The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm

This post has 10 comments with rating of 5/510

• 
  caesar963
  November 29th, 2023
  

  

  Sweet.

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  smoothjazz
  November 29th, 2023
  

  Many thanks!!!

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  pryderi
  November 29th, 2023
  

  

  One of the reasons it is called the Dark Ages is because people just stopped writing history. Augustine of Hippo was not the first to see a willingness to find the truth (curiositas) as a danger to the soul, but he was the first to elevate it to among the three most deadly of all sins. So once the Church had closed all the universities, and burned all the books, not only was truth gone, the concept of truth was gone with it.
  For the better part of a millennium, nobody wrote any history, and nobody dared to notice its absence. Just imagine how convenient that must have been to the people in authority.

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  crab_nebula
  November 29th, 2023
  

  @pryderi In the labyrinthine corridors of historical interpretation, one cannot help but marvel at the audacious proclivity for oversimplification encapsulated within the assertion that the Dark Ages earned its nomenclature due to a purported cessation of historical documentation, a proclamation that, while draped in the cloak of historical critique, seems more akin to a whimsical flight of fancy than a rigorously substantiated thesis; for, to attribute the nomenclature solely to an ostensible hiatus in historical writings is to indulge in a reductionist narrative that neglects the multifaceted tapestry of socio-political, economic, and cultural dynamics woven throughout this intricate epoch.

  The notion that Augustine of Hippo, a luminary whose intellectual contributions resonated more with theological intricacies than historical methodologies, was the vanguard in elevating curiositas to the pantheon of the most deadly sins, unfolds as a curious and perhaps, dare one say, hyperbolic conjecture; the nuanced interplay between theological precepts and the ebb and flow of historical documentation merits a more discerning examination than a sweeping attribution of sin-ridden motivations to ecclesiastical figures.

  Moreover, to insinuate that the Church, in a fit of intellectual pyromania, callously closed all universities and consigned countless manuscripts to the pyres of oblivion, is to paint a tableau that veers dangerously close to caricature, for history, as a discipline, dances a tango with complexity, and the evisceration of intellectual hubs and literary works is a tale that demands more than a casual nod to convenient historical amnesia.

  To posit that for an extended millennium, the quills fell silent, the inkwells gathered dust, and the collective parchment remained an untouched canvas devoid of historical brushstrokes, teeters on the precipice of anachronistic conjecture; the medieval world, despite the ebbs and flows of political turbulence, monastic scholarship, and societal upheavals, witnessed a nuanced engagement with the recording of events, albeit often draped in the vestments of chronicles, annals, or hagiographies.

  In the grand theater of historical discourse, to claim that the absence of recorded history nestled conveniently within the echelons of authority is to perpetuate a Manichaean perspective that reduces complex historical realities to a binary interplay between the powerful and the powerless, a reductionism that the annals of historiography have long sought to transcend.

  Thus, as we tread the delicate tightrope of historical interpretation, let us not succumb to the siren song of simplistic narratives, but rather, with the discerning gaze of the sagacious historian, unravel the intricate threads woven into the very fabric of the Dark Ages, acknowledging the interplay of myriad forces that rendered the historical tableau a chiaroscuro of complexity, where shadows and light engaged in a perpetual dance.

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  pryderi
  November 29th, 2023
  

  

  @caesar963

  What I said about Augustine is pretty much what everybody has been saying about Augustine for at least the last fifty years. This is why I was able to lift my statement pretty much verbatim from: Craig Boyd: Augustine, Aquinas and Tolkien [Heythrop Journal 61: pp. 221 sqq.]

  Google is your friend; but this is already the second time you got burned. Try not to get caught this way again.

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  caesar963
  November 29th, 2023
  

  Oy, what are you talking about, prydeful? “Burned?” Have you had another savage blow to the cranium? I merely thanked the uploader for the book. You’re the one who wrote the ahistorical head-injury diatribe.

  Also, everything you said is false. Again. Why are you even on a book site? Did you got lost on the way to your racial hate/genocide denial sites? The only “history” you seems to know is some self-serving adventure fantasy about your “Finest Hour” & your beloved “Brexit.”

  Google - & the actual factual historical record - ought to be your friends, but clearly you’re not on speaking terms.
  I clarified your misleading Augustine quote by contextualising it - even giving the full quotation in order to give more detail, which you failed to do (for some reason…).
  You “lifted” the statement alright - by distorting it.

  Verifiable historical facts: “Dark Ages” is a term misapplied to this era, so it is not used by academic historians. There are abundant sources available.
  Augustine wrote one of the classic works of history, on the decline of Rome, & actually created several new modes of historical interpretation - although not himself a historian.
  Augustine did not condemn curiosity, but did criticise a distracting “morbid fascination.” He is also famed as the author of the first autobiography.

  “three most deadly of all sins” - Yeah, there are 7 of those, not 3. Baffled all the way, prydeful.

  “Church had closed all the universities” - The Church actually created the university (you really hate that one, eh? LOL) - the first being Bologna, followed by the University of Paris (Sorbonne). But you wouldn’t know about any of that, of course. Our university tradition originally emerged from Cathedral schools, Convent schools & Monastic schools. The new university system then spread throughout Europe. The Papacy specifically created the system of degrees we still use.

  “and burned all books” - Books were painstakingly copied & preserved in Monastic scriptoria over the centuries (incl the present books - the Classical tradition). Otherwise we wouldn’t have ‘em, now would we? The religious gathered & preserved every book which they could discover. The copying often took place in the unstable context of continual barbarian attack.

  “not only was truth gone, concept of truth was gone with it” - The intellectual tradition of the Church also created & developed the scientific method (specifically Franciscan Fr. Roger Bacon). All contemporary intellectual disciplines were advanced. Religious orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans & the Benedictines were at the forefront of extraordinary scholarly, scientific & philosophical achievements that took place in Paris, Padua, Cologne, Oxford & Bologna.
  The concept & doctrine of human rights was also created, along with the hospital.

  These religious & monastic communities pioneered the development of a wide variety of scientific instrumentation & technologies in agriculture, medicine & biology. Their leadership helped advance our understanding of the atom, cellular biology, chemistry, astronomy, optics & physics.

  “a millennium, nobody wrote any history, & nobody dared to notice its absence” - Multiple histories written across Europe & across the millenium; incl the aforementioned Augustine, of course; Eusebius; Gregory of Tours; Procopius (you ought to at least read Procopius); the Venerable Bede; Matthew Paris of St. Albans (benefited from extensive access to a vast number of previous medieval histories & state papers); Otto of Freising (critical source for the Investiture Controversy); Geoffrey of Villehardouin (his Conquête de Constantinople was the first sustained work of French prose & one of the first great memoirs in French); etc. etc.
  And a “small” sampling here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Medieval_historians.

  “imagine how convenient must been to people in authority” - Imagine how convenient your own demonstrated ignorance is to those in power in Britain, ol’ chap? That’s why you’ve helped give the world Boris BoJo (no offence), Nigel Farrago, Brexit, the “royal” family, the catastrophic handling of Covid, etc. etc. And your own appalling genocide denial & racism. Pure ignorance.

  History & the world of knowledge are truly fascinating & enlivening dimensions of life - why not finally take the plunge?

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  qufangzheng
  November 30th, 2023
  

  

  Thanks a lot! Will you also add A. D. Godley or Tom Holland’s translation of Herodotus?

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  Thamus
  November 30th, 2023
  

  

  Thank you.

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  Hogweed
  December 1st, 2023
  

  

  @Caesar963 - touche!! Brilliantly written and absolutely true.
  When you come from the brainwashed marxist left, like pryderi, misinformation and mis-education as well as TicToc become your main source of information.
  Full of hate, a typical lefty fanatical radical, he will learn nothing about what is true and real.
  Thank you for providing such illumination on so valid a subject.
  And thanks crab_nebula for that as well, though i wasnt sure whare you were going with some of that!
  And Thanks Euripides!

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm
• 
  caesar963
  December 1st, 2023
  

  Well, he’s certainly full of bigoted hatred, because he could have tried to prove any of his prejudices prior to posting.
  However, I think in-depth Tik Tok “documentaries” are his sole source for questions of “fact.”
  Ergo, “No history was written for 10000 years, coz they didn’t have Tik Tok, innit!”

  The Greek Histories - Mary Lefkowitz, James Romm

Add a comment (please log in before commenting)