of narrative myth, often relating events in reverse chronolical order, was especially a target for criticism by his rivals.[17] Commissions took Pindar to all parts of the Greek world - to the sites of the Panhellenic festivals in mainland Greece (Olympia, Delphi, Corinth and Nemea), as far west as Sicily, where he had friends among the ruling elite (notably Thrasybulus, the nephew of Theron of Acragas, but also Hieron of Syracuse, whom he probably befriended during a visit in 476 BC), eastwards to the seaboard of Asia Minor, north to Macedonia and Abdera (Paean 2) and south to Cyrene on the African coast.
The Persian invasions of Greece in the reigns of Darius and Xerxes appear not to have had any significant effect on Pindar's career. It is possible that he spent much of his time at Aegina during the Persian invasion in 480/79 BC when Thebes was occupied by Xerxes' general, Mardonius, with whom many Theban aristocrats subsequently perished at the Battle of Plataea. The earlier invasion in 490 BC did not prevent him attending the Pythian Games for that year and it was there that that he first met the Sicilian prince, Thrasybulus. Thrasybulus had driven the winning chariot that year and he and Pindar formed a lasting friendship, paving the way for his subsequent visit to Sicily.
Lyric verse was conventionally accompanied by music and dance and Pindar himself wrote the music and choreographed the dances for his victory odes. Sometimes he trained the performers at his home in Thebes and sometimes he trained them at the venue where they performed. He was about twenty years old in 498 BC when he was commissioned by the ruling family in Thessaly to compose his first victory ode (Pythian 10). He studied the art of lyric poetry in Athens and he is said to have received some helpful criticism from Corinna. It is reported moreover that he was stung on the mouth by a bee in his youth and this was the reason he became a poet of honey-like verses (an identical fate has been ascribed to other poets of the archaic period)
Pindar was probably born in 522 BC or 518 BC (the 65th Olympiad) in Cynoscephalae, a village in Boeotia, not far from Thebes. His father's name is variously given as Daiphantus, Pagondas or Scopelinus and his mother's name was Cleodice
Xerxes the Great, also known as Xerxes I of Persia, (Old Persian: ��������������; Xšayāršā)[1] (reigned 485–465 BC) was a Zoroastrian Persian Shahanshah (Emperor) of the Achaemenid Empire.
Xerxes was the son of Darius the Great and his wife Atossa. He succeeded his father in 486 BC with a very smooth transition of power challenged by no subject nation of the huge Achaemenid empire.
Among the historians, Herodotus mentions in his history book that Xerxes means warrior.[2][3] This is however disputed and not accepted by modern scholars.[4] A modern proposal is that "Xerxes" should mean "Hero among rulers".[5][6]
The alternative English name Ahasuerus is derived from the Latin transliteration of the Biblical Hebrewאחשורוש (Áḥašweroš). This is in turn the Hebrew equivalent of the Babylonian Acḫšiyaršu: both this and the non-Biblical Greek name Ξέρξης are transliterations from the Old Persian Xšayāršā (also spelt Khshayârshâ).[7] Thus this literary change was created as the name moved across each of the language groups in a westerly direction from Persia until it entered English translations of the Bible. Therefore the Hebrew texts are to a large extent consistent and the name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Xšayāršā.[8]
Early life and accession
Immediately after seizing the kingship, Darius I of Persia (son of Hystaspes) married Atossa (daughter of Cyrus the Great). They were both descendants of Achaemenes from different Achaemenid lines. Marrying a daughter of Cyrus strengthened Darius' position as king.[9] Darius was an active emperor, busy with building programs in Persepolis, Susa, Egypt, and elsewhere. Toward the end of his reign he moved to punish Athens, but a new revolt in Egypt (probably led by the Persian satrap) had to be suppressed. Under Persian law, the Achaemenian kings were required to choose a successor before setting out on such serious expeditions. Upon his great decision to leave (487-486 BC)[10], Darius prepared his tomb at Naqsh-e Rostam and appointed Xerxes, his eldest son by Atossa, as his successor. Darius' failing health then prevented him from leading the campaigns,[11] and he died in October 486 BC.[11]
Xerxes was not the oldest son of Darius and according to old Iranian traditions should not have succeeded the King. Xerxes was however the oldest son of Darius and Atossa hence descendent of Cyrus. This made Xerxes the chosen King of Persia.[12] Some modern scholars also view the unusual decision of Darius to give the throne to Xerxes to be a result of his consideration of the unique positions that Cyrus the Great and his daughter Atossa have had.[13] The Xerxes argued that Artobazan was born to Darius the "subject", while he was the eldest son born to the purple, Artobazan's mother was a commoner while his mother was the daughter of the founder of the empire.[14]
Xerxes was crowned and succeeded his father in October-December 486 BC[15] when he was about 36 years old.[10] The transition of power to Xerxes was smooth due again in part to great authority of Atossa[9] and his accession of royal power was not challenged by any person at court or in the Achaemenian family, or any subject nation.[16]
Almost immediately, he suppressed the revolts in Egypt and Babylon that had broken out the year before, and appointed his brother Achaemenes as governor or satrap (Old Persian: khshathrapavan) over Egypt. In 484 BC, he outraged the Babylonians by violently confiscating and melting down[17] the golden statue of Bel (Marduk, Merodach), the hands of which the rightful king of Babylon had to clasp each New Year's Day. This sacrilege led the Babylonians to rebel in 484 BC and 482 BC, so that in contemporary Babylonian documents, Xerxes is refused his father's title of King of Babylon, being named rather as King of Persia and Media, Great King, King of Kings (Shahanshah) and King of Nations (i.e. of the world).
Although Herodotus' report in the Histories has created certain problems concerning Xerxes' religious beliefs, modern scholars consider him as a Zoroastrian.[18]
Mithradates VI (Greek: Μιθριδάτης), from Old Persian Mithradatha, "gift of Mithra"; b. 134, d. 63 BC, also known as Mithradates the Great (Megas) and Eupator Dionysius, was king of Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia (now in Turkey) from about 119 to 63 BC. Mithradates was a king of Greek and Persian origin, claimed descent from Alexander the Great and King Darius the Great. Both spellings of his name were used in antiquity; Mithridates was favored by the Romans, while Mithradates follows Greek inscriptions and highlights the association with the ancient Persian god Mithra. Mithradates is remembered as one of Rome's most formidable and successful enemies, who engaged three of the most prominent generals of the late Roman Republic in the so-called Mithridatic Wars: Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompey the Great.
Mithradates VI was the son of Mithradates V (150 BC–120 BC), who died when he was a boy. During Eupator's minority, supreme power was exercised by his mother queen Laodice[1], whom he eventually deposed and committed to prison (ca. 115 BC). However, his mother - in an attempt to be queen and have the throne of the kingdom of Pontus - killed off many of his brothers but not his sister, Laodice, whom he married.
Mithradates entertained ambitions of making his state the dominant power in the Black Sea and Anatolia. After he subjugated Colchis, the king of Pontus clashed for supremacy in the Pontic steppe with the Scythian king Palacus. The most important centres of Crimea, Tauric Chersonesus and the Bosporan Kingdom, readily surrendered their independence in return for Mithradates' promises to protect them against the Scythians, their ancient enemies. After several abortive attempts to invade the Crimea, the Scythians and the allied Rhoxolanoi suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Pontic general Diophantus and accepted, albeit at the point of the sword, Mithradates as their overlord.
The young king then turned his attention to Anatolia, where the Roman power was on the rise. He contrived to partition Paphlagonia and Galatia with Nicomedes III of Bithynia. It soon became clear to Mithradates that Nicomedes steered his country into an anti-Pontic alliance with the expanding Roman Republic. When Mithradates fell out with Nicomedes over control of Cappadocia and defeated him in a series of battles, the latter was constrained to openly enlist the assistance of Rome. The Romans twice interfered into the conflict on behalf of Nicomedes (92 and 95 BC), leaving Mithradates with little choice other than to engage in a future Roman-Pontic war should he wish to continue the expansion of his kingdom.
As a politician, Caesar made use of popularist tactics. During the late 60s and into the 50s BC, he formed political alliances that led to the so-called "First Triumvirate," an extra-legal arrangement with Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their factional attempts to amass power for themselves were opposed within the Roman Senate by the optimates, among them Marcus Porcius Cato and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, with the sometime support of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul extended the Roman world to the North Sea, and in 55 BC he also conducted the first Roman invasion of Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse Pompey's, while the death of Crassus contributed to increasing political tensions between the two triumviral survivors. Political realignments in Rome finally led to a stand-off between Caesar and Pompey, the latter having taken up the cause of the Senate. With the order that sent his legions across the Rubicon, Caesar began a civil war in 49 BC from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of the Roman world.
After assuming control of government, he began extensive reforms of Roman society and government. He heavily centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity" (dictator perpetuo). A group of senators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, assassinated the dictator on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, hoping to restore the normal running of the Republic. However, the result was another Roman civil war, which ultimately led to the establishment of a permanent autocracy by Caesar's adopted heir, Gaius Octavianus. In 42 BC, two years after his assassination, the Senate officially sanctified Caesar as one of the Roman deities.
Much of Caesar's life is known from his own Commentaries (Commentarii) on his military campaigns, and other contemporary sources such as the letters and speeches of his political rival Cicero, the historical writings of Sallust, and the poetry of Catullus. Many more details of his life are recorded by later historians, such as Appian, Suetonius, Plutarch, Cassius Dio and Strabo.
Caesar was born into a patrician family, the gensJulia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus.[4] The cognomen "Caesar" originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by caesarean section (from the Latin verb to cut, caedere, caes-).[5] The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle.[6] Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favoured this interpretation of his name.[7]
Despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential, having produced only three consuls. Caesar's father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, reached the rank of praetor, the second highest of the Republic's elected magistracies, and governed the province of Asia, perhaps through the influence of his prominent brother-in-law Gaius Marius.[8] His mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family which had produced several consuls. Marcus Antonius Gnipho, an orator and grammarian of Gaulish origin, was employed as Caesar's tutor.[9] Caesar had two sisters, both called Julia. Little else is recorded of Caesar's childhood. Suetonius and Plutarch's biographies of him both begin abruptly in Caesar's teens; the opening paragraphs of both appear to be lost.[10]
Caesar's formative years were a time of turmoil. The Social War was fought from 91 to 88 BC between Rome and her Italian allies over the issue of Roman citizenship, while Mithridates of Pontus threatened Rome's eastern provinces. Domestically, Roman politics was divided between politicians known as optimates and populares, neither of which had a common agenda and so cannot be considered a political party or even a faction. The optimates were those politicians who pursued their agendas through traditional, constitutional routes in the Senate; the populares those who preferred to bypass traditional procedure and pursue their agendas by appealing directly to the electorate. Caesar's uncle Marius was a popularis, Marius' protégé Lucius Cornelius Sulla was an optimas, and in Caesar's youth their rivalry led to civil war.
Both Marius and Sulla distinguished themselves in the Social War, and both wanted command of the war against Mithridates, which was initially given to Sulla; but when Sulla left the city to take command of his army, a tribune passed a law transferring the appointment to Marius. Sulla responded by marching on Rome, reclaiming his command and forcing Marius into exile, but when he left on campaign Marius returned at the head of a makeshift army. He and his ally Lucius Cornelius Cinna seized the city and declared Sulla a public enemy, and Marius's troops took violent revenge on Sulla's supporters. Marius died early in 86 BC, but his followers remained in power.[11]
In 85 BC Caesar's father died suddenly while putting on his shoes one morning, without any apparent cause,[12] and at sixteen, Caesar was the head of the family. The following year he was nominated to be the new Flamen Dialis, high priest of Jupiter, as Merula, the previous incumbent, had died in Marius's purges.[13] Since the holder of that position not only had to be a patrician but also be married to a patrician, he broke off his engagement to Cossutia, a plebeian girl of wealthy equestrian family he had been betrothed to since boyhood, and married Cinna's daughter Cornelia.[14]
Then, having brought Mithridates to terms, Sulla returned to finish the civil war against Marius' followers. After a campaign throughout Italy he seized Rome at the Battle of the Colline Gate in November 82 BC and had himself appointed to the revived office of dictator; but whereas a dictator was traditionally appointed for six months at a time, Sulla's appointment had no term limit. Statues of Marius were destroyed and Marius' body was exhumed and thrown in the Tiber. Cinna was already dead, killed by his own soldiers in a mutiny.[15] Sulla's proscriptions saw hundreds of his political enemies killed or exiled. Caesar, as the nephew of Marius and son-in-law of Cinna, was targeted. He was stripped of his inheritance, his wife's dowry and his priesthood, but he refused to divorce Cornelia and was forced to go into hiding. The threat against him was lifted by the intervention of his mother's family, which included supporters of Sulla, and the Vestal Virgins. Sulla gave in reluctantly, and is said to have declared that he saw many a Marius in Caesar.[10]
Gaius Octavius Thurinus (from birth to adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC);
Gaius Julius Caesar (from 44 to 27 BC);
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (from 27 BC until death)
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 31 BC until his death in AD 14.[note 1] Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and between then and 31 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus, and thus consequently he was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.[note 2] Because of the various names he bore, it is common to call him Octavius when referring to events between 63 and 44 BC, Octavian (or Octavianus) when referring to events between 44 and 27 BC, and Augustus when referring to events after 27 BC. In Greek sources, Augustus is known as Ὀκτάβιος (Octavius), Καῖσαρ (Caesar), Αὔγουστος (Augustus), or Σεβαστός (Sebastos), depending on context.
The young Octavius came into his inheritance after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC. In 43 BC, Octavian joined forces with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. As a triumvir, Octavian ruled Rome and many of its provinces[note 3] as an autocrat, seizing consular power after the deaths of the consuls Hirtius and Pansa and having himself perpetually re-elected. The triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its rulers: Lepidus was driven into exile, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by the fleet of Octavian commanded by Agrippa in 31 BC.
After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Octavian restored the outward facade of the Roman Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, but in practice retained his autocratic power. It took several years to determine the exact framework by which a formally republican state could be led by a sole ruler; the result became known as the Roman Empire. The emperorship was never an office like the Roman dictatorship which Caesar and Sulla had held before him; indeed, he declined it when the Roman populace "entreated him to take on the dictatorship".[1] By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including those of tribune of the plebs and censor. He was consul until 23 BC.[2] His substantive power stemmed from financial success and resources gained in conquest, the building of patronage relationships throughout the Empire, the loyalty of many military soldiers and veterans, the authority of the many honors granted by the Senate,[3] and the respect of the people. Augustus' control over the majority of Rome's legions established an armed threat that could be used against the Senate, allowing him to coerce the Senate's decisions. With his ability to eliminate senatorial opposition by means of arms, the Senate became docile towards his paramount position. His rule through patronage, military power, and accumulation of the offices of the defunct Republic became the model for all later imperial government.
The rule of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana, or Roman peace. Despite continuous frontier wars, and one year-long civil war over the imperial succession, the Mediterranean world remained at peace for more than two centuries. Augustus expanded the Roman Empire, secured its boundaries with client states, and made peace with Parthia through diplomacy. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army (and a small navy), established the Praetorian Guard, and created official police and fire-fighting forces for Rome. Much of the city was rebuilt under Augustus; and he wrote a record of his own accomplishments, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, which has survived. Upon his death in AD 14, Augustus was declared a god by the Senate, to be worshipped by the Romans.[4] His names Augustus and Caesar were adopted by every subsequent emperor, and the month of Sextilis was officially renamed August in his honour. He was succeeded by his stepson and son-in-law, Tiberius.
Tiberius Gracchus
(168-133 BC)
Tiberius and his brother Gaius Gracchus were to be two men who should become famous, if not infamous, for their struggle for the lower classes of Rome.
They themselves though originated from Rome's very elite. Their father was a consul and military commander and their mother was from the distinguished patrician familiy of the Scipios. - At the death of her husband she even turned down a marriage proposal by the king of Egypt.
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus at first distinguished himself in the army (as an officer in the Third Punic was he is said to have been the first man over the wall at Carthage), after which he was elected quaestor. When in Numantia an entire army found itself in dire straits, it was Tiberius' negotiation skill, which managed to save the lives of 20'000 Roman soldiers and thousands more among the auxiliary units and camp followers. However, the senate disliked what they called a dishonourable treaty which saved lives, but admitted defeat. If the intervention by his brother-in-law Scipio Aemilianus saved at least the general staff (including Tiberius) from suffering any indignity at the hands of the senate, then the commander of the force, Hostilius Mancinus, was arrested, put in irons and handed over to the enemy.
When Gracchus won the election to the tribunate in 133 BC he had probably no intention of starting a revolution. His aim was largely economic.
Long before his rise to fame, the plebeians who wanted office and social recognition had made common cause with the urban poor and the landless country dwellers.
Was the plight of landless Italian farm workers hard enough, it was now further endangered by the rise of slave labour, by which rich land owners now sought to maintain their vast estates.
It could indeed be suggested that those very estates had been acquired agaisnt the rule of law. Law according to which the peasantry should have shared in the land.
As any projects of reform which would touch their own wealth or power would naturally be opposed by the nobles, Tiberius' ideas of land reform should win him few friends in the senate.
Tiberius brought forward a bill to the concilium plebis for a creation of allotments mostly out of the large area of public land which the republic had acquired after the Second Punic War.
Those currently living on the land would be restricted to what had for some time been the legal limit of ownership (500 acres plus 250 acres for each of up to two sons; i.e. 1000 acres), and would be compensated by being granted a hereditary rent-free lease.
This was a significant political package at a time of general unrest and of expansion abroad. It also restored to the list of those eligible for military service (for which a tradition of qualification was the possession of land) a section of society which had fallen out of the reckoning.
After all, Rome needed soldiers. Leading jurists of the day confirmed that his intentions were indeed legal.
But however reasonable some of his arguments might have been, Gracchus with his contempt for the senate, his flagrant populism and political brinkmanship, heralded a change in the nature of Roman politics. The stakes were getting ever higher, things were becoming more brutal. Rome's well-being seemed more and more to be a secondary factor in the great contest of egos and boundless ambition.
Also the passions whipped up during Tiberius' and Gaius' brief time in office is largely seen as having led to the following period of social strife and civil war.
Gracchus' bill was unsurprisingly supported by the popular assembly. But the other Tribune of the people, Octavius, used his powers to overrule the law.
Gracchus now replied by applying his own veto as Tribune to every sort of action by government, in effect bringing the rule of Rome to a standstill. Rome's government was to deal with his bill, before any other matter should be dealt with. Such was his intention. At the next assembly he reintroduced his bill. Once again there was no doubt of its success in the assembly, but once again Octavius vetoed it.
At the next assembly Gracchus proposed that Octavius should be deposed from office. This was not within the Roman constitution, but the assembly voted for it nonetheless. Tiberius' agrarian bill was then voted on once again and became law.
Three commissioners were appointed to administer the scheme; Tiberius himself, his younger brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus and Appius Claudius Pulcher, 'leader' of the senate - and Tiberius' father-in-law.
The commission began work at once and some 75'000 smallholdings may have been created and handed to farmers.
As the commission began to run out of money Tiberius simply proposed to the popular assemblies to simply use the available funds from the kingdom of Pergamum, which Rome had recently acquired. The senate was in no mood to be outwitted again, particularly not on matters of finance. It unwillingly passed the proposal. But Tiberius was not making any friends. Particularly as the deposition of Octavius was a revolution, if not a coup d'état. Under the given conditions Gracchus could have introduced any law on his own, given popular support. It was a clear challenge to the senate's authority.
So too, hostile feelings against Gracchus arose, when rich, influential men discovered that the new law may deprive them of land they saw as their own.
In such hostile conditions it was distinctly possible that Gracchus was in danger of prosecution in the courts as well as assassination. He knew it and therefore realized that he had to be re-elected to enjoy the immunity of public office.
But the laws of Rome were clear that no man was to hold office without interval. His candidacy was in effect illegal.
The senate failed in an attempt to bar him from standing again, but a group of enraged senators, led by his hostile cousin Scipio Nasica, charged into an election rally of Tiberius', broke it up and, alas, clubbed him to death.
Nasica had to flee the country and died at Pergamum. On the other hand some of Gracchus' supporters were punished by methods which were positively illegal, too.
Scipio Aemilianus on his return from Spain was now called upon to save the state. He probably was in sympathy with the real aims of Tiberius Gracchus, but detested his methods. But to reform Rome it would need a man of less scruples and perhaps less honour.
One morning Scipio was found dead in his bed, believed to have been murdered by the supporters of Gracchus (129 BC).
Themistocles (Greek: Θεμιστοκλῆς); c. 524–459 BC, was an Athenian politician and general. He was one of a new breed of politicians who rose to prominence in the early years of the Athenian democracy, along with his great rival Aristides. As a politician, Themistocles was a populist, having the support of lower class Athenians, and generally being at odds with the Athenian nobility. Elected archon in 493 BC, he took steps to increase the naval power of Athens, which would be a recurring theme in his political career. During the first Persian invasion of Greece, he fought at the Battle of Marathon, and was probably one of the 10 Athenian strategoi (generals) in that battle.
In the years after Marathon, and in the run up to the second Persian invasion he became the most prominent politician in Athens. He continued to advocate a strong Athenian navy, and in 483 BC he persuaded the Athenians to build a fleet of 200 triremes; these would prove crucial in the forthcoming conflict with Persia. During the second invasion, he was in effective command of the Greek allied navy at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. Thanks to subterfuge on the part of Themistocles, the Allies possessed all the advantages at Salamis, and the decisive Greek victory there was the turning point in the invasion, which was ended the following year by the defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Plataea.
After the conflict ended, Themistocles continued to be pre-eminent amongst Athenian politicians. However, he aroused the hostility of Sparta by ordering Athens to be re-fortified, and his perceived arrogance began to alienate him from the Athenians. In 472 or 471 BC, he was ostracised, and went into exile in Argos. The Spartans now saw an opportunity to destroy Themistocles, and implicated him in the treasonous plot of their own general Pausanias. Themistocles thus fled from Greece, and travelled to Asia Minor, where he entered the service of the Persian king Artaxerxes I. He was made governor of Magnesia, and lived there for the rest of his life.
Themistocles died in 459 BC, probably of natural causes. Themistocles's reputation was posthumously rehabilitated, and he was re-established as a hero of the Athenian (and indeed Greek) cause. Themistocles can still reasonably be thought of as "the man most instrumental in achieving the salvation of Greece" from the Persian threat, as Plutarch describes him. His naval policies would have a lasting impact on Athens as well, since maritime power became the cornerstone of the Athenian Empire and golden age. It was Thucydides's judgement that Themistocles was "a man who exhibited the most indubitable signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled".
Leonidas (pronounced /liːˈɒnɨdəs/,[1]Greek: Λεωνίδας, Leōnidas, literally "leonine") was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter's strength and bravery. While it has been established that King Leonidas of Sparta died at the Battle of Thermopylae in August, 480 BC, very little is known about the year of his birth, or for that matter, his formative years. Paul Cartledge has narrowed the date of the birth of King Leonidas to around 540 BC.
Leonidas was one of three brothers: he had an older brother Dorieus and a younger brother Cleombrotus, who ruled as regent for a while on Leonidas' death before the regency was taken over by Pausanias, who was Cleombrotus' son. Leonidas succeeded his half-brother Cleomenes I, pro
Leonidas (pronounced /liːˈɒnɨdəs/,[1]Greek: Λεωνίδας, Leōnidas, literally "leonine") was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter's strength and bravery. While it has been established that King Leonidas of Sparta died at the Battle of Thermopylae in August, 480 BC, very little is known about the year of his birth, or for that matter, his formative years. Paul Cartledge has narrowed the date of the birth of King Leonidas to around 540 BC.
Leonidas was one of three brothers: he had an older brother Dorieus and a younger brother Cleombrotus, who ruled as regent for a while on Leonidas' death before the regency was taken over by Pausanias, who was Cleombrotus' son. Leonidas succeeded his half-brother Cleomenes I, probably in 489 or 488 BC, and was married to Cleomenes' daughter, Gorgo. His name was raised to heroic status as a result of the events in the Battle of Thermopylae, one of the most famous battles in ancient history.
bably in 489 or 488 BC, and was married to Cleomenes' daughter, Gorgo. His name was raised to heroic status as a result of the events in the Battle of Thermopylae, one of the most famous battles in ancient history.
Spartacus
Spartacus by Denis Foyatier, 1830
Spartacus (c. 109 BC-71 BC), according to Romanhistorians, was a slave and a gladiator who became a leader (or possibly one of several leaders) in the major slave uprising against the Roman Republic known as the Third Servile War. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and may not always be reliable.
Spartacus' struggle, often seen as the fight of an oppressed people fighting for their freedom against a slave-owning aristocracy, has found new meaning for modern writers since the 19th century. The rebellion of Spartacus has proven inspirational to many modern literary and political writers, making Spartacus a folk hero among cultures both ancient and modern.
Today, there have been 1 visitors (1 hits) on this page!
MY CLOCK!!!
TULA!!
LIHIM
Tula
Minamahal na kita simula pa lang ng tayo'y magkita di man masabi nadarama, kinaibigan na lang kita tuwing tayo'y magkasama, ang puso ko'y napakaligaya problema ay nawawala sa tuwing ikaw ay nakikita.
Minsan tayo'y nag-usap ng seryosuhan nagsumpaan tayo na walamg iwanan puso'y isipan ay napakaligaya pagkat nahawakan sa wakas ang iyong mukha.
Isang araw nalungkot ako sa ibinalita ng aking ama pagkat ang sumpaan natin di kailan man matutupad kinausap agad kita t para di kana umasa pa ako ay lubos na natutuwa pagkat di ka nagdaramdam
MInsan gusto kong sabihin sayo aking nadarama
balang araw masabi ko ang tunay kong nadarama
puso'y takot masira ang ating
???????????????????????????
