I found “Herodotus on the Scythians” to be really cool!! At first, I did think of this reading to have a bit of a slow start, but once I got into the middle of the reading, that was when the Scythian customs began to show. At first, I thought that Herodotus was insulting their culture a bit. For example, when the two elder siblings “agreed together, and made the whole kingdom over to the youngest born” (pg. 130) after the fire extinguished from the gold. Usually, when it comes to kingdoms, one would think that handing it to the eldest sibling would be the right thing to do. Especially since the eldest sibling has the most experience. The fire extinguishing could have happened because of nature and the fire so happened to be cooperative with the youngest brother. What if the youngest …show more content…
Though this action is extremely gruesome, there was specific type of art the Scythian did when they were skinning and fighting their enemies. In the text it states, “The Scythian soldier drinks the blood of the first man he overthrows in battle.” (pg. 136) Another example in which the Scythians were elaborate in their gruesome rituals was when they scalp the heads of their enemies. “In order to strip the skull of its covering, he makes a cut round the head above the ear, and, laying hold of the scalp, shakes the skull out; then with the rib of an ox, he scares the scalp clean of flesh…” (pg. 137) Although this is extremely gruesome, there is a gentleness and care when it comes to the preciseness of cutting the head. Herodotus does not use the words “tear off the skin” or “maul their enemies.” Because of his specific diction, it made the Scythians less of a savage or a barbarian and more like and actual person. I really enjoyed this reading because despite the fact that they were displayed as extremely barbaric, the Scythians had customs and a lifestyle that were
...comparing the kylix with those of an earlier and later date, one can see that the Greeks were an extremely progressive culture that could make leaps and bounds in art in only a matter of two decades. Though the ideal Greek concept of hero depicts Heracles as impassive and undaunted in this kylix, Euripides suggests that the society also honored his grounded qualities like love, emotion, and sympathy. These conjectures are an important addition to current knowledge of ancient Greece as archeologists move towards further exciting discoveries.
Dillon, Mathew, and Garland, Lynda. Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates. Routledge International Thompson Publishing Company, 1994, pp. 179-215
Many think being a hero is having super powers, but on the contrary it's more than that. A hero is one who is distinguished for their courage and bravery, and looked upon for their great deeds. A hero like this is not just found in modern society today, but in mythology as well. In the epic poem The Odyssey by Homer, Odysseus earns the title of a true hero by conveying many qualities such as: determination, courage and leadership.
Herodotus was an interesting historian. His way of displaying a historical event such as the Persian War is different from how I expect a modern day historian to write it. He does not try to focus only on the Persian war but he goes into detail some times of the lineage of the rulers of the city-states even though that serves little relevance to the actual war. The accounts of history I am used to reading are more focused on the bigger issue and the historians do not deviate on long trains of side thoughts such as Herodotus does. Herodotus style of writing had me confused because he often would start on one topic and in the next couple of sentences move on to another topic before coming back to his main point about a paragraph down. I had to
When a Cyclops attacks two of Odysseus’s men, the “ruthless brute” snatches them up and “[knocks] them dead like pups-/their brains [gushing] out all over, [soaking] the floor-/and ripping them from limb to limb to fix his meal/ he [bolts] them down like a mountain lion, [leaving] no scrap,/[devouring] entrails, flesh and bones, marrow and all”, while Odysseus can only watch the Cyclops’s “grisly work-/paralyzed, appalled” (9.323-332). The Cyclops wastes no time in gruesomely devouring two of Odysseus’s men.
...ion back to the seasons and agriculture. Greeks were also very concerned about property rights and inheritance, as Hesiod shows us with his worries about the uncertainty of children’s paternity when women are not kept submissively in the home. Through his advice to his brother, Hesiod’s Works and Days becomes a wealth of information about the particulars of life in ancient Greece during the 7th and 8th centuries B.C.E.
Herodotus believed that freedom from tyranny, democracy, had a positive effect on Greek cultural identity because tyranny’s are inevitably and fundamentally weak. Tyranny weakens the city state by corruption in high offices with in the city state and suppressed new ideas and growth with in the city state. Herodotus’ opposition to tyranny is deduced from the fact that no Greek state lasted long in tyranny. As for democracy having a positive effect on Greek cultural identity, Herodotus praises the democratic system, because he sees equality as a good thing each man is able to achieve for himself while strengthening the city state. If the people are prospering and achieving then the city state prospers and grows. Democracy allowed for people to have a voice and effect change. Through democracy Greeks were able to control their own destiny, and their own success.
Plato’s Theaetetus is one of the most read and interpreted texts under the subject of philosophy. Within the dialect, many topics and questions are analyzed and brought to light. Leon Pearl is the author of Is Theaetetus Dreaming?, which discusses the positions taken on the topic of ‘dreaming’ and ‘being awake’, which is conferred about within the Theaetetus. Pearl critiques the question: “How can you determine whether at this moment we are sleeping and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake and talking to one another in the waking state” asked by Socrates within Plato’s Theaetetus (Pearl, p.108). Pearl first analyzes the question from the skeptic’s point of view and then proceeds to falsify the skeptic’s argument by his own interpretation, stating that “if a man is awake and believe that he is awake, then this constitutes a sufficient condition for his knowing the he is awake” (Pearl, p.108). Within Pearl’s argument, the conclusion at the end of section II becomes questionable when considering that knowledge and true belief have no distinction in the ‘awake state’ of mind.
In Plato’s Theaetetus, Socrates examines the first definition of knowledge that theaetetus gives that knowledge is perception. Socrates gives us many example that both supports and refutes that knowledge is perception. The basic claim from Protagoras is that truth is based on the perception of every man. This means that things are to any person as they seem to that person. Socrates explains to us Protagoras’s view with the cold wind example. He say that through Protagoras theory, the wind is cold to the person that feels cold, and the wind is warm to the person that feels warm. Both “the wind is cold” and “the wind is war” is true according to Protagoras and it is based on the perception of the person. Then we learn from Socrates that if knowledge and truth is based on perception then everything that has perception has his own set of knowledge and truth. Also sense Protagoras not considering himself to be a god, and is on the same level of us then wouldn’t the truth and knowledge he definite in his doctrine only be his own set truth and knowledge for he only knows his own perspective.
man to agree with his customs. Continuing, Herodotus speaks of a clash between the Callatians and the Greeks in regards to cannibalism of the dead. The disgusted response of the Greeks in response to the cannibalism showcases Herodotus’s central idea: customs rule all. Herodotus argument that customs are influential is correct. He does not venture far into the concept of moral relativism, but his observations of cultural relativism provide the framework to begin dissecting Ruth Benedict’s argument.
1) According to Thucydides, during the civil war at Corcyra a re-evaluation of values took place in the populace (3.82). Explain the nature of these re-evaluations, and the reason(s) they took place.
Epictetus was a philosopher that was born in 50 C.E.and died in 130 C.E., Epictetus was famous for his strong belief in self discipline. Unlike fellow philosopher Epicurus Epictetus does not believe that matter is the most important thing in the universe and that people should try to fulfill their pleasures. Epictetus believes that the most important thing in the universe is God. He believes that people should live their entire lives understanding where they stand in the cosmic universe. As stated in the book Great Traditions In Ethics Epictetus believes “That we are first to learn that there is a god; and that his providence directs the whole” (Denise, White, &
Picture this: a hero of great legends who travels to the underworld and back to get directions to his home from a blind prophet. It sounds like quite an impossible journey, but that is exactly what makes Odysseus all the more fascinating. The Odyssey, an epic poem orally transmitted by Homer, a Greek poet who wrote The Iliad, had to contain some variety of attributes that Greeks valued in a person. That one embodiment of what the Greeks found intriguing in a character is Odysseus. Odysseus is known as what is called an epic hero. An epic hero is a protagonist of a story that represents the most important attributes of a civilization. Odysseus, being based in ancient Greece, is the embodiment of intelligence, loyalty, and strength.
Herodotus. “Greece Saved from Persian Conquest.” Readings in Ancient History. Eds. Nels M. Bailkey and Richard Lim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.
(I.Preface) He encounters a wealth of information to document which he selects and organizes as an objective portrait of past events and cultures. However, Herodotus writes on cultures from a different type of relativism as he enquires upon cultures he has well-experienced and finds customs he agrees with, finds disgraceful, or accepts. He first writes about a culture as objectively as possible, listing and describing distinct facets of it. As a native Greek, Herodotus formulates his opinions as he is conditioned on the Grecian moral code. His natural instinct is to reflect on a particular custom in relation to what the status quo is in his Greek culture. This is demonstrated by the Herodotus’ retelling of Darius’ social