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Welcome into the Past
It all started as a homework : to record a podcast on any subject of our liking. It was during the first lockdown and we were happy to have a special project to think about. We then continued as we found out that it was a great way to know more about historical figures.
The fact that we are twins makes everything easier, we swap constantly between being the interviewer or the hero of the interview., we even more importantly share the work load. We need to do quite a lot of research as we try to find little known facts to make the interview interesting for you and for us. It is a bit like a detective work.
We hope that you have as much fun as we have doing these extraordinary interviews. Enjoy!
Paul and Antoine
Antoine and Paul
« Sing, 0 muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans ». The lliad
After our series on VE Days and the leaders who made it possible and shaped our present world, we have decided to take you far, far away in time , to the roots of our European history, to Ancient Greece, where and when so many fundamental concepts were created and are still shaping us to this day..
So here you are for an extraordinary treat as “Live from the Underworld “ has succeeded to get the more exclusive interview with the most famous Ancient Greek author : Homer, whose epic poems “The Iliad “ and “The Odyssey “ are read since the 4th century BCE.
Thank you, Mr Homer, for having accepted to talk to us. It is such an extraordinary privilege as we know so little about your life. Some scholars believe that you didn’t existed and that the name Homer designated a group of poets as your epics are so monumental. Others believe that you just wrote down the oral poems that were transmitted by generations of oral storytellers. Some are vehement that you were blind. Seven towns claim to be your birthplace. What is your real story ?
Homer : “ I’m sorry but you are missing the point. What is important here is exclusively my stories and what they reveal. I just don’t understand why everyone in your present world is obsessed by the reality shows, the lives of celebrities. My poems interest you because they are still relevant to you and that is more interesting than my humble life”.
What is quite extraordinary is that you wrote about the Trojan War which took place some 400 years before your time, in Bronze Age Greece, some three thousand years ago. The start of The lliad is not the abduction of Helen, the young wife of the King of Sparta by Paris, the dashing prince of Troy which started the war. The action of The lliad opens in fact at the end of the war, ( even if there are a number of flashbacks) when nobody is doing much. The Greeks are restlessly waiting around and then stricken by the plague. The Trojans are protected by the impressive fortifications of Troy . But by having so little background action, the attention is focused on the fight in the Greek camp between the leader of the Greek armies Agamemnon and Achilles the perfect hero, the Demi god and the greatest warrior of the Greeks.
Homer : “ The Trojan war which happened before my time had a huge impact on our civilisation. There was no need for me to explain the reasons of the war as it was so well known. That is why I chose to focus on the greatest hero of the Trojan war Achilles and how the grief is going to turn the most admirable hero into what you would call today a war criminal. It poses the question of what it means to be a hero, what is worth dying for, and how to reconcile with someone we see as an enemy.
I chose to start “The Iliad “ when the Achaeans and their allies are exhausted after more than nine years of war. Worse, they are reeling from the plague , which is devastating their ranks. A prophet, Calchas, tell the Danaans that the disease is the punishment for Agamemnon’s abduction of a young woman, “Chryseïs “, daughter of Chryses, one of Apollo’s priests. But the king’s unwillingness to return her despite a “splendid ransom” offered by her father brought on the plague as the gods’s punishment for his “hubris “, his arrogance.
Agamemnon is forced by his generals to return Chryseïs to her father, but demands resentfully that Achilles then give him his own war booty, another captured woman, Briseis whom Achilles had fallen in love with. ln tact, Agamemnon asks rhetorically: “ do you intend- while you yourself have a prize – that I just sit here without one.”
/ wanted to show the importance in a war of a moral leadership, which clearly Agamemnon lacks, having been disrespectful towards the gods and having agreed previously to sacrifice his own daughter. It tells us about the eternal dilemmas of warriors compelled to serve under incompetent superiors.
Achilles is so hurt by the pettiness of Agamemnon that he refuses to help any longer the Greeks in their battle against the Trojans and he and his Myrmidons, the people he leads sit out the coming battles.
Achilles even questions the validity of the war. The Greek cities-nations had established a camp/ex but effective way of collaboration through inter marriages and treaties. Achilles had been convinced by non the less than the most cunning Greek ever, the king of lthaca, the famous Ulysses to join the Achaeans.
He senses the utter pointlessness of the conflict. During his outburst against Agamemnon in book one, Achilles says: “The Trojans never did me damage, not in the least, they never stole my cattle or my horses, never in Phthia where the rich soil breeds strong men never did they stole water from my crops. How couId they? Look at the endless miles that lie between us . . .
shadowy mountain ranges, seas that surge and thunder. No, you, colossal, shameless we all followed you to please you, to fight for you, to win your honour back from the Trojans.”
But the recklessness of his friend Patroclus is going to change everything?
Homer : “ Absolutely . When Achilles is preparing his departure the death of Patroclus his mate, is going to transform the most generous and fair hero into a revengeful war criminal. No one can predict the behaviour of a warrior, it can be fear or fury but war takes a toll on every participant active or passive.
I wanted to show the fraternal love between soldiers who fight together. I wanted to show the sorrow, the frightful losses of war: of a soldier losing his closest companion, of a father losing his beloved son.
Achilles becomes a monster ; he thinks only of killing: «what I really crave is slaughter and blood and the choking groans of men». He fills the water of the river Scamander with so many dead bodies that the riverdeity himself rises up from the depths in anger. But no one can reason with him, not even the gods.
Only when the frail, grieving father Priam finds the strength to kiss those “ terrible, man-killing hands that had slaughtered Priam’s many sons in battle “ that Achilles sees reflected in the face of Priam the likeness of his own beloved father that his furry disappears. I wanted to show that no one, even the best of us, is immune to war.”
The Trojan war ended by a cunning trick of Odysseus , known now as” the Trojan horse.”
Homer : “ ln fact it is now a known tactic : if a war drags too long you need to change your tactics. ln the Underworld I have read “The Art of War” which was written in the 5th century BCE, so recently for me. As the author Sun Tzu explains extremely well: “ The way of war is a way of deception “.
How do you explain the never ending success of your two epic poems “The Iliad “and “The “Odyssey” ?
“The Iliad “is a story about war which is inextricably bound up with humanity. I was very touched to learn that Alexander the Great, perhaps the most impressive and glorious warrior in history, slept every night with a copy of The Iliad, annotated by his youth’s tutor Aristotle.”
Well thank you so very much for this extraordinary interview.
Keep safe, keep tuned for more about famous Ancient Greek figures.
« For here now is the age of iron. Never by daytime will there be an end to hard work and pain, nor in the night to weariness, when the gods will send anxieties to trouble us.»
As we had the fantastic opportunity to interview one of the most renowned poet of all time, the world famous for more than 2000 years the celebrated Homer, author of the 2 epic poems The lliad and The Odyssey, we have tracked down in the Underworld the rival of Homer in his time the poet Hesiod.
Dear Hesiod, it has been quite difficult to find you in the immense Underworld. We can not understand why you have disappeared from the radars especially as at your time, the 4 th century BCE you were as celebrated as Homer. But after your Transfert to the Underworld you seem to be known now only by pupils and scholars, how do you expIain your loss of popularity?
lt is certainly true that I was extremely successful and celebrated in my lifetime some 2800 years ago , I was extremely famous in the whole Hellenistic world. I have to confess that I have greatly enjoyed the intense pleasure of fame in my life. My ego was very pleased with myself. My name somehow faded in time but my poem ” The Theogony ” is still to your present days your major source about Greek mythology
ln fact when you learn about the extraordinary pantheon of the Ancient Greek gods and goddesses, about their personalities, their lives, their love affairs, their families, their rivalries it refers to my poem The Theogony where I revealed in fact every thing you know about them from generations after generations. My name might not be recognised by most but my stories have been transmitted for generations after generations. I think that our extraordinary ancient gods are so attractive, so powerful, so fascinating that they most certainly shadowed my work. lt is absolutely normal and I don’t feel any bitterness or resentment. l’m in fact extremely happy to hear every evening parents telling the stories of these fabulous gods and goddesses, to listen every day to teachers explaining the Greek mythology. It is an immense privilege and it makes me so proud to have been instrumental in these fantastic stories that are so precious and are part of the human heritage.
Each time someone somewhere begs not to open Pandora’s box it fills my heart with joy lt means that I have been useful, I succeeded in transmitting this important knowledge about our civilisation, your inheritance.
As you would say nowadays in your language : “mission accomplished “.
So If I understand correctly you conceal no frustration about your name being so widely ignored?
I was extremely lucky to have a wonderful life in my own time, to be recognised by my peers, to be celebrated. I also know that there is no worse sin for the Greek gods than the arrogance, what we used to call the “hubris “which is immediately punished extremely severely by the gods.
The other truth you need to understand is that in the Underworld you are judged on your accomplishments. The gods have allowed you to live, it is an extraordinary opportunity so they need to know what you have done with this life, how have you served your country ? Your family ? What have you done with their gift of life ? Those who have wasted their life without accomplishing something meaningfu/ or without respecting the gods are severely punished in their afterlife. Personally as I wrote the stories of the gods and was key in their transmission and helping making their names and lives eternal I was granted to enter and stay in the Elysian Fields of the Underworld for which I am extremely grateful. So rest assured that I bear no resentment.
Especially if you know that I started my life as a humble simple shepherd. My poetic talent was given to me by the beautiful generous Muses, who appeared to me while I was guarding goats in the peaceful countryside. The beautiful muses offered me a poet’s staff and endowed me with a poet’s voice to “sing about the race of the blessed gods immortal.”
You are also described as “the father of Greek Didactic Poetry” and the “first economist “.
Only two of my entire epics have survived:
The Theogony which we just talked about : the narration of the genealogy, the power struggle and the lives of the gods and goddesses. I retraced the creation of the world and the different reigns of the gods, naming more than three hundred gods.
Many other authors have written on this subject over the centuries but l’m extremely proud that The Theogony remains since the ancient times the most respected source for the Greek mythology.
My other surviving work is called Works and Days : Il is about the lives of farmers, peasants and shepherds , giving moral consideration and practical advice.
The poem is in fact a farmer’s almanac in which I try to help my brother Perses in the agricultural arts.
For this , I am also considered as the father of economists: “Through work men grow rich in flocks and substance … If your heart within you desires wealth, do these things and work with work upon work.
There are also practical advice:
“Call your friend to a feast; but leave your enemy alone ; and especially call him who lives near you: for if any mischief happen in the place, neighbours came ungirt, but kinsmen stay to gird themselves. A bad neighbour is as great a plague as a good one is a great blessing;”
and morals ::
“Let the wage promised to a friend be fixed; even with your brother smile – and get a witness; for trust and mistrust, alike ruin men”.
And more importantly, the one that your mother keeps nagging you with:
“Do not put your work off till tomorrow and the day after;
for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go we/1, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin”.
Finally there are also stories such as: Pandora and the Jar,
The Ages of man: the creation of mankind
I have to admit that I am also very proud of this narrative. For all these reasons I feel very fulfilled by the works I was fortunate to realise in my lifetime. Now if you will 1excuse me but I have another meeting with some extraordinary people. You need to realise that if you have a productive life then the Underworld is certainly y a fantastic place to be.
Thank you for accepting this interview from the Underworld. We are quite reassured about the Underworld. Good bye for now. Stay safe. Stay tuned.
Where 10 000 Athenians defeated 30 000 invading Persians.
As we had the fantastic opportunity last week to interview fictionaly two of the most famous poets, now let’s meet the greatest heroes of Ancient Greece. Let me introduce the general Miltiades , who was the commander in chief of the Athenian Army in the famous Battle of Marathon which took place in September 490 BCE.
Thank you, General, for accepting this imaginary interview. We all have heard about the Battle of Marathon and usually we know vaguely about an extraordinary run which has stricken our minds as we still to this day commemorate the run of these 42 kilometres , the Marathon.
So General Miltiades, couId you please explain to us what happened in the Battle of Marathon?
Absolutely , but before talking about the battle let me expiain to you the reasons of this war against the Persian Empire. Greece at that time was a mosaic of city states, bound by a civilisation. The real super power in the 5th century BCE was the immense Persian Empire. But since his coronation Darius “the great Persian king “was getting more and more irritated by the rebellious Greek cities in Asia Minar. When these Greek cities all finally rebelled two continental Greek cities Eretria and Athens supported them openly. After Darius tamed the rebellions he decided to teach a lesson to the defiant cities. Eretria was burned to the ground, its whole population taken to slavery. Then Darius focused on Athens . The Persian’s strategy was clever. They decided to attract the Greek army away from Athens in order to take the city by the sea. So the Persian armies landed some 40 kilometres North East of Athens.
So what was your strategy? How do you fight a terrible force of 20 000 ferocious experienced soldiers with only 11 000 of Athenian citizens?
We had the choice between marching out and confronting them on the plains of Marathon and having to confront their superior cavalry or waiting for them at Athens; the decision was to be made by the Assembly. I was also afraid of factions within Athens which wanted a Persian victory in order to take the power . I finally /persuaded the Assembly, and the Athenian forces set out. A messager was sent to Sparta to ask them for their support but the filthy Spartans replied that they will bother only after their religious festival six days later. We were let down by the Spartans. The only city which came to our support and fought with us were the citizens of Plataea.
So if I understand correctly it was only the citizens of Athens against the mighty Persian empire? lt wasn’t even a real army?
Absolutely . We had hastily assembled an army with all the citizens we could find. So we had 1O 000 Athenians and 1000 Plateans. This unprofessional army was to be commanded by 10 different generals, each taking the command for one day, which is of course ridiculous . Thankfully 4 of the generals gave me their command and I was able to take the leadership.
How did you defeat 20 000 experienced Persian soldiers with only 11 000 hoplites? And couId you please expiain what is a hoplite?
A hoplite was the most common type of heavily armed foot-soldier from the 7th to 4th centuries BCE in Greece, and all the citizens with sufficient means were expected to have their equipment and to go to war when called upon.
ln Athens we had a system of compulsory military service for 18-20-year-olds , but during a war all male citizens up to the age of 60 had to join the armed force.
ln pitched battle, the Greek army formed a single phalanx of 10,000 men, a kilometre wide, eight ranks deep, protected by a wall of overlapping shields with a hedge of spear-blades projecting above.
So the Persians were waiting for us on the plain of Marathon, having chosen the perfect battlefield for their cavalry. We stopped our army on the 2 hills which overlook the plain. For an obscure reason, the over-confident Persian decided to board their cavalry back on their vessels to attack Athens. I chose this moment to strike. We literally ran towards the Persian infantry in phalanx. Our speed terrified our enemies. They completely panicked and tried desperately to retreat and board their ships. ln a single afternoon, we Athenians, defeated the mighty Persian army. We killed more than 6000 Persian soldiers and lost only 192 of our men..
lt is an incredible and awesome victory: you must have celebrated this extraordinary success?
Not at all. We had to rush back as fast as possible to Athens to protect our city, our families . We ran as fast as we could and after 8 excruciating hours we were in Athens. The Persian fleet arrived one hour later and after realising that we were back and ready to fight, they finally gave up and sailed back. We had won!
How do you explain your incredible victory?
After more than 2500 years of reflection in the Underworld I believe that our victory is due to the determination of the fathers, the husbands, the brothers, the citizens of Athens to protect their families, their livelihood, their freedom. We were fighting for our existence, for our survival.
Whereas our Persian ennemis were fighting for more : more money, more loot and they were divided, they came from different parts of the Persian empire, they did not even speak the same language .
They did not want to die while we were determined to die to protect our beloved. Till this day I truty believe that it is the main reason of our victory.
There was also the mistake made by the Persian commandement to board their cavalry too soon, which enabled us to strike. It was a mistake driven by arrogance, by their hubris.
Last but not teast the Persian soldiers had almost no protection whereas our hoplites were heavily shielded and our organisation in phalanx proved to be extremely effective.
What about the record set by the messenger sent from Marathon to inform the Athenians of their victory and the sailing of Persian ships towards Athens? lt is commemorated by the famous 40 kilometres run and named Marathon.
We sent a soldier who ran without any stop from Marathon to Athens. He died from exhaustion after delivering his message. This extraordinary achievement is commemorated since the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
We also had sent a messenger from Athens to Sparta who ran 250 kilometres in 36 hours.
What were the consequences of this victory?
lt was an extraordinary propaganda victory. Marathon was seen as a proof of Athens being blessed by the gods. The Athenian Treasury at Delphi was built out of the spoils of the battle.
The Persians retreated, and Darius died, and was succeeded in 486 by Xerxes . For the mighty Persian empire this defeat was merely a set back. For the Greeks it was a mythicat victory but for every Greek there was no doubt that Xerxes would came back.
And what about your role and your life after being the hero forthis extraordinary victory?
After being celebrated I was trusted in the spring of 489 BC with a fleet of 70 ships on an expedition to conquer the renegade islands that had sided with Persia. Unfortunately my mission was not a success, and on my return to Athens there was an outcry of indignation, orchestrated by my rivals, the Alcmaeonids. I was in fact dying of gangrene after a leg wound suffered in a battle became infected. For the time of the trial I was even thrown to prison. Sorne of my former friends and admirers even asked thedeath penalty for me. I was in a complete shock. Finally I was fined 50 talents and thrown to prison where I died of gangrene.
So even if everyone recognised that it was my leadership that made our victory possible my fellow citizens still treated me terribly. lt demonstrates that life can be extremety unfair.
Remember this lesson from me…
“Come and take them” ..
Hello from the Underworld. As you know now I have the incredible gift to communicated with the Underworld. Of course it is just my imagination and the interview is absolutely fictional. ln order to continue our series about Ancient Greece and after last week’s focus on the battle of Marathon it is logical to put the limelight on the other incredible victory of the Greeks against one more time the mighty Persian empire.
As we learned last week, the Persian empire and its ruIer Darius the Great was the super power of these times , the 5th century BCE. Darius was irritated with the rebellions of the Greek cities of Asia Minar, on the edges of his great empire. He had sent his powerful army to crush the supportive Greek cities and more precisely Athens.
But the unexpected happened and the Athenians led by the general Miltiades defeated his mighty armies at the battle of Marathon.
No one in Greece and in the immense Persian empire doubt that it was a temporary victory and that Darius will come back to assert his vengeance.
Except that Darius died and after 10 long years it was Darius’a successor Xerxes who was now ready to take revenge for the affront that the Persians had suffered at the hands of the Greeks at Marathon in 490 BCE. This time the mighty Persian armies were stopped by 300 Spartans who resisted till death so the whole Greek armies couId retreat. The Athenian navy skilfully defeated completely the Persian at the battle of Salamis .But it is the sacrifice of the 300 Spartans led by their king Leonidas at the battle of Thermopylae which made this victory possible. And more than 2500 years after we still admire their courage and their sacrifice.
So thank you, your royal majesty, King of Sparta, king Leonidas for accepting to answer our questions. But before questioning you about the Thermopylae battle couId we first asked you about the reasons for-this war?
King Leonidas:
“ Thank you for having me. ln the Elysian Fields of the Underworld we are on permanent lockdown, a long, dull and boring time that stretches to eternity. So it is quite a treat to comment about our time or your present, with you all.
What were the reasons of the war ? I honestly believe that it was to erase the incredible affront that the few citizens of Athens inflicted upon the mighty outnumbered Persian armies. Quite frankly Xerxes could have forgotten about us, the Greeks in the outskirts of his powerful empire. But Xerxes was easily influenced and his entourage was determined to crush Greece and especially its most arrogant city-states Athens and Sparta. lt might be difficult for you to understand but some powerful Greek factions wanted to be part of the Persian empire as it would have favoured their trade. Miltiades, the victorious Athenian commander in chief of the battle of Marathon was tricked by these traitors and finished miserably dying in prison.”
I understand the need of the Persians to crush Athens because of their victory in Marathon but why Sparta, whose armies were not present at Marathon?
King Leonidas:
“ Sparta was a military society but also a religious one. We had the obligation to respect the gods and therefore to attend the religious festivals. From the 5th century Sparta devoted itself to war, deliberately neglecting the arts, philosophy, and literature, and forged the most powerful army standing in Greece.
When the armies of Darius invaded the plain of Marathon ten years earlier we were in the middle of an important religious ritual.
I wasn’t king of Sparta al this time but the two cities were already rivais so my predecessor might have think that it might be in our best interest to let the Persians deal with the Athenians and then Sparta, the fiercest warriors of Greece would have stopped the Persians. To our great surprise, the intellectual and artistic Athenian citizens defeated the mighty Persian armies.
When the call to protect Greece came for the second time, the religious festivities in Sparta had already started. We would have offended the gods if the whole army would have deserted and didn‘t perform the rituals. At the same time it was impossible to ignore the call to stop the Persians.
Especially as Xerxes had devoted 3 years to thoroughly prepare this war, proving that this war was strategic for him.
So I took the decision to honour our engagement to help Athens and protect Greece. I decided to accept the leadership and to take only 300 hoplites from my armies to stop the Persians.
So you went to contrant the immense Persian armies with only 300 Spartans?
King Leonidas
“No. ln the late summer-of 480 B.C.E, I led an army of 6,000 to 7,000 Greeks from many city-states, including my 300 Spartans, in an attempt to prevent the Persians from passing through Thermopylae.
I established our army at Thermopylae, expecting that the narrow pass would funnel the Persian army towards us.
Xerxes had his armies crossed at the Dardanelles they were also accompanied by a substantial fleet moving along the coast. His armies seized northem Greece and began moving south. The Persian outnumbered us by far as we were approximately 7000 and they were between 70 000 to 300 000.
We decided to stop them at the narrow pass of Thermopylae. The geography was working for us as in this narrow pass, the Persians couId not deploy their troops.
How couId you stop such an immense army?
King Leonidas:
“”The Thermopylae is a narrow pass surrounded by mountains. Xerxes waited four-days to attack, hoping that terrified by being so blatantly outnumbered we would disperse. Finally on the fifth day the Persians attacked. We withheld the Persians’ frontal attacks for six long days, killing roughly 10,000 of them. The Persian elite unit known as “The lmmortals” was held back, and two of Xerxes’ brothers died in the battle.
So we were able to stop them as they couldn’t deploy their troops. Our strategy was to hold a fine line only a few dozen yards long between a steep hillside and the sea.
As any male Spartan citizen, I and my 300 had been trained mentally and physically since childhood to become a hoplite warrior. Hoplites were armed with a round shield, spear and iron short sword. ln battle, we used a formation called a phalanx, in which rows of hoplites stood directly next to each other so that their shields overlapped with one another. During a frontal attack, this wall of shields provided significant protection to the warriors behind it.”
But at one point you were overwhelmed and all killed?
King Leonidas
“Unfortunately on the seventh day we were betrayed by a greedy Greek shepherd who showed to the Persians a secret path through the mountains. After reaching the other side, the Persians attacked us from behind and destroyed a portion of our army.
We immediately understood that we had been betrayed, that there must be another route and I decided that the majority of the Greek army had to retreat as our defeat was now obvious. I decided to held our ground to protect the retreat of our armies. But also because I was the king of Sparta and no Spartan is allowed to retreat ever, never.
ls it true that the night before the ultimate battle, Xerxes implored you to surrender and you replied: “Come and take them”?
King Leonidas
Yes. He did not know that no Spartan could survive the humiliation of a retreat. We Spartans acknowledged that there is no better death than to succumb bravely on a battlefield.
ln the Thermopylae, even if we held our ground we were quickly overwhelmed and were all slaughtered , my 300 Spartans but also 1000 Boeotians who courageously decided to fight to the end with us.
lt is quite unfair to remember only the 300 Spartans. Our brothers in arms the brave Boeotians must and should be honoured in the same way.
Spartans were true to their words, to our education, to our families’s honour : we never surrender, run away or betray. We fight to the end. We are not afraid to look straight into the eyes of death, of Thanatos.
Why do you think that your sacrifice is still remembered as the epitome of bravery?
King Leonidas
/“ I can’t say. Maybe because our stand protected the retreat of the majority of our armies. Maybe because till the end we were true to our words, we faced death without fear.
Fear makes you do shameful things. lt was the strength of Spartans to be raised fearless of death.
Do you have any regret?
King Leonidas
“ Of course I regret not knowing that there was a route over the mountains to the west of Thermopylae that would allow the enemy to bypass our fortified position along the coast. I would have of course blocked this way. ln the Underworld we are only shadows but we also hear and listen the screams and the raucous of the wars. To win a war you need to know as much as you can, intelligence is key.”
lt is believed that you knew before leaving Sparta that you would be killed, is it true?
King Leonidas
“lt is true that an oracle had said that Sparta would be devastated unless one of its kings was killed. I was that king. But frankly when you are a warrior, when you go into battle you know that you are going to look at death.
For us Ancient Greek there was no better death than on the battlefield.
Unfortunately the Persians found my dead body and beheaded my corpse, which for us is a sacrilege. But in truth I was proud to die among my brothers in arms and for that we became immortals. You still know my name.”
What happened after the battle?
King Leonidas
“Our sacrifice did not prevent the Persians from moving down the Greek coast into Boeotia. In September 480 BCE the Persians burned Athens, which, however, by that time had been evacuated. ln the meantime, the Greeks decided to station their fleet in the Strait of Salamis Themistocles devised a clever stratagem: feigning retreat, he lured the Persian fleet into the narrow strait. The Persians were then outmaneuvered and badly beaten by the Greeks’ ships in the ensuing naval battle under the very eyes of Xerxes. Soon after, the Persian navy retreated to Asia. Greece was victorious, one more time, over the immense Persian armies.”
Thank you your Majesty for-this extraordinary fictional interview.
Let us just remember that forty years after the Thermopylae battle, Sparta retrieved king Leonidas’ remains (or what were believed to be his remains) and a shrine was built with the famous epitaph, “Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, That here obedient to their laws we lie.“
So let’s keep remembering the sacrifice of these glorious heroes led by their glorious king.
More to come next week on “Live from the Underworld” about the most famous state man: the famous Pericles. Meanwhile stay safe, stay tuned …..
« Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it . »
Hello, it’s “Live from the Underworld” where we have the privilege to interview the famous heroes from the past. Of course these interviews are completely imaginary but we research extremely hard to try to make these interviews as plausible as possible. Even if we work extremely hard to do so this interview is completely fictional.
So after this warning, today we are extremely proud to have been granted an interview with one of the most celebrated statesmen in Ancient Athens.
Born in 495 BCE and killed by the great plague in 429, his name symbolises the peak of the glory of Athens : the age of Pericles. This period roughly from 461 to 429 BCE is when Athens became a model for the whole Hellenistic world, when the world famous Acropolis was built as we know it, when democracy was invented , when philosophers, authors, mathematicians, artists were busy creating new concepts. Athens was then the intellectual capital of the whole Hellenistic world.
Who else but the famous Pericles ?
Dear General Pericles, or dear Strategos which was your official title , thank you for accepting to answer our questions.
And first may we respectfully ask why are you considered as the most prestigious ruler of Ancient Greece ? How do you symbolise the golden age of Athens ?
I could tell you that under my leadership as I was in command of our city-state I was so clever and wise that I invented democracy alone and I made Athens into the most powerful and glorious state in Greece . But after hundreds of years of reflection in the underworld and having witnessed both the fury and the glory of the world I now believe that I was just the right man at the right time.
I have helped increase the cultural focus of Athens by promoting incredible artists such as my glorious friend Phidias, also by deciding in 447 BCE to build the Acropolis as you know it now with the glorious Parthenon.
As importantly by accepting and by encouraging the rule of democracy and the power of laws, Athens set a model for the centuries to come.
It was the peak of the military power of Athens. We had defeated twice the mighty Persian armies and our navy seemed invincible.
But I also did a terrible mistake, a fatal mistake that would destroy not only my beloved city of Athens but the whole of Greece by accepting to enter into a fraternal war against Sparta with no real reason other than the greed of power and domination.
In fact, I was both puzzled and horrified when more than 2000 years after my time, the European nations just like our cities-states bonded by the similar agreements of cooperation went into the same kind of pointless fraternal war : the First World War, bringing exactly the same outcome to their citizens: the decline of Europe and the birth of a new empire ready to supplant the old order: in my case the Romans and in yours the Americans. For us in the Underworld, it was so extremely distressing that you did not learned anything.
So if I understand correctly you feel that you made a mistake by leading Athens in the Peloponnesian war against its rival Sparta in 431 BCE ?
You need to understand that the Spartans were brought up to be war machines. They felt that they were superiors because of their drastic rules. They considered us the Athenians as too soft, too inclined towards the arts, engulfed in pointless discussions about the meaning of life.
But at the same time, we Athenians had won alone, without their help at all the battles of Marathon and Salamis against the mighty Persian armies.
It infuriated them. I personally believe, as many of my Athenians citizens that they wanted Athens to be decimated by the Persians and then they would have gone to fight the Persians. In their conniving master plan, they wanted the Persian empire to eradicate Athens and then they would have intervene, move to fight the Persians, would have won the war and taken the leadership of Greece. But that is of course merely my personal opinion.
So Sparta needed to eradicate Athens in order to take the leadership ?
As you can summarise it in a figurative way : there can’t be two dominant crocodiles in the same pond.
In Athens we were proud of our intellectuals, of our debates where it was important to convince the audience.
In Sparta it was the extreme opposite, there was no democracy but an oligarchy with 2 kings supposedly the descendants of Heracles , there was no debate but an endless training to be the best warrior. It was a strict way of life exclusively devoted to the art of war.
My mistake might have been to have signed a peace treaty with the Persians and therefore losing our common enemy.
We then entered a fratricidal war of 30 years that will wiped us both. Later, the Macedonians lead by Philip then by his son Alexander the Great, from the outskirts of our civilisation will then dominate the weakened cities of once the mighty Greece. What a collective failure for both Athens and Sparta which would never regain their power and their glory.
How long did the Peloponnesian War lasted ?
Nearly 30 years, 27 years exactly from 431 to 404 BC. Athens was finally defeated by the Spartans but also by epidemics of plague.
Many historians accuse you to have brought war against Sparta in order to consolidate your own power in Athens at a time when you and your allies were under attack by the conservative faction ?
Well, that would certainly be one of the oldest tricks to keep power. Every ruler knows that there is nothing more stabilising than the threat of an alien enemy especially in a democracy where you need to win elections. Even a divided city state has to pull together and forget past divisions during a war. So certainly the war against Sparta reinforced my authority as a ruler but I also think that the collision with Sparta was unavoidable except if we would have had to fight against a common enemy such as the Persian Empire. My regret now in the calmness of the Underworld is not leading Athens and its mighty navy to conquest and thus we would have built an empire.
This mistake, my own mistake was not to be repeated by the young Alexander the Great who understood the power of movement.
But to be completely fair I always had a more reserved personality than the young Alexander the Macedonian, who has always been so full of passion. Very few rulers have it in them to be conquerors. I certainly didn’t, I was too much of an introvert, passionate about philosophy.
It might be an offensive question as you were ferociously attacked in your time but is it true that you took the money from the Delian alliance’s treasury to pay the ambitious building plan of the Acropolis with the construction of the Parthenon and the immense precious statue of Athena, sculpted by your good friend Phidias ?
Yes it is correct. It is thanks to the alliance’s treasury that I was able to finance my ambitious building plan for Athens which had been severely damaged by the Persian armies. The different cities states were gathered into an alliance, the Delian League which was under the leadership of Athens and they had to pay a tribute to get the protection of our armies.
I have chosen to use this money to rebuild a new glorious Acropolis”, which would embodied our civilisation.
Some Athenians as well as some historians considered it as one of the largest embezzlements in human history.
But my reasoning was that as long as we Athenians, fulfilled our mission of protection towards the members of the Delian league, then we could do whatever we wanted with the money..
However some historians have viewed this as the first embezzlement in history. I completely disagree with this interpretation. Meanwhile with this money I made possible one of the most marvellous artistic creations of our civilisation. I profoundly believe that it was money well spent. It really embodies our Athenian culture while Sparta has completely and utterly disappeared in the dust of the centuries.
There is a lesson here for you to learn.
But to answer your question, it pains me to admit that yes even my fellow Athenians were outraged about the cost of this extraordinarily architectural project, despite the fact that it gave work to everyone in our city.
Finally, under so many attacks, I had to proposed to reimburse the city with my own money for all the questionable expenses, with the condition of course that quite logically I would make the inscriptions of dedication in my own name, which was enthusiastically agreed.
So when historians now qualified my century as the “Time of Pericles “, well, in a way, it is true as I have paid with my own money for a big part of this glorious architecture. So somehow I own it.
It’s difficult to understand why the Acropolis and especially the Parthenon you imagined and contributed to build have not been included in the list of the seven wonders
Yes, it did pain me but I understand that it was a difficult choice . My friend the sculptor Phidias made 2 marvellous statues : the statue of Athena for the Parthenon and one even bigger : the statue of the king of the gods Zeus in Olympia. It was the one chosen to be in the list of wonders, quite naturally. No one could have taken the risk to insult Zeus.
But even if my favourite monument, the one I contributed to build is not in the list, the Parthenon, its name meaning the virgin’s place, built for our patron the goddess Athena, it does symbolise our Ancient civilisation.
Did you know that this huge marble structure does not have a single straight line : all 4 sides are slightly curved to make the building appear less heavy .
That is why, in spite of its colossal dimensions, it gives an impression of lightness. In other words it presents an optical illusion.
The columns also lean slightly inwards and would form a pyramid if they were continued.
The temple contained nothing but the 12 meters high statue of Athena made by my friend famous Phidias. My beloved Parthenon still dominates today the busy city of Athens. History has already judged me : I was right to build what symbolises now our ancient world.
You were under personal attacks for most of your life, don’t you find it unfair ? Do you think that is it the price to pay for rulers in democracies ?
Yes and it’s painful.
I was extremely hurt by Plato’s criticism saying that I made the Athenians “slothful, garrulous and avaricious, by starting the system of public fees”.
I was accused to spoil too much my citizens enticing them to fall into bad habits, to corrupt them.
Maybe I was too indulgent towards my people just like an infatuated father. I don’t know, maybe it is the dangerous side of democracy as you need constantly to win the next elections.
To answer your question, yes I was extremely hurt by the violent personal attacks against myself and even more hurt about the outrageous attacks against my friends such as Phidias and my foreign wife.
But just before my death I was grateful to the citizens of Athens who allowed a change in the law that made my half-Athenian son with my foreign wife Aspasia, Pericles the Younger, an Athenian citizen and my legitimate heir. It was a complete surprise considering that I had myself proposed the law confining citizenship to those of Athenian parentage on both sides. But the Athenians who knew about the deaths by the plague of my two Athenians sons didn’t want me to die without an heir. So I was extremely touched by their consideration towards me. Not all was bad.
Not only you have imagined, designed, and funded this extraordinary Acropolis as we can still see it today, roughly 2500 years ago but you have allowed democracy to flourish under your leadership.
Even if I came myself from a very privileged family, I have always been a true democrat, I have been fighting all my life for the expansion and stabilisation of all our democratic institutions.
I have passed legislation granting the lower classes access to the political system and the public offices, from which they had previously been barred.
But also in a democracy, education for all is essential. I even passed a decree that permitted the poor to watch theatrical plays without paying, with the state covering the cost of their admission.
The poor people in a democracy must be educated in order to be able to make educated choices when they vote.
When you watch a play it is of course a distraction but not only. It also makes you think about your own life, your own answers to the problems raised in the play, it challenges you, make you think over. Without realising it, a play, an open debate makes you grow up, it enriches you.
I believe that I might have been the first politician to understand the importance of philosophy and of intellectual debate.
You, young people of modern time should talk less and listen more as when you listen you might learn.
That shall be my conclusion to our talk as I’m fading away, ready to return to my kingdom of shadows.
Good bye Strategos and thank you for this fictional interview. We hope that from the Underworld you do agree with what we imagined you might have said.
And now that our fictional Pericles has faded back into the kingdom of shadows I need to quote an extract of his famous “Funeral Oration” which he declaimed at the burial of the Athenians who had fallen in the war against the Persians. This speech, made hundreds of years ago is still considered as one of the most famous speech. Instead of talking about the dead soldiers, he glorified what was really at stake in this war, what made Athens so special.
“Our policy does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. It is called a democracy, because not the few but the many govern. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.”
These words are 2500 years old and amazingly still so relevant.
So thank you for listening. Remember that our interviews are fictional. Meanwhile stay safe, stay tuned for more, much more to come from “Live from the Underworld”….
« One thing on/y I know, and that is that I know nothing. »
Hello, it’s “Live from the Underworld” where we have the privilege to make imaginary interview of the most famous heroes from the past.
We have indeed discovered an imaginary secret passage to the Underworld and more precisely to the Elysian Fields, where the few, the happy few heroes who have contributed to shape our minds are there for eternity.
Today we are extremely proud to offer you an imaginary interview with the monumental Socrates who is considered as the founder of the Western philosophy.
One word of caution: Socrates is also the most intriguing figure of the Western tradition of thought as he didn’t write any book or text that at least we know of. Therefore he is known only by the accounts written after his death by few students or contemporaries.
So what an extraordinary opportunity to have an imaginary interview with the man himself as the accounts of his two pupils Plato and Xenophon are quite contradictory, this mystery has been named by scholars as the Socratic problem.
Therefore, Professor Socrates, let us first thank you profusely for granting us this exceptional imaginary interview as we are going to be able to solve this famous Socratic problem by asking you directly “who has given an accurate account of yourself, of your ideas ?“
Socrates :
“Let me ask you, young man, a first question: why do you think that I never wrote anything ? Do you seriously believe that I didn’t know how to write ?
You must know that my fundamental teaching is that I don’t know anything. Even when the Divine Pythia in Delphi credited me to be the wisest man in the whole world it is precisely because I have understood that I know nothing.
I obviously was the only one reasonable enough to understand that no matter how much knowledge you have it’s nothing compared with the amount of your sheer ignorance.
You, young man, must understand how liberating it is to accept that you know nothing because it is how you learn, how you open your mind to creativity, to new ideas, new concepts.
I was very interested to see from the Underworld how even an exceptional mind like Albert Einstein rejected at first the first findings of the quantum mechanics as it went against all the physics laws that were known and proven. Of course a great mind such as Einstein was able to recognise his ignorance. lt is the sign of wisdom”.
.
So if I understand correctly you deliberately didn’t write anything and let the others write about you ?
Socrates
“ Yes , what is important is to seek the truth, to question what seems to be the truth, to point out the discrepancies, the incoherences of what appears to be the reality. Nothing is straightforward.
CouId sciences go forward without this awareness?
To answer your futile question about myself :
what you understand is different from what I have understood because we are different and thus have different perceptions. Plato and Xenophon had almost opposite personalities so their perceptions, their accounts are naturally different.”
So what has been called by scholars the “Socratic problem ” which is the impossible task to reconstruct your personality and your teachings as the accounts of Plato and Xenophon are so different and often contradictory is explainable by the difference of their own personalities, of their own perceptions?
Socrates
“I most certainly don’t know as you must know by now that I know that I know nothing.”
Point taken, Professor Socrates. But couId you tell us what are according to you, the father of Western philosophy, the principles which we should respect in order to live a good life?
Socrates
“I believe that all human beings are driven by the pursuit of happiness. So how could we obtain happiness in our lives ?
You must seek to know yourself: what are your passions? What gift do you have ? What is easy for you ? What do you dislike? Sadly most people ignore themselves and live accordingly to the desires of others, of their social class, of-their parents. But as they don’t respect their own soul, their true self, they become frustrated, jealous, mean and even angry.
You must discover who you really are and what you want to become.
My second advice would be to care for your soul, it must be the mission of your entire life. The only way to take care of your soul is to examine your life, to use introspection constantly. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to lie to yourself, to ignore your true aspirations, to seek meaningless rewards. Just like your body, you must keep a healthy soul.
Finally search constantly for wisdom , for knowledge. Try to elevate yourself by always learning and never ever consider that you know, that you are beyond learning. Be open to new ideas, to new people. We cannot live better than in seeking to become better, to learn constantly, relentlessly.”
Did you, yourself lived by your own principles?
Socrates :
“Absolutely , I did live by these principles and I even died for respecting them.
I was born in a rich Athenian family , I received a good education, I fought bravely for Athens in the Peloponnesian war against the Persians, I inherited and had no financial problems.
I could have lived a quiet comfortable life but I was obsessed by searching the truth together with my interlocutors through questioning.
I could have accepted the pretence of material wealth but instead I really couldn’t care less. lt’s notorious that I was ugly but I most certainly I didn’t care about my appearance, walking barefoot, having only one torn coat and I didn’t take the time to bathe to the point of being called ” the unwashed “. I just couldn’t care for the so called pleasures or luxuries of life.
I have also always been weary of the barrenness of a busy life that leaves no time for introspection.
Believe me, money and prestige are not-as precious as commonly thought and please young man remember that « envy is the ulcer of the soul /. »
You were also the first philosopher to believe in the existence of eternal and absolute rules for what is right or wrong at a time where the majority of the philosophers at the time in Athens thought that the notion of right and wrong depended on cultural backgrounds.
Socrates
“Athens was the magnet for all the intellectuals of that time. Democracy had put oratory skills as an art as well as an essential skill.So learned people from all over the Hellenistic world flocked to Athens to teach for money They were called the “Sophists”.
Sadly they still exist: one can identify a sophist in any period of time: he or she is a self opinionated know-it-all who is extremely satisfied with what little he or she knows or even worse who boast of knowing a lot about subjects they don’t know anything about.
These Sophists who had travelled through Greece to reach Athens believed that perception of what is right or wrong varied from one city to another. That is totally unacceptable for me. I believe in the existence of eternal and absolute rules for what is right and what is wrong anywhere everywhere and anytime.”
ln 399 BC, you were accused of corrupting the youth and not believing in the Gods. After a trial that lasted a day, you were sentenced to death. Vou spent your last day in prison, refusing to escape as your supporters were urging you. Why did you accept this unfair judgment as at that time there were many skeptics and atheist philosophers who evaded prosecution, so why you and only you ?
Socrates
“As ugly, unattractive unwashed and repulsive as I was , people especially the young were and stil are always eager to learn the truth, to experience new ideas and go beyond the established laws, I therefore attracted the interest of the Athenian crowd and especially the youth like a magnet, which was considered dangerous by the establishment.
Societies just as any organised body need to fight for their survival, any disruption must be stopped. lt is so much safer to preserve the established laws by lying to the people and make them believe that money and glory are worthy of every sacrifice.
I was dangerous, too dangerous as I was enticing people to think for themselves.
I had publicly said that the sacrifices to the gods were useless because I am convinced that the pursuit of knowledge is the only mean to worship appropriately the gods and to have a worthy life.
I therefore drank the lethal hemlock.
So just remember my most famous statement: ” one thing only I know and that is that I know nothing ” Remember this statement because, in reality, as it is in fact dangerously subversive.
My favourite story, which I have learned in the Underworld is the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes and the hero is the courageous child who dared to speak up.
So stop fooling yourself, learn as much as you can, constantly , relentlessly and stay aware of the abyss of our ignorance.
Thank you Professor Socrates for granting us this extraordinary opportunity to talk imaginatively to the father of our Western philosophy. lt is a huge privilege for all of us. Thank you so much for this extraordinary fictional moment.
And for all in our real living world: « stay safe, stay tuned for more adventures from “Live from the Underworld “.
« And what, Socrates , is the food of the soul ? Surely I said, knowledge is the food of the soul. »
Hello everyone. Today we continue to explore Ancient Greece and we have been granted an exclusive fictional interview with one of the most important philosophers of the Western civilisation: Plato.
Along with his glorious teacher Socrates and his most famous pupil Aristotle, Plato is considered as the father of the Western philosophy. He is also is considered as the father of political science and the founder of one of the world’s first known institutions of higher learning, the Academy in Athens.
Professor Plato, we are extremely grateful for allowing us to interview you imaginatively in your world of shadows. We firstly need to thank you for letting us know about your mentor Socrates. Without you, we would not know anything about Socrates as he did not write anything?
Plato :
“ I was a disciple of Socrates, he was so inspiring. I knew that he was so convinced about knowing nothing that he refused to write anything. I could not accept that all,his teaching, his method of seeking the truth through questioning, would die with him. So I wrote as much as I could remember in order to keep this burning flame alive and inspire others. I most definitely could not accept that his voice would have to die with him. lt would have been such a loss.”
The only problem is that your account is quite contradictory with other accounts such as the ones of Xenophon who was also a disciple of Socrates?
Plato :
“I have been informed in the shadows of the Underworld that the different generations of scholars have been intrigued by the differences of our memories of Socrates. They even invented an expression for our different accounts : the Socratic problem. Well I think that as we are different we have naturally different perceptions and interpretations of a same event. You should make the experience yourselves: ask different people to describe a same individual and you can be sure that the descriptions will be quite different.”
But you are so much more than the biographer of Socrates, you created a theory of forms to explain our world, would you be so kind to explain it to us?
Plato :
“I tried to grasp a “reality “that is eternal and immutable. The concepts of forms are central to my philosophy . What as been named “Platonism” is my theory of Forms (or theory of ldeas) which denies the reality of the material world, considering it only an image or copy of the real world. Every thing we know in our world is an imperfect replica of the real perfect world which exists somewhere, so there can be no perfection in our imperfect world.
There is somewhere, beyond our knowledge an ideal world of Forms or ideas which are mimicked in the false world of phenomena where we live .
The phenomena are the physical world that we experience; it is a flawed replica of the perfect, ideal model that exists outside of space and time. Let’s take the example of a physical object like a chair. What we know about chairs in our physical world are only imperfect imitations of the perfect chair that exists outside our material world. lt is the same for abstract concepts such as justice : in our imperfect world we can only have imperfect justice. The ideal perfect justice can not exist in our imperfect material world where we live.
However somewhere out of time and out of space there is an ideal and perfect chair and an ideal justice in the ideal world of Forms.
So reality is divided into two regions: One region is the world of the senses, where everything flows, nothing is permanent. The other region is the world of ideas, where we need to use our reason and where the ideas are eternal and immutable”
.
You claim that you were influenced by Socrates who was your mentor but your own pupil, the most renowned western philosopher Aristotle claimed that you and Socrates were profoundly influenced by Pythagoras teachings, what is your answer ?
Plato :
“ I won’t deny the huge influence of Pythagoras who was one of the first philosophers (570- 495 BCE), before my time.
Remember what was the theory of Pythagoras : he held that all things are numbers, and the cosmos comes from numerical principles. He introduced the concept of form as distinct from matter, and that the physical world is an imitation of an eternal mathematical world.
So of course my theory of forms was influenced by Pythagorean philosophy . I was passionate about mathematics because mathematical states never change. ln mathematics we can have a sense of a true knowledge because we don’t use our senses or our feelings but we use our reason.
lt might even shock you but I also believed in metempsychosis which is the teaching most securely identified with Pythagoras. lt means the “transmigration of souls”.
Remember what I have just explained to you about the reality being divided into 2 regions: the world of the senses and the world of ideas which is immutable.
Weil, I believe that the man is also a dual creature, with a flowing body bounded to the world of the senses. But every man has an immortal soul.
Every soul is immortal and upon death enters a new body. And your soul has seen eternal forms in the world of ideas before your soul has even taken residence in your body.
So yes, definitely the ideas of Pythagoras influenced me deeply but I tried to go further even if I understood that most people are satisfied to live in a world of shadows, refusing to go beyond the appearances.
Appearances are the reality for them.”
Do you think that your”Theory of Forms” is your main contribution to philosophy?
Plato :
“lt is certainly a dominant idea in my whole work. Forms are used throughout my work to explain different concepts such as knowledge , justice and many others. ln my book “The Republic” , I used an allegory narrated by Socrates “The Allegory of the Cave” to explain that we live in a false reality.
ln this allegory, Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and they give names to these shadows. The shadows are for the prisoners their reality even if they are not real.
Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and cames to understand that the shadows on the wall are actually not real at all.
A philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. They will even kill the cave dweller who has escaped and who came back to tell the truth. We are like these prisoners. We are prisoners.
For me, Socrates was killed by the cave dwellers because he disturbed their conventional world. So in fact there are 3 higher levels of knowledge or reality that exist:
– Second : the deductive logic with the mathematics and the geometry. lt is the process of reasoning from one or more premises or statements to reach a logical conclusion. If ail premises are true, if the terms are clear and the rules of deductive logic are respected then the conclusion reached is true. lt’s a top-down logic.
I believe that we have printed somehow in our minds, in our eternal souls, the idea of the forms and we can therefore recognise ail the different imperfect copies present in our world.”
ls it because of this theory that you were so passionate about mathematics? Even if you were not a mathematician you were obviously an impressive teacher of mathematics as you taught the greatest mathematician of your time Eudoxus of Cnidus who has been himself a major contributor to Euclid, the father of geometry?
Plato :
“ I have always been passionate about mathematics and I certainly loved teaching mathematics as much as philosophy. As we already discussed it I was most certainly influenced by Pythagoras who held that all things are number, and the cosmos cames from numerical principles.
lt is Pythagoras who introduced the concept of form as distinct from matter, and that the physical world is an imitation of an eternal mathematical world. He introduced the concept of numbers that govern the universe.
ln mathematics my mere contribution was to make the distinction between pure mathematics and applied mathematics.”
Don’t you think that by concentrating on the idea of ‘proof “ and by insisting on the importance of establishing accurate definitions and clear hypotheses, you had a decisive influence on the progress of mathematics and science in general ?
lt is an established fact that the most important mathematical work of the 4th century BCE was done either by your friends or by your pupils.
Plato :
“ I have to admit that l’m extremely excited to have laid the foundations for Euclid systematic approach to mathematics by putting a focus on the importance of proof and the need to use accurate definitions and clear hypothesis.
But l’m also very proud to have been the founder of one of the world’s first known institutions of higher learning, the Academy in Athens. I can’t stress enough, young man, the need for education. lt should be the purpose of your young life but as importantly the purpose of your whole life.”
You wrote one of the most influential works on politics : “The Republic”, which described for you an ideal society. But for us this book is more dystopian than utopian as you accept slavery and that children should be educated by the state, away from their families.
Plato :
“You need young man to keep in mind that this book was written some two thousands years ago and of course our societies, our mentalities were very different.
Physical force was important, all the Athenian citizens were obligated to fight for their city. Wars were cruel and the defeated were either slaughtered or taken as slaves.
You will also note in fairness that I believed that women have the same reasoning powers than men, which was very shocking at that time when women could not be Athenian citizens.
ln my ideal state rulers and auxiliaries are not allowed family life or private property to prevent corruption.
The education of children is too important to be left to individuals and should be the responsibility of the state, which needs to provide a full-time education.
l’m not sure to agree to that. lt seems more like a nightmare tome.
Plato :
“ You need to think about the common good, not to your selfish sense of comfort.
My aim in founding the state was not the disproportional happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; I firmly believe that in a state ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice.
But I have to admit that most of the people at my time were firmly against the requirements to abandon private property and cut the family bonds
So years later I had to make concessions to the public outrage. When I wrote a later book” The Laws” I stepped down, imagining a“constitutional state” as the next best regime, where private property was allowed, where education was the responsibility of the parents and where women’s freedom was reduced even if I kept thinking that these concessions were not satisfying.”
The other element that we find shocking is that you were against democracy?
Plato :
“As Socrates , I was against democracy as it follows the citizens’ impulses rather than pursuing the common good.
I analysed the five types of government: aristocracy, timocracy (where on/y property owners may participate in governance), oligarchy (usually the wealthy rule), democracy and tyranny (a leader who rules without laws).
I believe that the best type of government is aristocracy. I considered that society is divided into three classes:
-* the producers, the majority, they have an iron soul, they have to work and earn money, they are the only ones who can own property;
This regime is ruled by a philosopher king , and thus is grounded on wisdom and reason.
These five regimes progressively degenerate starting with Aristocracy at the top and Tyranny at the bottom. I identify political justice as harmony in the society.
ln essence my political philosophy is characterised by rationalism.
The creation of a good state depends on its being governed with reason. Just as your head must govern your body, so philosophers must rule the society.”
Unfortunately we have lost our exclusive imaginary connection with Plato, maybe his soul was called for a new body, which of course would be a treat for the years to come .
If you are stunned by Plato’s theory of ideas, don’t worry you are not the only one! 2500 years ago and we are still discussing them.
Meanwhile don’t forget to stay safe, to stay tuned and more to corne soon !!!
Be prepared …
« ln all things of nature there is something of the marvellous »
Hello everyone. We are “Live from the Underworld” and today we are going to finish our section on the philosophers of Ancient Greece by the most renowned of all: Aristotle.
lt is like having an interview with the biggest rock star who ever existed. lt is just huge!
Our dear father always repeats the saying of a famous music director about composers: he qualifies Bach as the mighty father, Mozart as the prodigal son and Beethoven as the Holy Spirit.
Well we could imitate him with these 3 incredible philosophers who really shaped the Western civilisation, its philosophy of course but these giant minds have also founded science and the rigours of scientific exploration.
Aristotle who is considered as the most influential philosopher was also Europe’s first biologist.
So to summarise their links: Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle.
But while Socrates never wrote anything, and Plato wrote about Socrates and his own theory of ideas, Aristotle wrote about everything : government, society and philosophy but also about physics, biology, zoology, geology, meteorology, economics metaphysics, psychology, logic, poetry, linguistics, rhetoric, music …
He wrote a synthesis about the previous philosophers, he devised methods of inquiry for science. Roughly we can say that Aristotle has influenced every form of knowledge in the Western world and has influenced more than anyone else the rational scientific culture.
So Professor Aristotle, thank you for accepting this interview. We are extremely grateful for this extraordinary opportunity as you are widely considered as the most important philosopher who ever lived. You were a great scholar and knew a lot about a huge number of disciplines. You are credited for writing 200 books even if unfortunately only around 47 notes have survived, is it true?
Aristotle :
“My books or more precisely my lectures notes, my knowledge are not important because every day, every second every where in the world there are new discoveries, new knowledge to learn and to share. lt is a continuous process. I hope that my contribution to the world was to show people how to use reason, how to work things out in a systematic way.
What is important is to be able to answer to the “four causes”. I believe that everything has four causes. For each abject or phenomenon we must ask:
what is it made of?
what is the final design ? How was it made ?
What is its purpose ?
I believe that there is a purpose behind everything in nature”.
You differ considerably from your teacher Plato?
Aristotle :
“ I was a pupil at Plato’s Academy for almost 20 years. Remember that, young man when you complained about the length of your study. There is no one I admired most.
But I didn’t agree with all his ideas. Maybe because my father was a respected physician and was more of a scientist, I have always been passionate about the changes in nature white Plato was more focused on eternal ideas.
Maybe the biggest difference between us two is that I was very excited to use my senses along with my reason. For Plato we think exclusively with our reason.
There I differ from Plato as I believe that we perceive also through our senses. I believe that nature is the real world.
According to Plato there is nothing in the natural world that has not first existed in the world of ideas. Whereas I firmly believe that nothing exists in consciousness that has not first been experienced by the senses. For me the forms, the ideas are in the things, as they are the particularcharacteristics of these things.
Do you agree with Plato at all?
Aristotle :
“ Of course. Remember that as my teacher Plato has given me the ground, I wanted to go further For example we did agree that humans have innate reasoning.
But I don’t agree with Plato when he says that humans have innate ideas. I believe that our reasoning would be empty without our senses and perceptions.”
Vou are considered to be the father of logic, you are credited to have founded the science of logic?
Aristotle :
“ I have always been a meticulous organiser I always wanted to clarify concepts but also everything in the natural world. So first I divided non-living things from living things which have the potentiality to change.
Then I divided living things in 2 categories: plants and creatures. Then I divided creatures between animais and humans. For you it does look elementary but by developing a formai system of reasoning you could explain natural events. l’m very proud that my system of logic is still accepted..
For example: You , young man, use syllogism.”
What is that? Syllogism? I don’t even know the word? “
Aristotle :
“Let me explain : a Syllogism is when 2 true statements make a third statement necessarily true : so for example l A=B: and B=C , then C=A , right ?”
Yes of course l just didn’t know that it was called a syllogism.
Aristotle :
“The purpose of logic is to enable valid deductions. But sometimes I was proven wrong. For example, Galileo in his experiment called the leaning Tower of Pisa proved me wrong by demonstrating that abjects of different sizes and masses fall with the same acceleration whereas I believed that abjects fall at speed proportional to their mass. I was proven wrong on this important point.”
But your logic, your reasoning and your observation made you realise things that will take centuries to be scientifically validated.
Aristotle :
“lt is true that some of my zoological observations like the reproductive arm, the hectocotyl on the octopus were disbelieved until the 19th century when it was proved to be true.”
And there are also The Aristotle Mountains in the Antarctic which are named after you as you anticipated around 350 BCE in your notes “Meteorology” their presence. You were the first to conjecture the existence of a landmass in the southern high-latitude region, calling it already Antarctica. The name Antarctica cornes from the Greek word antarktiké meaning “opposite to the north.” I have to admit that for me it is just mind blowing. What would be your advice for us from the Underworld?
Aristotle :
“I would repeat my principle of the golden mean, which is to show moderation, or striving for a balance between extremes.
…For every aspect of your life, try to keep a balance.
As my very estimated teacher Plato and our predecessor Socrates I believe that one must focus on virtue. You need to always keep a tight control of your life.
ln the ancient world, courage, moderation, justice and piety were the leading qualities of moral virtue. From the Underworld I have noticed that piety has become outdated, which is in my opinion a huge mistake. Remember that some entity which most of us call a god had to started all.
Finally please remember Socrates : don’t be fooled by the amount of knowledge you think you have at your fingertips, there is so much more that you don’t know and can not even apprehend , so so much….”
Thank you so much for this amazing opportunity. We are so immensely grateful.
More than 2300 years after your death, you are still one of the most influential people who has ever lived. So thank you.
Unfortunately our unique connection to the Underworld has been ended.
There will be more to corne next time . We are hoping to get an interview with non the less than Aristotle’s most famous pupil.
Meanwhile stay safe, stay tuned…..
« ln the end, when it’s over, all that matters is what you’ve done. »
During his leadership, from 336-323 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the Greek city-states, the Persian Empire and founded more than 70 cities creating an empire that stretched across three continents and covered about two million square miles. Alexander the Great (356 to 324 BCE) left Macedonia in 334 BCE at age of 21 with 43,000 foot soldiers and 6,000 horsemen. He would never return home again.
Alexander the Great established the Greek culture and created a Hellenistic world.
After his death, Alexander’s empire was divided up into kingdoms, ruled by his generals.
We are so excited to welcome for an imaginary interview from the Underworld one of the most fascinating real heroes of our past : the glorious Alexander the Great.
Thank you, your Majesty, to have accepted this fictional interview. What an amazing destiny you had.
From your kingdom of Macedonia you built an empire. You are considered to be one of history’s most successful military commanders.
But weren’t you yourself the heir of a great king?
Alexander the Great :
“I inherited the throne of Macedonia at the age of 20. My father king Philip had already transformed Macedonia into a powerfu/ and centralised monarchy. He also had reunited under his leadership all the major Greek cities except Sparta in a military union named the Corinthia League with the common objective to invade the Persian empire in retaliation for their past invasions.
The enemies of my father were delighted to deal with me, a 20 years o/d boy. They very quickly understood that they were wrong about me. After sacking the city of Thebes, they all got perfectly my message and I was immediately given the generalship of Greece.
Scholars and historians have been fighting over the assassination of your father Philip who had recently married a young woman of a noble Macedonian family. There were rumours that you and especially your mother Olympias were fearing the eventual birth of a male heir who might have been a contender to the throne.
Alexander the Great :
“Are you seriously asking me if I murdered my father? Thal is quite bold. You are lucky that I value bravery. So the answer is no. Not at all. lt is just a nonsense.
My father had very carefully prepared me for his succession since my birth. He monitored my education and sent for the most celebrated teacher in Greece : the famous Aristotle , also a Macedonian, to teach me. The day that I tamed the indomptable Bucephalus, who was the most magnificent but also the most ferocious horse he had ever seen because I had noticed that he was frightened of his own shadow, that day when I was 10 he decided that I was his true heir. He wasn’t known to change his mind. At his age he knew he could not prepare properly another heir. My father was a pragmatic.
So I have never doubted that I was going to succeed him. Now you need to understand that my mother Olympias was an outstanding woman, she was extremely educated, proud and was fearless. I don’t know and don’t want to know about her relationship with my father. lt was their own business.”
So in 334 BCE you launched your father’s pan-Hellenic conquest, you had the leadership of all the Greek armies. You crossed with your armies the Hellespont and invaded the mighty Persian empire. ln all your battles, you were never defeated, how so? What, in your opinion, explains this almost divine invincibility?
Alexander the Great :
“Weil, do you remember that l’m the only one who was able to unravel the knot made by Gordius ? ln a creative but efficient way. The prophecy was true.”
Of course it even became an expression that we still use today, referring to you : to cut the Gordian Knot, meaning now to solve in a creative manner an extremely difficult, complicated, intricate problem.
ln 333 BC, while marching through Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, you arrived in the city of Gordium, where the founder, Gordius, king of Phrygia had tied hundreds years ago a knot so complicated that he had given the prophecy that “whoever would unravel this knot would rule over the whole of Asia”.
Many had tried without success. Until you, who after struggling with the complex knot, lost patience, thought outside the box, and with one stroke of your sword, sliced through the knot. After that, you effectively went to conquer Asia, fulfilling the prophecy.
This episode of how you solved the problem of the Gordian knot is so telling about your unique personality. Still in the terrible battles that you had to fight what do you think made you invincible?
Alexander the Great :
“I was on/y 20, but as I have already explained to you, my father had made sure that I was extremely well prepared, having learned ail about strategy and the art of the war. I had the support of my very experienced father’s generals and all of my own age generals, my mates, my schoolmates.
When centuries later your Prime Minister Lord Wellington notoriously said that the battle of Waterloo had been won on the playing fields of Eton” people understood that it was because of the rules in public schools. Not really, it’s more due to the friendship, the bonds that you have created with your schoolmates.
My wise father had created a kind of boarding school for myself and the children of Macedonian nobles, like Ptolemy , Hephaiston or Cassandre. We grew up together, we were true friends, they were my companions. We were educated together by the great Aristotle. On the battlefield even miles apart we could work like one man as we all knew so perfectly each other.”
During centuries, all your battles have been studied, even dissected to try to find out the recipes for military success. According to scholars, historians and military experts you based your strategy on 5 principles.
Alexander the Great:
“Well, l’m most certainly very curious, go on …
According to these experts you would:
Alexander the Great :
“Not a bad analysis but these principles are not enough to win against experienced armies. There is so much more. First as Aristotle taught us : observe the terrain and use it , it’s the key element. Then you adapt accordingly your phalanx and cavalry tactics, and you need of course the fierce /loyalty of your troops.
I have never lost a battle, despite being most of the time outnumbered. I led the cavalry charges myself , wearing usually an easy-to-spot white-plumed helmet. I have suffered severe sword, lance, arrow and knife wounds . I always told my soldiers that “there is no part of my body…which has not a scar…and for all your sakes, for your glory and your gain.”
My men knew that I was enduring the same hardships that any of them during a campaign, they knew that I was the first into the battle.”
lt is so impressive to think that you have never lost a battle in all your life, especially as you were the first into the battle. Ali the enemies must have targeted you as you were wearing a white -plumed helmet, making you an easy target?
Alexander the Great :
“ What now you call « luck » we called it « protected by the gods « . I felt blessed by the gods to always survive. I was obviously fulfilling a divine mission, why the arrow passed over my head as I was leaning ? Why the horse of my enemy stumbled enabling me to kill / him ?
I felt invincible and specially blessed by the gods, I felt a special connection with Achilles, the hero described by Homer. Aristotle had given me his annotated book of The lliad, it has never left my side.
lt is true that because of this incredible invincibility I developed a belief in my own divine heritage, which my mother had always believed in. This caused problems with my troops as the Macedonians rejected this idea. However, I continued to insist on my divinity, even casting a godlike image of myse/f on coins. I was the first mortal to dare it.
What is also amazing is that you kept your army supplied by recruiting from the enemy. The fact that you could successfully do this speaks volumes about your leadership?
Alexander the Great :
“I just don’t understand the generals who want to lead their armies in the safety of their headquarters. I sincerely don’t get it. I loved my men, I would never have asked them something that I could not have done myself and they knew that.
I was very touched by the wounds and the pain of my soldiers. After a battle I would visit them , examine their wounds, talk to our physicians, listen to their stories. More important/y I would make sure that they understood how their actions had been vital to our victory, that all their actions, their wounds had been so meaningful for us.
Not many generals or leaders are known to do that?
Alexander the Great :
“I had a good tutor named Aristotle who had warned me that before being a leader I had to learn to serve. I never forgot that tesson. I was always able to put myself into the shoes of my soldiers. I understood them.”
Vou fulfilled the dream of your father by conquering the entire Persian empire, overthrowing king Darius III. Your empire stretched from Greece to the Indus River. But you had to turn back because of your homesick armies?
Alexander the Great :
“Yes, it had already been almost a decade that we had left Macedonia and Greece, our homes, our families. I was ready to continue for ever this conquest, to discover new people, new cultures, to feel the frenzy of a new battle. They refused, I understood that I had been requesting too much from them. So we turned back.
But something had been broken in me . I wanted so eagerly to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea. When we arrived in Persia I sent most of my veterans home with riches and honours. I died soon after in 323 in Babylon of a supposed fever.
Your tomb has still not been found, despite numerous expeditions. Once you were deceased or poisoned, your mother, your wife Roxane and your son Alexander born after your death were killed by your generals : it is indeed a sad story for such a great conqueror.
Alexander the Great :
“ I died from fever or from poison, I don’t know, at the age of 32 while my wife Roxana was pregnant. lt is true that I have been careless and not given enough thought to my succession. lt was a grave, a terrible mistake. After my death my empire collapsed, my family was killed, my generals fought among themselves for greed. What a bitter outcome !”
But your story, your legacy and your influence is immense and has inspired so many throughout the centuries. Vou have become as legendary as Achilles. Vou have spread the Greek culture in the whole Hellenistic world which will develop into our modern Western civilisation. But amazingly for your time you have also tried to mix the different populations by mariages. Did you want to create a multicultural society?
Alexander the Great :
“ Yes that was my plan. I believed that we needed to learn from each other to become better and stronger. I myself married Roxana, a Persian princess, and I made many of my soldiers married Persian women in order to mix them and avoid the conqueror ‘s mistakes, where the winners impose their rules to a foreign nation and therefore develop hostility towards the alien conquerors. We had a lot to learn from the Persian and from the different nations we came across.”
That was a revolutionary concept to imagine and create a multicultural society. lt was so innovative that more than 2000 years were needed to arrive to the same conclusion you had : we need to mix and learn from each other.
Vour legacy is immense and today we still admire you, Alexander the Great. Thank you so much for this incredible, amazing fictional interview.
And remember dear audience that there is more to corne on our podcast. Next week we will abide our farewell to our great heroes of our beloved Ancient Greece.
So more to corne.
Meanwhile stay safe, stay tuned…..
Do you know what are the 7 wonders of the world ?
Well, what I know is that in ancient times 7 architectural monuments were considered to be so amazing that they would be named wonders.
Why Seven ?
Seven is a sacred number for Pythagoras and the very important Pythagorean school which influenced the Hellenistic world. This prime number symbolised perfection.
Could you named each one of these 7?
Let’s list them :
My trick to remember them is to group them by countries : Egypt, Irak, Turkey and Greece.
But who made the list? When was it made? For what purpose?
Thanks to Alexander the Great and his extraordinary conquests in 334 BCE, the Greeks discovered the richness of other civilisations, the Egyptian which they long knew through trade, the Persian, a long-standing enemy, the far away Babylonians until the remote Hindus Valley.
At that time, based on the memoirs or testimonies of generals and intellectuals coming back from these far away and exotic territories, the lists of wonders man made were created by Greek authors, with detailed descriptions and drawings.
These lists were rediscovered in the Renaissance and triggered the imagination of artists and intellectuals.
More importantly for us : is the list for real? Have these monuments really existed ? Or are they figments of the imagination of Renaissance scholars?
That was a crucial question starting at the Renaissance but especially in the whole 19th century where numerous archaeological expeditions were sent all over the world by the dominant western countries or at that time empires in a terrible competition for archaeological treasures.
Let’s start with a paradox : the only wonders that we still can admire are amazingly the oldest of the Ancient Wonders and by far.
lt is the Giza Pyramid Complex in Greater Cairo in Egypt. For almost 4000 years the Great Pyramid was the highest monument ever built . ln fact there are 3 pyramids:
Finally Menkaure’s pyramid was completed around 2510 BCE.
Ali were built during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. When Alexander the Great contemplated them, the Pyramids were already 2200 years old.
lt’s quite incredible to think that one of the most famous monument in the world is one of the oldest ever built.
There is still much speculation and bewilderment about how the pyramids were build, isn’t it?
Absolutely ! lt must have taken thousands of men, and years of time, to construct the Pyramids of Giza. lt is thought that around 2.3 million blocks were used to build the largest structure alone. Especially when you know that the weight of each block used to construct the Great Pyramid weighs approximately 11.5-15 tonnes. And remember that the Great Pyramid stands at approximately 137 meters high. lt has lost some of its structure over the years so originally it would have been higher, at around 146 meters. How was it built before the wheel was even discovered ? lt is still discussed passionately between the archaeologists.
So when you think about the purpose of the pyramid and about the ancient Egyptian belief that you are not dead till your name is pronounced, the pyramids really made these pharaohs immortals?
That is very true. Just imagine how many students, tourists pronounce every second around the world the name of Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid. What is ironic is that the only surviving representation of the mighty pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid, Khufu is a small statuette of only 7,5 centimetres.
So we must know almost everything about the Pyramids by now, roughly 4500 years ago?
Far from it. I have already explained that the construction of the pyramids remains a subject of discussions among the archeologists.
The Great Pyramid continues to fascinate all of us and everyone agrees that the Great Pyramid hasn’t given all its secrets. Recently a mysterious hidden room has been discovered. “The void is the first large inner structure discovered within the 4,500-year-oldpyramid since the 1B00s-a find made possible by recent advances in high energy particle physics“T he discovery was made by The Scan Pyramid Project, an international mission under the authority of Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities. Launched in October 2015, the project aims to non-invasively peer into Egypt’s largest pyramids using a battery of new technologies.
There are so many unsolved mysteries about the pyramids:
From the space it is now proven that the 3 pyramids line up with the points of the compass, how was that achieved? Another question : the measurements of the Great Pyramid are dazzlingly accurate: the angle of the slope is precisely and constantly 52 degrees from top to bottom. How could the Ancient Egyptians have mastered such a precision?
So apart from the Pyramids, the six others wonders have disappeared. So how do we know about that they really existed ?
ln the 19th century there were numerous archeological expeditions from the different colonial empires. At the time there was a immense fascination for finding traces of our distant past especially the ones quoted in literature such as Troy for example. The 19th archaeologists have rediscovered the traces of 2 marvels in Turkey then the Ottoman Empire: fragments of the Halicarnassus Mausoleum in Bodrum and the ruins of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus
Why? Had the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus disappeared?
For the Western world absolutely. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, our whole civilisation collapsed under the invasion of barbarians. Populations were in survival mode and civilisation was kept only by the skin of our teeth thanks mainly to the Byzantine Empire and the monks disseminated through Europe.
ln the 19th century we had lost track of Troy, of Halicarnassus. We were not even sure where to locate them as the new conquerors had given centuries ago new names to their territory.
So let’s start with Turkey and firstly the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, by the name mausoleum I guess that it is a tomb ?
You are absolutely right as this is the monument which created the word, Mausoleum has now corne to be used generically for an above-ground tomb. lt was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC for Mausolus who was the King of the province of Caria and a satrap in the Achaemenid Empire , also called the first Persian empire.
Who built it ? A Persian architect ?
Asia Minor was colonised by Greeks. lt is believed that it was originally a colony of Minoans, of Crete.
Herodotus, the famous Ancient Greek historian was born in Halicarnassus during the 5th century BC. According to Homer in ‘The lliad” the city of Miletus belonged to the Carians and was allied to Troy.
Caria was then incorporated into the Persian empire in 545 BC. Il was built for the Satrap Mausolus, a native Anatolian , who admired the Greek civilisation and decided with his wife-sister? Artemisia to build the most magnificent capital city ever seen in Halicarnassus. The mausoleum was built by Greek architects and was inspired by a famous tomb in nearby Lycia “The Nereid Monument”.
ls it true that we can actually see both monuments, the Nereid monument and fragments gathered in a stunning reconstitution of the Mausolus of Halicarnassus in the heart of London? ln the British Museum?
lncredibly yes ! There every day in the British Museum you can easily understand why it was immediately recognised as a wonder.
The Mausoleum dominated the city of Halicarnassus for many centuries . lt was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC and still undamaged after attacks by pirates in 62 and 58 BC as if it was too awesome to be damaged. lt stood above the city’s ruins for sixteen centuries.
lt was probably destroyed by successive earthquakes from the 12th to the 15th century,
Many of the stones from the ruins were used by the knights to fortify their castle in Bodrum, then the name of Halicarnassus.
ln 1846 Lord Stratford de Redcliffe obtained permission to remove these reliefs from Bodrum to England.
ls there more to discover about the Mausoleum of the Halicarnassus ?
Modern excavations at Halicarnassus have revealed that the actual dimensions of the Mausoleum (today only fragments remain) vary only slightly from the Ancient Roman historian Pliny the Elder’s description. According also to Pliny the craftsmen decided to stay and finish the work after the death of their patrons Mausolus and two years after Artemisia as the sculptors considered ” that it was also a memorial of their own art”. lt was most certainly stunning.
And what about the Temple of Artemis also located in present day Turkey ?
The temple of Artemis was built earlier, in the 6th century BCE. lt was by far the most impressive temple in the whole world as it was double the dimensions of any other Greek temple including the later Parthenon.
Destroyed by a fire in the 4th century BCE and then rebuilt, we know that the great Ionie temple survived until Late Antiquity and the Gothic invasion in 267 CE. Once again rebuilt, in 401 CE it was torn down for the last time by a Christian mob. Today only the foundations and one solitary column are still there to remind us that once stood what was considered by the Ancient Greeks as a wonder, the most beautiful Greek temple ever.
But the Temple of Artemis had also to be found in the 19th century?
Absolutely, as it had been destroyed, even if the location of Ephesus was known, the location of the temple was a mystery. Such was the legendary splendour of the Temple of Artemis that it was the very first ancient site that 19th-century CE western archaeologists deliberately went digging for. After six years of searching, the site of the temple was rediscovered in 1869 by a British Museum expedition led by John Turtle Wood.
ln mainland Greece what about the Statue of Zeus in Olympia?
This representation of Zeus was considered to be the greatest statue ever built, which is appropriate for the god of the gods. The statue is supposed to have been almost 13 meters high on a wood frame and the marble was covered in some parts by gold and ivory making it the most precious and prestigious statue of the ancient world..
The temple was built between the years of 472 and 456 BCE.
The statue was one of two masterpieces by the Greek sculptor Phidias, Pericles’s friend (the other being the statue of Athena in the newly built Parthenon) and was placed in the huge Temple of Zeus at Olympia where the Olympic Garnes gave homage to Zeus.
But is the statue still there?
Unfortunately for all of us, the statue no longer exists.
When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the early fourth century A.D., he ordered that all gold be stripped from any pagan shrines, including the Statue of Zeus at Olympia.
After the Olympie games were banned in 391 C.E. by the emperor Theodosius I as Pagan practices, the temple of Zeus was closed.
The temple and the statue of were destroyed by a fire in the fifth century A.D. No copy was ever found. Ali the details of the statue today are taken from depictions on coins and Ancient Greek descriptions.
ls there any detailed description of the statue?
A visiter to the Statue of Zeus in 97 A.D., Dio Crysostomos described the statue as being made of gold, ebony, ivory and precious stones. He also said that there were images of animais and Greek gods carved into the chair. ln Zeus’ right hand was a figure of the goddess of victory Athena-Nike. ln his left hand he held a scepter topped with an eagle.
Wasn’t there a theory that the immense statue was looted and taken to Constantinople?
One theory states that a Greek art collecter named Lausus moved the statue to Constantinople. lt became part of his private collection. ln 475 A.D. a fire swept through Constantinople and the statue was destroyed. But considering the immense size of the statue I personally believe that it must have been a reduced size copy which is more plausible.
So how can we know that it ever existed for real ?
ln Olympia, in the 1950s archaeologists have discovered near the arena an ancient workshop with tools to sculpt and a bowl with the inscription: ‘ I belong to Phidias”, one of the most renowned sculpter of the Ancient Greece. He is supposed to be the creator of the immense statue of Zeus in Olympia.
Archeologists have now established for sure that there was an immense temple and that the location of the gigantic statue can still be seen precisely .
What about the Lighthouse of Alexandria? lt is the most recent discovery?
Very recently. ln 1990s archaeologists have discovered numerous massive pillars and huge blacks of stone decorated with hieroglyphs under the sea in the island of Pharos in Alexandria . They also found an enormous Sphinx in stone.
But the remains of the Alexandria’s lighthouse are not only under the sea. On the island of Pharos a medieval fort, the citadel of ket-Bey, was erected in the 15th century . The foundation of the fort is made with the same massive stones which were discovered under the sea. lt is now believed that the fort was built on the remains and with the materials of the lighthouse.
The mosque inside the citadel is more and more being considered by experts as the remainder of the Lighthouse. First its entrance is positioned towards the North, towards the sea which is odd for a mosque. Then when you are inside and look up within the minaret , the tower is bizarrely square and the top with the openings for the light is octagonal, which is unusual in lslamic architecture . But these geometric shapes are described in the description of the Alexandria ‘s Lighthouse by the ancient authors. This description is substantiated by images of the Lighthouse on ancient coins.
What is even more fascinating is that supposedly it was Alexander the Great himself who drew the plans of his whole new city Alexandria , of the famous library and of the incredible Pharos which he wanted to be seen from the shores of Crete, of Greece, thus linking his new empire. Alexander, who had along with his Macedonian generals been educated by the most famous philosopher Aristotle. So many archeologists believe that the mosque is the remainder of Alexander’s lighthouse because of the Ancient Greek theory of “Sacred Geometry ” which Alexander and his generals were familiar with as Aristotle was a pupil of Plato.
Absolutely : ln Ancient Greece according to the “sacred geometry” theory: an octagon is the union of 2 shapes: a circle and a square. The circle represents heaven and the square the earth unified in an infinite connection.
For Plato, the teacher of Aristotle who educated Alexander and all his Macedonian generals geometry was linked to the theory of forms. And it seems logical to think that Alexander chose this perfect geometric form for his Pharos.
Then going back to Greece did we find any proof of the existence of the Colossus of Rhodes?
Quite recently as well. ln Rhodes, the Colossus, the representation of the Sun God Helios , was towering over the harbour ( 33 meters high).
The archaeologists believe now that the colossus wasn’t standing astride the harbour as it was believed in the Renaissance but was dominating the harbour. lt was built at the place where a medieval fortress was later erected
and is still there. The archaeologists have recently discovered with the help of the latest technologies massive stone blocks which like in Alexandria, have been used for the foundation of the medieval fortress. These stone blocks are ancient and big enough to have been the basis of the Colossus.
lt was an incredible work of technology as well as art?
The Colossus is believed to have been the biggest bronze statue ever built : 33 metres (108 feet) high – approximately the height of a building with 1O fl oors.
But this colossal bronze statue was in tact the most fragile and ephemeral of the 7 wonders?
True. lt is believed to have dominated only for 54 years until it collapsed during an earthquake around 226 BCE. Ptolemy 111 , faithful to his Greek heritage, offered to pay for its reconstruction but the Oracle of Delphi made the Rhodians afraid that they had offended the Sun-god Helios and they declined the generous offer.
lt laid on the ground for 800 years until in 653 the Muslim armies conquered Rhodes and destroyed it.
Considering the value of the bronze material used it is reasonable to think that the bronze material used for the Colossus was melted and sold out.
So the only one of the Seven Wenders of the Ancient world whose existence hasn’t yet been proven are the “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” in present day Irak?
The importantword in your question is “yet”.
lt is true that despite the myths surrounding the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, there is yet no real archaeological evidence to support any of these stories. lt has recently been suggested that the gardens may have been built by the Assyrian King Sennacherib in the 7th century BCE ( 705-681) nearthe city of Mosul, in Nineveh so some 400 kilometres away. Sennacherib is ironically known in history for sacking Babylon and destroying ils temples.
So there is no proof that the Hanging Gardens of BabyIon were even in Babylon?
True but honestly the story is just too wonderful. The most popular story about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon is that the King Nabuchodonosor Il created for his wife these extraordinary gardens as she longed in this desert for her childhood garden. Many old documents have been discovered which depicted these gardens and the network of aqueducts and underground terracotta pipes which collected the precious water.
But unfortunately so far nothing has been found to validate these extraordinary gardens. As it must have been an extraordinary “tour de force ” to bring the precious water through the arid environment and then to build such a robust architecture to support and carry vegetation, trees….The technical challenges must have been extraordinary. King Nebuchadnezzar Il ruled the ancien! city between the years of 605 and 562 BC. it is thought that they collapsed or were destroyed after the first century AD.
So it couId have never existed?
lt is now agreed by all the experts that the seven wonders of the world are for real even if we can suppose that the different authors had not been and seen with their own eyes these marvels.
For centuries some seemed either to have been lost forever or to have never existed such as:
The lighthouse of Alexandria the Statue of Zeus
ln Ephesus the temple of Artemis The colossus of Rhodes
The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
The latest technologies have allowed us to find proofs of their existence, except still The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But with so many evidence it seems fair to accept the truthfulness of this list.
Hi, in today’s podcast we are going to bid farewell to our heroes of Ancient Greece.
But let us first address the elephant in the room, don’t you think that selecting only 8 heroes or personalities is a too small selection to represent properly the richness of the Ancient Greek civilisation?
Yes absolutely. Our choice was completely persona!. The personalities that we have selected in this series represent, in our view, the epitome of this incredible time. Of course we do acknowledge that our choice is debatable as there were so many outstanding people.
We therefore need to apologise for all the great heroes that we have deliberately forgotten in our series. lt is most certainly very unfair.
How did you select these 8 few, happy few?
As you can easily imagine our choice was extremely difficult. There were so many incredible minds in Ancient Greece such as mathematicians like Pythagoras, Thales, Euclid or Archimedes and his famous “Eureka”, whose findings we all still do use every day. We are embarrassed to have omitted the play writers such as Sophocles or Euripides whom Alexander the Great liked to quote . There are of course so many philosophers, so many great heroes whose legacy is still treasured today in ail aspects of ourwestern civilisation.
So we decided that our only way to make a selection was to choose deliberately, selfishly our favourite heroes. Our selection is completely persona!, we each of us chose 4 personalities whom we would love to talk to.
After researching and exploring these great heroes from the past what are your thoughts, your own conclusion?
What we both found minci blowing is the extraordinary intuition of the Ancient Greeks who in fact have shaped the scientific curiosity of our Western civilisation.
When Heraclitus (535- c. 475 BCE) declared that “You never swim in the same river twice” he had understood intuitively that everything changes, nothing remains the same, prefiguring the law of entropy which was formulated only in the last centuries.
What about the intuition of Leucippus in 500 BCE and his student Democritus who figured that the world was made of building blocks and that the tiniest element was to be called an atom?
When in 200 BCE, Eratosthenes estimated the Earth’s circumference to be 46,250 kilometres ; he was only making an error of roughly 6000 kilometres. He measured the angle of a shadow cast by a stick at noon on the summer solstice in Alexandria , and found it made an angle of about 7.2 degrees, or about 1/50 of a complete circle. How extraordinary is that?
What really amazed us is that many of their theories, which were based solely on their extraordinary intuition have been validated by science sometimes after thousands of years and for some only quite recently if you refer to the observations of Aristotle about the octopus.
But many of their theories are now quite ridiculous or have been proven wrong?
Of course, many of their ideas have also been proven wrong or irrelevant and even absurd.
Even the great mathematician Thales (625-545) whose theorem we still use every day in our digital world was completely wrong by thinking that the world has developed from water.
But even if we know now that he was wrong for the formation of the universe all the scientists agree that life came from the water, so he is not completely wrong.
What has been proven wrong, for example, is the great philosopher Aristotle who thought that objects fall at a speed proportional to their mass. He was proven wrong in the 17th century by Galileo in his experiment in the leaning Tower of Pisa who demonstrated that objects of different sizes and masses fall with the same acceleration.
Ancient Greece, despite all these extraordinary philosophers, mathematicians and soldiers was finally dominated bythe Roman Empire?
From about the year 50 BCE, Rome took the leadership and conquered one by one all the Hellenistic kingdoms . lt was the beginning of the mighty Roman Empire. But remember that Rome used to be a province of Greek culture. So Greek culture, Greek art and Greek philosophy were going to dominate in the Roman Empire, long after the political or military power of the Greeks had completely disappeared .
While Athens remained the centre of philosophy with many schools of philosophy welcoming pupils from all over the new empire , Alexandria with its impressive library founded by Alexander the Great became the capital for mathematics, astronomy, biology and medicine.
But when you learn about the history of Ancient Greece, you can’t help to find a lot of similarities with our own recent history :
a fratricidal war : for them between Athens and Sparta , for us with the First World War.
• The emergence of a new empire: the Roman Empire for-them, the American domination for us.
How would you both conclude your exploration of Ancient Greece? What feelings prevail?
1 think that for both of us it would be our amazement as we have explained it but also gratitude as we are constantly building thanks to the strong base that they have provided for us.
The civilization of ancient Greece flourished more than 3000 years ago but the ideas , the concepts and even the words of the ancient Greeks continue to influence us and shape our world.
Today we try to find out someone’s Achilles heel, we look for symmetry to judge beauty, we fear for the future of our democracies, we applaud in unison at the Olympie Garnes. The plays of Sophocles, the fables of Aesop’s, the philosophy of Aristotle, the theorem of Thales are explained in schools. We still scream “Eureka” when we find a solution to a difficult problem. We couId go on and on. Our Greek heritage is just so immense.
Any additional comment?
Weil, according to the Ancient Greeks, the gods gave you life under the condition to make your given life useful. A useless life with no achievement was a sin that would condemn you to walk endlessly in the kingdom of shadows. lt’s quite a useful guidance for ail of us.
So today we bid a farewell to Ancient Greece. Next week on “Live from the Underworld” we start an incredible adventure with fictional interviews with all the kings, queens and personalities who made the glorious history of England.
So more fantastic fictional interviews to corne.
Meanwhile stay safe, stay tuned and don’t forget about our great Ancient Greek heroes’s advice : make your life useful !
