Podcasts about classical period

This episode originally aired in January 2023 as part of the research series on ancient Sparta. We're talking all things Spartan culture: all the things made them Spartan, set them apart from the rest of the Greek world. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Sources: Constitution of the Lacedaimonians by Xenophon, translated by Xenophon E. C. Marchant and G. W. Bowersock; Spartan Women by Sarah B. Pomeroy; The Public School of Sparta by T. Rutherford Harley; Spartan Education in the Classical Period by Nicolas Richer. Bad Ancient articles of interest: Spartan infanticide myth, Molon Labe, the 300 at Thermopylae. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this podcast we will be talking about how to find meaning in life from the philosophy of Plato. Plato's philosophy, Platonic idealism, emphasized that genuine meaning could be found by aligning one's thoughts, actions, and life with higher principles and ideals.  Plato believed that the search for true meaning and purpose was central to human existence. He believed that life's purpose wasn't merely about seeking pleasure or material gain but involved a deeper exploration of truth, virtue, and wisdom.  Here are 5 ways to find meaning in life from the philosophy of Plato. 01. Move Away from distorted beliefs 02. Follow your love 03. Build the “republic” of your soul 04. Establish the power of your intellect 05. Cultivate your contemplation skills I hope you enjoyed listening to this audio and hope these 5 ways to find meaning in life from the philosophy of Plato will add value to your life.  Plato is one of the most famous philosophers of all time. He represented the philosophy of ancient Greece, belonging to its Classical Period. He was born into an aristocratic and influential family in Athens, where he founded the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the entire Western world. Along with his mentor Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is one of the most influential individuals in the entire history of humankind. It can even be said that he is one of the pillars of Western civilisation. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and his biggest contribution is the Theory of Forms or Doctrine of Ideas, which asserts that the physical world is not the real world. Instead, ultimate reality exists beyond our physical world, in the world of ideas. Plato was not only a prominent figure of philosophy, but also of religion and spirituality; so-called Neo-platonism deeply influenced Christian theology. Plato invented the written dialogue and dialectic form of philosophy. Some of his most famous books are The Republic, The Symposium, The Apology of Socrates, Allegory of the Cave and The Dialogues of Plato, in which the main character is Socrates, who influenced Plato's philosophy to a great extent. His entire work has survived for more than 2,400 years and has remained very popular the entire time. Like his mentor, Plato was a practical philosopher and there are many life lessons to learn from his philosophy.

In this podcast, we will be talking about how to take control of your life from the philosophy of Plato. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism. According to Plato, you need to take control over your life by first conquering yourself. Another important lesson we can learn from Plato's philosophy is that first you need to take control over your life by first conquering yourself, your impulses and drives, in order to live a moral and fulfilling life. To better understand the Platonic philosophy on how we can better take control over our lives, here are 5 lessons from the philosophy of Plato: 01. Change your mindset 02. Change your habits 03. Be in control of your emotions and behavior 04. Pursue your deepest passions 05. Be the leader of your life  I hope you enjoyed listening to this audio, and hope these 5 ways to help you take control of your life from the philosophy of Plato will add value to your life.  Plato is one of the most famous philosophers of all time. He represented the philosophy of ancient Greece, belonging to its Classical Period. He was born into an aristocratic and influential family in Athens, where he founded the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the entire Western world. Along with his mentor Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is one of the most influential individuals in the entire history of humankind. It can even be said that he is one of the pillars of Western civilisation. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and his biggest contribution is the Theory of Forms or Doctrine of Ideas, which asserts that the physical world is not the real world. Instead, ultimate reality exists beyond our physical world, in the world of ideas. Plato was not only a prominent figure of philosophy, but also of religion and spirituality; so-called Neo-platonism deeply influenced Christian theology. Plato invented the written dialogue and dialectic form of philosophy. Some of his most famous books are The Republic, The Symposium, The Apology of Socrates, Allegory of the Cave and The Dialogues of Plato, in which the main character is Socrates, who influenced Plato's philosophy to a great extent. His entire work has survived for more than 2,400 years and has remained very popular the entire time. Like his mentor, Plato was a practical philosopher and there are many life lessons to learn from his philosophy.

In this podcast, we will be talking about how to master self-discipline from the philosophy of Plato. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and his biggest contribution is the Theory of Forms or Doctrine of Ideas, and has remained very popular the entire time. So with that in mind, here are 3 ways to master self-discipline from the philosophy of Plato -  01. Practice the art of measurement 02.  Don't be a victim 03. Actively seek knowledge I hope you enjoyed listening to this audio, and hope these 3 ways on mastering self-discipline from Plato will add value to your life.  Plato is one of the most famous philosophers of all time. He represented the philosophy of ancient Greece, belonging to its Classical Period. He was born into an aristocratic and influential family in Athens, where he founded the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the entire Western world. Along with his mentor Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is one of the most influential individuals in the entire history of humankind. It can even be said that he is one of the pillars of Western civilization. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and his biggest contribution is the Theory of Forms or Doctrine of Ideas, which asserts that the physical world is not the real world. Instead, ultimate reality exists beyond our physical world, in the world of ideas. Plato was not only a prominent figure of philosophy, but also of religion and spirituality; so-called Neo-platonism deeply influenced Christian theology. Plato invented the written dialogue and dialectic form of philosophy. Some of his most famous books are The Republic, The Symposium, The Apology of Socrates, Allegory of the Cave and The Dialogues of Plato, in which the main character is Socrates, who influenced Plato's philosophy to a great extent. His entire work has survived for more than 2,400 years and has remained very popular the entire time. Like his mentor, Plato was a practical philosopher and there are many life lessons to learn from his philosophy.

In this podcast, we will be talking about how to have a fulfilling life from the philosophy of Plato. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism. For Plato, one of the main purposes of learning philosophy is to enable one to live a fulfilled life.  The state of fulfilment or well being was named by the ancient Greek philosophers as eudaimonia. For Plato, eudaimonia is strongly related to virtue. Plato's main ethical view is that the unjust man's soul, without virtue, is chaotic and at war with itself. Even if we satisfy all our desires and wishes, if we are not in harmony with ourselves and with the community of people around us, we cannot achieve eudaimonia.  To help you better understand what Plato believed defined a fulfilled life and how can we achieve eudaimonia, here are 9 lessons from the philosophy of Plato: 01. Educate yourself 02. Have an active life 03. Avoid anger at all costs 04. Be content with little 05. Live honorably 06. Be in charge of your own happiness 07. Find inspiration in music 08. Find your soulmate 09. Care about the happiness of others I hope you enjoyed listening to this audio and hope these 9 ways from the philosophy of Plato, adds value to your life and helps you in living a fulfilling life. Plato is one of the most famous philosophers of all time. He represented the philosophy of ancient Greece, belonging to its Classical Period. He was born into an aristocratic and influential family in Athens, where he founded the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the entire Western world. Along with his mentor Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is one of the most influential individuals in the entire history of humankind. It can even be said that he is one of the pillars of Western civilisation. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and his biggest contribution is the Theory of Forms or Doctrine of Ideas, which asserts that the physical world is not the real world. Instead, ultimate reality exists beyond our physical world, in the world of ideas. Plato was not only a prominent figure of philosophy, but also of religion and spirituality; so-called Neo-platonism deeply influenced Christian theology. Plato invented the written dialogue and dialectic form of philosophy. Some of his most famous books are The Republic, The Symposium, The Apology of Socrates, Allegory of the Cave and The Dialogues of Plato, in which the main character is Socrates, who influenced Plato's philosophy to a great extent. His entire work has survived for more than 2,400 years and has remained very popular the entire time. Like his mentor, Plato was a practical philosopher and there are many life lessons to learn from his philosophy.

In this podcast we will be talking about how to find your soulmate from the philosophy of Plato. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and he was one of the first thinkers who addressed the concept of soulmate. For Plato, a soulmate is someone with whom we feel a very strong affinity, and the love we feel for that person goes beyond physical attraction. A soulmate is someone with whom we can be ourselves, in our complete nature. For Plato, romantic love is deemed to be of a higher metaphysical and ethical status than sexual or physical attractiveness alone. The idea of romantic love initially emerged from the Platonic concept of love as a deep affection, through which we can contemplate the real beauty of our being - and of the world. This beauty is not limited to physical beauty, but also involves a spiritual kind of beauty, Plato calling it “the Form of Beauty”. For Plato, the love of beauty culminates in the love of philosophy, the subject that pursues the highest capacity of thinking. So keeping his teachings in mind, in this video we bring you 5 ways to help you find your soulmate, from the philosophy of Plato:  01. Believe that there is a soulmate for you 02. Cultivate friendship 03. Feel safe, like you belong 04. Climb the ladder of love 05. Reignite the poetry in your relationships I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast and hope these 5 ways to help you find your soulmate from the philosophy of Plato will add value to your life.  Plato is one of the most famous philosophers of all time. He represented the philosophy of ancient Greece, belonging to its Classical Period. He was born into an aristocratic and influential family in Athens, where he founded the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the entire Western world. Along with his mentor Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is one of the most influential individuals in the entire history of humankind. It can even be said that he is one of the pillars of Western civilisation. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and his biggest contribution is the Theory of Forms or Doctrine of Ideas, which asserts that the physical world is not the real world. Instead, ultimate reality exists beyond our physical world, in the world of ideas. Plato was not only a prominent figure of philosophy, but also of religion and spirituality; so-called Neo-platonism deeply influenced Christian theology. Plato invented the written dialogue and dialectic form of philosophy. Some of his most famous books are The Republic, The Symposium, The Apology of Socrates, Allegory of the Cave and The Dialogues of Plato, in which the main character is Socrates, who influenced Plato's philosophy to a great extent. His entire work has survived for more than 2,400 years and has remained very popular the entire time. Like his mentor, Plato was a practical philosopher and there are many life lessons to learn from his philosophy.

In this podcast, we will be talking about 9 Life Lessons From Plato. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and his biggest contribution is the Theory of Forms or Doctrine of Ideas, and has remained very popular the entire time. So with that in mind, here are 9 important lessons that we can learn from Plato -  01. Conquer yourself 02. Being angry solves nothing  03. Choose the people you spend time with wisely 04. Find your other half  05. Get involved in politics 06. Learn to be a follower, then a master 07. Be content with little 08. Be in charge of your own happiness 09. Work hard to accomplish great things I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast and hope these 9 Life Lessons From Plato will add value to your life.  Plato is one of the most famous philosophers of all time. He represented the philosophy of ancient Greece, belonging to its Classical Period. He was born into an aristocratic and influential family in Athens, where he founded the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the entire Western world. Along with his mentor Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is one of the most influential individuals in the entire history of humankind. It can even be said that he is one of the pillars of Western civilization. His philosophy is often referenced as Platonic idealism and his biggest contribution is the Theory of Forms or Doctrine of Ideas, which asserts that the physical world is not the real world. Instead, ultimate reality exists beyond our physical world, in the world of ideas. Plato was not only a prominent figure of philosophy, but also of religion and spirituality; so-called Neo-platonism deeply influenced Christian theology. Plato invented the written dialogue and dialectic form of philosophy. Some of his most famous books are The Republic, The Symposium, The Apology of Socrates, Allegory of the Cave and The Dialogues of Plato, in which the main character is Socrates, who influenced Plato's philosophy to a great extent. His entire work has survived for more than 2,400 years and has remained very popular the entire time. Like his mentor, Plato was a practical philosopher and there are many life lessons to learn from his philosophy.

Spartan women had more rights and enjoyed greater autonomy than women in any other Greek city-state of the Classical Period (5th-4th centuries BCE). Women could inherit property, own land, make business transactions, and were better educated than women in ancient Greece in general. Unlike Athens, where women were considered second-class citizens, Spartan women were said to rule their men.

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan (and a very special guest) discuss the groundbreaking work of Ludwig van Beethoven before introducing Dr. Hyperion Knight. In “The History of Classical Music,” concert pianist and Hillsdale College Distinguished Fellow Hyperion Knight explains how music has developed and what distinguishes the greatest musical achievements through the life of Beethoven. Join this course, whether you are a music novice or an aficionado of the classical style, to learn what makes music great. The late Classical Period pointed the way to the Romantic Era as composers revolutionized the expression of musical possibilities within the classical structures. Significant pieces of the period include Beethoven's “Für Elise,” Waldstein Sonata, Appassionata Sonata, Emperor Concerto, and his symphonies, as well as Schubert's “Erlkönig,” Impromptus, and Unfinished Symphony.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan (and a very special guest) discuss the groundbreaking work of Ludwig van Beethoven before introducing Dr. Hyperion Knight. In “The History of Classical Music,” concert pianist and Hillsdale College Distinguished Fellow Hyperion Knight explains how music has developed and what distinguishes the greatest musical achievements through the life of Beethoven. Join this course, whether you are a music novice or an aficionado of the classical style, to learn what makes music great. The late Classical Period pointed the way to the Romantic Era as composers revolutionized the expression of musical possibilities within the classical structures. Significant pieces of the period include Beethoven's “Für Elise,” Waldstein Sonata, Appassionata Sonata, Emperor Concerto, and his symphonies, as well as Schubert's “Erlkönig,” Impromptus, and Unfinished Symphony.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan (and a very special guest) discuss Haydn's The Creation before introducing Dr. Hyperion Knight. In “The History of Classical Music,” concert pianist and Hillsdale College Distinguished Fellow Hyperion Knight explains how music has developed and what distinguishes the greatest musical achievements through the life of Beethoven. Join this course, whether you are a music novice or an aficionado of the classical style, to learn what makes music great. The Classical Period synthesized opposing Rococo elements into a classic style and explored the capabilities of each instrument by giving each a crucial role in compositions. Significant pieces discussed include Haydn's “Farewell Symphony” and The Creation, and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, Requiem, and piano concertos.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan (and a very special guest) discuss Haydn's The Creation before introducing Dr. Hyperion Knight. In “The History of Classical Music,” concert pianist and Hillsdale College Distinguished Fellow Hyperion Knight explains how music has developed and what distinguishes the greatest musical achievements through the life of Beethoven. Join this course, whether you are a music novice or an aficionado of the classical style, to learn what makes music great. The Classical Period synthesized opposing Rococo elements into a classic style and explored the capabilities of each instrument by giving each a crucial role in compositions. Significant pieces discussed include Haydn's “Farewell Symphony” and The Creation, and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, Requiem, and piano concertos.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The full written version of the episode can be found further below. Please, also, enjoy a short recording of the Regina Caeli chant by Will Wright at the beginning of the episode. Happy Easter!SummaryIn this episode, Will Wright discusses the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He emphasizes the importance of understanding what it means for something to be historical and provides an overview of different historical periods. Wright then presents several proofs for the resurrection, including the empty tomb, post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, and the transformation of the disciples. He also highlights the significance of early Christian creeds and the continuity of belief in the resurrection throughout history. Wright concludes by emphasizing the need for faith and reason to work together in understanding the truth of the resurrection.Takeaways- The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a historical event supported by multiple proofs, including the empty tomb, post-resurrection appearances, and the transformation of the disciples.- Early Christian creeds attest to the reality of the resurrection and demonstrate the continuity of belief throughout history.- Understanding the historical context and the lack of alternative explanations further strengthens the evidence for the resurrection.- Faith and reason are not in conflict but work together to support the truth of the resurrection.Chapters:00:00: Introduction and Podcast Promotion01:38: Understanding History03:40: Classical Period and Roman Historians05:08: Medieval and Modern Periods05:38: Historical Evidence for the New Testament06:47: Reliability of the Gospels09:00: Levels of Knowing09:30: Proofs for the Resurrection: Empty Tomb11:49: Proofs for the Resurrection: Post-Resurrection Appearances12:55: Proofs for the Resurrection: Transformation of the Disciples19:32: Proofs for the Resurrection: Historical Context20:54: Conclusion and Importance of the Resurrection23:13: Call to Action and Podcast PromotionFull Written Transcript:What is Historical?Humanity has practiced stewardship and dominion over the Earth for many millennia. However, recorded History is relatively new. Five thousand or so years ago in Mesopotamia, we have archaeological evidence of cave paintings and other artifacts that indicate a culture of storytelling. Oral traditions were the primary means of the historical record in the prehistoric period. This is, of course, why we refer to that time as “prehistoric.”In the Ancient Period, the record became more extensive and we started to see written content from Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerica, and the Indus Valley. The texts are legal documents, religious documents, poetry, and other items related to political, social, and cultural life. In the Classical Period, the Greeks and Romans left a great deal of historical accounts, works of philosophy, legal writings, and works of literature. The historical record at this time is significant. One of the most famous Roman historians is Titus Livus, known as Livy. He was born around 60 B.C. and wrote during the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Over his life, he wrote an astounding 142 books. Today, however, we only have about 35 of these books. The most famous Roman Historian during the time of Christ is Tacitus. He wrote two main works: “Histories” and “Annals.” Histories had 16 books, of which we only have 1 - 6 in their entirety and parts of books 11 - 16. Annals had either 12 or 14 books, of which we have 1 - 4 and parts of book 5. These partial volumes are essential historical sources and one of the most significant sources for understanding Roman history and politics.In the Medieval Period, the historical record was preserved in chronicles, charters, religious texts, and legal records. And in the Modern Period, following the invention of the printing press, the historical record became abundant. In the age of the Internet, the amount of written and published material has increased at an exponential rate.  For the New Testament, the works are situated in the Classical Period, so we should apply the scrutiny appropriate to that period. There are multiple codices from the 4th and 5th Centuries which contain most of the Old and New Testaments in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic. These codices provide abundant historical evidence for the consistency of biblical writings. If there were major changes in the texts, then we would expect a codex in one location to be vastly different from a codex in another location, especially after four hundred years. Instead, we find that the extant copies of the manuscripts of the Bible are consistent, one to the other. And… and this should not be understated… we have them! We have far more manuscripts of Sacred Scripture than we do of Livy or Tacitus. And, yet, the historical reliability of the latter are rarely questioned by modern scholars. The reality is that the Gospels, especially, are historically reliable. The Gospel writers were eyewitnesses who wrote shortly after the recorded events. The apostles followed Jesus and lived with Him for three years, receiving daily teachings. They lived in the Classical Period in which oral tradition was exceptionally important and when memorization skills were top notch. The apostles likely made written notes while traveling with Jesus, as well. Further, it is clear that the Gospel writers intended to write reliable history. And we can show that they did, in fact, write reliable history.To learn more about the reality of the reliability of the Gospels, I highly recommend reading more at Catholic Answers on The Reliability of the Gospels by Karlo Broussard.Three Levels of KnowingI am not suggesting that the proofs of the Resurrection of Jesus that I am about to run through are “slam dunks.” What we are showing is akin to the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas - they are converging and convincing arguments. I do not think that any one of these proofs will suffice to convert an atheist. However, the evidence is nonetheless historically formidable. There are three levels of knowing and discussing the things of God. First, we have to answer the question: Does God exist? If yes, then we move to step two. Second, we answer: Is Jesus God? If yes, then we move to three. Third, we answer: Is the Catholic Church the Church that Jesus founded? And, of course, the answer is yes. What we are about to investigate presumes the existence of God and speaks to both the second and third level. The Resurrection shows us the Divinity of Jesus and its truth is demonstrated and handed down through the testimony of the Church.  Proofs of the Resurrection of JesusNow, onto the proof for the Resurrection of Jesus.Empty TombThe unanimous testimony of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) is that the tomb of Jesus was discovered as empty on the third day after the crucifixion. The tomb being empty is unexpected. Jesus was laid in the tomb on Friday because the Sabbath was quickly approaching. On the Sabbath, the Jewish people are forbidden from doing anything laborious. Removing the body of Jesus certainly would have constituted work. There is the possibility that Jesus' body was stolen, but this is unlikely as well. Those who put Jesus to death were concerned of theft because they did not want a martyred “ghost” to continue making trouble. They, therefore, set Roman guards at the entrance of the tomb to stop this from happening. No rabble would be able to overtake Roman soldiers without raising notice and possibly starting a war. Post-Resurrection Appearances:In the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, Jesus appeared multiple times to different individuals and groups: the pair on the road to Emmaus, Mary Magdalene at the tomb, the apostles in the Upper Room, on the seashore, and then prior to the Ascension. He also appeared to the incredulous St. Thomas as well as to St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Most of the post-resurrection appearances are reported in the texts of early Christians and followers of Jesus; so, we have to be aware of bias and theological interpretation. Perhaps the appearances were a shared vision or spiritual experience rather than a physical resurrection. However, this does not explain the next proof: the utter transformative effect the Resurrection had on the disciples. Transformation of the DisciplesBefore the crucifixion the apostles, with the exception of St. John, were huddled in fear in the Upper Room. After the Resurrection, multiple encounters with the Risen Jesus, the Ascension, and Pentecost, the disciples were transformed. Proclamations became bold and tenacious rather than fearful and disillusioned. The willingness to endure persecution and martyrdom can be partly explained by the reality of the Resurrection. The transformation and testimony of St. Paul is particularly prominent because he persecuted Christians and put them to death prior to His encounter with the Risen Christ. Many who are critical of this line of thinking will say that there are other psychological or sociological factors that could explain the change of behavior and belief. However, I cannot imagine that these factors would explain the persistence of the early Church in their conviction in the face of persecution and martyrdom. All but one of the apostles, in traditional understanding, died as martyrs. You do not die for some spiritual experience, some after isolation and torture. You die for the Risen Christ who is truly risen. Early Christian CreedsThe early Christian creeds attest to the Resurrection, including the writing of St. Paul to the Church in Corinth:3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Cor. 15:3-8)Of course the Apostles' Creed attests the Resurrection, as does the Athanasian Creed and the later Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. These creeds remind us that the historical reality of the Resurrection is paramount to the veracity of Catholicism. If we found the bones of Jesus, we would rightly leave the Faith entirely.Critics of this view will say that these creeds do not prove the Resurrection, they only prove that the early Church believed in the Resurrection. Fair enough. But this is only one aspect of the proofs for the Resurrection.Historical ContextAt the time, the concept of bodily resurrection was not part of Jewish thought. So, hearing that Jesus had risen from the dead, the Romans could simply produce Jesus' body to quell any rumors amongst the early Christians. Again, the tomb was guarded by a Roman guard, which would not be easily and quietly overtaken. Continuity with Christian TraditionThe Resurrection as a real, historical event has been held by Christians from the apostles until now. Evidence of the reality of the Resurrection is thus further strengthened by consistent tradition. Tradition is not direct evidence of the Resurrection itself, but it does show a persistence in the belief.The Resurrection of Jesus is a True EventWhen weighed individually, each of these proofs can be dismissed. But when taken together, the preponderance is more powerful. The reality is that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is a true event. Ultimately, this evidence does not prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus rose from the dead. If it was, then our free will would be overtaken. God always reveals Himself to those who seek and promises answers to those who question. But for those who do not seek, then they will not find. For those who do not ask questions, they will receive no answers. The evidence that God does give us is overwhelming - for Himself, for the divinity of Jesus, for the truth of the Church, and, yes, for the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day.Happy Easter! Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!Good Distinctions is a listener and reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at GoodDistinctions.com Get full access to Good Distinctions at www.gooddistinctions.com/subscribe

The late Michael Dols in his book on the Majnūn rightly asserted that when dealing with madmen in medieval Islamic societies, we need to have in mind a model of medical pluralism. He had spotted the various intersections of genres of texts and learning, and even sociological classes and behavioral norms in his examination of madness, more broadly, and lovesickness (ʿishq), in particular. In this chapter, I shall focus on the discussions on lovesickness from five medical commentaries from the Mamluk period. The focus will be not only be on illuminating how the texts and the authors engage with the work(s) of their predecessor(s), but also what we can learn about the specific intellectual landscapes in which each author operated along with their specific interests in the topic. Professor Nahyan Fancy is the Al-Qasimi Professor in Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. He received his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Notre Dame. He taught for 17 years in the History department at DePauw University, Indiana, before joining the faculty at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter this year. He works on the intersections of philosophy, medicine, science and religion during the period between 1200 and 1520. His first book, Science and Religion in Mamluk Egypt: Ibn al-Nafis, Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection (Routledge, 2013), situated Ibn al-Nafis's proposal of the pulmonary transit of blood within the context of debates amongst philosophers and religious scholars over the proper role of reason in interpreting revelation and the possibility of bodily resurrection. He has published widely on post-classical medicine, including more recent work on pre-modern understandings of sleep and plague. His current book project examines eight medical commentaries on the Canon of Medicine and its Epitome, to reveal that neither were Ibn al-Nafis's works ignored after 1300, nor was there a decline in medical and scientific thought due to religious antagonism.

https://amateurtraveler.com/travel-to-belize-and-guatemala/ Hear about travel to Belize and Guatemala on the G Adventures "Classic Belize and Tikal" week-long small group tour: Mayan pyramids, cave tubing, and snorkeling on the Barrier Reef. An adventurous trip to Belize and Guatemala. The tour started in Belize City, traveled to Flores in Guatemala, and then returned to San Ignacio Belize and the Island of Caye Caulker.  One of the highlights was visiting Mayan ruins, including Yaxha and Tikal in Guatemala and Caracol in Belize. I climbed to the top of 4 pyramids in 3 sites while learning about the Mayan Classical age from 200 to 900 AD. We saw Mayan ballcourts, temples, and noble houses. These sites are all in the jungle with the sounds of howler monkeys in the background and spider monkeys and kudamundi wandering the grounds. We saw tucans, turkeys, and other birds.  We stayed in the colorful island town of Flores Guatemala which is a center for tourism for Tikal. We did cave tubing in Belize "near" San Ignacio, Belize. We floated through caves on inner tubes. We could get out of the tubes in the cave and see artifacts left by the Mayans of the Classical Period. Some of the group went to the well-known ATM cave where there are still the remains of some who were sacrificed to the gods at the end of the Classical Period. Others visited the Raptor Center where they got to interact with birds of prey. The trip concluded on Caye Caulker, an island in the Caribbean Sea, where our group went snorkeling on the Belize Barrier Reef, encountering diverse marine life including dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, rays, and sharks. We toured the island with local high school students as part of Bikes with Purpose. We concluded our trip with a lazy sunset cruise.  This was an adventurous tour. It is meant for people who are open to taking a crowded local bus, jumping into the water in a dark cave, and following a guide through the jungle canopy at a Mayan site. If you are such a person, the G Adventures "Classic Belize and Tikal" might be a great use of a week's vacation.

What is it about Mozart's last composition, the Requiem, that places it more in the Romantic Period of Beethoven than his own Classical Period?  We will discover that the line between each of these historical periods is not so cut and dry.

Among the very-online, relatively young, and mostly male cohorts of the Right is a movement growing in popularity and intensity that valorizes the very excesses the Left criticizes as toxic masculinity.  This movement, promulgated by the likes of Bronze Age Pervert and Mencius Moldbug and defended or even praised by a surprising array of mainstream conservative outlets, has captured the attention of many a young man yearning for a deeper sense of purpose and pursuits in an age of secular materialism and Leftist wokism.   In this episode Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined by National Review Online submissions editor Jack Butler who contends that the West's spiritual vacuum has made it possible for pre-Christian paganism to gain a foothold in the culture and that a return to an authentic faith is the only plausible means of combatting this worrisome trend.   About Jack Butler Jack Butler is a researcher, editor, and writer who currently works as submissions editor at National Review Online.  Jack is a media fellow for the Institute for Human Ecology, and a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow at the Fund for American Studies.  He was the original producer of The Remnant podcast with Jonah Goldberg and host of the Young Americans podcast.  Jack is an alumnus of Hillsdale College and a graduate of St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, his hometown.  He is also an avid long-distance runner.  You can follow Jack on Twitter @jackbutler4815.  

DescriptionBeethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67, became a standard against which many other symphonies were measured. It is best known by the ominous four-note opening motif. Take a minute to get the scoop!Just for fun you may want to check out:The Vienna boys choir, On the Beautiful Blue Danube

From ancient Greece to classical Japan, peasants, serfs, and slaves had had enough.Support the show

We're talking all things Spartan culture: all the things made them Spartan, set them apart from the rest of the Greek world. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.Sources: Constitution of the Lacedaimonians by Xenophon, translated by Xenophon E. C. Marchant and G. W. Bowersock; Spartan Women by Sarah B. Pomeroy; The Public School of Sparta by T. Rutherford Harley; Spartan Education in the Classical Period by Nicolas Richer. Bad Ancient articles of interest: Spartan infanticide myth, Molon Labe, the 300 at Thermopylae.Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who is Votan? What connection does he have with the Early Tzeltal's? Who are the modern Tzeltal's? Who were the Mayans who lived in Tabasco during the Classical Period? What gods did Comalcalco worship? What is La Danza del Pocho? And who was the Lord of the Hollow Stick? All these questions and more as we continue our exploration on the Tribes that inhabit Tabasco and their murky but fascinating histories. 

Throughout the series, our characters compromise their morals and safety to gain control in the kingdom of Haiti. Although the show has multiple protagonists, the driving arc is that of Léonie Bijoux. A newcomer to this world of influence, Léo is unsure how she feels about it. But as Léo's wealth and status grows, she begins to sacrifice her principles in order to obtain a position as the royal clothier—a prestigious title where one faux pas can lead to execution.

Primary sources are invaluable as they give us direct insight into the period in question -- but they also need to be treated with caution. Let's take today's reading for example: Isocrates' The Evagoras is one of our principal sources for the Classical Period in Cyprus. For Isocrates, Evagoras was the model ruler. It depicts the king through the lens of Isocrates' personal beliefs, which, however, need to be critically analyzed. He is a rhetorician and a sophist. Ostensibly, Isocrates wants there to be unity between Spartans and Athenians -- but under Athenian hegemony. For Isocrates, to truly be a Hellene one must learn to think and live as a Hellene, i.e., possess Athenian education. Athens to Isocrates is, of course, the pinnacle of Greek culture to which a great debt is owed.   Evagoras of Salamis, then, fits the Isocratean mould and we can see what makes his character so appealing to Isocrates. According to Isocrates, Evagoras “inspired respect, not by the frowning of his brow, but by the principles of his life” (Isoc. Evagoras 9.44). Not only is Evagoras philhellenic, he is more specifically phil-Athenian. As king he “observed Greek institutions,” “the liberal arts” and “[Greek] education” (Isoc. Evagoras 9.50). He possessed all the qualities that made him a Philosopher King in his own right but most importantly, in the view of Isocrates, he was a true philhellene.  We must be cautious though; the Evagoras was written as an encomium (a eulogy) and according to Plutarch, was commissioned by his son and heir, Nicocles. Evagoras' qualities are showed as unparalleled, if not, divinely bestowed -- inherited from his ancestors, endowed by nature and willed by Zeus himself. It presents a romanticized -- and idealized -- philhellenic king. Isocrates tells the reader that, lamentably, in the years preceding Evagoras “the best rulers were those who treated the Greeks in the most cruel fashion” (Isoc. Evagoras 9.49). Yet Evagoras paradoxically campaigned against other philhellenic city-states on Cyprus. We must remember that historically, Cyprus had been fragmented politically into quasi-city kingdoms as each vied for its own independence (even the term "city-kingdoms" can be somewhat problematic). They were hardly driven by nationalistic or patriotic Hellenic sentiment, but by self-preservation. The Evagoras makes no mention of this, nor does it navigate the questionable Persian/Athenian alliance during the Corinthian War. That, of course, would be inconsistent with the story Isocrates weaves. Isocrates is decisively not an historian. But I'm far from an expert on this time period. That's why I hope you join me on August 2nd  as Professor Christian Körner from the University of Bern discusses "Cyprus Between the Assyrian and Persian Empires." For more frequent updates, follow The History of Cyprus on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehistoryofcyprus/   

In this shiur we study the Classical Period of Piyyut, and discuss the influence of R. Eleazar b. Kallir and his colleagues.

As we transition from the Archaic Period of Greece to the Classical Period, two philosophers, Empedocles and Anaxagoras, rebel against the prevailing dogma of monism and present a new idea — that matter consists of mixtures of multiple fundamental elements.Thanks to William Little of Ohio State for help with the Latin to get the opposite of "E pluribus unum" for the title.If you would like to register for the Stellar Spectacles symposium that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, go to www.asxsociety.com.

Episode 9 -  Athenian Democracy, and the Golden Age of GreeceHi, my name is Clayton Mills.  Welcome to ‘A Short Walk through our Long History' - a podcast where we look at the events of history, and try to see how those events shaped our modern world. This is Episode 9 - Athenian Democracy, and the Golden Age of Greece.We have talked about the famous battles of the Greek - Persian wars, and how after the huge naval battle at Salamis, the Persians never threatened Greece again.  The Battle of Salamis happened on September 27th, 480 BC.  There were still a few important land battles in 479 BC, but the Greeks won those as well, and destroyed what was left of the Persian army in Greece.  This sets the stage for an era of peace and prosperity in Greece that would be incredibly influential.As points of reference, just to tie this all in with other things that were happening around this time in other parts of the world, I thought I would mention some other important world events.  So 80 years or so before Salamis, off in India, around 563 BC, Buddha was born.  Buddhism begins to form as a religion in the years following the Buddha's death.  Buddhism will eventually become one of the world's largest religions, but it had a small start, as did Christianity.  We'll come back to that in upcoming episodes.  Also about this time, the Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon were re-building their temple, under the guidance of Nehemiah and Ezra.  And also around this time, in 509 BC the Roman Republic was founded.  We'll also come back to the Romans.  Lots of important stuff going on in the 5th century BC.  By the way, I don't really like calling these time periods, ‘the 5th century,' because it just doesn't match up in a way that I like.  Because the 5th century is the 400's.  It's the time period from 499 BC to 400 BC.  And then we have that problem again in the AD's.  It's because the first century is the zeros and tens, like 49 BC.  So I prefer saying, in the 400's BC, rather than saying the 5th century.  It makes more sense to me, even though the historians all like to use ‘5th century.'  For the rest of these episodes, I'm going to stick with the actual numbers, and not use the 4th or 5th century nomenclature. So in the 400's BC, a lot of important stuff was going on.  But what was also happening was the Golden Age of Greece, which lasts from the reign of Pisistratus, a tyrant who ruled over Athens around 528 BC, until the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC.  So right about 200 years.  The Golden Age of Greece is also known as the Classical Period, or Classical Greece. So what made it golden?  What made it a classic?  Well, there were two ascendent cities during this time, Athens and Sparta.  They both were incredibly prosperous, and both laid claim to be the leading city in Greece.  They fought several times during this period, and we'll talk about those battles in the next episode.  But what really made this time period unique was all of the stuff going on in Athens during this time.  So the Golden Age of Greece is really a mostly Athenian thing, even though Sparta was doing very well during this time also.  But all the ‘golden' stuff came from Athens.  [here]So in this time period, just to summarize, from Athens, we have Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Hippocrates, and the birth of democracy.  All of these have left lasting impacts in politics, philosophy, and literature.  And of course that's not even the full list.  There was also beautiful pottery and amazing architecture, including the Parthenon in Athens, which has been described by some as the most perfect building ever built.So what created this great period of productivity?  It was something about the nature of Athens in those days.  For one thing, Athens was peaceful and prosperous.  It takes both of those things for a city or culture to be able to create a class of people who are artists, philosophers, and historians.  In the middle of a siege from an enemy, no one is worried about writing ancient history or the next great play.  So Athens has a period of tranquility and prosperity, and some great artists, writers and thinkers have time to be creative.  We'll come back to this at the end of the episode, but there are a lot of ways that this time period influences our modern world.  Obviously, the advent of Athenian democracy, and the idea that citizens can come together to create their own government, and protect their own rights, is something that influenced the founding of the United States and other democracies around the world.Well, that brings up an issue we need to clarify, since we're talking about democracy.  Because the United States isn't technically a democracy.  It's a republic -  Well, Plato might argue that we're currently an oligarchy, putting on a show of being a republic, but more on Plato and his descriptions of government later, in another episode.  A true democracy is where all the citizens vote, or at least can vote, on every law.  A republic is where the citizens select a representative to go vote for them.  The citizens vote on who will represent them, and then the representatives actually vote on the laws.  So the United States and the United Kingdom are both types of republics, not democracies.  They have representatives that do the lawmaking and the voting.Anyway, Athens was a true democracy, where all the citizens could vote on the laws.  So how did Athens come to be a democracy, and enter into its golden age?  As most golden age stories do, the story starts with a tyrant, and people getting fed up with the tyrant's tyrannical ways.  By the way, the word tyrant, back in the days of ancient Greece, didn't mean a harsh, autocratic ruler.  It just meant someone who has taken over the role of leading the government in an illegitimate way.  The term tyrant didn't originally refer to how someone ruled; it referred to how they took power.  In 546 BC, an Athenian named Pisistratus took control of Athens.  His rule lasted for 18 years, and was actually a good period for Athens, and so the Athenians didn't put up too much of a fuss about him.  But then, his sons took over, and they were tyrants in our modern sense of the word.  The Athenians tolerated Pisistratus, because despite the way he took power, he did a good job as the leader of the city.  His sons did not, and the Athenians decided they didn't want to be ruled by someone they had not chosen.There were a couple of other rulers, but then in 510 BC, the Athenians chose Cliesthenes to be their ‘archon,' or leader.  One of the hallmarks of the Athenian system of government was that they wanted to be ruled by someone they themselves had chosen.  This idea, the concept of government by the consent of those governed, is one of the core ideas of liberty.  And within that idea, and also within the Declaration of Independence, is also the idea that if the people who are governed do NOT consent to their government, it is their right to change the government.  That's what the Athenians did.  Cliesthenes reformed a lot of Athenian practices, and rebuilt the democracy.  There was an Assembly, that any citizen could attend, which met every 10 days to debate and vote on proposals made by the Council.  The Council was made up of 500 citizens, and they would propose laws that would then be voted on by the Assembly.  There were also strategoi and archons who were elected to serve specific roles.Then in 495 BC, a very gifted leaded named Pericles becomes one of the strategoi.  He was a strategoi for 50 years, and this is the height of the golden age.  Pericles also strengthened the democracy, and presided over the rebuilding of the Acropolis (which had been badly damaged by the Persians), including the building of the Parthenon, as well as several other temples. During the time of Pericles, two of the greatest philosophers in all of human history were born.  Both Socrates and Plato were born during the time when Pericles was one of the strategoi.  Socrates was probably born around 470 BC, so his time as a productive philosopher and teacher happened in part during the time of Pericles.  Plato was one of Socrates' students, and his time as a teacher and writer took place after Pericles, but still during the Golden Age.  I'm planning on having a separate episode on Socrates, Plato, and Plato's student Aristotle, because they really are important enough, in terms of how they affected the modern world, to warrant their own episode.  I should mention here that they basically started the first permanent school of higher education, which was called the Academy.During this same time period, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles were writing comedies and tragedies that are still studied today.  Their writing, along with Homer's, (and also Plato's) is considered the best writing in the Greek language.  These guys were the Greek equivalents of Shakespeare. And Shakespeare himself was influenced by some of the Greek plays.  In addition to the playwrights, we also have the first real historians of antiquity during this period.  Herodotus and Thucydides both tried to accurately record historical events, not long after they had actually happened.  Before them, much of the historical record was written by kings who had conquered someone, and had a ‘history' written to glorify their own deeds.  So accuracy was less important than glorifying the king who had commissioned the historical writing. Herodotus is known as the father of history.  Although others recorded historical events before he did, he did a much more thorough job of getting and recording the facts of events.  It is his records of Thermopylae and Salamis that are our best source for the names, dates, and flow of events of those battles.  Though both Herodotus and Thucydides wrote clearly pro-greek histories, their thoroughness and descriptiveness set the standard for all future historians.  The physician Hippocrates, of the famous Hippocratic oath, also wrote during this period, and his books on health and medicine are among the oldest records of human health and disease, and set the stage for much of the medical writing down through the ages.  On top of all this writing, there was also a great surge in architecture and sculpture.  When you think of Classical Architecture, that means ancient Athenian architecture.  I mentioned the Parthenon, which was the temple to Athena on the Acropolis, which was the hill at the top of Athens.  There were other temples up there, too, and they were also amazingly beautiful.  So we kind of had it all back in ancient Athens in these years, and other cultures throughout history have always looked back at these times and the writings and art of this period and been inspired by them.  Many of the great things about ancient Rome were lifted straight from ancient Greece, for example.  After the democracy of ancient Athens, Greece was conquered by Philip of Macedon, whose son, Alexander the Great, took Greek culture and the Greek language and spread it all around the Mediterranean and into Asia.  The Greek language became a sort of trade language of the Mediterranean, the language that everyone used for business.  It was relatively easy to write, and because the Greek alphabet is very phonetic, it was also relatively easy to learn the language.  Greek verb tenses are crazy hard to master, but basic Greek, the kind you would use for trade, was relatively easy.  But because of the writings of the Greek masters, Greek also became the language of scholarship, for many generations. This is one of the reasons that the New Testament was written in Greek, even though Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic, which was the common language of Judea during his life.  The New Testament was written to an audience beyond just the region of Judea, so because of the audience, and because Greek was the language of trade and of scholarship, the original writers of the New Testament wrote their gospels and epistles in Greek.  So the Golden Age of Greece had it all, and became a major influence on the rest of the ancient world.What other things from classical Athens affect our modern world?  Google an image of the US supreme court building.  It's a Greek temple, basically.  Greek architecture has influenced monuments and official buildings all through history.  What else affected our modern world?  Well, for starters, there's the idea of citizens taking responsibility for their own government.  The idea that the people of the city are responsible for the defense, government, and well-being of the city, and that the responsibility for setting up a form of government actually lies with the people, not the king - that's an Athenian ideal.  It's not the king or some external ruler who is responsible for the city, it's the people of the city.  And they, the people, can choose the form of government that they want.  It is more recently called ‘government by the consent of the governed.'  At the core of this is the idea that it's NOT the government who owns the city or the country, it's not the king that owns it all, it's the people who own it.  The beginning of the US constitution invokes this idea with the phrase, ‘We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union,…'. It's ‘the people' who are putting together the government, and designing a form of government that will protect them from tyrants.  That's what the Athenians were trying to do, that's what the founding fathers of the US were trying to do, that's what the lords of old Britain were trying to do with the Magna Carta, at some level. Protect their rights from a tyrant.  Behind this is the idea of personal responsibility, the idea that I am responsible for my life, my well-being, and my future - it's not the government that is responsible for that, it's not the king, it's not society, it's me.  I'm responsible.  The greeks would have called this ‘honor.'  It incorporates the idea of doing what's right, doing one's job, doing what one is supposed to do, and being responsible for one's own life.  This was definitely in the minds of the founding fathers of the US, although it seems like we've lost this a bit in recent years.  The Athenians took responsibility for protecting themselves from internal threats - that is, tyrants -  and external threats - like Persians, for example.  It's an important principle, and it's kind of odd how seldom in world history a group of people is governed by a government that they chose for themselves.   In the modern world, we kind of take for granted, but until recently, it was a rarity.  Usually, people were governed by a king, either from their own region, or one from somewhere else who had conquered them.  That has been the historical norm, not people governing themselves.  Tyranny, not self-rule, has been the norm.  One other way that Athens is still influencing the modern world is the scientific world-view that dominates the western world.  We'll talk more about this in the episode about Plato and Aristotle, but they had a huge impact on the development of science as we know it today.  Especially Aristotle.  His enormous body of work influenced both science, philosophy, logic, and religion, but again, we'll come back to him and Plato again later.  But before we get to them, we need to take a look at what basically put an end to the really golden part of the golden age of Greece, and that is the Peloponnesian wars.  Next episode, we'll look at the battles between Athens and Sparta.  Then we'll come back to Athens to focus on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  Then on to Aristotle's pupil, Alexander, the Great.

In our "What We Missed," we take our first steps exploring the Gupta Empire. As well as discussing the Mayan Civilization's Classical Period. The post Founding the Gupta Empire, Mayan Classical Period & More! | What We Missed Third Century AD appeared first on TGNR.

Ancient Greece! Nazis! Aliens! We go over the origins, plausibility and potential leads to the location of the lost city of Atlantis that has captivated mankind since the Classical Period!

This episode marks the start of a sojourn to the Classical Period where we will discuss Beethoven's Opus 49, a pair of the easiest sonatas in Beethoven's oeuvre. We discuss the sonata form, Lord of the Rings, and my poor memory. TRY A FREE 2-MONTH PRIMEPHONIC TRIAL: https://account.primephonic.com/ref/160b849a17c37560071d475ec Twitter: @PianoRhapsody Email: pianorhapsodypodcast@gmail.com Find PianoRhapsody on SoundCloud for this recording and more!

Metronomes are an essential piece of kit that I recommend beginners to have. It is very useful for controlling rhythms especially when learning Baroque or Classical Period pieces. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/musicsecretsexposed/message

What is Classical Music versus the Classical Period and Who is Mozart? If you haven't listened Episode MSE 015, start there before listening to this episode. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/musicsecretsexposed/message

The Roman Empire grew. Philosophy and the practical applications derived from great thinkers were no longer just to impress peers or mystify the commoners into passivity but to help humans do more. The focus on practical applications was clear. This isn't to say there weren't great Romans. We got Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Plutarch, Tacitus, Lucretius, Plotinus, Marcus Aurelius, one of my favorite Hypatia, and as Christianity spread we got the Cristian Philosophers in Rome such as Saint Augustine.  The Romans reached into new lands and those lands reached back, with attacks coming by the Goths, Germanic tribes, Vandals, and finally resulting in the sack of Rome. They had been weakened by an overreliance on slaves, overspending on military to fuel the constant expansion, government corruption due to a lack of control given the sheer size of the empire, and the need to outsource the military due to the fact that Roman citizens needed to run the empire. Rome would split in 285 and by the fourth century fell. Again, as empires fall new ones emerge. As the Classical Period ended in each area with the decline of the Roman Empire, we were plunged into the Middle Ages, which I was taught was the Dark Ages in school. But they weren't dark. Byzantine, the Eastern Roman Empire survived. The Franks founded Francia in northern Gaul. The Celtic Britons emerged. The Visigoths setup shop in Northern Spain. The Lombards in Northern Italy. The Slavs spread through Central and Eastern Europe and the Latin language splintered into the Romance languages.  And that spread involved Christianity, whose doctrine often classed with the ancient philosophies. And great thinkers weren't valued. Or so it seemed when I was taught about the Dark Ages. But words matter. The Prophet Muhammad was born in this period and Islamic doctrine spread rapidly throughout the Middle East. He united the tribes of Medina and established a Constitution in the sixth century. After years of war with Mecca, he later seized the land. He then went on to conquer the Arabian Peninsula, up into the lands of the Byzantines and Persians. With the tribes of Arabia united, Muslims would conquer the last remains of Byzantine Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia and take large areas of Persia.  This rapid expansion, as it had with the Greeks and Romans, led to new trade routes, and new ideas finding their way to the emerging Islamic empire. In the beginning they destroyed pagan idols but over time adapted Greek and Roman technology and thinking into their culture. They Brough maps, medicine, calculations, and agricultural implants. They learned paper making from the Chinese and built paper mills allowing for an explosion in books. Muslim scholars in Baghdad, often referred to as New Babylon given that it's only 60 miles away. They began translating some of the most important works from Greek and Latin and Islamic teachings encouraged the pursuit of knowledge at the time. Many a great work from the Greeks and Romans is preserved because of those translations.  And as with each empire before them, the Islamic philosophers and engineers built on the learning of the past. They used astrolabes in navigation, chemistry in ceramics and dyes, researched acids and alkalis. They brought knowledge from Pythagoras and Babylonians and studied lines and spaces and geometry and trigonometry, integrating them into art and architecture. Because Islamic law forbade dissections, they used the Greek texts to study medicine.   The technology and ideas of their predecessors helped them retain control throughout the Islamic Golden Age. The various Islamic empires spread East into China, down the African coast, into Russia, into parts of Greece, and even North into Spain where they ruled for 800 years. Some grew to control over 10 million square miles. They built fantastic clockworks, documented by al-Jazari in the waning days of the golden age. And the writings included references to influences in Greece and Rome, including the Book of Optics by Ibn Al-Haytham in the ninth century, which is heavily influenced by Ptolemy's book, Optics. But over time, empires weaken.  Throughout the Middle Ages, monarchs began to be deposed by rising merchant classes, or oligarchs. What the framers of the US Constitution sought to block with the way the government is structured. You can see this in the way the House of Lords had such power in England even after the move to a constitutional monarchy. And after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has moved more and more towards a rule by oligarchs first under Yeltsin and then under Putin. Because you see, we continue to re-learn the lessons learned by the Greeks. But differently. Kinda' like bell bottoms are different than all the other times they were cool each time they come back.  The names of European empires began to resemble what we know today: Wales, England, Scotland, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Germany, and France were becoming dominant forces again. The Catholic Church was again on the rise as Rome practiced a new form of conquering the world. Two main religions were coming more and more in conflict for souls: Christianity and Islam. And so began the Crusades of the High Middle Ages. Crusaders brought home trophies. Many were books and scientific instruments. And then came the Great Famine followed quickly by the Black Death, which spread along with trade and science and knowledge along the Silk Road. Climate change and disease might sound familiar today. France and England went to war for a hundred years. Disruption in the global order again allows for new empires. Ghengis Khan built a horde of Mongols that over the next few generations spread through China, Korea, India, Georgia and the Caucasus, Russia, Central Asia and Persia, Hungary, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Baghdad, Syria, Poland, and even Thrace throughout the 11th to 13th centuries. Many great works were lost in the wars, although the Mongols often allowed their subjects to continue life as before, with a hefty tax of course. They would grow to control 24 million square kilometers before the empires became unmanageable.  This disruption caused various peoples to move and one was a Turkic tribe fleeing Central Asia that under Osman I in the 13th century. The Ottomon empire he founded would go Islamic and grow to include much of the former Islamic regime as they expanded out of Turkey, including Greece Northern Africa. Over time they would also invade and rule Greece and almost all the way north to Kiev, and south through the lands of the former Mesopotamian empires. While they didn't conquer the Arabian peninsula, ruled by other Islamic empires, they did conquer all the way to Basra in the South and took Damascus, Medina, and Mecca, and Jerusalem. Still, given the density of population in some cities they couldn't grow past the same amount of space controlled in the days of Alexander. But again, knowledge was transferred to and from Egypt, Greece, and the former Mesopotamian lands. And with each turnover to a new empire more of the great works were taken from these cradles of civilization but kept alive to evolve further.  And one way science and math and philosophy and the understanding of the universe evolved was to influence the coming Renaissance, which began in the late 13th century and spread along with Greek scholars fleeing the Ottoman Turks after the fall of Constantinople throughout the Italian city-states and into England, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Spain. Hellenism was on the move again. The works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Plato, and others heavily influenced the next wave of mathematicians, astronomers, philosophers, and scientists. Copernicus studied Aristotle. Leonardo Da Vinci gave us the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, the Vitruvian Man, Salvator Mundi, and Virgin of the Rocks. His works are amongst the most recognizable paintings of the Renaissance. But he was also a great inventor, sketching and perhaps building automata, parachutes, helicopters, tanks, and along the way putting optics, anatomy, hydrodynamics and engineering concepts in his notebooks. And his influences certainly included the Greeks and Romans, including the Roman physician Galen. Given that his notebooks weren't published they offer a snapshot in time rather than a heavy impact on the evolution of science - although his influence is often seen as a contribution to the scientific revolution.  Da Vinci, like many of his peers in the Renaissance, learned the great works of the Greeks and Romans. And they learned the teachings in the Bible. They they didn't just take the word of either and they studied nature directly. The next couple of generations of intellectuals included Galileo. Galileo, effectively as with Socrates and countless other thinkers that bucked the prevailing political or religious climate of the time, by writing down what he saw with his own eyeballs. He picked up where Copernicus left off and discovered the four moons of Jupiter and astronomers continued to espouse that the the sun revolved around the Earth Galileo continued to prove it was in fact suspended in space and map out the movement of the heavenly bodies.  Clockwork, which had been used in the Greek times, as proven with the Antikypthera device and mentions of Archytas's dove. Mo Zi and Lu Ban built flying birds. As the Greeks and then Romans fell, that automata as with philosophy and ideas moved to the Islamic world. The ability to build a gear with a number of teeth to perform a function had been building over time. As had ingenious ways to put rods and axles and attach differential gearing. Yi Xing, a Buddhist monk in the Tang Dynasty, would develop the escapement, along with Liang Lingzan in the seventeenths century and the practice spread through China and then spread from there. But now clockwork would get pendulums, springs, and Robert Hook would give us the escapement in 1700, making clocks accurate. And that brings us to the scientific revolution, when most of the stories in the history of computing really start to take shape. Thanks to great thinkers, philosophers, scientists, artists, engineers, and yes, merchants who could fund innovation and spread progress through formal and informal ties - the age of science is when too much began happening too rapidly to really be able to speak about it meaningfully. The great mathematics and engineering led to industrialization and further branches of knowledge and specializations - eventually including Boolean algebra and armed with thousands of years of slow and steady growth in mechanics and theory and optics and precision, we would get early mechanical computing beginning the much more quick migration out of the Industrial and into the Information Age. These explosions in technology allowed the British Empire to grow to control 34 million square kilometers of territory and the Russian empire to grow to control 17 million before each overextended. Since writing was developed, humanity has experienced a generation to generation passing of the torch of science, mathematics, and philosophy. From before the Bronze Age, ideas were sometimes independently perceived or sometimes spread through trade from the Chinese, Indian, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian civilizations (and others) through traders like the Phoenicians to the Greeks and Persians - then from the Greeks to the Romans and the Islamic empires during the dark ages then back to Europe during the Renaissance. And some of that went both ways.  Ultimately, who first introduced each innovation and who influenced whom cannot be pinpointed in a lot of cases. Greeks were often given more credit than they deserved because I think most of us have really fond memories of toga parties in college. But there were generations of people studying all the things and thinking through each field when their other Maslovian needs were met - and those evolving thoughts and philosophies were often attributed to one person rather than all the parties involved in the findings.  After World War II there was a Cold War - and one of the ways that manifested itself was a race to recruit the best scientists from the losing factions of that war, namely Nazi scientists. Some died while trying to be taken to a better new life, as Archimedes had died when the Romans tried to make him an asset. For better or worse, world powers know they need the scientists if they're gonna' science - and that you gotta' science to stay in power. When the masses start to doubt science, they're probably gonna' burn the Library of Alexandria, poison Socrates, exile Galileo for proving the planets revolve around Suns and have their own moons that revolve around them, rather than the stars all revolving around the Earth. There wasn't necessarily a dark age - but given what the Greeks and Romans and Chinese thinkers knew and the substantial slowdown in those in between periods of great learning, the Renaissance and Enlightenment could have actually come much sooner. Think about that next time you hear people denying science.  To research this section, I read and took copious notes from the following and apologize that each passage is not credited specifically but it would just look like a regular expressions if I tried: The Evolution of Technology by George Basalla. Civilizations by Filipe Fernández-Armesto, A Short History of Technology: From The Earliest Times to AD 1900 from TK Derry and Trevor I Williams, Communication in History Technology, Culture, Leonardo da vinci by Walter Isaacson, Society from David Crowley and Paul Heyer, Timelines in Science, by the Smithsonian, Wheels, Clocks, and Rockets: A History of Technology by Donald Cardwell, a few PhD dissertations and post-doctoral studies from journals, and then I got to the point where I wanted the information from as close to the sources as I could get so I went through Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences from Galileo Galilei, Mediations from Marcus Aurelius, Pneumatics from Philo of Byzantium, The Laws of Thought by George Boole, Natural History from Pliny The Elder, Cassius Dio's Roman History, Annals from Tacitus, Orations by Cicero, Ethics, Rhetoric, Metaphysics, and Politics by Aristotle, Plato's Symposium and The Trial & Execution of Socrates. For a running list of all books used in this podcast see the GitHub page at https://github.com/krypted/TheHistoryOfComputingPodcast/blob/master/Books.md 

Scott, Karl, and Trent explore the string quartets of the Classical period, which lasted from roughly 1730 to 1820, following the Baroque period and preceding the Romantic period.   Tune in for more music and ideas, brought to you by onlinegreatbooks.com. 

Here we talk about what distinguishes music from the Classical Period. We will analyze key pieces of music and discuss famous composers during this era.

https://www.patreon.com/ClassicalNite

Christian Reif and John Taylor Ward discuss Haydn, Mozart, and more! Listen to a specially curated playlist by Maestro Reif at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1gJDqINTES2SMGGRAgPEE7?si=eaujERTsRByUOz1wSsRcFg

The Ancient Greeks saw omens everywhere they looked: in the natural world, in their ritual sacrifice of animals, even in their own mundane actions, such as sneezing. They believed the accurate reading of such omens was essential to making decisions large and small. Manteis were freelance interpretive experts called upon to read these omens. For a price, of course. Would you believe that the most successful manteis were as skilled in reading people as they were signs?

Beginning with Homer's Iliad, we look at the development of Greek geographical models of the Earth through the Classical Period.

The River Oaks Chamber Orchestra performs works from and inspired by the eighteenth century.

“Mozart, Beethoven y Mas “, hosted by Dr. Octavio Choy, is a program designed to provide the tools to appreciate and enjoy classical music. Along with the history of classical music and composers, there are descriptions of the most common instruments used in today’s orchestra. The program is conducted in Spanish.En Mozart, Beethoven y Mas, el Dr.Octavio Choy nos ayuda a disfrutar de la musica clasica, a traves de su historia y sus compositores, tambien usando descripciones de los instrumentos musicales de la orquesta. Para comentarios, diriganse a mozartbeethovenymas@gmail.com ; y en las redes sociales @MozartOctavio

In this podcast: 1. Brotha D, 2. Healing Muses, 3. SJ Pettersson, 4. American Baroque, 5. Viviana Guzman, 6. Andy Findon, 7. Chris Britton, 8. Andy Findon, 9. Chris Britton, 10. Takashi Matsuishi Spark, 11. Andy Findon, 12. Lisa Lynne and George Tortorelli, 13. Takashi Matsuishi Spark, 14. Andy Findon, 15. Andy Findon, 16. American Baroque, 17. Francois Couture, 18. Andy Findon

In this podcast: 1. Jacob Heringman, 2. Francesca Torelli, 3. Paul Beier, 4. English Ayres, 5. Edward Martin and Thomas Walker, 6. Richard MacKenzie, 7. Jacob Heringman, 8. Jacob Heringman, 9. English Ayres, 10. Paul Berget, 11. Dufay Collective, 12. Paul Beier, 13. Paul Berget, 14. English Ayres, 15. Pellingmans' Saraband, 16. James Akers, 17. Dufay Collective, 18. English Ayres, 19. Alan Rinehart, 20. Francesca Torelli, 21. James Akers, 22. Ireen Thomas, 23. Thomas Walker, 24. Asteria

In this podcast: 1. Music of the Spheres, 2. Da Camera, 3. SJ Pettersson, 4. Tanya Tomkins and Eric Zivian, 5. Jami Sieber, 6. Poeticall Musicke, 7. Gerard Satamian, 8. The Kingsbury Ensemble, 9. The Bach Players, 10. Voices of Music, 11. Vito Paternoster, 12. Chad Lawson, 13. Gerard Satamian, 14. Vito Paternoster, 15. The Bach Players, 16. Vito Paternoster

In this podcast: 1. Andy Findon, 2. Andy Findon, 3. Francois Couture, 4. Tilopa, 5. Andy Findon, 6. Gerard Satamian, 7. Kim Ribeiro, 8. Sambodhi Prem, 9. American Baroque, 10. Andy Findon, 11. Andy Findon, 12. Takashi Matsuishi Spark, 13. American Baroque, 14. Andy Findon, 15. Healing Muses, 16. Dufay Collective, 17. Takashi Matsuishi Spark, 18. Takashi Matsuishi Spark

In this podcast: 1. Mauricio Buraglia, 2. Mediva, 3. English Ayres, 4. Canconier, 5. Alison Crum and Roy Marks, 6. Jacob Heringman, 7. Alison Crum and Roy Marks, 8. Voices of Music, 9. Jeni Melia, 10. Jacob Heringman, 11. Jacob Heringman, 12. English Ayres, 13. Daniel Shoskes, 14. Jacob Heringman, 15. Francesca Torelli, 16. Jeni Melia, 17. Canconier, 18. Dufay Collective, 19. Jacob Heringman, 20. Voices of Music, 21. Alan Rinehart, 22. Music for a Winter's Eve, 23. Canconier, 24. Jeni Melia

In this podcast: 1. Bill Robinson, 2. Claire Fitch, 3. The Sarasa Ensemble, 4. Vito Paternoster, 5. Vito Paternoster, 6. Vito Paternoster, 7. The Bach Players, 8. Music of the Spheres, 9. Jami Sieber, 10. Da Camera, 11. Vito Paternoster, 12. American Baroque, 13. Barry Phillips, 14. Vito Paternoster, 15. American Baroque

In this podcast: 1. Andy Findon, 2. Viviana Guzman, 3. Dufay Collective, 4. Francois Couture, 5. AlmaNova, 6. Ensemble Mirable, 7. Takashi Matsuishi Spark, 8. Viviana Guzman, 9. Suzanne Teng, 10. Dufay Collective, 11. AlmaNova, 12. Duo de Bois, 13. Takashi Matsuishi Spark, 14. Andy Findon, 15. Takashi Matsuishi Spark, 16. Takashi Matsuishi Spark, 17. Andy Findon, 18. Takashi Matsuishi Spark

In this podcast: 1. Thomas Walker, 2. English Ayres, 3. Alan Rinehart, 4. Jacob Heringman, 5. Voices of Music, 6. Paul Berget, 7. Edward Martin and William Bastian, 8. Jeni Melia, 9. Edward Martin and Thomas Walker, 10. Canconier, 11. Galliarda, 12. Francesca Torelli, 13. Daniel Shoskes, 14. Asteria, 15. Alex McCartney, 16. Asteria, 17. Doc Rossi, 18. Daniel Shoskes, 19. English Ayres, 20. Jacob Heringman

In this podcast: 1. Sieber, Kammen and Fulton, 2. Sulis, 3. The Bach Players, 4. Vito Paternoster, 5. Jennifer Lane, 6. Vito Paternoster, 7. SJ Pettersson, 8. Vito Paternoster, 9. Ensemble Electra, 10. Vito Paternoster, 11. Jami Sieber, 12. Voices of Music, 13. The Sarasa Ensemble, 14. Gonzalo X Ruiz, 15. Voices of Music, 16. The Bach Players, 17. Ensemble Mirable, 18. Altri Stromenti

In this episode, we discuss what is known about the lives and works of the earliest tragic poets that set the stage for the first great Athenian playwright, Aeschylus, to make all sorts of theatrical innovations at the onset of the Classical Period; and we discuss the historicity and some of the major themes of his seven surviving plays--The Persians, Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, and the trilogy known as the Oresteia (which includes Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and the Eumenides) Show Notes: http://www.thehistoryofancientgreece.com/2017/07/050-early-tragedy-and-aeschylus.html

In this episode, we discuss the various types of ancient Greek musical instruments during the Classical Period and how and for what purpose they were used; and the lives and works of the three great 5th century BC lyric poets who pioneered the genre of the epinikion (victory ode)—Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC), Bacchylides of Ceos (ca. 525-ca. 450 BC), and Pindar of Thebes (522-443 BC), as well as their connections with the lesser known poets Corrina of Tanagra, Lasos of Hermione, and Timocreon of Rhodes Show Notes: http://www.thehistoryofancientgreece.com/2017/06/045-music-and-victory-odes.html  

In this episode, we discuss the life of the great Athenian statesman, Solon, who from his position of sole archonship, enacted various economic, political, and legal reforms that would later form the backbone for Athenian democracy in the Classical Period, but in doing so he took a moderate stance to appease everyone, which didn't quiet the ongoing social and economic problems of the state and shortly thereafter factionalism set in, leading to the next phase of Athenian political history (in which aristocratic infighting led to instability for decades and ultimately to tyranny) Show Notes: http://www.thehistoryofancientgreece.com/2016/12/025-reforms-of-solon.html

In this podcast: 1. Daniel Estrem, 2. Vito Paternoster, 3. Daniel Estrem, 4. Daniel Estrem, 5. Daniel Estrem, 6. Vito Paternoster, 7. Vito Paternoster, 8. Voices of Music, 9. Gonzalo X Ruiz, 10. Daniel Estrem, 11. Telemann Trio Berlin, 12. The Sarasa Ensemble, 13. Gonzalo X Ruiz, 14. Vito Paternoster, 15. Voices of Music, 16. Voices of Music, 17. The Sarasa Ensemble, 18. Daniel Estrem

In this podcast: 1. Romualdo Barone, 2. The Bach Players, 3. Daniel Estrem, 4. The Bach Players, 5. Romualdo Barone, 6. The Bach Players, 7. The Bach Players, 8. American Baroque, 9. Daniel Estrem, 10. American Baroque, 11. The Bach Players, 12. Vito Paternoster, 13. Seth Carlin, 14. Seth Carlin

In this podcast: 1. Romualdo Barone, 2. Vito Paternoster, 3. The Bach Players, 4. The Bach Players, 5. Seth Carlin, 6. Daniel Estrem, 7. Streicher Trio, 8. Vito Paternoster, 9. Daniel Estrem, 10. Vito Paternoster, 11. Daniel Estrem, 12. The Bach Players, 13. Ireen Thomas, 14. Daniel Estrem, 15. Vito Paternoster, 16. Ireen Thomas

In this podcast: 1. Vito Paternoster, 2. Voices of Music, 3. Gonzalo X Ruiz, 4. Daniel Estrem, 5. The Sarasa Ensemble, 6. Daniel Estrem, 7. Telemann Trio Berlin, 8. Gonzalo X Ruiz, 9. The Sarasa Ensemble, 10. Daniel Estrem, 11. American Baroque, 12. The Sarasa Ensemble, 13. Daniel Estrem, 14. Daniel Estrem, 15. Daniel Estrem, 16. Daniel Estrem, 17. Daniel Estrem, 18. Vito Paternoster, 19. Vito Paternoster, 20. American Baroque, 21. American Baroque, 22. Daniel Estrem

In this podcast: 1. Romualdo Barone, 2. Ireen Thomas, 3. Seth Carlin, 4. Daniel Estrem, 5. The Bach Players, 6. Ireen Thomas, 7. Daniel Estrem, 8. The Bach Players, 9. Streicher Trio, 10. Seth Carlin, 11. The Bach Players, 12. Romualdo Barone, 13. The Bach Players, 14. The Bach Players, 15. Vito Paternoster

Institute of Musical Research Performers - Sebastian Comberti (cello) and Mine Doğantan-Dack (piano) Sebastian Comberti (cello) and Mine Doğantan-Dack (piano) perform Serge Rachmaninov 'Cello Sonata in G minor op. 19' Supported by IMR, Middl...

Dr. Martin Klauber talks about Protestant Orthodoxy in the Classical period. 

Think I'm on safe ground when I say à Those listening to this are mostly likely students of history. Your knowledge of the past is probably more comprehensive than the average person. And of course, the range of knowledge among subscribers to CS spans the gamut from extensive to, well, not so much. Yet still, more than the average.If asked to make a list of the main thinkers of the past; philosophers, theologians, and such like, of Western tradition, we'd get the usual. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Seneca, Cicero, Virgil. Clement, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas.A name far less likely to make that list is the subject of this episode.  Though he's not oft mentioned in modern treatments of church and philosophical history, his work was a major contributor to medieval thought, which was the seedbed form which the modern world rose.His full name was Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus. But he's known to us simply as Boethius.Born to a Roman senatorial family sometime between 475 & 80 in Italy, Boethius was left an orphan at an early age. He was adopted by another patrician, Memmius Symmachus, who instilled in the young man a love of literature and philosophy.Symmachus made sure Boethius learned the vanishing skill of literacy in Greek. With the split between the Eastern & Western Roman Empires now settled, and the Fall of the Western Empire to the Goths, it seems Greek, primary language of the East, fell to disuse in favor of Latin. In the West, Greek became increasingly the language of scholars and those suspected of lingering loyalty to the East.Nevertheless, Boethius' familiarity with the classics commended him to the new rulers of the West – the Ostrogoths. Their king, Theodoric the Great, appointed the 35 year old Boethius as consul. While the office of consul was technically linked to the ancient Roman Republican Consul, by the 6th C, it was an office far more of image than substance. Still an important position politically, but wielding none of the authority it once had. By Boethius' time, that is the early 6th C, being a senator meant little more than, “This is someone to keep your eye on as a potential future leader.” Being made a consul was like making the finals in the last round of the playoffs. But with an emperor seated on the throne, all rule and authority was concentrated in the royal court. A 5th & 6th C Roman Consul was more a political figurehead; a polite fiction; a nod to the glory of ancient Rome and her amazing feat of world conquest. From Augustus on, the Roman Senate and her consuls steadily lost place to the new imperial bureaucracy. After Augustus, who moved swiftly to relocate and consolidate all power within his executive office, Roman emperors turned to the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard as the new go to guy in executing Imperial policy. By the time of Boethius, that office had evolved into what was called the Magister Officiorum; head of all government and judicial services.When Boethius's term as consul was up, his two sons were appointed co-consuls in his place, one for the West, the other for the East. He was then promoted into the role of Magister Officiorum – the highest administrative position in King Theodoric's court.And that's where the fun begins. à Well, it wasn't so fun for Boethius. I probably ought to say; that's where the political shenanigans and devious machinations began. For it was there, serving Theodoric, that Boethius ran afoul of the ambitions of powerful men.They used Boethius' faith to bring him down.And here we're back to the old Arian-Nicaean Controversy. You see, while Arianism had been debunked and expelled from the Western Church long before all this, it found a home among the Goths of the East; the Ostrogoths, who now ruled what was left of the Western Roman Empire. King Theodoric was an Arian, as were his Ostrogoth pals, many of whom were jealous that an outsider like Boethius had the highest post they could aspire to. Oh, and don't forget that Boethius is fluent in Greek, the language they speak over in the Eastern Empire. Whose Emperor, Justinian I was openly known to aspire to reclaim Italy from Theodoric. Oh, and to add fuel to the fires of controversy & suspicion, those Easterners are also Orthodox, Nicaean Christians, people who've systematically wiped out Arians.Boethius' was doing a stellar job as Magister Officiorum, so they knew they couldn't attack him directly. They went instead after his less well-connected friends, accusing them of conspiring with Justinian in his designs on Italy. They knew Boethius would come to their defense, and that would be enough to cast a pall over his imperial favor. The ruse worked, and Boethius was arrested, hauled off to an estate in Pavia, where he spent a year in confinement, then quietly executed when the news cycle shifted to other more pressing matters. Ha! Today, the news cycle is down to about 5 days. Back then, it was several months.Now, you may be wondering, what does Boethius have to do with CHURCH history? I'm so glad you asked.Boethius' main contribution to history in general and to Church history in particular lies in his impact on the relationship between theology and philosophy. He's regarded by many as the last of the ancient philosophers.Boethius adored the ancient Greeks. It was his life's ambition, to translate the works of Plato and Aristotle into Latin. He died before he was able, but he made a good start. His singular contribution to history is his serving as a bridge between the classical and medieval ages for understanding Aristotelean thought, especially as it regards Aristotle's work in LOGIC. Boethius recast Aristotle's principles in terms that Medieval Europeans could grasp. His work then was foundational to many other theologians and philosophers for hundreds of years. One can argue that without Boethius, Roman Scholasticism, might not have happened, or at least it would have adopted a very different form. Boethius provided much of the vocabulary of medieval theology and philosophy. He's sometimes called “the first scholastic” because in his work titled Opuscula Sacra, written to defend orthodox theology, he applied Aristotelian logic, seeking to harmonize faith & reason – the great task of later Scholastics.But it was during his year of imprisonment in Pavia, as he awaited execution that Boethius wrote his most well-known volume, The Consolation of Philosophy, regarded as the single most influential work on Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity, & the last great Western work of the Classical Period.Written in 523, The Consolation of Philosophy presents a conversation between himself and Lady Philosophy, who's come to console him. It's essentially a theodicy; an examination of the age-old dilemma addressing the challenge posed by the dual proposition of the existence of evil & God's omnipotence and love. A theodicy seeks to answer the question: If the God of the Bible is real, why is there evil in the world; a potent question for a man like Boethius, an innocent man awaiting execution by the wicked.During Lady Philosophy's discourse, subjects like predestination and free will are examined. The Consolation isn't an overtly Gospel centered work. Jesus isn't even mentioned. A rather generic God is assumed; a deity who certainly aligns loosely with The God of Scripture; but a distinctive Christian Trinitarian God isn't defined. For this reason, some historian claim Boethius wasn't a Christian. But that assessment simply doesn't square with the rest of his life, his other writings, or why he was accused of treason. His enemies went after him precisely because his orthodoxy raised Arian suspicion.So, what are we to make of the Consolation's lack of Gospel content? Surely the answer is found in Boethius' intended audience. He wasn't writing to or for Christians, showing them how to link faith and reason. He wrote to convince pagans that real philosophy, the kind that led to a better life, the BEST life, doesn't flow in tandem with paganism. The best life is a moral life, where justice and moderation are virtues. It was no doubt Boethius' hope, once pagans realized pagan religion hindered a better life, they'd investigate Christianity, because at that time in Europe those were the only two options, the only available worldviews: Christianity & Paganism. Take down paganism, and people would move to the only thing left – The Gospel.