We have almost inch of snow this morning, here in Sauk Centre, with a winter weather advisory on until noon. And I see there’s a blizzard warning in effect, west of us, on the Minnesota/South Dakota border.
I’ll take this as marking the start of winter. Now it’s time for coffee.
More-or-less-related stuff:
I saw another The New York Times item in my Google News feed this morning:
“Scholars Cringe at the Term ‘Dark Ages.’ Dan Jones Explains Why.
The New York Times • Yesterday
As I said Monday, I don’t and won’t have a subscription to The Times, New York or otherwise, so I don’t know what “Scholars Cringe…” says. Or what the book reviewer says, more accurately.
But I know it’s a book review, because this is the blurb I found after a quick Google search:
“https://www.nytimes.com › Books › Book Review
Scholars Cringe at the Term ‘Dark Ages.’Dan Jones Explains …
1 day ago — Jones’s book ‘Powers and Thrones’ is a comprehensive history of the Middle Ages that links the medieval era’s genuine achievements to modern …”
Had I but world enough and time — but I don’t.
So I won’t look up Dan Jones, his new book and whatever other people, things and events connect with them.
Apart from this link:
About the “Dark Ages,” that phrase and idea goes back to around 1600, when ecclesiastical historian Cardinal Caesar Baronius called the time between 888 and 1050, give or take a bit, the Saeculum obscurum.
The Catholic Church hit a particularly rough patch during the ninth to 11th centuries.
I’ve talked about that, and vaguely-related ideas. Recently:
And now I’ll get back to Medicean Stars, the quintescence gap and reactions to “Sidereus Nuncius” — which I hope will make sense, once I finish “A Star by Any Other Name.”
If you haven’t already, you’ll soon read about a new development in the war between science and religion.
Alleged war, at any rate.
I can’t read the original piece in The New York Times, since it’s behind a paywall and my household budget permits only a limited degree of unnecessary spending.
A subscription to The New York Times isn’t nearly high enough in my priorities to even make the list, and that’s another topic.
I did, however, find this snippet in an online blurb:
“…I worship each Sunday with physicians. My church prayed for an end to the pandemic and asked God to help scientists in their vaccine research. We never saw a conflict between the work of God and efforts of science….”
(“How Covid Raised the Stakes of the War Between Faith and Science,” Tish Harrison Warren, The New York Times (November 7, 2021))
That was not, putting it mildly, what I expected to read.
Over the last half-century-plus, I’ve seen the occasional assertion that faith and reason, science and religion, aren’t mutually exclusive; but I’ve seen such claims mostly in science-oriented periodicals.
Seeing what seems to be at least speculation that ‘willful ignorance’ is not a foundational requirement for Christian faith in a mainstream newspaper? I’ll take that as good news.
Again, I don’t have access to T. H. Warren’s piece, so I can’t know whether it concludes with a tentative conclusion that maybe Christians aren’t all anti-science twits.
On the other hand, I think that’s a real possibility. Partly because I found this, in a review of the Times piece:
“…If the cultural conversation requires people to choose between their faith and science, most will choose faith, but we don’t have to ask people to choose. It is a false choice.
“At the same time, Haarsma said, there are Christians who present faith as opposed to the obvious, instead of ‘faith as a commitment lived in response’ to the evidence. She also said the passionate anti-science rhetoric of a minority of Christians online encourages scientists to reject people of faith as a whole….”
(“Reviews | How Covid raised the stakes in the war between faith and science” newsnetdaily.com (November 7, 2021))
The newsnetdaily.com review doesn’t identify “Haarsma,” but I suspect that the reference is to Deborah Haarsma.
She’s a research scientist and former professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Calvin University. She did her doctoral work in astrophysics at MIT, undergraduate work in physics and music at Bethel University.1
With those credentials, I’m pretty sure she’s not a Catholic. But I’d also say that most Americans would acknowledge that she’s a Christian. Even though she is a scientist.
The COVID-19 pandemic is still in progress, and I’m still encountering more-or-less-daft pandemic-related opinions and claims. So I could spend the rest of this week looking up who’s saying what, and why I still think getting vaccinated was a good idea.
But I’ve already talked about viruses, vaccines and why I think acting as if my neighbors matter is a good idea. Rather often.
Besides, “A Star by Any Other Name” is long overdue. I should have it ready by Saturday.
Finally, some of what I’ve said about science and religion, COVID-19 and the common good:
1 This may or may not be the “Haarsma” quoted in this week’s piece:
St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome isn’t nearly as old as it looks.
Architects in ancient Rome often covered large interior spaces with barrel vaults and semicircular arches, although they hadn’t invented either.
Someone started using arches and vaults, probably in Mesopotamia, long before Romans started a republic. Several someones, most likely.
Those architectural forms date back at least to the 13th century B.C., when Egypt’s Seti I and Ramses II built the Abydos temple of Seti I and the Ramesseum.
I’m guessing that ancient Romans often get credit for inventing barrel vaults because so many of the ones they built are still around. Plus, the Italian Renaissance was all about ancient Roman glories. That’s how I see it, and that’s another topic.1
At any rate, in this “A Tale of Two Churches…” series, I’ll be talking about St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Both of them. As well as people, politics and ideas in play during the most recent two millennia.
Today I’ll be taking a quick look at a famous Roman architect, Vitruvius, and then recap what happened during the half-dozen centuries after Emperor Constantine signed off on building the first St. Peter’s basilica.
(From Ricardo André Frantz, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City: Bernini’s baldacchino, under the dome.)
Vitruvius was the chap who wrote “De architectura,” around the time Caesar Augustus said he was “first amongst the citizens” and made it stick. “De architectura” was the go-to resource for Western civilization’s architects for more than a dozen centuries.
Oddly enough, we don’t know much about Vitruvius apart from what’s in his ten-volume work. These days we’d call him a civil and military engineer, as well as an architect.2
If — this is a very hypothetical “if” — Vitruvius visited today’s St. Peter’s, then he’d see a nice, normal first-century B.C. Roman interior.
Normal, that is, aside from electric lights, a bronze canopy supported by squiggly pillars, and the outlandish clothing everyone’s wearing.
Virtuvius would likely notice all that.
(From Andrea Herrera, via Riverside City College, used w/o permission.)
(One of the better illustrations I found, comparing pendentives and squinches.)
But I’m pretty sure he would be particularly interested in the not-quite-triangular bits connecting the dome with the vault intersection’s corners.
Depending on who you listen to, they’re pendentives or squinches. Either way, they transfer the dome’s weight to corners of a lower rectangular space. And they don’t show up until maybe the third century.3 That’s more than two centuries after Vitruvius.
What’s “a long time ago” and what isn’t depends on your frame of reference.
On a cosmic scale, everything since Sargon of Akkad’s day is current events.
Last year’s fall fashions are, well, last year’s fashions.
And the last I checked, historical scale hasn’t been formally defined; so I’ll list a few ‘long ago’ examples, on a decades-to-millennia scale.4
(From Encyclopedia Britannica; via Florida Center for Instructional Technology, University of South Florida; used w/o permission.)
(Old St. Peter’s, Vatican City, Rome.)
Emperor Constantine had Old St. Peter’s Basilica built in the 300s. He also decriminalized Christianity, got sick and died.
But before that happened, he turned the empire over to his sons, Constantius II, Constantine II and Constans. Then they died, too.
Meanwhile, work continued and Old St. Peter’s was finished after about 30 years. Or maybe after about 40 years.
Which it was and who was emperor at the time depends on who’s telling the story. I figure it was in the year 360 or thereabouts, and that Constantius II or maybe Julian was emperor.
These days we’ll occasionally call Emperor Constantine “The Great.” I’ll talk about him some other time.
Old St. Peter’s was a basilica in the architectural sense. It was rectangular, with a central nave flanked by aisles.
It was also a Catholic basilica, which has nothing to do with architecture.
Catholic basilicas are important ceremonial and pilgrimage sites. We’ve currently got four major ones, a little over 1,800 minor ones, and that’s yet another topic.
St. Peter’s Basilica was particularly important because its altar was directly over St. Peter the Apostle’s tomb.5 Which I think goes a long way toward explaining why Constantine picked such an otherwise-unsuitable site. I’ll get back to that, later in this series. (A Tale of Two Churches: St. Peter’s, Rome)
(From Edward Stanford, via Project Gutenberg and Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Old St. Peter’s, Vatican City, Rome.)
St. Peter’s was still standing when King Brennus of the Gauls raided Rome in 387.
Or maybe the year was 390. Documentation for that era is a trifle sketchy. Understandably, I think.
Anyway, Alaric’s Visigoths hit Rome in 410, give or take a few years. Geiseric’s Vandals went through around 455, followed by Totila’s Ostrogoths in 546. And there was that siege of 537-538.
Someone else raided Rome in 846. Some European chroniclers said they were “Saracens.” Others called them “Moors.” That narrows the field to Aghlabids, Maghreb, muscle hired by Radelchis and/or Siconulf — or someone else.
Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV started attacking Rome in 1081. Three tries later, in 1082, he held part of the city. Robert Guiscard’s Normans — liberated? — the city in 1084.6
There’s a bit of a story behind that.
As a youth, I may have watched more Hollywood fantasy and/or historical tales than was good for me.
Science fiction flicks, too, with titles like ‘Atomic Cockroach’ or ‘Invaders From Planet Q.’
Those memories, and today’s experience with social media, suggest that seeing a particular nation, culture or mutant horror as utterly evil is fairly common.
The attitude’s flip side, assuming that the ‘good guys’ are paragons, doesn’t seem any more reasonable.
I think one film actually had a “Prince Paragon.” He spent most of the story as some sort of ape. There had been a difference of opinion involving a wizard, as I recall. And that’s yet again another topic.
Where was I? Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths.
Saracens, Aghlabids and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV.
“Cosmic Monsters” and history by Hollywood. Right.
Europe’s 11th century was a mixed bag, like any other era.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” — although that famous literary quotation’s story was set in an 18th century puree of politics, patriotism and paranoia.
During the 11th century, folks like Hildegard of Bingen and Albert of Lauingen were laying groundwork for today’s science.
But Albert’s work was controversial, inspiring tales of dark arts. And, eventually, a Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company Trading Card.
I think Hildegard’s work was good news. Albert’s, too. Others get skittish about “tampering with things….”
What we call the Holy Roman Empire had been in northern hands since Otto I’s day.
That wasn’t its name at the time. Folks started calling it the Heiliges Römisches Reich, Holy Roman Empire, a few centuries later.
Whether Otto’s takeover was good news or bad news depends on viewpoint.
Unruochings, Franks living in what’s now northern Italy, lost power and prestige. Otto and his folks probably celebrated.7
(From William R. Shepherd, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The German kingdom’s stem duchies, 919-1125.)
Otto I, Otto the Great, Otto der Große, whatever, lived in the 10th century.
His father, Heinrich der Vogler, was elected East Francia’s king in 919. That’s roughly where the western bit of Germany is today.
Heinrich earned the der Vogler or der Finkler epithet by being an avid hunter. Folks speaking my language translate his name as “Henry the Fowler.” European epithets are the sort of thing that became surnames a few centuries back.
Heinrich was a non-foreign German king, for folks living in Saxony. It’s part of today’s Germany; south of the Danish peninsula, down to around Arnsberg and Dunderstadt.
Maybe having Heinrich in charge was good news for grass-roots Saxons. Some German aristocrats weren’t so happy. Heinrich apparently figured kings should act like kings.
I’ve read that Heinrich was too “weak” to crush every bothersome aristocrat. Maybe so, but I suspect “savvy” might be a better term. In any case, Heinrich passed the mixed blessing of kingship on to his eldest son.
That brings me back to Otto I. He was as Saxon as his father, but wore Frankish clothes to his 936 coronation. Maybe that’s another sign of ‘weakness.’ I agree with folks who say it was an ‘image’ tactic. Otto wanted folks to see him as Charlemagne’s successor.
A few rebellions, wars, and negotiations later, Otto I was Holy Roman Emperor. His term lasted from 962 until 973.
In the meantime, Swabian aristocrats with names like Burkhard and Friedrich were dealing with their current realities. Swabia’s story — is still another topic.8
A few emperors after Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, Emperor Henry IV — I’m back to him now — had Pope problems.
Henry IV was among the 11th century’s big names. His diplomacy got him in trouble with three different popes.
Oversimplifying the story, a lot, Henry IV said Pope Gregory VII shouldn’t be the Pope.
Henry’s choice was Wibert of Ravenna. Wibert had boycotted Gregory’s election partly because Gregory wanted to decouple the Church and Imperial Court.
So Wilbert of Ravenna became Henry’s Pope Clement III.
But Pope Gregory VII began a long-overdue housecleaning anyway.
Henry kept backing Wibert, and then Cencio I Frangipane kidnapped Gregory. I’m not sure why Frangipane decided to snatch Gregory at the Santa Maria Maggiore. During the Christmas evening Mass.
Folks who’d been at the Mass apparently saw where Frangipane took the Pope. Word of the snatch spread. Concerned citizens got together and sprung Gregory the next day.
Gregory figured Henry was involved. Maybe so. Or maybe Frangipane was the sort of friend who makes enemies superfluous.
Henry kept saying Gregory wasn’t Pope. Gregory excommunicated Henry and said that his subjects needn’t recognize Henry’s authority.9 That wasn’t at all like the occasionally-cordial state-church 11th century status quo.
I don’t envy Catholics living in Henry’s turf. Those who heard about the Pope’s decision, that is.
They’d be in the awkward position of choosing between the Church’s authority and Henry’s not-inconsiderable clout.
Henry IV went on to survive the Saxon Rebellion and the Battle on the Elster.
I could blame the Henry-Gregory-Wibert imbroglio on Gregory’s refusal to go with the flow.
Instead, I’ll skip back three centuries, to the Donation of Pepin; a shrewd bit of statecraft by Pippin der Kurze. Pepin the Short we call him in my language.
Pippin der Kurze lacks name recognition these days. He’s chiefly famous for being Charlemagne’s father. And for the 756 Donation of Pepin. That, and for almost sharing a name with a hobbit.
I think the Donation of Pepin made sense at the time. Let’s remember that St. Peter’s Basilica was outside the walls of Rome. And Rome itself was none too safe from pillage.
Speaking of which, remember the Vandals who hit Rome in 455? Those were capital-V Vandals, Germanic folks who ruled Mallorca, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and parts of north Africa from around A.D. 435 to 534.
Anyway, Gaiseric was the Vandal king around that time.
Then he died, his kingdom ended and — finally! I’m getting to Pepin the Short’s day — Aistulf, King of the Lombards, conquered a sizable chunk of land in northern Italy and told Roman authorities to start paying tribute.10
If you want a simple story line, then I’d recommend an action-adventure novel. This is real life. It’s complicated.
Bottom line, Pippin der Kurze arranged to be elected King of the Franks.
Then he defeated Aistulf. Or made life hard for Aistulf and his subjects until the Lombardi king fell of his horse and died.
I’ve seen it told both ways.
Along the way, Pippin der Kurze seized property and land Aistulf had acquired, and returned it to the Pope.
That’s assuming that the property and land had been Papal property before.
Like I said, it’s complicated.
The Donation of Pepin in 756 is our name for Pepin the Short’s formally transferring ownership of real estate he’d acquired from Aistulf.
Good news, this gave the papacy legal ownership of land outside Rome; along with a tad more security than before the transfer.
Not-so-good news, in 20-20 hindsight, the Donation of Pepin gave the papacy legal ownership of land that grew into the Papal States.
That arguably gave Frankish kings too much influence over who became pope.
Leading first to ‘Frankish Popes;’ then the ‘Saeculum obscurum’ and the ‘Tusculan Papacy,’ when the papacy was a subsidiary of the Theophylacti family. Allegedly.
My guess is that the Theophylacti family was sufficiently savvy to either leave no paper trail, or have a system for destroying incriminating documents.
Pope Gregory VII sorted out that mess about three centuries after Pepin the Short’s day.
More time passed. European aristocrats and nobles followed Pepin’s example, giving land to bishops: and so, indirectly, to the Catholic Church.
And that, also and very indirectly, led to the Hundred Years’ War, Thirty Years’ War and the French Revolution.11
All of which helps explain why Old St. Peter’s Basilica had to be demolished. And that’s something I’ll talk about in another part of this series. (A Tale of Two Churches: St. Peter’s, Rome)
This is where I’d usually talk about history, authority, faith and why I’m a Catholic: despite the occasionally appalling popes we’ve had.
But this week’s deadline is fast approaching; and besides, I’ve talked about natural law and accepting reality before:
1 Arches, vaults and a little history:
2 Two Romans, a book and a title:
4 Assorted temporal landmarks:
6 Sacking and — liberating? — Rome:
11 Church, state and politics:
12 Remembering Chickenman and his never-ending struggle against crime and/or evil:
Petrarch called Rome “a rubbish heap of history.”
That’s what Ferdinand Gregorovius says Petrarch wrote in a letter, at any rate.
“…Petrarch, who was then in Avignon, wrote on this occasion his patriotic epistle in Latin verses to Aeneas Tolomei of Siena. He bewails the ruin of his native country, on which a baibarian(!) prince was now again descending….
“…we may observe the pompous processions of senators … In poverty and obscurity she withered away, decayed and crushed, a rubbish heap of history, while the Pope, forgetful of her claims, accumulated gold and treasures in distant Avignon….
(“History of the City of Rome, in the Fourteenth Century, FROM 1305 until 1354;” Ferdinand Gregorovius; Translated from the fourth German edition by Annie Hamilton (1898) via Cornell University Library, Internet Archive)
The Gregorovius book’s translation is as far back as I’ve been able to track that Petrarch quote. I gather that Petrarch’s hopes for a glorious rebirth of the noble Roman Republic had suffered a head-on collision with 14th century European politics.
A bit over a half-millennium after Petrarch, a fair number of notables have used variations on “rubbish heap of history:”1
Referring to people, places or things who don’t matter any more, it’s an effective figure of speech.
But assuming that all history is an ash heap, a dream world or Erewhon, where folks dress funny, talk funny and aren’t worth remembering?
That doesn’t make sense. Not to me.
So I’ll be sifting through our ash heap: starting with a wrap-up of what I said about Pericles and good times (for some) in Athens three weeks back.
(From Leo von Klenze, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The Athenian Acropolis, remembered with rose-colored glasses.)
Three millennia after the Trojan War and a nearly-forgotten apocalypse, two and a half millennia after Pericles ran Athens, a poet reminisced about ancient times:
“…Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome….”
(“To Helen,” Edgar Allen Poe (1845) via Wikipedia)
I’ll enjoy nostalgia. In small doses.
But I think remembering that Pericles and Aristotle, Plato and Thucydides, are people as well as Famous Names in History is prudent.
They’re not ‘just like everyone else,’ of course, since their actions and/or publicists have made them famous. Take Pericles, for example.
I’ll occasionally see introductions to the Age of Pericles that make the Athenian leader seem too good to be true.
“…Athenian culture flourished under the leadership of Pericles (495-429 B.C.), a brilliant general, orator, patron of the arts and politician….”
(Pericles, History.com)
In fairness, the History.com page also explains that a helmet always tops Periclean statuary because he had a big head. Literally.
Or maybe an unusually long head.
Poets of his day nicknamed him “Schinocephalos,” “Squill-head” or “sea onion-head.” That’s what Plutarch said, at any rate.
“…His personal appearance was unimpeachable, except that his head was rather long and out of due proportion. For this reason the images of him, almost all of them, wear helmets, because the artists, as it would seem, were not willing to reproach him with deformity. The comic poets of Attica used to call him ‘Schinocephalus,’ or Squill-head (the squill is sometimes called ‘schinus’)….”
(“The Parallel Lives,” The Life of Pericles, Plutarch (ca. A.D. 100) Loeb Classical Library edition (1916) via The University of Chicago)
I’m guessing that Plutarch’s squill is Drimia maritima, AKA squill, sea squill, sea onion, and maritime squill. The plant’s bulb looks a bit like a pointy onion’s.2 If Pericles’ head looked like that, I can see why he’d encourage ‘with helmet’ portraiture.
And I can certainly see why comic poets would dub him ‘onion-head.’
So, aside from giving poets something to joke about, what did Pericles do for Athens and Athenians?
First, what Pericles didn’t do.
He didn’t free Athenian slaves, extend voting rights to women or establish child labor laws.
But he did make a difference. Maybe for the better. And arguably continuing a process started by Cleisthenes.
For example, Pericles sponsored a law that limited citizenship to children whose mother and father were both Athenians.
Up to that point, having an Athenian father was all that mattered.
Men from aristocratic families often married non-Athenian women, so the Periclean proposal threatened the sons of Athenian aristocrats who had married outsiders.3
I’m not sure whether I like that Periclean reform or not.
On the one hand, giving non-aristocrats a break looks like a good idea.
On the other, denying citizenship to folks whose mothers didn’t come from Athens strikes me as unreasonable. At least partly because I’m an American whose ancestors didn’t come on the Mayflower. And weren’t even English.
Either way, my opinion doesn’t matter. Not to Periclean Athens. I live on a continent Pericles never heard of, and he’s been dead for two and a half millennia.
Times have changed. A lot. Human nature, not so much. I’ll get back to that.
And slavery? That’s a bad idea. Period. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2414)
(From William R. Shepherd’s 1926 ‘Historical Atlas;’ via the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection; U. of Texas, Austin; used w/o permission.)
(The Athenian “Empire,” around 450 BC: where the Delian League used to be.)
What’s big and what isn’t depends on your frame of reference.
For example, the town I call home, Sauk Centre, is huge compared to Funkley, Minnesota.
Funkley is up in northern Minnesota, between Blackduck and Northome: two other places you’ve probably never heard of.
As of the 2010 census, five folks lived in Funkley. About 800 times as many live in Sauk Centre. Like I say, my town is huge. Comparatively speaking.
But Periclean Athens was even bigger.
Between a quarter and a third of a million folks called Athens home, back when Pericles was running the place.4
That’s about the population of Anoka, Minnesota. Anoka County, that is.
Unless you live in Minnesota, you probably haven’t heard of Anoka: the self-described Halloween Capital of the World.
Anoka County is a suburban county at the edge of what we call the Twin Cities. Or, occasionally, the Metro. About a third of a million folks live there. That’s a lot of people, not quite a hundred times as many as live here in Sauk Centre, my town.
Then there’s Minnesota’s Metro, the Twin Cities: Minneapolis, St. Paul and their suburbs.
Three and two thirds or four million people call the Twin Cities home. The Metro’s population depends on whether I define the Cities as the Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI CSA or Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI MSA.
That’s a big metropolis, for the Upper Midwest, although not in Chicago’s class.
But Minnesota’s Minneapolis-St. Paul isn’t a big city. Not in a world with cities like Tokyo (population 37,400,000), Dehli (pop. 28,514,000) and Shanghai (pop. 25,582,000).
Back when Pericles was running Athens, having a third of a million people in one place was a very big deal. In its heyday, the city was huge.
One place? Make that one area.
Some historians write about Athens and Attica as if they were the same thing.
It’s confusing, but I can’t say that I blame them. Attica is Athens, and vice versa, sort of. Attica is, or was, territory south of the Cithaeron range. Athens was the area’s big city.5
If Attica was a sociopolitical region in America, we might call it GAMA — the Greater Athens Metropolitan Area. I suspect we caught our penchant for acronyms from ancient Rome, and that’s another topic.main004
I called Sauk Centre, where I live, a town. But it’s officially a city.
A bit over 4,000 folks live here, so in Louisiana this would be a town. Officially.
Here in Minnesota, since we’ve got a “city council,” we’re a city. Again, officially.
Seems that Minnesota has four tiers of “cities,” ranked by population. And since fewer than 10,001 folks live in Sauk Centre, we’re one of 835 fourth-class cities.
On the whole, I’d prefer living in a plain old “town” instead of a “fourth-class city.”
But I can’t change whatever events, attitudes and decisions led to Minnesota’s current system. And I sure don’t think our official definitions matter enough to warrant protest. Not as far as I’m concerned, anyway.
I also learned that the U.S. Census —
“…defines a place as a concentration of population; a place may or may not have legally prescribed limits, powers, or functions. This concentration of population must have a name, be locally recognized, and not be part of any other place….”
(“Geographic Areas Reference Manual” (GARM), Chapter 9 — Places, United States Census Bureau (Last Revised: October 8, 2021))
So I live in a “place” that would be a “town” in it was in Louisiana, but is a “city” since it’s in Minnesota. And I think of the place I live in as a “town” because I think of cities as, well, as cities.
Making this matter of names more complicated, Minnesota’s parishes are called counties. Or Louisiana’s counties are called parishes. I live in the Our Lady of the Angels parish, but that’s not the same kind of parish.
Well, actually, it is: etymologically.6 And that’s another topic.
(From John Steeple Davis, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The Long Walls, connecting Athens to Piraeus, the city’s port.)
Recapping, we figure Attica’s population in the fifth century B.C. was somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000.
That’s a little smaller than Anoka County, here in Minnesota.
But back then, Athens was huge. And it was the thriving center of an archê. That’s what Thucydides called the Athenian realm.
Scholars have been translating archê as “empire,” which may or may not be accurate.
At any rate, many Athenians were enjoying good times around 450 B.C.. Thanks to, or in spite of, Periclean leadership.
Then a war started between the Delian League — or Athenian Empire, I’ve seen both names used — and Sparta’s Peloponnesian League.
Pericles moved much of Attica’s population into Athens.
It seemed like a good idea, since it kept them comparatively safe from Sparta’s armies.
Athens was the big Aegean naval power, and its Long Walls secured access to the city’s port, so running short of supplies wasn’t a problem.
But the city’s infrastructure couldn’t handle both residents and suburbanites.
Patient zero for the Plague of Athens was probably in Piraeus, the city’s port.
About one of every four folks in Athens died, including Pericles. And an 11-year-old girl researchers dubbed Metis.
Athens never recovered.
Not politically or economically. The city-state stopped being the Aegean pond’s biggest metaphorical frog.
On the other hand, it weathered the Alexandrian, Parthian, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires; and the 20th century’s global war(s).
And the city of Athens is alive and well and prospering in the 21st century. But it hasn’t been Western civilization’s shining city on a hill for millennia.7
Small wonder that some folks say 429 B.C. was the end of the Athenian Golden Age.
On the other hand, Socrates survived the Peloponnesian War and the Plague of Athens; but not postwar politics.
He was tried and convicted in 399 B.C. of lacking faith in the gods of the state and corrupting Athenian youth.
Then he obligingly drank hemlock and died.
Plato’s achievements include starting the Platonic Academy, arguably my civilization’s first academic institution. Aristotle studied there before opening his Lyceum.8
Maybe their era wasn’t the Athenian Golden Age by some standards.
But that trio — Socrates, Plato and Aristotle — kept adding to my civilization’s store of methods, ideas and the occasional bit of wisdom for a century after Pericles died. That’s an achievement worth remembering.
(From William R. Shepherd, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Kingdoms in 301 B.C. — and, in the upper left, the Roman Republic.)
Aristotle is also remembered for tutoring Alexander III of Macedon, Philip II’s son.
Philip II had formed an Aegean alliance against the Persian empire. Some historians call it the Corinthian League these days. Or the League of Corinth. Tomayto, Tomahto, and that’s another topic.
Philip II’s alliance seems to be the first time (almost) all Greek city-states were part of a single political entity.
I don’t know why that achievement doesn’t qualify Philip II’s era as the start of a Grecian golden age. Particularly since we call his son Alexander the Great.
Maybe it’s because Alexander’s empire died with him.
And maybe because we realize that another empire had been brewing in southern Etruria.
I gather that at least since Pliny the Elder’s day, there’s been debate over whether the post-Alexander Hellenistic period was good news or bad news.9
Alleged Hellenistic decadence, degeneration, enlightenment and academic attitudes are cans of worms I’ll leave for another day.
(From Archaeological Institute of America, used w/o permission.)
Archaeologists and historians generally agree that Etruscan civilization started just shy of three millennia back: mostly where Tuscany is now.
Etruscans had always been where they were when Phoenicians founded Carthage — According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who lived around Julius Caesar’s time.
In 1942, Italian historian Massimo Pallottino said maybe they were the alleged Sea Peoples. Or a Sea Peoples colony.10
The Sea Peoples came from somewhere. Maybe Asia Minor, southern Europe, or someplace in between.
Wherever they came from and whoever they were, they weren’t called “Sea Peoples” until 1855.
That’s when a French Egyptologist inferred their existence from a mural and snippets from Egyptian records. He called them peuples de la mer: “peoples of the sea.”
If he and scholars of the last century and a half are on the right track, the “Sea Peoples” were one or more of up to maybe nine groups. Maybe.
They’ve been identified as folks from the Hittite Empire, a tribe of Israel, pre-Sardinian Sardinians, and an assortment of other groups you probably haven’t heard of.
They may have been a formal confederation. Or maybe their joint effort to invade Egypt was an impromptu affair.11
There’s a great deal we don’t know about them.
(From Finn Bjørklid(?), via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Late Bronze Age Collapse: yes, what’s on the evening news could be worse.)
If the ‘Sea Peoples’ or their pre-invasion neighbors had written records, those documents did not survive the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Or haven’t been found yet.
Events leading to that catastrophe might help explain why they thought invading Egypt was a good idea.
But like I said, whatever documents they had have been lost or destroyed. That’s hardly surprising, under the circumstances.
As far as I’ve been able to learn, we didn’t know that the Late Bronze Age Collapse had happened until after I earned my degree in history.
A half-century later, we’ve got lively discussions going over how fast it happened. As well as when it happened, exactly what happened and what caused it.
What’s more certain is that well upwards of a dozen places made an abrupt transition from thriving cities to fire-gutted ruins inhabited by unburied corpses.
We haven’t experienced anything quite like it since, happily. I think our 20th century near miss inspired films like “Mad Max/Road Warrior” and “On the Beach.”
I also think academia’s getting back to recognizing that the Trojan War really happened. Although I gather that they’re still not convinced that Homer was really real.”12
And now; Etruscans, scholars, and villages on the Etruscan borderland.
Livy and Pliny the Elder said Etruscans came from a confederation of Alpine tribes.
Herodotus said that a Lydian story involved a famine and a king who ordered half of the population to leave. The evicted Lydians went west, literally but not figuratively, and became the first Etruscans.
Each version has eloquent supporters.
I gather that supporting Herodotus is out of vogue at the moment. Partly because there isn’t recognized archaeological evidence making it the only viable explanation. Etruscan stuff doesn’t look like Lydian stuff.
But archaeologists in the 46th century might conclude that Puritans in New England couldn’t possibly have come from England. Because New England Puritan churches didn’t look like King’s College Chapel in Cambridge.
It doesn’t help that Herodotus and Lydia are both what we think of as “Greek.” Maybe “Hellenistic” would be more accurate.
Rejecting the Lydian account as repeated by Herodotus because it reminds contemporary academics of American jingoism almost makes sense.
I wouldn’t insist that Herodotus has to be right, but I’m willing to remember that he was four centuries closer to Etruscan origins than either Livy or Pliny the Elder.
Whoever the Etruscans were, they grew and prospered.
So did folks living in a few villages on hills near a river at the south edge of Etruscan territory. The villages became Rome, and kept growing.13
As I see it, learning from history is an option, and a good one. Part of the trick is remembering the right lessons.
And remembering both that we’re living in what will be history, and that we’re often too close to people and events to see the ‘big picture.’
Dr. Benjamin Franklin: “Don’t worry, John, the history books will clean it up.”
John Adams: “Hmm… Well, I’ll never appear in the history books anyway. Only you. Franklin did this, and Franklin did that…. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington — fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them, Franklin, Washington and the horse, conducted the entire revolution all by themselves.”
(“1776” (1972) quotes via IMDB.com)
I also think remembering that laws, customs and hairstyles change: but human nature hasn’t.
That’s good news, actually.
“God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
“God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed—the sixth day.”
(Genesis1:27, 31)
So, if we’re “in the image of God” and “very good,” how come we’re not perfect people living perfectly in perfect societies?
It’s because the first of us decided that ‘what I want’ outvotes what God says. Then the man tried blaming his wife: and God. The interview did not end well, and we’re living with a wounded nature. But we are still “very good.” Basically. (Genesis 3:1–20; Catechism, 385–412)
And we’re learning, slowly, that acting as if ‘love God, love your neighbor and everyone’s your neighbor’ makes sense — is a good idea.
I’ve talked about that sort of thing, and history, before. Rather often:
1 Metaphors, famous names and a little history:
2 Plutarch, Pericles and plants — a distinctly non-comprehensive look:
6 Places and names in America:
10 Not-entirely-forgotten names:
11 (Almost) remembering an ancient apocalypse:
12 A poet, a war and two movies:
Norski's Shop
Brian H. Gill's online art store: Opening when I get my ducks in a row. ;)
Posters, prints
