Athens

Meno, a Platonic Dialogue. Why did Xenophon Despise Meno?
Philosophy

Meno, a Socratic Dialogue. Why Did Xenophon and Plato Despise Meno? How Did Meno Die?

12/21/2024 Bruce Strom 0

Xenophon, in Robin Waterfield’s translation, remembers:
“It was obvious that Meno longed to be rich; he wanted military command because it would bring him a greater share of the spoils, he wanted prestige because it would help him increase his wealth, and he wanted to be on good terms with the most powerful men because then he could avoid being punished for his crimes.”
Xenophon continues, “Meno thought that the quickest way for him to achieve his goals was to use perjury, lies, and deceit. In his opinion, openness and truthfulness were synonyms for stupidity. He evidently felt no affection for anyone, and if he claimed to be somebody’s friend it soon became clear that he was trying to sabotage him.”
Xenophon said that “Meno was frightened of people he found breaking promises and committing crimes, because he regarded them as well protected, and he tried to exploit people who were moral and honest because he regarded them as weak.” […]

Summary Platonic Dialogues on Love and Friendship
Philosophy

Summary of Platonic Dialogues on Love, With Commentary by Copleston and Anders Nygren

11/24/2023 Bruce Strom 2

How can we benefit by reflecting on Four Platonic Dialogues on Love: Lysis, Alcibiades, Symposium, and Phaedrus? How similar are they? Was it possible for men and women, and husbands and wives, to be friends in ancient Greece and Rome? Did the Platonic dialogues on love condone or encourage homosexuality […]

Platonic Dialogue: Protagoras and Socrates Debate: Can Virtue Be Taught?
Philosophy

Platonic Dialogue: Protagoras and Socrates Debate: Can Virtue Be Taught?

09/29/2023 Bruce Strom 0

Socrates wants his students to think for themselves, so we cannot assume that Socrates really believes that virtue cannot be taught. After all, at the end of the dialogue, Socrates asserts that true knowledge leads to virtue. Perhaps he seeks to dissuade the youths in Athens from studying under the Sophists, who claim to be able to teach anything, for a fee, a generous fee, of course.
What example comes to mind if we assert that virtue can be taught? We need to go no further than the Book of Judges, which is filled with horrible stories that atheists love to parade as proof that God is not a loving god. We must keep in mind the constant theme of the Book of Judges: Everyone in Israel did what was right IN HIS OWN EYES. Which is the slogan of the Sophists. […]

The Life, Adventures, and Philosophy of Xenophon, General and Student of Socrates
Greek and Roman History

The Life, Adventures, and Philosophy of Xenophon, General and Student of Socrates

08/03/2023 Bruce Strom 0

Was Xenophon a warrior, a historian, or a philosopher? Xenophon is one of the rare ancient authors whose entire corpus of major works have survived, putting him in the company of Plato and St Augustine, he was highly regarded among ancient and medieval scholars, though hyper-critical modern scholars tend to deprecate him. He was a student of Socrates and wrote several works featuring Socrates, including a fascinating collections of his Stoic-like sayings in the Memorabilia. […]

Platonic Dialogue Alcibiades 1, On Friendship, :Leadership, and Love
Philosophy

Platonic Dialogue Alcibiades 1, On Friendship, Leadership, and Love

07/14/2023 Bruce Strom 1

In antiquity through the Renaissance, Alcibiades I was a highly regarded Platonic dialogue, and was often the first dialogue serious students of philosophy studied. However, many modern scholars deprecate this dialogue, arguing that it was not written by Plato. We demur, we tend to side with the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance scholars in such judgments, who tend to be inclusive, whereas modern scholars tend to be exclusive, demanding absolute certainty of proof. Our translator agrees with us, he says that the German scholar Schleiermacher first doubted its authenticity based on scholarly taste and a superficial reading. IMHO, although it does appear to differ from his other earlier dialogues, Alcibiades I was likely either written by Plato, or maybe by one of his brightest students, with his input. […]

Summary of Greco-Persian Wars, Herodotus, Plutarch and Aeschylus Celebrate Greek Victory
Greek and Roman History

Summary of Greco-Persian Wars, Ancient Historians Herodotus, Plutarch and Aeschylus Celebrate Greek Victory

07/05/2023 Bruce Strom 2

The wars between Greek city-states, and Persian influence in these wars, continued after a short peace, and lasted another generation, exhausting the Greek city-states, leading to their subjection of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. The lesson that Alexander learned from of all these wars, starting with the Greco-Persian Wars, and from Xenophon’s leading the Greek mercenary armies from the heart of the Persian Empire, Babylon, back to Greek territory, was that the Greek hoplite armies were vastly superior to the Persian fighting forces. This meant for Alexander the Great that the Persian Empire was ripe for the taking. […]

Greek and Roman History

Summary of the Peloponnesian Wars Between Athens and Sparta

11/25/2022 Bruce Strom 4

Why study the Peloponnesian wars? One main reason is: You cannot understand the Platonic dialogues without first understanding the history of the Peloponnesian Wars, because so many of the leading figures of this period are referenced in the Platonic dialogues, and we can learn many moral lessons from the war, which changed the Greek city-states forever.
The history of the war includes many interesting personalities, including Pericles, the founder of the radical democracy of Athens who died in the first years of the war, and Alcibiades, the ladies’ man and charismatic personality who was a leader of all three sides of the antagonists of the war, and we have the Spartan general Lysander who spared Athens from destruction when she lost the war. […]

Greek and Roman History

Spartan Women, Marriage, Family Life and Sayings, From Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus

11/11/2022 Bruce Strom 1

Seizing women for marriage was part of many ancient cultures. When in war a particularly hated city-state was conquered, it was common practice to slaughter the military age men and enslave the women and children, and many of the women would be enslaved as concubines. Early in the Peloponnesian Wars, Thucydides tells us the dramatic of how first the Athenian Assembly condemned the city-state of Mytilene to this fate, then changed their mind the next day, and how a furiously rowed trireme bearing this good news beat the previous day’s trireme just in the nick of time, saving the city of Mytilene!

Thucydides also tells of the siege of the Melians, whose men were executed, and her women and children sold into slavery at the hands of the Athenians late in the war, and how the Athenians worried they would suffer the same fate when they lost the war to Sparta. […]

Greek and Roman History

Unique Spartan Warrior Culture and History, Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, Lawgiver of Sparta

08/31/2022 Bruce Strom 1

Sparta was the city-state that dominated the Peloponnese, the region that is separated from Athens and the rest of Greece by the narrow Isthmus at Corinth, and without that isthmus it would be an island to itself. Sparta was a traditional and conservative agricultural society that was not welcoming to foreigners, other than aristocratic guest-friends. […]