Category: Ancient Greece

Athens: Weaving Old With New

April 4, 2023
AcropolisAncient GreecearchaelogyartifactsBrightGreeceLifestylemuseumsParthenonruinsTravel
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A century and a half ago, Athens was a humble, forgotten city of about 8,000 people. Today, one out of every three Greeks packs into this city of over 3 million. The city is infamous for its sprawl, noise, and pollution. For a long time, my advice was to see the big sights, then get…

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The Ideas That Shaped the Constitution: Part 6: Polybius

November 28, 2022
Ancient GreeceOpinionPolybiusU.S. ConstitutionViewpoints
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Commentary Previous installments in this series have covered four Greek scholars whose thought helped shape the American Constitution. (For links to previous installments, see the following: first, second, third, fourth, fifth.) This installment covers a later Greek scholar: Polybius. After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E., the conqueror’s generals carved out large…

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By Way of Longinus

March 8, 2022
Ancient GreeceArts & CultureArts & TraditionbooksBrightLonginusUncategorized
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Have you ever heard someone describe something as sublime? Over the past 2,000 years, this lofty term has been explained, lost, reexamined, and re-explained. One of its earliest interpretations comes from the first-century Greek literary critic Longinus. “On the Sublime”—a text of uncertain authorship traditionally attributed to Longinus—he describes the sublime as that which “carries…

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