The Athenian Golden Age: Pericles, Aspasia, and All That

Posted on October 9, 2021 by Brian H. Gill

Ah! The Golden Age of Athens!

“Golden age” arguably sounds classier than “the good old days.” But either way, it’s a bygone era that nostalgia says was so very much better than today.

Folks living in a golden age may or may not know what they’ve got. Or they do, and don’t like it. Take the Athenian Golden Age, for example.

The Golden Age of Athens

William R. Shepherd's 1926 'Historical Atlas,' the Achaemenid/Persian Empire, ca. 500 B.C..
(From William R. Shepherd’s 1926 ‘Historical Atlas;’ via the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection; U. of Texas, Austin; used w/o permission.)
(The Achaemenid/Persian Empire, around 500 B.C. — before the Delian league liberated the Aegean.)

The Golden Age of Athens began between 508 and 460 B.C. or thereabouts.

It started when Cleisthenes launched Athenian democracy. According to some historians.

Other scholars say it began when the Delian League evicted the Achaemenid Empire from the Aegean.

Or the Athenian Golden Age dawned when Pericles started running the place. Those were good times. He renovated the Acropolis and had the Parthenon built.

Or some maybe it started at some other time. It depends on preferred temporal landmarks.

Folks who say the Athenian Golden Age is the Age of Pericles narrow it down a bit. Their option starts in 495 or 461 B.C. — when Pericles was born. Or, more practically, when he exiled Cimon.

Cimon was an Athenian noble who opposed democracy. As such, he could have made trouble for Pericles.

The ‘Athenian Golden Age as the Age of Pericles’ version’s end is less iffy: 429 B.C. — when Pericles died.

Uncoupling the Golden Age of Athens from Pericles opens the field considerably. I could argue that it kept going until Aristotle died. That was in 330 B.C. or thereabouts.1

But wait! I’ve got more!

Solon, Sappho, Peisistratos and the Panathenaic Stadium

Singinglemon's map of ancient Athens, ca. 430 B.C..
(From Singinglemon, via Wikimedia Commons, Austin used w/o permission.)

I haven’t exhausted definitions of the Athenian Golden Age. Not even close.

Peisistratos arriving in Athens with an Athena stand-in.It arguably started in 580 B.C. — give or take a decade or so. That’s when Solon laid the foundations for Athenian democracy.

Or the Athenian Golden age began around the middle of the sixth century. If that’s my choice, then I’d say never mind Solon.

Peisistratos organized the Hyperakrioi as a political party then.

That was a smart move. His Hyperakrioi outnumbered the other two parties combined.

They were also near the bottom of the economic ladder, so I figure they’d be enthusiastically pro-Peisistratos.

I could say the Hyperakrioi should be called Diakrioi; since they lived in the Diacria hills. “Hyperakrioi” means beyond-the-hill people, roughly. Diakrioi means hill people, so I could also call them hillbillies, and that’s another topic.

These versions assume that Cleisthenes merely picked up where Solon or Peisistratos left off.2

A Sports Venue, Sappho and Uncertainty

M(e)ister Eiskalt's photo of the Panathenaic stadium. (March 2, 2014)
(From M(e)ister Eiskalt, Wikimedia Commons, Austin used w/o permission.)
(The (almost) all-marble Panathenaic Stadium, early 21st century A.D.)

I don’t know why Peisistratos is almost off the radar these days. He’s currently mostly famous for starting the Panathenaic Games.

The Panathenaic Games may or may not be connected with the first official version of the Homeric epics.

Athenian politico Lykourgos built or renovated the Panathenaic Stadium in 330 B.C., give or take a few years.

Herodes Atticus, Athenian statesman or Roman collaborator, depending on viewpoint, refurbished the stadium somewhere around the year 140: in Pentelic marble, the the sort used for parts of the Parthenon.

I gather that the Panathenaic venue is still the only (almost) all-marble stadium in the world.

At any rate, I could pick Peisistratos and the Panathenaic Games premier as launching the Athenian ascendancy.

Or I could ignore Athens and say that the Aegean Golden Age began and ended with Sappho, poet extraordinaire.

She killed herself. Or maybe an angry mob killed her. The suicide version popped up a few centuries after Sappho’s time. The death-by-mob story was current in my youth, but sank without a trace somewhere in the late 20th century.

Getting back to an Athenian focus, there might be a case for saying that the Athenian Golden Age endured until Alexander III of Macedon’s day. Then again, maybe not.3

Pericles in Retrospect

'Perikles hält die Leichenrede,' Pilipp Foltz (1852)
(From Philipp Foltz, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Philipp Foltz’s “Pericles’ Funeral Oration” (1852))

I’m sure that many folks living in what’s now called the Age of Pericles didn’t feel like they were living in a golden age.

Athenian equivalents of Boston Brahmans might, as individuals, have approve of Periclean reforms. But as a group they were getting disenfranchised. Or as disenfranchised as folks sitting on the socioeconomic ladder’s top rung can be rendered powerless.

Periclean prestige may have depended on an individual’s perception of his domestic status.

We’re pretty sure that Aspasia was the Athenian statesman’s significant other. Whether or not they were married may have depended on who was telling the story. I gather that Aspasia was a top-flight rhetorician and philosopher, brothel keeper and/or hetaera.

“Hetaera” — or “hetaira” — is a job title overlapping artist, dancer, showgirl and hostess.

Assorted academics have said that since descriptions of Aspasia don’t line up, she doesn’t exist. Historically speaking.

I see their point. But I’ve also been paying attention to American politics. If I assumed that descriptions of a public figure must be consistent, then I could argue that America’s last few presidents didn’t exist. Historically speaking.

As I see it, Aspasia and Pericles knew each other well enough to produce Pericles the Younger.

Lucien and Plutarch said Aspasia was smart and attractive. Let’s say that she was smart, articulate and politically influential. And good looking to boot. Small wonder that Athenian traditionalists were upset. And that’s yet another topic.

Pericles’ wife, or courtesan, or girlfriend, wasn’t his only controversial issue.

There’s the way Pericles got control, too.

Ephialtes had been a successful leader of the Athenian democratic movement.

Then someone killed him. With Ephialtes out of the way, Pericles started his three decades of well-documented achievement.4

The Ephialtes Hit: An Unsolved Mystery

Copy of a now-lost Imperial era (1st or 2nd century bust of Aristotle by Lysippos.We still don’t know who killed Ephialtes.

Four decades after the crime, Antiphon (probably Antiphon the orator) wrote that the killer hadn’t been identified

Nine decades after that, about 130 years after the murder, someone wrote a document we call the “Athenian Constitution.” Many scholars figure Aristotle wrote the document. Or maybe one of Aristotle’s students.

Whoever it was, the author fingered Aristodikos of Tanagra. The Aristodikos scenario sometimes assumes that anti-Ephialtes oligarchs planned the murder.

And sometimes Pericles is the chief suspect.

Someone named Idomeneus said Pericles killed Ephialtes, motivated by envy. We know about him mainly because Plutarch brushed off the claim.

Plutarch said that Ephialtes and Pericles were friends and allies, and everyone knows what a great guy Pericles was. According to Plutarch.

Robert W. Wallace says the Ephialtes hit looks like an inside job.

“…Assassination was simple. An attempt to ostracize a political associate and popular figure might have brought discredit or backfired. There is also no other satisfactory explanation for the silence surrounding the incident. Had the radicals not been involved, they could reasonably be expected to have raised a witch-hunt. Ephialtes would have become a martyr for the democratic cause. But there is no trace of this….”
(“Ephialtes and the Areopagos;” Robert w. Wallace; Wadham College, Oxford (February, 1974) via Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies; Duke University)

I’ll grant that the cui bono, who benefits, principle points to Pericles. But as I see it, a high-profile case that remained unsolved after four decades may remain unsolved after more than two dozen centuries.5

Making Sense of the Past

Sanford Robinson Gifford's 'The Parthenon.' (1869)
(From Middlebury College Museum of Art, used w/o permission.)
(The Parthenon, about two and a half millennia after Pericles. (1869))

If this was an ideal world, at least from an historian’s viewpoint, we’d know more about Aspasia, Idomeneus, Sappho and Themistocles.

Themistocles? He was a war hero and populist whose political career crashed and burned in 472 B.C. — or maybe 471 — either way, he’d been called a traitor and booted out of Athens. He died in 459 B.C. of probably-natural causes.

Pericles rehabilitated the Themistocles narrative a few years later and Thucydides said 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….”
(“History of the Peloponnesian War,” Thucydides (ca. 410 B.C.) trans by J. M. Dent (1910) via Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University)

— and I’m drifting off-topic. Or maybe not so much.

History

Thomas Cole's 'Aqueduct Near Rome.' (1832)
(From Middlebury College Museum of Art, used w/o permission.)

Depending on context, history is a:

  • Tale or story
  • “Chronological record of significant events (such as those affecting a nation or institution) often including an explanation of their causes”
  • Branch of knowledge that records and explains past events
    (source: Merriam-Webster)

Like pretty much anything else, it’s more complicated than that, but those definitions will do for now.

Back when I might have become a professional historian, someone said that history should be about documents. Written records. Only written records.

The idea was that proper historians should ignore anything found by archaeologists, geologists, or anyone else who wasn’t a proper historian.

I thought it was a daft idea, and still do, since I see “history” as all three of those Merriam-Webster definitions. Pretending that knowledge from other disciplines doesn’t exist would turn history’s search for knowledge of past events into an academic parlor game.

Besides, piecing together the story of Periclean Athens or any other era is hard enough without ignoring physical evidence.6

That’s because humanity’s paper trail is spotty at best. What we call the “Constitution of the Athenians” or “Athenian Constitution,” is a pretty good example.

Fragments

The Aristotelian Constitution of Athens, only extant copy of the nearly complete text. Currently at the British Library
(From The British Library, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(The British Library’s Copy of “Constitution of the Athenians.”)

To begin with, “Constitution of the Athenians” isn’t the Athenian constitution. It’s a book written by Aristotle. Or someone associated with Aristotle.

“Constitution of the Athenians” describes what we call the Areopagite constitution.

The Areopagite constitution wasn’t a document like the Constitution of the United States. It’s our name for part of Athenian history. It ran from the time Themistocles was exiled, to Ephialtes’s reforms.

Aristotle described the Areopagite constitution in “Constitution of the Athenians.” Or, if not Aristotle, then someone else.

Confused? There’s more.

“Constitution of the Athenians” wasn’t the title of that work. That’s mainly because books didn’t have titles until fairly recently. Moreover, making books in today’s codex format didn’t start catching on until around the second century A.D., and I’m drifting off-topic again.7

Epimachus son of Polydeuces and the “Constitution of the Athenians” — We Recycle!

A page of Saint Isidore of Seville's 'Etymologiae,' an 8th century copy. From the Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels.“Constitution of the Athenians” isn’t in the “Corpus Aristotelicum.”

That’s the collected works of Aristotle, as recovered in Medieval Europe. We have folks like St. Isidore of Seville to thank for backing up the ancient world’s data. I talked about that a couple weeks back.

Anyway, part of the “Athenian Constitution” turned up in the late 19th century.

In a garbage dump. Archaeologists had been rummaging through an ancient scrapyard near where Oxyrhynchus is now. They found bits and pieces of documents from between the third century B.C. to seventh century A.D. — Including part of Aristotle’s “Athenian Constitution.”

Sir Ernest Budge bought another copy of the “Athenian Constitution” during his 1889-90 visit(s) to Egypt.

Budge’s copy is now in the British Museum. It’s nearly complete. Partly, I’m guessing, because someone used the codex it was in for business records.

Here’s how that happened.

Didymus son of Aspasius had recycled an old book, repurposing its papyrus to keep farm accounts on an estate near Hermopolis. Or maybe some other place.

Didymus worked for Epimachus son of Polydeuces. I’m pretty sure neither of them realized how valuable the backside of their records would be, two millennia later.8

Athens, America, Collars and Class

Napoleon Vier's map of Ancient Athens.
(From Napoleon Vier, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Athens, Piraeus, Phalerum and defensive walls. (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.))

Detail of John Mahowald's photo, Sibley State Park, Minnesota. (2007)Picturing Pericles as championing the cause of Athenian blue-collar workers isn’t entirely wrong.

But it’s not entirely accurate, either.

Backing up a bit: American blue-collar workers use their hands on the job. They’re unskilled or skilled labor and, on average, have less income and status than the average white-collar worker.

But an American with a blue-collar job could make more money than a white-collar worker.

And figurative collar colors might or might not affect their comparative social status.

Our white-collar workers use their hands, too. But they usually have higher status and often work at a desk. Come to think of it, a high-level white-collar worker could tell someone else to write memos, use the telephone and perform other manual tasks.

I’m not sure what color the memo-writer’s collar would be. Figuratively speaking.

Sometimes we subdivide ourselves into lower, middle or upper class.

I haven’t seen bloated plutocrat, bourgeoisie, and oppressed proletariat used as identifiers for decades.9 Can’t say that I miss those labels.

My household is middle or lower class, depending on which definition I use. Living in one of a largely-urban country’s rural areas complicates things.

Athenian society in the Periclean Age wasn’t like 21st century America.

But it wasn’t simpler.

Maybe a third of Athenians were in citizen families. The rest were resident foreigners or slaves. Women, children and adult men who hadn’t completed military training couldn’t vote, no matter what family they were in.10

Good Times and Rose-Colored Recollections

Cornè's 'Landing of the Pilgrims.' (ca. 1803-1807)
(From Michele Felice Cornè, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

So, just how golden was the Age of Pericles?

I figure it was good times for Aspasia and Pericles. When they weren’t dodging oratorical fewmets, at any rate. For Cimon and his cronies, arguably not so much.

Periclean reforms improved conditions for at least some Athenian non-aristocrats.

But slaves were still slaves. And that’s not good. Ever. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2414)

I also figure Athenians felt better about the Pericles administration after it was over. Particularly while, say, the pro-Spartan Thirty Tyrants were running the the place.11

We Can Do Better

Boston's public notice, banning Christmas. (1659)I strongly suspect that many eras look better in 20-20 hindsight.

Like America’s Pilgrim Fathers, “whose stern impassioned stress” brought faith and freedom to this fair land. And who later criminalized Christmas.12

I’m also pretty sure that no era is as good as rose-colored recollections suggest.

But I think there’s some wisdom in remembering good times. And recognizing that we both could have done better, and can do better.

Finally, the Age of Pericles wasn’t our last ‘Golden Age.’ And that’s yet again another topic, for another day.

More (or less) of the same thing:

1 Athens, the Acropolis, Aristotle and the Achaemenid Empire — a nowhere-near-comprehensive look:

2 A couple guys and ancient populism:

3 Games, politics, a poet and a stadium:

4 High society:

5 The Ephilates Hit, still unsolved:

6 Documenting humanity’s story:

7 Documents, procedures and names:

8 Documents found in a trashheap:

  • Wikipedia
  • British Library
    • Papyrus 131 (1): Scholia on Callimachus’ Aetia (P. Lond. Lit. 181, TM 59363, LDAB 462, MP3 197). Three columns at the beginning of the roll, the first and the third with only a few lines
    • Papyrus 131

9 Economics, social status and the usual politics:

10 One slice through life in ancient Athens:

11 Not-so-good times after Pericles:

12 One slice of America’s history:

Posted in Golden Ages, Series | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Just for Fun: Where is Otis?

Posted on October 5, 2021 by Brian H. Gill

While looking for a parking space in the Walmart lot, I ran into — no, that’s not right. I noticed a hand-painted trailer with “WhereIsOtis.blog” emblazoned on the back. I pulled into an empty parking space, and started looking for something to write with.

By happy coincidence, the trailer’s owner returned then. We had a (fairly) short talk. With me, any talk tends to be less terse than need be, and that’s another topic.

At any rate, I learned that she and Otis, her dog, were on an open-ended road trip; and that she’s documenting the trip from Otis’ viewpoint. Otis’s adventure dog blog started on December 13, 2019 — and may bring a smile your way:

Posted in Journal | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Off Schedule, and Loving It

Posted on October 5, 2021 by Brian H. Gill

I re-organized some of A Catholic Citizen in America’s pages today, and — I hope — made the navigation menus more useful. In the process, I removed some text that’d been cluttering one page. On the off-chance that you’re interested, here it is:

Technical issues in March, 2018, put me off my ‘science news every Friday’ schedule.

After my son resolved them, going back to the routine was an option. Instead, I decided to start work on several ‘back burner’ projects; including a book that’s been on my ‘really should do this’ list for some time:

I’ll also be posting something new whenever there’s something ready. Some posts will be in the usual being Catholic and science news categories, some in not-so-usual categories like being a citizen or being an artist. The one I finished first, “Spirit Photographs,” wouldn’t fit in existing categories, so I made a new one: discursive detours.

Posted in Being a Writer, Journal | Tagged , | Leave a comment

TESS, Three Stars and a Planet’s Odd Orbit

Posted on October 2, 2021 by Brian H. Gill

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a robotic observatory, began watching 200,000 nearby stars on August 7, 2018.

So far, scientists have found more than 2,200 TESS Objects of Interest (TOI). Of these, again so far, 154 have turned out to be exoplanets.

They include a few probably-rocky planets around Earth’s size, but none are ‘Earth 2.0.’ And some are like nothing in our Solar System.

HD 202772A b, for example, is as massive as Jupiter, but orbits its sun every 3.3 days.

Its sun, HD 202772A, is larger and hotter than ours; so the planet is a great deal hotter than Jupiter. Scientists figure its equilibrium temperature is around 2,100 K.

That’s hot enough to melt platinum or thorium, but not quite Thulium’s boiling point. At Earth’s sea-level atmospheric pressure.1

TESS, a Space Observatory

Artist's concept of NASA's TESS space observatory. (2014)
(From NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(TESS, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite; Artist’s concept.)

Depending on what’s being discussed, Tess is “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” Hardy’s durable novel; or Nikolay Tess, a fall guy in Latvia. It’s also a British musician; or any one of 13 tropical storms.

I’m guessing that NASA didn’t have “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” in mind when they named their Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

On the other hand, maybe the moniker’s an effort at appeasing today’s Mrs. Grundys.2 Make that Ms. Grundys, given today’s priggish preferences, and that’s another topic.

Transiting Exoplanets

(2014)
(From NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Almost a full-sky survey: NASA illustration, showing TESS’s overlapping fields of view.)

Back in 2018, when the space observatory went into orbit, TESS was billed as an all-sky transiting exoplanet survey. That’s not quite accurate, although by this time TESS has observed about three-quarters of Earth’s sky.

If you know about transiting exoplanets, TESS and all that, then feel free to skip to the next heading. Or, better yet, take a coffee break, sort your socks or go for a walk.

Still here? Thanks!

Transiting exoplanets aren’t a particular kind of exoplanet, like hot Jupiters, Mini-Neptunes or Super-Earths.

They’re planets orbiting another star with orbits that carry the planet across their sun’s face, as seen from the Solar System.

Astronomers can’t take photos of transiting exoplanets, the way they do when Venus or Mercury passes between our planet and our star, but they can measure how much the star’s light dims during a transit.

And, if the star is bright enough and close enough, measuring how the light changes tells scientists whether the planet has an atmosphere, and what’s in the alien air.

HD 209458 b, for example, the first transiting exoplanet spotted, is also the first known to have an atmosphere. Since 1999, when it was discovered, we’ve learned that there’s hydrogen in its atmosphere. Plus water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Maybe.

HD 209458 b is a hot Jupiter, orbiting a star that’s much like ours, about 159 light-years out in the general direction of Epsilon Pegasi: Enif, the nose of Pegasus.3

Not Quite an All-Sky Survey: Yet

TESS primary mission mosaic. (2014)
(From NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (USRA), used w/o permission.)
(Mosaic showing TESS primary mission survey area. The ecliptic’s on this map’s equator.)

TESS year 1-4 pointings, ecliptic coordinates.
(From MIT/TESS, used w/o permission.)
(TESS year one through four survey areas, ecliptic coordinates.)

Backing up a bit, TESS was billed as an ‘all-sky’ observation mission back in 2018. If the space observatory lasts long enough, it may finally have looked at the entire sky.

But it only covered about 75% of the sky in the two years of its primary mission. That’s because scientists told TESS to look northward of Earth and the Moon, avoiding their scattered light.

And the primary mission’s original planned observations avoided the ecliptic, the plane of Earth’s orbit. I strongly suspect that was because TESS, Earth and our world’s Moon are all in the inner Solar System.

And, since the Solar System’s inner planets, asteroids and zodiacal light’s dust are all in the ecliptic too, observations though all that would have scattered light issues, too.4

KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b: Yes, It’s a Planet

Caltech/R. Hurt's KOI-5 star system diagram. Not to scale.)
(From Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC), used w/o permission.)
(The KOI-5 star system. Diagram is not to scale.)

“A Tale of Planetary Resurrection”
Whitney Clavin, Caltech News (January 11, 2021)

“Shortly after NASA’s Kepler mission began operations back in 2009, it identified what was thought to be a planet about the size of Neptune. Called KOI-5Ab, the planet, which was the second new planet candidate to be found by the mission, was ultimately forgotten as Kepler racked up more and more planet discoveries. By the end of its mission in 2018, Kepler had discovered a whopping 2,394 exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars beyond our sun, and an additional 2,366 exoplanet candidates, including KOI-5Ab.

“Now, David Ciardi, chief scientist of NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI), located at Caltech’s IPAC, says he has ‘resurrected KOI-5Ab from the dead,’ thanks to new observations from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission.

“‘KOI-5Ab fell off the table and was forgotten,’ says Ciardi, who presented the findings at a virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS)….”

KOI-5Ab may have been forgotten by humans, but Kepler’s observations remained in our databases. And, happily, someone noticed that TOI-1241b in the TESS databases was the same as KOI-5Ab; so scientists could verify that KOI-5Ab was a planet.

Adriaen van de Venne's illustration of a 'Dutch telescope' in Johan de Brune's 'Emblemata of zinne-werck.' (1624)Verifying that KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s existence had been confirmed took more time than I liked.

Partly because that particular star system’s designation isn’t quite standardized.

On the other hand, we’re well past the days when four astronomers could say Aschere, Al Shira, Lubdhaka and Sirius: and be talking about Alpha Canis Majoris. (September 18, 2021)

But I learned that The Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia’s “Planet Kepler-5 b” was at the same coordinates as KOI-5AB and TOI-1241b.5 It’s real.

And it’s not quite like anything in the Solar System.

TOI-1241b’s Oddly Skewed Orbit

Caltech/R. Hurt's KOI-5 star system diagram. Not to scale.)
(From Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC), used w/o permission.)
(Artist’s impression of KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b.)

KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s mass is about half that of Saturn’s. It circles its sun every five days, more or less.

KOI-5A is a bit more massive and hotter than our star, so KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b too massive and far too hot to be ‘Earth-like.’

KOI-5A and B orbit each other every 30 years. KOI-5C goes around A and B every 400 years. That’s roughly 30 and 400 years.

If what we know about how planetary systems grow is right, then KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s orbit should be in the same plane as the two brightest stars’ orbit. But it’s not.

KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s orbit is tilted about 50 degrees out of what should be its ecliptic. Scientists aren’t sure why, but think it’s likely that KOI-B’s gravity messed with KOI-5Ab’s original orbit.

Studying the KOI-5/TOI-1241 and other multiple-star planetary systems should help scientists learn more about how stars and planets form.6

There’s more to say about TESS, exoplanets and stars, much more; but that’ll have to wait for another time.

My right shoulder has been acting up, making writing a slower process than I like.

An ‘up’ side is that it’s giving me opportunities for practicing patience, and that’s yet another topic.

Let’s see. How should I wrap this up? Rattle off statistics? Complain about being 70 — which would be daft, considering the alternative. Got it! Travelogue.

KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b’s planetary system is 2,950 light-years out, give or take. That’s far outside TESS’s 200 light-year search bubble. So I figure TOI-1241b is a sort of bonus, confirming Kepler observations.

At any rate, KOI-5Ab/TOI-1241b is by far not the first stellar system we’ll visit.

Stellar Stopover Speculation

AllenMcC.'s two-dimensional illustration of an Alcubierre metric tensor. (2007)But if and when we do send probes out there, they’ll pass Delta and Gamma Cygni, Fawaris and Sadir, on their way.

Or maybe they’ll stop off at Fawaris and Sadir, assuming that whatever technology we use allows such stopovers.7 And that’s yet again another topic.

I’ve talked about TESS, exoplanets and all that before, and probably will again:

1 TESS and metals:

2 Monikers, moralists, a musician and more:

3 Stars and planets seen in silhouette:

4 Choosing undusty skies:

5 Kepler-5’s planet: verified!:

6 Catchy Title, Solid Science:

7 Stars and speculation:

Posted in Exoplanets and Aliens, Science News, Series | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Notre-Dame, Paris: History, Two Cults and a Fire

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Brian H. Gill

The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has survived Louis XIV-style redecorating, the French Revolution, Napoleon and 19th-century remodeling.

I’m pretty sure it will survive repair and reconstruction, following the April 16, 2021, fire.

Notre-Dame de Paris is Burning

Notre Dame de Paris burning, seen from the air. (April 16, 2019)
(From Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

Notre Dame isometric elevation, showing fire damage. (BBC News)Somewhere between 6:50 p.m., Paris time, and 7:18 p.m., April 15, 2019, something caught fire under the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris.

That in turn set of an alarm at 7:20. Give or take a few minutes.

Timelines I’ve seen for the 2019 Notre-Dame fire don’t quite line up.

Not surprising, under the circumstances. Dealing with a fire would have made keeping detailed records a low priority.

I’m getting most of my numbers from Reuters and BBC News articles, and some from a Wikipedia page.1

Okay. Back to ‘what happened and when.’

Folks who were working at Notre-Dame noticed the alarm. Then someone went up to see what was happening.

That was basically a good idea. But the person went up to the attic of the cathedral’s sacristy, which wasn’t burning.

Happily, the folks on site remembered Notre-Dame’s main attic. Then, a quarter-hour later, they’d climbed the three hundred-odd steps up to the attic.

Which, by 7:43, was merrily ablaze.

After what I’d imagine was a brisk trip back down the steps, at 7:51, firefighters were called. They arrived within 10 minutes.

After the Fire: Uncertainty and Some Good News

Notre Dame de Paris spire collapsed. (April 16, 2019)
(From Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

The cathedral’s spire collapsed at 7:50. Or 7:53. Firefighters began focusing on saving the towers around 8:30.

By 9:45, they’d brought the fire under control. Later, some 15 hours after it had started, the fire was out.

The next day, April 16, a Parisian public prosecutor said that the fire had been an accident: not arson. But he put 50 folks to work, looking into what had started the blaze.

Years later, we’re still not sure what started the Notre-Dame fire. Maybe an electrical short, maybe someone’s cigarette: someone even suggested that a computer glitch was behind the blaze.

But not arson, which may be true. Construction and renovation sites catch fire with distressing regularity.

Whatever caused it, the 2019 Notre-Dame fire wasn’t all bad news.

It hadn’t killed anyone.

And, although we lost part of Notre-Dame’s Crown of Thorns, along with relics of two saints; statues that had been on the cathedral’s spire had been removed before the fire and Notre-Dame’s rose windows survived.

So did the spire’s copper rooster / weather vane: which fell, dented but undaunted, and was found on the day after the fire.

Another bit of good news is how fast folks began supporting after-fire repairs.2

Ownership and Treasures

BBC News: photo, text and diagram showing Notre Dame de Paris fire damage.
(From AFP/Getty, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

I’m guessing that Notre-Dame’s being part of the “Paris, Banks of the Seine” UNESCO World Heritage site made pledging support for rebuilding easier.

So, again my guess, was the cathedral being property of the French government.

Up until the French Revolution, the Paris archbishop — as agent of the Catholic Church — owned the cathedral. Napoleon let the Church conduct religious services there, but didn’t transfer ownership.

Or the cathedral’s been state property since 1905: it depends, apparently, on who’s telling the story. And which aspect of the French state’s ownership is in focus.

At any rate, besides being a house of worship, Notre-Dame de Paris is recognized as one of humanity’s cultural treasures.3 Can’t say that I’d argue with that.

Relics

Notre-Dame de Paris interior, looking through the broken ceiling. (April 17, 2019)
(From AFP/Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(Notre-Dame de Paris, looking up to where the spire used to be. (April 17, 2019))

As I see it, zero fatalities is the best news coming from the 2019 Notre-Dame fire.

But I’m also glad that while firefighters were upstairs, dealing with attic flambé, other folks had organized a sort of bucket brigade, and were evacuating art and relics. Which brings me to why they thought a shirt that hasn’t been worn since the 1200s was worth saving.

The shirt of Saint Louis and Notre-Dame’s Crown of Thorns are relics: things associated with a Saint and/or Jesus that many Catholics venerate. That’s venerate, not worship, and that’s almost another topic.

At any rate, the shirt had been worn by Louis IX of France. As such, it’s a second-class relic: something routinely worn or used by a Saint.

The Crown of Thorns is, as far as we know, headgear that Roman soldiers jammed on our Lord’s head shortly before his execution. Documentation for its authenticity goes back to a bit after 409 AD.4

That four-century gap in the paper trail bothers me, but not very much.

History and Priorities

The Roman government viewed Christianity as a subversive movement until 313, and by that time the Empire was crumbling.

Three centuries later, folks like Saint Isidore of Seville were scrambling to preserve the ancient world’s knowledge.

I suspect that scholars like Saint Isidore focused more on scholarly records than on certifying relics like the Crown of Thorns because, in their day, philosophical treatises seemed more likely to be forgotten.

At any rate, veneration of relics can be an important part of being Catholic. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1674)

But it’s not a big part of my daily and weekly routines. Maybe because I grew up as a Protestant, becoming Catholic as an adult; or maybe not.

Finally, about relics: they’ve got a dubious reputation in my culture. I strongly suspect that’s because hucksters and European politics played hob with a legitimate religious practice.5 And that’s another topic, for another time.

A New Cathedral Building in Paris – – –

Notre Dame in the 13th century, with bishop's palace on the left. From 'Paris à travers les Ages,' reproduced in 'Notre Dame de Paris,' Charles Hiatt (1902))
(From “Paris à travers les Ages”/”Notre Dame de Paris,” via Gutenberg.org, used w/o permission.)
(Notre-Dame de Paris under construction during the 13th century.)

There’s been a cathedral in Paris since the fourth century: Saint Étienne’s. Or maybe the fifth. Documentation for that time and place is sketchy, mostly because folks were adjusting to a world without the Roman Empire.

Time passed. The folks in charge remodeled Saint Étienne’s along Merovingian, Carolingian, and Romanesque lines.

Then, in 1163, the bishop of Paris signed off on plans to replace Saint Étienne’s with a new building.

I suppose assigning 1270 as a completion date for Notre-Dame de Paris makes sense. That’s when architect Pierre de Montreuil finished work on the south transept and rose window.

But the building’s gone through considerable change since then. The south rose window, for example, was reconstructed in the 18th century and replaced in the 19th.6

– – – And Two Cults

Engraving of the Fête de la Raison/Festival of Reason' at Notre Dame, during the French Revolution.
(From Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Dancing girls and reason personified: Notre-Dame, Paris, during the French Revolution)

The French monarchy’s state religion was Catholicism.

1566 propaganda print, celebrating faith-based vandalism.Other European monarchies had their own state religions, often some version of Protestantism.

By 1789, that had inspired centuries of religion-themed propaganda and appalling body counts.

Which I figure helps explain why assorted factions in the French Revolution agreed that the Catholic Church had to go.

That left a religion-shaped hole in French culture: which, in 1793, was filled by the Cult of Reason and then Cult of the Supreme Being. Both of which used Notre-Dame de Paris for their events.

I’ll give folks running the Cult of Reason credit. Dancing girls and a personable young stand-in for the goddess Reason sounds like an 18th century toga party.

Then Napoleon started sorting out the mess left by revolutionaries and other enthusiasts. In 1871 folks in the Paris Commune tried torching Notre-Dame de Paris, unsuccessfully.7

Faith, Landmarks and Me

Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral's roof. (April 15, 2019)
(From REUTERS/Benoit Tessier, used w/o permission.)
(Reconstruction resumes: Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral’s roof. (April 15, 2021))

“Notre-Dame’s restoration ready to start as safety work completed”
Reuters (September 18, 2021)

“Work to shore up the Notre-Dame de Paris has been finished, allowing restoration to start at the cathedral two years after a fire destroyed the attic and sent its spire crashing through the vaults below, officials said on Saturday.
“Soon after the April 2019 blaze, President Emmanuel Macron said the cathedral – which dates back to the 12th century – would be rebuilt and later promised to get it reopened to worshippers by 2024, when France hosts the Olympic Games….”

Although I’m glad to see that Notre-Dame de Paris survived the 2019 fire, and will be ready for use by 2024; I’d be happier if the Catholic Church owned the building.

But my preferences won’t change history, or the current French government’s policies.

Maybe getting Notre-Dame ready in time for the 2024 Olympics feels too ‘worldly.’

On the other hand, we wouldn’t have magnificent buildings like Notre-Dame de Paris if Medieval civic leaders didn’t think their regions would benefit from having a justifiably-famous landmark.8

I can hardly blame 21st century civic leaders from showing the same good sense.

As for whether Notre-Dame’s survival after the French Revolution and 2019 fire is “miraculous” or not? I don’t know. Much depends on how I define “miraculous.”

I do, however, think that the Catholic Church’s survival — the Church, not the places where we worship — that our still being here is wildly improbable.

Or maybe not so much, since for two millennia we’ve been saying that we’re getting help. (Catechism, 687-741, 1287, 2623)

And that’s another topic:

1 April 15, 2019 and following:

2 Taking stock of what happened:

3 One of humanity’s treasures:

4 Two relics and a folks phrase:

5 History, mostly:

6 Two cathedrals in Paris:

7 A cathedral, two cults and a commune:

8 Cathedrals: faith and finances:

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