Podcasts about ptolemaic egypt

Hellenistic kingdom in ancient Egypt from 305 to 30 BC

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Best podcasts about ptolemaic egypt

Latest podcast episodes about ptolemaic egypt

New Books Network
Alexandra F. Morris, "Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World: Plato's Stepchildren" (Routledge, 2024)

New Books Network

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2025 40:20


Through a thoughtful investigation, Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World: Plato's Stepchildren (Routledge, 2024) reveals often-overlooked narratives of disability within Ptolemaic Egypt and the larger Hellenistic world (332 BCE to 30 BCE). Chapters explore evidence of physical and intellectual disability, ranging from named individuals; representations of people and mythological figures with dwarfism, blindness and vision impairments; cerebral palsy; mobility impairments; spinal disability; and medicine, healing, and prosthetics. Morris examines the historiographical ways in which disability has been approached, and how ancient disability histories are (mis)represented in various contemporary spaces. It uses terminology informed by the disability community and offers guidance for disability inclusivity in curatorial and pedagogical museum and university contexts, as well as prioritizing disability as an essential area of research in ancient world studies and assisting readers with the identification of ancient disability artefacts. The first-book length treatment of the subject, Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World provides a much-needed resource for students and scholars of ancient Egypt, Egyptology, Classics, Classical Studies, and disability in the ancient world. It is also suitable for researchers in Disability Studies, practitioners in broader Ancient World Studies, and museum and heritage professionals. It is accessible to disabled people curious about their own history, as well as nondisabled people interested in disability history and those interested in a more accurate view of ancient Egyptian history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

New Books in Ancient History
Alexandra F. Morris, "Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World: Plato's Stepchildren" (Routledge, 2024)

New Books in Ancient History

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2025 40:20


Through a thoughtful investigation, Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World: Plato's Stepchildren (Routledge, 2024) reveals often-overlooked narratives of disability within Ptolemaic Egypt and the larger Hellenistic world (332 BCE to 30 BCE). Chapters explore evidence of physical and intellectual disability, ranging from named individuals; representations of people and mythological figures with dwarfism, blindness and vision impairments; cerebral palsy; mobility impairments; spinal disability; and medicine, healing, and prosthetics. Morris examines the historiographical ways in which disability has been approached, and how ancient disability histories are (mis)represented in various contemporary spaces. It uses terminology informed by the disability community and offers guidance for disability inclusivity in curatorial and pedagogical museum and university contexts, as well as prioritizing disability as an essential area of research in ancient world studies and assisting readers with the identification of ancient disability artefacts. The first-book length treatment of the subject, Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World provides a much-needed resource for students and scholars of ancient Egypt, Egyptology, Classics, Classical Studies, and disability in the ancient world. It is also suitable for researchers in Disability Studies, practitioners in broader Ancient World Studies, and museum and heritage professionals. It is accessible to disabled people curious about their own history, as well as nondisabled people interested in disability history and those interested in a more accurate view of ancient Egyptian history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in Disability Studies
Alexandra F. Morris, "Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World: Plato's Stepchildren" (Routledge, 2024)

New Books in Disability Studies

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2025 40:20


Through a thoughtful investigation, Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World: Plato's Stepchildren (Routledge, 2024) reveals often-overlooked narratives of disability within Ptolemaic Egypt and the larger Hellenistic world (332 BCE to 30 BCE). Chapters explore evidence of physical and intellectual disability, ranging from named individuals; representations of people and mythological figures with dwarfism, blindness and vision impairments; cerebral palsy; mobility impairments; spinal disability; and medicine, healing, and prosthetics. Morris examines the historiographical ways in which disability has been approached, and how ancient disability histories are (mis)represented in various contemporary spaces. It uses terminology informed by the disability community and offers guidance for disability inclusivity in curatorial and pedagogical museum and university contexts, as well as prioritizing disability as an essential area of research in ancient world studies and assisting readers with the identification of ancient disability artefacts. The first-book length treatment of the subject, Disability in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Hellenistic World provides a much-needed resource for students and scholars of ancient Egypt, Egyptology, Classics, Classical Studies, and disability in the ancient world. It is also suitable for researchers in Disability Studies, practitioners in broader Ancient World Studies, and museum and heritage professionals. It is accessible to disabled people curious about their own history, as well as nondisabled people interested in disability history and those interested in a more accurate view of ancient Egyptian history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books Network
Zsuszanna Szanto, "The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024)

New Books Network

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2024 46:04


The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024) offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of the Jews of Egypt, who constituted an important ethnic minority ever since they first appeared in the country. As part of the Greek-speaking ruling class, the Jews played an active role in the political, social and cultural life of Ptolemaic Egypt. Drawing on old and new documentary papyri supplemented by literary and epigraphic evidence, Szántó's book focuses on reconstructing an overall picture of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora and discusses different aspects of their life: onomastics, military life, social and legal position, religious customs and anti-Judaism. The incorporation of non-Greek (Aramaic and Egyptian) textual evidence into the research is innovative and offers new perspectives on certain topics whose understanding was previously limited. Szántó provides a diverse picture of Jewish life and demonstrates how the Jews integrated into Graeco-Egyptian society and, at the same time, preserved their ethnic identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

New Books in History
Zsuszanna Szanto, "The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024)

New Books in History

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2024 46:04


The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024) offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of the Jews of Egypt, who constituted an important ethnic minority ever since they first appeared in the country. As part of the Greek-speaking ruling class, the Jews played an active role in the political, social and cultural life of Ptolemaic Egypt. Drawing on old and new documentary papyri supplemented by literary and epigraphic evidence, Szántó's book focuses on reconstructing an overall picture of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora and discusses different aspects of their life: onomastics, military life, social and legal position, religious customs and anti-Judaism. The incorporation of non-Greek (Aramaic and Egyptian) textual evidence into the research is innovative and offers new perspectives on certain topics whose understanding was previously limited. Szántó provides a diverse picture of Jewish life and demonstrates how the Jews integrated into Graeco-Egyptian society and, at the same time, preserved their ethnic identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

New Books in Jewish Studies
Zsuszanna Szanto, "The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024)

New Books in Jewish Studies

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2024 46:04


The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024) offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of the Jews of Egypt, who constituted an important ethnic minority ever since they first appeared in the country. As part of the Greek-speaking ruling class, the Jews played an active role in the political, social and cultural life of Ptolemaic Egypt. Drawing on old and new documentary papyri supplemented by literary and epigraphic evidence, Szántó's book focuses on reconstructing an overall picture of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora and discusses different aspects of their life: onomastics, military life, social and legal position, religious customs and anti-Judaism. The incorporation of non-Greek (Aramaic and Egyptian) textual evidence into the research is innovative and offers new perspectives on certain topics whose understanding was previously limited. Szántó provides a diverse picture of Jewish life and demonstrates how the Jews integrated into Graeco-Egyptian society and, at the same time, preserved their ethnic identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

New Books in Ancient History
Zsuszanna Szanto, "The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024)

New Books in Ancient History

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2024 46:04


The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024) offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of the Jews of Egypt, who constituted an important ethnic minority ever since they first appeared in the country. As part of the Greek-speaking ruling class, the Jews played an active role in the political, social and cultural life of Ptolemaic Egypt. Drawing on old and new documentary papyri supplemented by literary and epigraphic evidence, Szántó's book focuses on reconstructing an overall picture of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora and discusses different aspects of their life: onomastics, military life, social and legal position, religious customs and anti-Judaism. The incorporation of non-Greek (Aramaic and Egyptian) textual evidence into the research is innovative and offers new perspectives on certain topics whose understanding was previously limited. Szántó provides a diverse picture of Jewish life and demonstrates how the Jews integrated into Graeco-Egyptian society and, at the same time, preserved their ethnic identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in Religion
Zsuszanna Szanto, "The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024)

New Books in Religion

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2024 46:04


The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024) offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of the Jews of Egypt, who constituted an important ethnic minority ever since they first appeared in the country. As part of the Greek-speaking ruling class, the Jews played an active role in the political, social and cultural life of Ptolemaic Egypt. Drawing on old and new documentary papyri supplemented by literary and epigraphic evidence, Szántó's book focuses on reconstructing an overall picture of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora and discusses different aspects of their life: onomastics, military life, social and legal position, religious customs and anti-Judaism. The incorporation of non-Greek (Aramaic and Egyptian) textual evidence into the research is innovative and offers new perspectives on certain topics whose understanding was previously limited. Szántó provides a diverse picture of Jewish life and demonstrates how the Jews integrated into Graeco-Egyptian society and, at the same time, preserved their ethnic identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Historically Thinking: Conversations about historical knowledge and how we achieve it
Intellectual Humility and Historical Thinking: Joseph Manning

Historically Thinking: Conversations about historical knowledge and how we achieve it

Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2024 24:38


This is another of our series of conversations on intellectual humility and historical thinking.  With me today is Joseph Manning. He is the William K. and Marilyn Milton Simpson Professor of Classics and History, Professor in the Yale School of the Environment, and Senior Research Scholar in Law.  Manning has a specialized historical focus on Hellenistic history, with particular focus on the legal and economic history of Ptolemaic Egypt. His research focus over the last ten years has concentrated on historical climate change and its impact on premodern societies more widely. He is the principal investigator of the US National Science foundation project:  “Volcanism, Hydrology and Social Conflict: Lessons from Hellenistic and Roman-Era Egypt and Mesopotamia.” He is also on the editorial boards of Studia Hellenistica (Leuven) and the Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies. He has coedited several volumes, and is the author of numerous monographs, the most recent of which is The Open Sea: The Economic Life of the Ancient Mediterranean World from the Iron Age to the Rise of Rome (Princeton University Press, 2018), which was the subject of a conversation in Episode 164 of Historically Thinking. He is now at work on a major new work on historic climate change and its impact since the last Ice Age.

The Royal Studies Podcast
Part Two of Egyptian Rulership: Interview with Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones on The Cleopatras

The Royal Studies Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 19, 2024 27:02


In this episode, Ellie Woodacre interviews Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones on his new book The Cleopatras. The Forgotten Queens of Egypt, published by Wildfire/Basic Books in May 2024. We discuss the need for this book which looks at all seven of the Cleopatras who were dynamic and fascinating co-rulers of Ptolemaic Egypt. We also discuss the particular dynamics of Ptolemaic rulership and the ways in which it brought together elements of Macedonian and Egyptian ideas of rule. In addition, we talk about how these women were 'goddess queens' who were worshipped both in their own time and after their death and how they used this quasi-divine status to enhance their power.Guest Bio: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Professor in Ancient History at Cardiff University. His research concentrates, in the main, on the Persian empire, the ancient Near East, and the Hellenistic world. He also works on gender and reception history. Lloyd has published extensively, often with a focus on monarchy and court society. Recent books include King and Court in Ancient Persia (Edinburgh University Press, 2013), The Hellenistic Court (Classical Press of Wales, 2016), Persians: the Age of the Great Kings (Wildfire/Basic Books, 2022), Kleopatra Thea and Kleopatra III. Sister-Queens in the High-Hellenistic Period (Routledge, 2022), and Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther: Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible (I.B. Tauris, 2023). 

Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard
Day 4 - History's First Genocide... Probably

Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 9, 2024 18:55


Content warning for discussion of genocide Episode music can be found here: https://uppbeat.io/track/paulo-kalazzi/heros-time Day 4 will take a deep dive into the Punic Wars and the Sacking of Carthage. The Fall of Carthage is widely considered to be the first recorded genocide in history and we will be looking at the hows the why and the whos of it all. Episode Notes below: Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 4 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 3 last week, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week. This week we're going to be going all the way back to the purported origins of my field of study. This week we're going to be discussing History's first genocide… probably. Remember that genocide require intent to destroy a specific group of people, and the destruction of Carthage during the Third Punic war is the first time in history that was can demonstrate that intent, at least so far. As always we are not going to be diving right into the event itself. All history exists within specific cultural, national, and ethnic contexts. Genocide moreso than any other type of event. No nation just wakes up one day and suddenly decides to go on a mass murder spree. So what caused Rome and Carthage, two states that had been allies and friends for hundreds of years to suddenly fight three wars against each other and ultimately, in the case of Rome, wipe Carthage off the map? Following the Pyrrhic War and throughout the middle of the 3rd century BCE Rome and Carthage because the two preeminent powers of the Mediterranean. During this time Carthage would come to dominate southern Spain, much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and the western half of Sicily, in a military and commercial empire. Whereas Rome had subjugated almost the entirety of the Italian peninsula and finally driven the last Greek colonies off of the mainland. In 265 BCE a group of Italian mercenaries called the Mamertines appealed to both Carthage and Rome for aid after they had seized the city of Messana on the island of Sicily (modern day Messina) from the Kingdom of Syracuse. Carthage immediately entered the war, but on the side of Hiero II the King of Syracuse. The Romans, as Romans are wont to do, debated for a while about this. They didn't really want to go to war to support people who had stolen a city from its rightful owner, and as Carthage had already entered on Syracuse's side, entering the war at the Mamertine's request could lead to a war with Carthage. However,  Appius Claudius Caudex filled his fellow senator heads, as well as the heads of the general assembly, with thoughts of booty and plunder. Many of the senators were already arguing that there was a strategic and monetary advantage to gaining a foothold on Sicily. The First Punic War officially began when the first Roman sandal made landfall in 264 BCE. By the way, in case you're wondering why it's called the Punic war, and not the Carthaginian War, Punicus was a term the Romans used to refer to the people of Carthage, hearkening back to their Phonecian origins. When the Romans landed Messana was under siege by the combined forces of the Carthaginians and the armies of Syracuse. Sources are unclear as to why, but first the Syracusans and then the Carthiginians withdrew from the siege. Rome's armies, under the command of Caudex marched south and put Syracuse under siege, but having only brought two legions with them they did not have the forces or supplies for a protracted siege.  Immediately this war was looking to be a bad idea for Rome, as Carthage had nearly overwhelming naval superiority at the beginning of the war. Indeed it is somewhat shocking, at face value, that Rome was able to win the First Punic War as the majority of the 23 year long war was fought on, or very near the water. To try and counter the Carthiginians naval prowess the Romans introduces a device called a corvus to their ships. The corvus was a 4 foot wide and 36 foot long bridge that was attached to the front mast of a Roman quinquereme. It has a large, hooked spike attached to the underside of the front of the bridge and was used to attach Roman ships to Carthiginian ones and allow for swift boarding of enemy vessels. While the corvus did have some measure of success it made Roman ships very front heavy, made them far less maneuverable, and in heavy seas were practically useless. Now, Sicily was a nightmare for an attacking force. Its hilly and remarkably rugged terrain made moving large bodies of troops very difficult. The ground of Sicily heavily favored the defender. In fact, in 23 years of fighting on the island, only two full scale pitched battles were fought.The Battle of Agrigentum in 262, which was a Roman victory, and the Battle of Panormus, which was also a Roman victory. Agrigentum was a particularly interesting case. Both Roman consuls at the time  Quintus Mamilius Vitulus and Lucius Postumius Megellus were in the field with 40,000 Roman soldiers.  A large army has an even larger stomach though, and the consuls had two major problems. First, because of Carthage's naval superiority it was exceedingly difficult to keep their forces supplied by sea. And to compound those issues, neither consul had experience moving around armies of this size. So after seizing Agrirentum, right around harvest season. The consuls dispersed their men to the fields in order to harvest as much food as the possible could. And, of course, that was the moment that Hannibal Grisco (a different Hannibal than the one famous for marching elephants over the Alps) attacked the Roman forces. Rome's forces would rally after this initial assault and rout the Carthiginian forces before besieging and capturing the city, selling 25,000 people into slavery. The war was less direct after Agrigentum for a few years. Rome made failed attempts in Corsica, Sardinia, and Northern Africa. For several years the war followed a pretty simple pattern. Rome was superior on land. Carthage was superior at sea, and sieges sucked for everyone. In 265 BCE Rome gained two new consuls Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus. Both men, frustrated by the stalemate that was raging on Sicily decided to take the fight to Africa itself. After a series of relatively quick sieges of Aspis and Adys Rome had taken the city of Tunis, this put them only 10 miles away from Carthage itself. Carthage tried to sue for peace, but the terms that Regulus offered were so harsh that Carthage decided to fight on. Rome would actually suffer one of its largest defeats at Tunis, though it wouldn't come from a Carthiginian general. Rome lost to a Spartan mercenary commander Xanthippus. In 255 BC Xanthippus led an army of 12,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 100 elephants against the Romans and defeated them at the Battle of Tunis. Rome would lose much of its fleet and tens of thousands of allied soldiers in various storms around the Mediterranean. There was even a time, following the Battle of Phintias, that it looked like things were finally turning around for Carthage. However, by 248 Carthage only had control over two cities on the island, Lilybaeum and Drepana and both nations' coffers were nearly emptied. Carthage tried to get a 2000 talent (approximately 52,000 kilograms of silver)  loan from Ptolemaic Egypt, but was denied. Rome turned to its wealthiest private citizens. Asking them each to build a single quinquereme and promising repayments from the reparations they would make Carthage pay after the war. It should also bear mentioning that Rome lost about 17% of its fighting age men over the course of this war.  The consuls who finished off the war were Gaius Lutatius Catulus and Quintus Valerius Falto (Rome elected new consuls yearly). These two consuls defeated the last of Carthages fleet in the Battle of Aegates Island. After this battle was finished Rome continued to put pressure on Lilybaeum and Drepana until Carthage decided to sue for peace. The Treaty of Lutatius was signed and brought the First Punic War to its end: Carthage evacuated Sicily, handed over all prisoners taken during the war, and paid an indemnity of 3,200 talents over ten years. This wouldn't end Carthages' woes though. In 237 BC Carthage prepared an expedition to recover the island of Sardinia, which had been lost to the rebels (mostly foreign soldiers they were unable to pay fully after the war) In a fit of cruelty, the Romans stated they considered this an act of war. Their peace terms were the ceding of Sardinia and Corsica and the payment of an additional 1,200-talent indemnity. Weakened by 30 years of war, Carthage agreed rather than enter into a conflict with Rome again; the additional payment and the renunciation of Sardinia and Corsica were added to the treaty as a codicil. The tensions caused by THIS particular bit of tomfuckery would be one of the major determining factors in the start of the Second Punic War. The mark that the First Punic War made on history cannot be understated. It was not only the longest Rman war to date, but it was the most devastating maritime war of the ancient world. Over the course of it Rome built over 1000 ships and would use the skills they learned and honed in this war to rule the seas, virtually uncontested for the next 600 years. Following the First Punic War Carthage turned its eyes to the North. They knew they would need to expand their power base and accrue a much greater store of wealth if they were ever going to stand on equal footing with Rome again. The Italian Peninsula and the surrounding island were off limits, so they turned to Iberia. They would meet Rome again in Iberia, but in 226 the two powers signed the Treaty of Ebro, fixing the River Ebro as the border between the two empires. It's likely that Rome had no intention of maintaining the terms of this treaty as some few years after they established an alliance with the city of Saguntum, a city which existed within the Carthiginian sphere of influence. Hannibal (yes, that one, with the Elephants) saw this as an act of aggression from Rome and besieged the city of Saguntum, eventually seizing it after 8 months of siege. Rome sent Quintus Fabius Maximus to the Carthage senate with peremptory demands. When these were rejected, as Rome knew they would be, war was declared in the spring of 218 BC. The Second Punic War would last for 17 years and would, again, end in victory for Rome. The war got off to somewhat of an odd start. Both Rome and Carthage planned to invade the other, but neither side seemed to really know what the others were doing or where they would be. It's likely, given the way the previous war had gone, that Rome expected a naval attack from Carthage, and so they remained in the south putting together their plan to invade Africa again. Hannibal though had a different plan. He intended to swing up through Iberia, starting in modern Cartagena, cross the Alps, which he did in 15 days, and sweep down on Rome from the North. He successfully crossed the Alps with 20,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and an unknown number of elephants (he'd left Iberia with 37 of them, but it's unclear how many survived the crossing.) Hannibal then proceeded to dog walk the Roman army around Italy for the next two years. The only challenge he really faced was from Quintus Fabius Maximus, nicknamed Cuncator (the Delayer) by his contemporaries for his adoption of the Fabian Strategy. Well, his creation really. The strategy is named after him. The Fabian strategy employs hit and run tactics and seeks to avoid pitched battle. Fabian hoped to use this harrying tactic to enter into a battle of attrition, hoping that Hannibal would run out of supplies and be forced to leave or surrender. In 216 Rome elected two new consuls Gaius Terentius Varro, who advocated pursuing a more aggressive war strategy, and Lucius Aemilius Paullus, who advocated a strategy somewhere between Fabius's and that suggested by Varro. The Senate also authorized the raising of a double sized army, some 86,000 men. The largest Roman army in history at that point. Varro and Paullus lost most of their army in Rome's greatest military disaster, the Battle of Cannae. Some 67,500 Roman troops died in this one battle. This was almost the end for Rome. They almost lost the whole war in that one Battle. Hannibal was supported by Gaulish and Spanish mercenaries, he was up against military incompetents, and he was about to be joined by the King of Macedonia as an ally. In 215 Phillip V launched the First Macedonian War. It was time for Rome to bring back the one man who had stood a chance against Hannibal. It was time to bring back Fabius. Fabius became consul again in 215 BC and was re-elected in 214 BC. Rome, now more desperate than they'd been in a long time also drastically reduced its standards for soldiers. Enrolling slaves, criminals and those who did not meet the usual property qualification. By early 215 BC they were fielding at least 12 legions; by 214 BC 18; and by 213 BC 22. By 212 BC the full complement of the legions deployed would have been in excess of 100,000 men, plus, as always, a similar number of allied troops. The majority were deployed in southern Italy in field armies of approximately 20,000 men each. This was insufficient to challenge Hannibal's army in open battle, but sufficient to force him to concentrate his forces and to hamper his movements. For 11 years after the Battle of Cannae, the war was raged across Southern Italy in a constant give and take as Carthage captured Roman cities, only for them to be recaptured. The fighting in Italy was fierce and seemed to be going mostly in Hannibal's favor, but Italy was not the only theatre of this war. The Iberian Theatre could best be described a a holding action for the first several years. As Rome sought to hold Carthiginian forces in Iberia and prevent them from reinforcing Hannibal by crossing the alps again (although Hannibal's brother Hasdrupal was able to cross the Alps with 35,000 additional troops).  Scipio Africanus was ultimately successful in Iberia, clearing it of Carthiginian control. He almost lost control of the region when the Iberian leaders sought to fight against the Romans who they had just fought with against the armies of Carthage. They'd expected Rome to leave after defeating Carthage here, but Rome wouldn't give up land it held and sent Claudius Nero over to stabilize the situation. This left Iberia under Roman control and Italy fighting for its life against Hannibal and Hasdrubal. In a move of some desperation and no little boldness Rome decided to finally launch its invasion of Africa in 204 BCE led by the famed Scipio Africanus, and after defeating Carthage in two major battles, Carthage elected to sue for peace and recall Hannibal and his brothers from Italy.  Rome and Carthage entered into peace negotiations. The Roman Senate ratified a draft treaty, but because of mistrust and a surge in confidence when Hannibal arrived from Italy, Carthage decided to take one last stab at achieving victory. Thus did the Battle of Zarna begin. Hannibal tried to use a charge of 80 elephants to break Rome's lines, but Rome was able to turn the charge back and the elephants wound up devastating their own forces. The new peace treaty dictated by Rome stripped Carthage of all of its overseas territories and some of its African ones. An indemnity of 10,000 talents of silver was to be paid over 50 years and hostages were taken. Carthage was forbidden to possess war elephants and its fleet was restricted to ten warships. It was prohibited from waging war outside Africa and in Africa only with Rome's permission. And so there would be peace for 50 years. Sort of, but not really. Carthage finished paying off their indemnity in 151, 50 years after the end of the Second Punic War and was, once again, economically prosperous. They were, really, no military threat to Rome anymore, but many Roman senators refused to believe that. Most famous of which was the senator Marcus Porcius Cato, also known as Cato the Censor. Cato had been part of an assembly sent to Carthage in around 153 BCE and notes how wealthy and prosperous it seemed. He was famous for ending all of his speeches before the senate with the phrase Ceterum (autem) censeo Carthaginem esse delendam ("Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed"), which is often shortened to merely Carthago delenda est (Carthage must fall). In 149 BCE Rome sent its armies to Carthage, under the pretext of a punitive expedition because Carthage was allegedly engaging in illicit military operations. The Third Punic War, which lasted for a mere three years, really only had the one major engagement. That being the Siege of Carthage, which would eventually be led by Scipio Aemilianus, the adoptive grandson of Scipio Africanus. Initially Carthage tried to surrender and, indeed, surrendered all of their weapons. But Rome would not be swayed by this. They wanted Carthage destroyed, and ultimately it would be. The early years of the siege saw little success. Carthage was a hard city to besiege, and it still had some allies in the region. So in addition to contending with the city itself, Roman forces needed to be on guard for allied towns and cities who would try to come to Carthage's aid. After 3 years though it would end in a single week of some of the most horrific slaughter of the ancient world. In Spring of 146 Scipio launched a full scale adult on the harbor area and successfully breached the walls of Carthage. Over six days, the Romans systematically worked their way through the residential part of the city, killing everyone they encountered and setting the buildings behind them on fire. The city was razed to the ground, over 700,000 people were killed, including women and children, and some 50,000 survivors were sold into slavery. The next part of the story that you might know, if you know this story at all, is that Scipio then proceeded to salt the earth around Carthage so that nothing would ever grow there again. This story is almost certainly apocryphal. Which is fancy historian speak for “full of shit”. There are no ancient sources for this event. The salting story entered the academic literature in Bertrand Hallward's article in the first edition of the Cambridge Ancient History (1930), and was widely accepted as factual. What IS factual though is that Rome committed genocide in sacking Carthage. There was a clear and deliberate plan to destroy every single vestige of the people of Carthage, either through mass slaughter or slavery. There was clear intent to destroy planned and carried out by the duly elected leader of Rome and its armies. It literally doesn't get any more clear than this. Intent was vocally demonstrated by Cato and physically carried out by Scipio. That's it for this week my friend. Thank you for coming with me on this educational foray into the past. We've got some more reviews to read for this week, so let's jump right into them. *Read Reviews* Have a Day! w/ The History Wizard is brought to you by me, The History Wizard. PLease remember to rate, review, and subscribe to Have a Day! On your pod catcher of choice. The more you do, the more people will be able to listen and learn along with you. Thank you for sticking around until the end and, as always, Have a Day.

Empire
133. Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile

Empire

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 21, 2024 47:01


Born in the romantic splendour of Ptolemaic Egypt, not far from the Library of Alexandria, Cleopatra was destined for greatness. She ascended to the throne at 18 and very quickly asserted her authority across Egypt as her extraordinary mind and legendary charisma captivated all. To some she was even a goddess, a living embodiment of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Such was her magnetism that not even the most powerful men of the age were able to resist her. Listen as William and Anita are joined by Stacy Schiff to discuss Cleopatra, her rise to power, and her relationship with the ruler of Rome, Julius Caesar. For bonus episodes, ad-free listening, reading lists, book discounts, a weekly newsletter, and a chat community. Sign up at https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/ Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: empirepoduk@gmail.com Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Anouska Lewis Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
095: Ptolemaic Egypt - The Two Lands Restored

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2024 37:54


Twenty years of chaos in the Ptolemaic kingdom come to an end during the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (204-180). His marriage to the Seleucid princess Cleopatra I Syra confirmed the loss of Coele Syria to Antiochus III, yet she proved to be a good match and helped secure the future of the dynasty. Haronnophoris and the Great Revolt are finally put down in 186, but the Alexandrian government is forced to give concessions to the Egyptians, as the Ptolemies must now come to terms with their new status as a second-class power in the Mediterranean. We also delve into the history of the Rosetta Stone, the Hellenistic period's most famous document, and its role in the decipherment of Ancient Egyptian. Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2024/03/10/095-ptolemaic-egypt-the-two-lands-restored/) Episode Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/095-ptolemaic-egypt-the-two-lands-restored-transcript.pdf) Ptolemy V Family Tree: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/reign-of-ptolemy-v.pdf) Autocrat Podcast: Website (http://www.autocratpodcast.wordpress.com/) Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/30Muilr1O66yA4UDcj76SW?si=c6648d9db9b3446c) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/hellenisticagepodcast) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Patreon (https://patreon.com/TheHellenisticAgePodcast) Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

Living Words
With the Clouds of Heaven

Living Words

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2024


With the Clouds of Heaven Daniel 7:1-28 by William Klock The seventh chapter of Daniel begins this way: In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter.   It's finally Daniel's turn to dream.  The storyteller rolls back the clock about a decade to the first year of Belshazzar, which would have been about 550 BC.  The implied audience, remember, is the faithful Jews living in Judah in the early 160s BC, during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.  The purpose of the book of Daniel was to encourage them and to exhort them to stand firm for the Lord, to stand firm for his law, even as this pagan king was making it illegal for them to live according to the law and to worship the Lord, even as many of their fellow Jews were caving in to the pressure and apostatizing.  The book of Daniel points them back to their ancestors who lived during the Babylonian exile and had their own struggles to remain faithful to the Lord.  The story is told through their eyes to encourage the current generation. We also need to understand that the book of Daniel now shifts its genre from tales about Daniel and his friends in the Babylonian court to apocalyptic visions.  There are four visions.  This first one in Chapter 7, a second in Chapter 8, a third in Chapter 9, and a fourth spanning Chapters 10-12.  In Greek, an apokalypsis is a revelation, an unveiling, of something.  It's related to prophecy, but it usually has—at least in the Bible—it usually has to do with current events and is God's way of pulling the curtain back to show that current events aren't just random or haphazard, but that he's at work behind them.  Biblical apocalyptic encourages the faithful to stand firm and to trust in the Lord knowing that even as evil seems like it's out of control, it's not.  God is sovereign and he—and his faithful people—will win the day.  It reminds us that God is king and that he will vindicate his people for their faith. And, as we saw with Revelation, one of the defining characteristics of apocalyptic literature is that it communicates through symbols.  And that can make it difficult for us.  The symbolism would have been obvious to the original hearers, but because it's very context dependent—things like culture and history, worldview and mythology and things like that—it can be very hard for us to understand.  One of the hard things for us, one of the things that gets lost in translation is the visceral reaction this symbolism would have created in the original audience.  For us it's just something to decode: this means that.  For them, the imagery would stir up emotions.  This wasn't about events thousands of years ago.  This was about what they were experiencing.  It was about their world, their not-too-distant past, and their not-too-distant future.  It was about the present affliction, the present persecution, the present pressures that confronted them.  Think of the feelings you might have as you watch the evening news: fear, dread, sadness, elation.  Those sorts of feelings were connected with this imagery.  The timing of this vision, at the beginning of Belshazzar's co-regency, means that Daniel's vision would coincide with big news.  For millennia the Assyrian empire had dominated the Near East.  The Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus and Belshazzar was the last incarnation of Assyria.  To the north was the Median Empire and to the east the Persian.  Cyrus the Great, the Persian emperor was on the move, gobbling up parts of Media and Babylon.  In 550 BC the Medes fell to the Persians.  Now Babylon was in Cyrus' sights.  Here were Daniel and his people, bystanders in the middle of turbulent times.  We can imagine Daniel hearing the most recent news of the fall of the Medes, going to bed, tossing and turning, finally falling into restless sleep, and dreaming.  Let's continue with verse 2: Daniel declared, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles' wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and it was told, ‘Arise, devour much flesh.' After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.  (Daniel 7:2-8) In his vision, Daniel stands by the great sea.  In the Old Testament the “great sea” always means the Mediterranean.  It was the centre of the ancient world.  Imagine Daniel standing in a place jutting out into the sea, a place the Rock of Andromeda at Joppa.  The waters rage and the winds blow.  It's not an ordinary wind.  The winds rage from north and south, east and west all at the same time and the sea churns violently around him.  For all the ancient Near Eastern peoples, the sea represented chaos.  Genesis opens with the sea—formless and void—representing the chaos of the uncreated world into which the Lord speaks, separating the waters, raising dry land, bringing the order needed for humans to live and to flourish.  Now, in his dream, Daniel sees the sea raging.  Chaos threatens the order of God's good creation.  As we look at our own current events, it's not very hard to image what Daniel felt.  Turn on the news or look on the Web and so often it seems like chaos and evil are tearing the world apart.  In so many places humans languish when they should be flourishing, all because of war and corruption, because of poverty and greed and sickness.  Sometimes it seems like chaos has won the day. And who's at the heart of the chaos?  Daniel sees four ferocious beasts emerge from the sea.  The beasts are symbolic and it's hard to be certain exactly how all the symbolism here works.  A lot of it seems to come from the Old Testament prophets, but it could also be coming from the mythology and the symbols of the various peoples and empires that are symbolized.  Some of it is eerily similar to the symbolism of the Babylonian books Daniel would have studied in learning about divination and the symbolism of dreams.  What we do know—because Daniel is told in verse 17—is that these beasts represent four empires.   We know from what has preceded and what follows in Daniel that the sequence of empires begins with Assyria, of which Babylon was the last incarnation.  So a regal lion with the wings of an eagle emerges from the sea representing the greatness of Babylon.  Its wings are plucked off and it is set on two feet, which reminds us of Nebuchadnezzar in Chapter 4, ranging in the wilderness like a wild animal, but eventually restored to humanity and kingship by the Lord. From this point there's disagreement on how to interpret the symbolism and that's because of our distance from the original context.  We just can't be sure what the symbolism means and it then becomes very easy to look through history and cherry pick things that match the symbolism and squeeze it into our modern interpretations.  I'll just note that the rabbis and Christians for most of our history interpreted these four empires as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.  That was mostly because in the days of the rabbis and early Christians, Rome was the great global power and because Rome so often stood opposed to both the Jews and Christians.  Rome fell, but Byzantium—the eastern Roman empire—remained until the 15th Century.  And there were successors to Rome in the West.  In 800 Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans and it wasn't until 1806 that the Holy Roman Empire finally came to an end.  But as the years went by, connecting Daniel's fourth beast to Rome became more difficult, and since the early 19th Century folks have had to work especially hard to hold on to that interpretation, whether identifying the beast with the papacy or with the European Union—and those schemes have consistently ended up falling apart. History gives us a better basis for interpreting Daniel's beasts.  We know now that at the time Daniel was written there was a common scheme across the Ancient Near East for describing the succession of empires.  The four great empires were Assyria, the Medes, the Persians, and the Greek Macedonians.  In fact, as the Romans replaced the Greeks in the centuries that followed, they were added to the scheme as a fifth empire. So following this common pattern, the bear represents the Medes.  As in Nebuchadnezzar's statue, it was clearly inferior to the Babylonians.  The three ribs in its mouth may be a reference to Jeremiah 51:27-29, which describes the three nations that joined with the Medes in their attack on Babylon.  And the four-winged, four-headed leopard then represents the Persians.  The swiftness with which the Persians conquered the four corners of the earth contrasts with the ponderous bear imagery of the Medes.  But Daniel's vision really isn't very interested in the second and third kingdoms.  The focus of his dream is on the fourth.  This is the kingdom that raged and threatened the people of God at the time the book was written. And the fourth kingdom is different.  As we'll see in a bit, the first three beasts, despite appearances, were all under control.  But this fourth beast, it does what it wants to do—or at least, that's how it thinks of itself.  The imagery of the great beast, exceedingly strong, and stamping into oblivion what was left after breaking things apart with its iron teeth or tusks, suggests an elephant—a good image of Alexander's unstoppable army that conquered the territory of the other three empires.  The ten horns are fitting symbols of the ten kingdoms that arose from Alexander's empire after his death.[1]  But out of those horns there came up one king in particular, who was a menace to the people of God.  The little horn is, again, a fitting image of Antiochus Epiphanes.  He tried to abolish the law and the worship of the God of Israel.  He was the one who claimed divinity for himself.  He was the cause of all their woes. But then, in the midst of the chaos, as the sea churns and these ferocious beasts rage across the earth, a new image appears—a bit like Dad coming home to find his unruly children tearing apart the house.  Look at verses 9 and 10: “As I looked, thrones were placed,          and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow,          and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames;          its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued          and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him,          and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment,          and the books were opened.   The beasts are brought to heel as the God of Israel takes his seat as judge.  The one who tamed chaos in the first place established earthly kings to preserve his order and to promote human flourishing.  These kings have done the opposite and now what at first seemed like wild and ferocious beasts stand pitifully before the judgement seat of the Most High God, his fiery throne, and before the heavenly hosts.  Then verses 11 and 12: “I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.   Even as he stands before the Most High, that blasphemous little horn continues to speak.  The other beasts, for all their raging, served the Living God—as we've seen in the first six chapters.  They all, in some way and in the end, acknowledged him.  The Lord of history raised them up to serve his purposes.  But this horn on the fourth beast rages against the sovereign God and is judged: killed, destroyed, and burned to oblivion.  The vision gave hope to the faithful living under his reign of terror. But that's not all there is to it.  Daniel has a second vision and this one's not just about the bringing down of wicked rulers; this one is about the raising up of a righteous one.  As St. Paul writes in Romans, creation waits with eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed.  It's not enough to judge the wicked.  Creation longs for its rightful stewards.  Look at verses 13 and 14: “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven          there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days          and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion          and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages          should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion,          which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one          that shall not be destroyed.   History will not continue as a reign of terror and blasphemy, nor will it merely end in judgement.  In place of the raging kings represented by ferocious beasts, Daniel now sees one “like a son of man”.  In the beginning the Lord created human beings to rule his creation with goodness and wisdom as his stewards and that's what this new figure like a son of man represents.  After the Lord has judged the wicked empires of the world, this son of man arrives riding on the clouds—that's a dramatic image of the Lord's war chariot.  He is presented before the Ancient of Day, before the Most High God, and to him is given glory and an everlasting dominion—ultimately a kingdom that will not be destroyed. But what does this all mean?  The dream continues as one of the heavenly host explains the symbolism to Daniel in verses 15-27: “As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me. I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things. ‘These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.'   “Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet, and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions. As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.   “Thus he said: ‘As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth,          which shall be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth,          and trample it down, and break it to pieces. As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise,          and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones,          and shall put down three kings. He shall speak words against the Most High,          and shall wear out the saints of the Most High,          and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand          for a time, times, and half a time. But the court shall sit in judgment,          and his dominion shall be taken away,          to be consumed and destroyed to the end. And the kingdom and the dominion          and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven                   shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,          and all dominions shall serve and obey him.' This is the hope of the saints.  The blasphemous little monster will put himself in the place of God.  He will torment the faithful.  He will have power and authority and, to all appearances, it will seem like his reign will last forever—or longer than those other kingdoms, at any rate.  A time, times—and that would go in sequence: four times and eight times and sixteen times and so on.  But no.  It's a time and times and suddenly a half.  That might be a reference to the roughly three-and-a-half years Antiochus Epiphanes terrorized Judah, but it's more likely the idea that his power is cut short at its height.  The Lord will give him enough rope to hang himself.  And his kingdom will be given to the saints, to the holy ones of the Most High—and his dominion, his kingdom will go on forever and ever. It's an image of the world set to rights.  Chaos is finally, once and for all given order in by the Lord, and human beings are restored to their rightful place, to serve before the Lord as his stewards—as priests and kings.  This is why the Jews saw the son of man here as a symbolic representative of Israel.  They were the people elect and set apart by the Lord, a people made holy to be a light to the nations—a people who, in living with the Lord in their midst—gave the world a glimpse of what creation was supposed to be like and who pointed forward to the day when it really would be set to rights and men and women would finally serve the Lord as the stewards and rulers of his creation. The chapter ends in verse 28: “Here is the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color changed, but I kept the matter in my heart.” This is the end of the first vision, but there's more to come.  This vision sets the scene and gives us the setting and timeframe for the visions that will follow.  But then—and I guess I'm jumping ahead to the end of Daniel—we realise as Christians that even as Daniel's visions end, it's not really the end of the matter.  The Lord did indeed bring down the evil Antiochus IV.  The Lord did indeed vindicate his people.  A new king would take the throne in Judah.  But as is so often the case with Old Testament prophecy, even though we see it obviously fulfilled in the events of those days, it's fulfilled in a way that leaves things open to a final and greater fulfilment.  Judah was only free for a century and then Pompey came, conquered Jerusalem for Rome, and deposed the Hasmonean dynasty.  And the people would wait again for the Lord to deliver them. It was in those dark days that Jesus was born and began his ministry and it shouldn't surprise us in the least that he took for himself this title from Daniel, son of man.  He was the embodiment of the humanity we forsook in the garden and the embodiment of the Israel that Israel could never manage to be.  In him, God became the first man to be what we were created to be.  And as our representative, he broke the bonds of sin by letting evil do its worst.  The chaos and the vicious beasts of fallen, sinful, rebellious humanity rose up around him and did their worst, they killed him, and they buried him in the earth, and for three days evil thought it had triumphed.  But on the third day, God vindicated his son, raising him from death.  And as Jesus rose from his grave, so Jesus also rose to take his throne.  The son of man has been given dominion and glory and his kingdom and as the good news of his death and resurrection goes out, the peoples, nations, and languages are being brought to him in faith, to serve him and to give him glory.  And in that, we see the people of God, the new Israel, the church empowered by word and Spirit, coming on the clouds—riding the Lord's war chariot, equipped with the gospel—the good news of Jesus, crucified, risen, and enthroned in glory.  And there, Brothers and Sisters, we ought to find hope and inspiration to stand firm in faith even as the seas rage today, as new beasts emerge from the dark waters, even as they speak vain and blasphemous things.  Jesus has won the decisive battle.  He now sends out: Onward!  Christian soldiers.  And on we go, taking up our crosses into the world, knowing that the one who humbled himself on the cross and who conquered by his blood not only stands with us, but has filled us with his own Spirit and now goes on before us. Let's pray again our Collect: Almighty God, consider the heartfelt desires of your servants, we pray, and stretch out the right hand of your majesty to defend us against all our enemies, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.   [1] Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucia, Macedon, Pergamum, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Armenia, Parthia, and Bactria.

Mummy Movie Podcast
Blood of the Mummy

Mummy Movie Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2024 27:34


A violent mummy, a reincarnated princess, and an ancient love—In this episode of the Mummy Movie Podcast, we delve into 'Blood of the Mummy' from 2019. In the first part, we shall examine the historical accuracy of the film and use it as a jumping-off point to discuss interesting topics in Egyptology. In the second part, I will review the film and rate it out of ten. Email: mummymoviepodcast@gmail.com Names and TermsKa (kꜢ) = Part of the Egyptian soul. After death, the Ka could enter likenesses of the deceased. The Ka needed to be sustained by food and drink, and as such, likenesses of the deceased could receive offerings. Ba (bꜢ) = Part of the Egyptian Soul. This is similar to an individual's unique personality. After death, the Ba could leave the tomb and also travel between the land of the living and the land of the dead. However, it had to return to the body each night to help the Ka receive sustenance. Khar = a measurement of grain in ancient Egypt. This was one of the most common measurements in the ancient Egyptian economy. Deben = a weight of metal. During the Ramesside Period (Approximately 1292–1069 BC), a Deben would have been about 90 grams in weight. Links to other Episodes Joseph King of Dreams: https://shows.acast.com/mummymovieodcast/episodes/joseph-king-of-dreams Some of the ancient Egyptian mirrors from the Metropolitan museum catalogue: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search?q=mirrors&geolocation=Egypt&era=2000-1000+B.C. BibliographyAudiolarx. (2015). Water_pouring_light. Retrieved from https://freesound.org/people/audiolarx/sounds/263955/ Brier, B. (2006). The mystery of unknown man E. Archaeology, 59(2), 36-42. Iainmccurdy (2021). Dripping tap into sink (slowly). Retrieved from https://freesound.org/people/iainmccurdy/sounds/571568/ Ikram, S. (2015). Death and burial in ancient Egypt. American University in Cairo Press. Janssen. (1970). Commodity prices from the Ramesside Period. Leiden: Brill Manning, J. G. (2008). Coinage as ‘code' in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans, 84-111. Quirke, S. (1992). Ancient Egyptian Religion. British Museum Press. Redford, S. (2002). The harem conspiracy: the murder of Ramesses III. Northern Illinois University Press. Rice, M. (2002). Who's who in Ancient Egypt. Routledge. Samueleunimancer. (2022). BoneSnaping.mp3. Retrieved from https://freesound.org/people/samueleunimancer/sounds/578874/ Tosha73. (2023). Plastic bottle crunch 2. Retireved from https://freesound.org/people/tosha73/sounds/712120/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
087: Ptolemaic Egypt - The Great Revolt

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 20, 2023 39:28


The “Golden Age” of the Ptolemaic dynasty comes to an end as Ptolemy IV dies unexpectedly in 204. Greedy ministers looking to control the boy-king Ptolemy V leave Alexandria in a mess of schemes, murder, and rioting. Meanwhile, decades of economic turmoil and cultural tension results the outbreak of the "Great Revolt", a twenty year-long (206-186) rebellion of disaffected native Egyptians, who ripped away control of Upper Egypt and installed a rival pharaoh named Haronnophoris, leaving the once mighty Ptolemaic kingdom on the verge of collapse. Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2023/06/20/087-ptolemaic-egypt-the-great-revolt/) Episode Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/087-ptolemaic-egypt-the-great-revolt-transcript.pdf) Family Tree (Reign of Ptolemy IV) (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/reign-of-ptolemy-iv.pdf) Save Ancient Studies Alliance (SASA) Website (https://www.saveancientstudies.org/) Virtual Conference 2023 (https://www.saveancientstudies.org/virtual-conference) Workshop (https://www.saveancientstudies.org/event-details/opening-the-ancient-world-online-conference-2023-07-23-09-30) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/hellenisticagepodcast) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

DeRazzled
DeRazzled - Assassin's Creed, Part 2 - Barely Qualified to Watch Sesame Street

DeRazzled

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 6, 2023 53:09


We return to address some of the nerdier and more bizarre aspects of 2016's Assassin's Creed and the game series that it is based on! We explore the idea of epigenetic memory more closely (or as closely as two artsy dudes who know science-minded people possibly can), consider possibilities for other time periods this series could visit, explore the genuinely weird truth of what's going on with the Macguffins in the AC universe, and finally get around to Joe's fix for this movie. We talk about which of our ancestors we would want to see the experiences of, Jack's head nearly explodes, and we manage to also turn this episode into a love letter to the John Wick films. Join us as we try to make this expensive pseudo-art film a little better. CW: Violence, discussion of fictional conspiracy nonsense that some might consider blasphemous, mention of Henry Kissinger Podcast Plugged in this Episode: I Hate It Let's Watch It (@ih8itletswatch on Twitter) Stuff Mentioned in this Episode: Jack the Ripper, Robert Evans, Behind the Bastards, the Mafia, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Al Capone, Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Justin Kurzel, Sesame Street, Ron DeSantis, the Holocaust, Netflix, Resident Evil, the Third Crusade, the Renaissance, the American Revolution, the Golden Age of Piracy, the French Revolution, the Victorian Era, World War I, Ptolemaic Egypt, the Peloponnesian War, Asgard, the Islamic Golden Age, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, MK Ultra, Sandinistas, Bay of Pigs, Ben Affleck, Argo, Ajax, HBO's Watchmen, the United States Civil War, World War II, the Dulles Brothers, the Troubles, the Boxer Rebellion, Feudal Japan, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Isu, Celestials, Prometheus Myth, Adam and Eve, Mayan Apocalypse, LOST, Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Jones, Howard the Duck, Alicia Vikander, Jason Bourne, Jordana Brewster, The Fast & The Furious, Adam Arkapaw, Chad Stahelski, John Wick, Derek Kolstad, Haley Berry, Hitman: Agent 47, Timothy Oliphant, Zachary Quinto, Captain America: Civil War, The Brothers Grimsby --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/derazzled/support

Mummy Movie Podcast
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc Sec

Mummy Movie Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2023 38:12


In this episode, we examine the French film, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc Sec. In this instalment, we have sections on the background information of the film and the historical accuracy. Finally, I shall review the film.Email: mummymoviepodcast@gmail.comBibliographyFoster, J, F. (2002) Ancient Egyptian literature: an anthology. University of Texas PressAssmann, J. (2011). Death and salvation in ancient Egypt. Cornell University Press.Brier, B., & Wade, R. S. (2001). Surgical procedures during ancient Egyptian mummification. Chungara: Revista de Antropología Chilena, 33(1), 117-123.Dayagi-Mendels, M. (1989). Perfumes and cosmetics in the ancient world. Cornell University PressIbrahim, M. M. (2022). Three mummy warppings of Nesikhonsu (Cairo JE 96813). Shedet, 9(9), 152-170.Hart, G. (2005). The Routledge dictionary of Egyptian gods and goddesses. Routledge.Manning, J. G. (2008). Coinage as ‘code'in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans, 84-111.Phillips, J. (1997). Punt and Aksum: Egypt and the horn of Africa. The Journal of African History, 38(3), 423-457.Riemer, H. (2013). Desert road archaeology in ancient Egypt and beyond (Vol. 27). Heinrich-Barth-Institut.Ross, K., Tadros, M., & Johnson, T. (2018). Christianity in North Africa and West Asia. Edinburgh University Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FLF, LLC
CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Tuesday, May 16th, 2023 [Daily News Brief]

FLF, LLC

Play Episode Listen Later May 16, 2023 11:59


This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Tuesday, May 16th, 2023. Concordis Education Partners: Classical Christian education has reminded us to aim education at truth, but the trivium has been used as a formula rather than a way of training students in discernment. To teach well, you must coach. Concordis Foundation is offering their third annual BOOT CAMP – a faculty summit – July 11-13th in Moscow, Idaho. This is a three-day intensive teaching training where you learn to coach students, using the trivium, so that you can meet students at all learning levels. Learn more at concordispartners.com https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/05/the-u-s-navy-is-no-longer-the-largest-on-earth-it-might-not-matter/ The U.S. Navy Is No Longer The Largest On Earth China now operates the world’s largest Navy and has for several years exceeded the U.S. Navy in terms of sheer size, a fact that raises the much-considered question as to whether the People’s Liberation Army – Navy (PLAN) can outmatch or simply might be superior to the U.S. Navy. In terms of sheer numbers of ships, the PLA-Navy surpassed the U.S. Navy several years ago, but how impactful are pure numbers when it comes to maritime warfare superiority? Can today’s Chinese Navy outperform or even destroy the U.S. Navy? However unlikely this may be, it is certain to be a possibility being closely studied at the Pentagon. Do sheer numbers equate to or parallel technological sophistication? Certainly “mass still matters,” to reference the famous concept expressed by Sun Tzu, yet several critical modern variables such as sensor and weapons range, multi-domain networking, and the effective use of unmanned systems could definitely offset or even counter any numerical advantage. The U.S. Navy, for example, operates 11 aircraft carriers, is fast adding a new fleet of unmanned surface and undersea vessels, and is arming its warships with a wide range of advanced technologies including laser weapons, next-generation electronic warfare (EW), and an unprecedented ability to launch and control a small fleet of unmanned systems. The U.S. Navy has also demonstrated breakthrough technologies with multi-domain networking, AI-enabled autonomous platforms, and course-adjusting weapons such as the Tactical Tomahawk, which can re-route as needed in-fight to hit moving targets at sea. The specifics of China’s technological sophistication may be tough to fully assess, yet there is little doubt that the PLA-Navy is trying to challenge and ultimately surpass the U.S. Navy in terms of both size and capability. China’s shipbuilding ambitions and pace of construction may be difficult for the U.S. to match. For instance, multiple reports say China is on pace to double its fleet of destroyers within just the next five years. The concern, however, is by no means restricted to pure numbers but also grounded in uncertainties related to the relative sophistication and capability of China’s new destroyers. Having more destroyers does not necessarily equate to maritime superiority if they cannot compete with the range, precision, networking, and overall capability of U.S. destroyers. The U.S. Navy does have as many as 10 DDG Flight III destroyers under contract and is moving quickly to modernize its sensors, radar systems, computing, and ship-integrated weapons. https://thepostmillennial.com/eric-adams-wants-to-revoke-nycs-sanctuary-city-status-amid-massive-migrant-influx?utm_campaign=64487 Eric Adams wants to revoke NYC's 'sanctuary city' status amid massive migrant influx As New York City deals with a massive influx of illegal immigrants, Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said he was asking a judge to revisit the city’s sanctuary city law. "The law of sanctuary city was in place long before I became mayor. I’m following the law. As a law enforcement person, you know, we follow the law," Adams said. "We are now in court now, today, asking the judge to revisit this law to deal with this humanitarian crisis because, even when they decided to put in place that law, no one thought they would be dealing with a humanitarian crisis of this proportion." The statement comes as hotels in Upstate New York have canceled pre-booked hotel rooms and booted homeless veterans to make space for Adams’ migrants. The Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, New York abruptly canceled a Florida couple’s 30-room reservation made for their wedding, made a few months ago to accommodate traveling guests. 35-year-old Deanna Mifsud and 37-year-old Gary Moretti intend to get married on June 24 in upstate Wallkill, New York, and made the reservation at the hotel because it was 20 minutes away. Their reservation was canceled, with no help from the hotel staff. Another pair to be married from Queens said Crossroads also canceled their May 20 reservation. Also in Newburgh, homeless veterans staying in multiple hotels were told by staff that their temporary housing would not be extended and they would have to leave immediately. The city of Newburgh, which is roughly 60 miles north of New York City, has become the staging ground for illegal immigrants in the state as Mayor Eric Adams continues to transport them into the county from New York City. Adams signed an emergency declaration on Wednesday, ahead of Title 42’s expiration, suspending the city’s right-to-shelter rules that find private rooms for illegal immigrants immediately, according to CBS News. Regarding the emergency declaration, Adams said on Thursday, "this was a hard decision, but it's the right decision, that this is just wrong what is happening to New York City. It's wrong and no one seems to care, but I care. And it was a challenging thing to do, but we're doing the right thing. No one thought about a humanitarian crisis when they first took this court case of right-to-shelter." https://www.foxnews.com/politics/durham-doj-fbi-failed-uphold-mission-strict-fidelity-law-trump-russia-probe Durham finds DOJ, FBI 'failed to uphold' mission of 'strict fidelity to the law' in Trump-Russia probe Special Counsel John Durham found that the Department of Justice and FBI "failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law" when it launched the Trump-Russia investigation. Fox News Digital obtained Durham’s report Monday afternoon after his years-long investigation into the origins of the FBI’s original investigation, known as "Crossfire Hurricane." That investigation looked into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Durham gave his final report to the Justice Department, which released it Monday afternoon. The report spans more than 300 pages. Durham said his investigation also revealed that "senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically-affiliated persons and entities." Durham is referring to past FBI leadership in his report – specifically former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Reacting to the report, the FBI said in a statement: "The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect." Still, Durham said there is a "continuing need for the FBI and the Department to recognize that lack of analytical rigor, apparent confirmation bias, and an over-willigness to rely on information from individuals connected to political opponents caused investigators to fail to adequately consider alternative hypotheses and to act without appropriate objectivity or restraint in pursuing allegations of collusion or conspiracy between a U.S. political campaign and a foreign power." Special Counsel Robert Mueller completed his investigation into a possible Trump-Russia connection in April 2019, which yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 election. Durham indicted three people as part of his investigation: former Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann in September 2021, Igor Danchenko in November 2021 and Kevin Clinesmith in August 2020. And now this!!! https://www.conservativereview.com/netflix-s-woke-queen-cleopatra-bombs-gets-2-average-audience-score-2660240969.html Netflix's woke 'Queen Cleopatra' bombs, gets 2% average audience score Cleopatra, the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, is said to have killed herself with poison. Netflix's new series about the historic figure similarly did itself in, albeit by other means. The series, which debuted on May 10 and is #6 in Netflix's Top 10 list, presently has a 2% average audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and an average critic score of 11%. The show did not fare better with reviewers on IMDB, where it has a 1.1 out of 10 rating. As of the time of publication, 94.2% (around 37,000) of the approximately 39,000 ratings the show received gave it the lowest possible review. Forbes noted, "Fans usually rate things higher than critics, even bad shows, and the point being, a 1% audience score seems borderline mathematically impossible, even with the controversy the film has attracted." While Adele James may be a talented dramatist, the decision to cast the black actress in the role and the show's corresponding ahistorical framing have proven contentious in recent months. TheBlaze previously reported that after the trailer for the show was released, the project was widely lambasted on social media for portraying the historical figure as black. Cleopatra was of Macedonian Greek descent. "From Executive Producer Jada Pinkett Smith comes a new documentary series exploring the lives of prominent and iconic African Queens," reads the description of the movie from the Netflix YouTube account. A voiceover in the trailer says, "I remember my grandmother saying to me, 'I don’t care what they tell you in school. Cleopatra was black.'" The casting decision was widely criticized, especially in light of the claim that the series would be a documentary — and therefore correspond in some way with historical reality. One popular response to the announcement read, "Egypt is diverse in skin colors, there’s no one Egyptian look so you could do a documentary about black Egyptian rulers but Cleopatra was of Greek ancestry and presenting her story as a battle between native Egyptians and the oppressive Roman tyrants is extremely anachronistic." The BBC reported that Zahi Hawass, a prominent Egyptologist and former antiquities minister, spoke out against the show, saying, "This is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was light-skinned, not black." "Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilisation is black," added Hawass, who indicated that the only known black rulers of Egypt were the Kushite kings of the 26th Dynasty (747-656 B.C.). Others accused the streaming service of cultural appropriation and historical revisionism. While some argued that any actor could play the role, Jada Pinkett Smith, an executive producer and narrator on the project, said of the casting decision, "We don't often get to see or hear stories about black queens, and that was really important for me." Tina Gharvi, the show's director, made clear ahead of time that her intentions were ideological.

Daily News Brief
CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Tuesday, May 16th, 2023

Daily News Brief

Play Episode Listen Later May 16, 2023 11:59


This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Tuesday, May 16th, 2023. Concordis Education Partners: Classical Christian education has reminded us to aim education at truth, but the trivium has been used as a formula rather than a way of training students in discernment. To teach well, you must coach. Concordis Foundation is offering their third annual BOOT CAMP – a faculty summit – July 11-13th in Moscow, Idaho. This is a three-day intensive teaching training where you learn to coach students, using the trivium, so that you can meet students at all learning levels. Learn more at concordispartners.com https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/05/the-u-s-navy-is-no-longer-the-largest-on-earth-it-might-not-matter/ The U.S. Navy Is No Longer The Largest On Earth China now operates the world’s largest Navy and has for several years exceeded the U.S. Navy in terms of sheer size, a fact that raises the much-considered question as to whether the People’s Liberation Army – Navy (PLAN) can outmatch or simply might be superior to the U.S. Navy. In terms of sheer numbers of ships, the PLA-Navy surpassed the U.S. Navy several years ago, but how impactful are pure numbers when it comes to maritime warfare superiority? Can today’s Chinese Navy outperform or even destroy the U.S. Navy? However unlikely this may be, it is certain to be a possibility being closely studied at the Pentagon. Do sheer numbers equate to or parallel technological sophistication? Certainly “mass still matters,” to reference the famous concept expressed by Sun Tzu, yet several critical modern variables such as sensor and weapons range, multi-domain networking, and the effective use of unmanned systems could definitely offset or even counter any numerical advantage. The U.S. Navy, for example, operates 11 aircraft carriers, is fast adding a new fleet of unmanned surface and undersea vessels, and is arming its warships with a wide range of advanced technologies including laser weapons, next-generation electronic warfare (EW), and an unprecedented ability to launch and control a small fleet of unmanned systems. The U.S. Navy has also demonstrated breakthrough technologies with multi-domain networking, AI-enabled autonomous platforms, and course-adjusting weapons such as the Tactical Tomahawk, which can re-route as needed in-fight to hit moving targets at sea. The specifics of China’s technological sophistication may be tough to fully assess, yet there is little doubt that the PLA-Navy is trying to challenge and ultimately surpass the U.S. Navy in terms of both size and capability. China’s shipbuilding ambitions and pace of construction may be difficult for the U.S. to match. For instance, multiple reports say China is on pace to double its fleet of destroyers within just the next five years. The concern, however, is by no means restricted to pure numbers but also grounded in uncertainties related to the relative sophistication and capability of China’s new destroyers. Having more destroyers does not necessarily equate to maritime superiority if they cannot compete with the range, precision, networking, and overall capability of U.S. destroyers. The U.S. Navy does have as many as 10 DDG Flight III destroyers under contract and is moving quickly to modernize its sensors, radar systems, computing, and ship-integrated weapons. https://thepostmillennial.com/eric-adams-wants-to-revoke-nycs-sanctuary-city-status-amid-massive-migrant-influx?utm_campaign=64487 Eric Adams wants to revoke NYC's 'sanctuary city' status amid massive migrant influx As New York City deals with a massive influx of illegal immigrants, Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said he was asking a judge to revisit the city’s sanctuary city law. "The law of sanctuary city was in place long before I became mayor. I’m following the law. As a law enforcement person, you know, we follow the law," Adams said. "We are now in court now, today, asking the judge to revisit this law to deal with this humanitarian crisis because, even when they decided to put in place that law, no one thought they would be dealing with a humanitarian crisis of this proportion." The statement comes as hotels in Upstate New York have canceled pre-booked hotel rooms and booted homeless veterans to make space for Adams’ migrants. The Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh, New York abruptly canceled a Florida couple’s 30-room reservation made for their wedding, made a few months ago to accommodate traveling guests. 35-year-old Deanna Mifsud and 37-year-old Gary Moretti intend to get married on June 24 in upstate Wallkill, New York, and made the reservation at the hotel because it was 20 minutes away. Their reservation was canceled, with no help from the hotel staff. Another pair to be married from Queens said Crossroads also canceled their May 20 reservation. Also in Newburgh, homeless veterans staying in multiple hotels were told by staff that their temporary housing would not be extended and they would have to leave immediately. The city of Newburgh, which is roughly 60 miles north of New York City, has become the staging ground for illegal immigrants in the state as Mayor Eric Adams continues to transport them into the county from New York City. Adams signed an emergency declaration on Wednesday, ahead of Title 42’s expiration, suspending the city’s right-to-shelter rules that find private rooms for illegal immigrants immediately, according to CBS News. Regarding the emergency declaration, Adams said on Thursday, "this was a hard decision, but it's the right decision, that this is just wrong what is happening to New York City. It's wrong and no one seems to care, but I care. And it was a challenging thing to do, but we're doing the right thing. No one thought about a humanitarian crisis when they first took this court case of right-to-shelter." https://www.foxnews.com/politics/durham-doj-fbi-failed-uphold-mission-strict-fidelity-law-trump-russia-probe Durham finds DOJ, FBI 'failed to uphold' mission of 'strict fidelity to the law' in Trump-Russia probe Special Counsel John Durham found that the Department of Justice and FBI "failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law" when it launched the Trump-Russia investigation. Fox News Digital obtained Durham’s report Monday afternoon after his years-long investigation into the origins of the FBI’s original investigation, known as "Crossfire Hurricane." That investigation looked into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Durham gave his final report to the Justice Department, which released it Monday afternoon. The report spans more than 300 pages. Durham said his investigation also revealed that "senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically-affiliated persons and entities." Durham is referring to past FBI leadership in his report – specifically former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Reacting to the report, the FBI said in a statement: "The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect." Still, Durham said there is a "continuing need for the FBI and the Department to recognize that lack of analytical rigor, apparent confirmation bias, and an over-willigness to rely on information from individuals connected to political opponents caused investigators to fail to adequately consider alternative hypotheses and to act without appropriate objectivity or restraint in pursuing allegations of collusion or conspiracy between a U.S. political campaign and a foreign power." Special Counsel Robert Mueller completed his investigation into a possible Trump-Russia connection in April 2019, which yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 election. Durham indicted three people as part of his investigation: former Clinton attorney Michael Sussmann in September 2021, Igor Danchenko in November 2021 and Kevin Clinesmith in August 2020. And now this!!! https://www.conservativereview.com/netflix-s-woke-queen-cleopatra-bombs-gets-2-average-audience-score-2660240969.html Netflix's woke 'Queen Cleopatra' bombs, gets 2% average audience score Cleopatra, the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, is said to have killed herself with poison. Netflix's new series about the historic figure similarly did itself in, albeit by other means. The series, which debuted on May 10 and is #6 in Netflix's Top 10 list, presently has a 2% average audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and an average critic score of 11%. The show did not fare better with reviewers on IMDB, where it has a 1.1 out of 10 rating. As of the time of publication, 94.2% (around 37,000) of the approximately 39,000 ratings the show received gave it the lowest possible review. Forbes noted, "Fans usually rate things higher than critics, even bad shows, and the point being, a 1% audience score seems borderline mathematically impossible, even with the controversy the film has attracted." While Adele James may be a talented dramatist, the decision to cast the black actress in the role and the show's corresponding ahistorical framing have proven contentious in recent months. TheBlaze previously reported that after the trailer for the show was released, the project was widely lambasted on social media for portraying the historical figure as black. Cleopatra was of Macedonian Greek descent. "From Executive Producer Jada Pinkett Smith comes a new documentary series exploring the lives of prominent and iconic African Queens," reads the description of the movie from the Netflix YouTube account. A voiceover in the trailer says, "I remember my grandmother saying to me, 'I don’t care what they tell you in school. Cleopatra was black.'" The casting decision was widely criticized, especially in light of the claim that the series would be a documentary — and therefore correspond in some way with historical reality. One popular response to the announcement read, "Egypt is diverse in skin colors, there’s no one Egyptian look so you could do a documentary about black Egyptian rulers but Cleopatra was of Greek ancestry and presenting her story as a battle between native Egyptians and the oppressive Roman tyrants is extremely anachronistic." The BBC reported that Zahi Hawass, a prominent Egyptologist and former antiquities minister, spoke out against the show, saying, "This is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was light-skinned, not black." "Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilisation is black," added Hawass, who indicated that the only known black rulers of Egypt were the Kushite kings of the 26th Dynasty (747-656 B.C.). Others accused the streaming service of cultural appropriation and historical revisionism. While some argued that any actor could play the role, Jada Pinkett Smith, an executive producer and narrator on the project, said of the casting decision, "We don't often get to see or hear stories about black queens, and that was really important for me." Tina Gharvi, the show's director, made clear ahead of time that her intentions were ideological.

Drinks with Great Minds in History
Great Mind #22 - Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt

Drinks with Great Minds in History

Play Episode Listen Later May 10, 2023 44:59


Hello Great Minds!Today, we are finally covering Cleopatra VII Philopator, Queen of Egypt, someone that I have been trying to cover for three seasons!  So, how has the popular memory of Egypt's last queen, this Titan of the Hellenistic World,  impacted her legacy?  Were her rather actions justified, pragmatic, or ruthless?   Listen to find out all about the treacherous waters Cleopatra was forced to navigate in her magnificent reign! Key Topics: Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Marc Antony, Ptolemaic Egypt, Roman Empire For more DGMH just head on over to Patreon Land to get access to soooooooo much more Great content here: patreon.com/dgmhhistoryBe sure to follow me on Facebook at "Drinks with Great Minds in History" & Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter @dgmhhistoryCheers!Music:Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3845-hall-of-the-mountain-kingLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Artwork by @Tali Rose... Check it out!Support the show

History of the World podcast
Unscripted (51) ( Retrospective special )

History of the World podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 8, 2023 40:05


Join us on this journey back in time to New Kingdom Egypt, Ptolemaic Egypt, Classical World China, and medieval Iceland.

1Upsmanship
1Upsmanship: Assassin's Creed Origins (Feat. Youssef Maguid)

1Upsmanship

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2023 70:34


Michael and Adam are joined by Ubisoft host and producer Youssef Maguid to discuss a huge turning point in the Assassin's Creed franchise, and, dare we say, history? A lively conversation ensues about what makes this entry essential, the meticulous crafting of Ptolemaic Egypt, and whether the changes were good or bad for the series. Mount your camel and zip directly to your destination…Fun! Seriously, those camels have an incredible auto-travel feature!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pages Unknown
The Stars Undying by Emery Robin (ft The Ace of Books!) (Episode 19)

Pages Unknown

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2023 40:33


Emma makes another appearance on the pod to discuss Emery Robin's The Stars Undying, a tumultuous space opera retelling of the lives of Cleopatra, Marc Antony, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar. This book condenses the sprawling history of the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Egypt into a drama worthy of the Greeks. We hope you enjoy!Want to grab your own copy? Check out our store! We've partnered with Bookshop.org and opened our own little Pages Unknown shop where we will list the books we've reviewed as well as books from our Queer Book Bans series. ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠We will continue to raise money for the Trans Health Legal Fund all year round. Donate here to help protect those seeking gender affirming care! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Want to support our podcast? Here's three ways you can right now! #1. Leave us a rating wherever you get your podcasts. #2. Write a short review of the podcast along with your rating. #3. Support us over on Ko-Fi with a one time or monthly donation! This helps to offset the costs of our recording software, buying the books to review, etc. You can go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/pagesunknownpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to send us a $$ tip!  All of these greatly help the podcast grow and we appreciate your support! As a reminder, new episodes of Pages Unknown air every week! You can find us on ⁠Spotify⁠, ⁠Apple⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠GoodReads⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠and wherever you get your podcasts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠More about us!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Happy listening!

The Farm Podcast Mach II
The Watchers in Ancient Egypt (and Lovecraft) w/ Ostanes & Recluse

The Farm Podcast Mach II

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2022 100:11


The Watcher, Nephilim, fallen angels, theurgy, giants, Biblical account, rape, clowns, Book of Enoch, Kabala, Watchers in the Kabala, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Neo-Platonism, Sola-Busca tarot, Watcher accounts from the Bogomil, Watchers in Hermeticism, Alexander the Great, Ammon, Ammon cult in Macedonia, Kurunta, Zosimos, alchemy, Ancient Egypt, Logos Ebraicos, Contra Celsum, The Sacred Hidden Book of Moses called Eight or Holy, Kabalistic traditions of Ammon of No, Serapis, Ptolemaic Egypt, Alexandria, Serapis cult's links to Ammon, Ammon as a demon, Yalkuth Shimoni, Ogdoad, Kek, Kek in alt-right, Ennead, The Nine, Andrija Puharich, Star Trek, The Nine/Ennead resurging in modern pop culture, Kek and the Ogdoad reborn among the alt-right, Lovecraft, Great Old OnesMusic by: Keith Allen Dennishttps://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com/ Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Into The Word with Thomas J. Short
ITW Season 5 Ep# 669: Judea Moves From The Orbit Of Ptolemaic Egypt Into That Of Seleucid Syria - Antiquities of the Jews Book 12, Chapter 3

Into The Word with Thomas J. Short

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 18, 2022 27:16


Today's program: ITW Season 5 Ep# 669: Judea Moves From The Orbit Of Ptolemaic Egypt Into That Of Seleucid Syria - Antiquities of the Jews Book 12, Chapter 3. Join us today at www.IntoTheWord2020.com or via your favorite podcast platform. Produced by ReSermon.com.

The Rest Is History
195. Young Cleopatra

The Rest Is History

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2022 40:03 Very Popular


Welcome to The Rest Is History Cleopatra series!The release schedule of the four episodes is as follows:Young Cleopatra (Monday 13th June)Julius Caesar & Cleopatra (Tuesday 14th June)Antony & Cleopatra (Thursday 16th June)Cleopatra's Downfall (Monday 20th June)However, members of The Rest Is History Club get all four episodes RIGHT NOW, so head to restishistorypod.com to sign up.In episode 1 of this four part mini-series on Cleopatra, Tom and Dominic discuss the incredible story of 'Young Cleopatra' and her early life in Ptolemaic Egypt. Editor: James HodgsonProducer: Dom JohnsonExec Producer: Jack DavenportTwitter:@TheRestHistory@holland_tom@dcsandbrookEmail: restishistorypod@gmail.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Original Soundchat
OSC 151 - Monument Valley & Assassin's Creed Origins

Original Soundchat

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 14, 2021 106:10


THIS WEEK: Joe navigates a princess through MC Escher-inspired impossible geometry in Monument Valley and Peter frees Ptolemaic Egypt from the grasp of the Order of the Ancients with Sarah Schachner's work in Assassin's Creed Origins.

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
067: Rome and Carthage Between the Punic Wars

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2021 47:43


The period from the signing of the Treaty of Lutatius in 241 until the siege of Saguntum in 219 is often passed over by those learning about the Punic Wars, but it is integral to understanding how the Romans and Carthaginians went to battle once again. Rome fought to stem the tide of Celtic warbands invading from Northern Italy, whereas Carthage faced an existential crisis with the Mercenary War (241-237) before its rescue by Hamilcar Barca. Hamilcar and his clan then expanded into Spain, building a powerbase which enabled his son Hannibal to challenge the Romans for supremacy in one of the greatest conflicts in antiquity. Show Links Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2021/11/11/066-antigonid-macedon-philip-v-and-the-social-war/) Episode 067 Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/067-rome-and-carthage-between-the-punic-wars-transcript.pdf) Mithridates VI of Pontus with Flashpoint History: (https://youtu.be/nACLiBWUvGQ) A Reader's Guide to the Seleucid Empire: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/seleucid-reading-guide-pdf-2.pdf) A Reader's Guide to Ptolemaic Egypt: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/ptolemaic-reading-guide-pdf-1.pdf) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/hellenisticagepodcast) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

Ithaca Bound
Religion in Ptolemaic Egypt w. Dr Julietta Steinhauer

Ithaca Bound

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 21, 2021 40:17


Religion during the Ptolemaic Egypt period was complex and diverse. Dr Julietta Steinhauer, University College London, returns to the show to discuss what religion was like in Ptolemaic Egypt.

The Bicks Do...Shakespeare
Episode 62 - Antony and Cleopatra

The Bicks Do...Shakespeare

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 7, 2021 58:36


It's a play all about dualities that don't duel quite as much as we might think. Antony and Cleopatra - man and woman - Rome and Egypt - Love and War - every way you look at this play there are nice, clean delineations... until there aren't. We enjoyed reading and talking about this one because it refuses to be pinned down or defined, much like its titular characters. We hope you enjoy the conversation as well! Notes: If you don't know anything about Ptolemaic Egypt (like Aidan, who spent a solid three minutes explaining it very poorly), check out the Wikipedia entry at the very least. Cleopatra (1963) is only 3 hours long, not 5, but we still couldn't bring ourselves to watch it. Let us know if you did and enjoyed it though! Ancient Bickerings: Which type of betrayal is more damaging in the play - the romantic, or the political?

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
063: Ptolemaic Egypt - Berenice's Lock and the Gates of Babylon

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 15, 2021 35:39


As the power couple of the Mediterranean, Ptolemy III and Berenice II Euergetes (Benefactor)would oversee the apogee of Hellenistic Egypt. Ptolemy's successful blitzkrieg against the Seleucid Empire during the Third Syrian War would see a near-total conquest of Syria and Mesopotamia, and brought their northern rivals to their knees. As one of the most formidable women in all of the ancient world, Berenice would be immortalized through the poetry of Callimachus and possessed an unprecedented amount of personal power compared to any royal lady of the time. Show Links Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2021/08/15/063-ptolemaic-egypt-berenices-lock-and-the-gates-of-babylon/) Episode 063 Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/063-ptolemaic-egypt-berenices-lock-and-the-gates-of-babylon-transcript-1.pdf) Family Tree - Reign of Ptolemy III (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/reign-of-ptolemy-iii.pdf) The History of Saqartvelo Georgia Podcast Website (https://historyofsaqartvelo.com/) Twitter (https://twitter.com/History_Georgia) YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmdK0d7XlcKe_gX2ZcjmF3Q) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/thehistoryofsaqartvelogeorgia/) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/hellenisticagepodcast) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

The Ancients
The Lost Baths of Cleopatra

The Ancients

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 5, 2021 30:29


Cleopatra. Hers is one of the most famous names that endures from antiquity. The victor of a civil war. The mistress of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. The last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt. The protagonist of one of Shakespeare's most famous plays. A fearsome leader and brilliantly astute politician. The whereabouts of her tomb remains one of the great mysteries of the ancient world. But what about the baths? Over the past year Dr Chris Naunton has been looking into old references to ‘Baths of Cleopatra', a building supposedly somewhere under modern Alexandria. Where in the city could its remains be today? And could this building really have links to Cleopatra? In this podcast, Chris talks Tristan through his research into this lost building of ancient Alexandria See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
062: Ptolemaic Egypt - Egyptians in a Greek Land

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2021 46:00


The conquest of Egypt by Alexander and establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty differed from previous foreign invaders like the Hyksos or the Persians. While the Ptolemies would very much present themselves as traditional pharaohs, they would bring thousands of Greek immigrants, founded poleis, and imported Greek culture en masse. For the indigenous Egyptians, Ptolemaic rule required them to live with two "faces": those like Manetho, an Egyptian priest of Amun-Ra who composed an influential history of Egypt in Greek known as the "Aegyptiaca", would continue to work under the new regime. Others were able to exploit "Hellenization" as a means of advancement, seen in the archives of the mixed Greco-Egyptian military family of Dryton and Senmonthis-Apollonia, revealing the complexities of ethnic and cultural identity. But we also can see the tensions between the Greek and Egyptian communities, which could explode in bouts of violence and rebellion. In this episode we look to see how the Egyptians responded to the arrival of a new political, social, and cultural elite. Show Links Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2021/08/01/062-ptolemaic-egypt-egyptians-in-a-greek-land/) Episode 062 Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/062-ptolemaic-egypt-egyptians-in-a-greek-land-transcript.pdf) The History of Africa Podcast Website (https://historyofafricapodcast.blogspot.com/) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/hellenisticagepodcast) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
061: Ptolemaic Egypt - Greeks in an Egyptian Land

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2021 42:47


Drawn by the prospects of providing service to the Ptolemaic government in either the bureaucracy or the army, or perhaps seeking to settle and farm some of the most productive land in the world, tens of thousands of Greeks would immigrate to Egypt in pursuit of a better life. Thanks to the abundant papyrological record, we are able to get an intimate look into the lives and careers of those who now to called Egypt home: those such as the deeply religious devotee of Serapis named Ptolemaeus, or Kleon, the hard-pressed chief engineer of the Fayyum reclamation project of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Show Links Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2021/07/04/061-ptolemaic-egypt-greeks-in-an-egyptian-land/) Episode 061 Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/061-ptolemaic-egypt-greeks-in-an-egyptian-land-transcript.pdf) Two Friends Talk History Podcast Buzzsprout (https://twofriendstalkhistory.buzzsprout.com/) Website (www.archaeoartist.com) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/hellenisticagepodcast) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

weibs:bilder - von bitches & queens
#5 Eine antike Telenovela // Arsinoe II.

weibs:bilder - von bitches & queens

Play Episode Listen Later May 31, 2021 51:35


Unsere heutige Protagonistin ist zwar definitiv eine Queen – der Weg dahin ist aber steinig, abenteuerlich und voller Tabubrüche. Um sie kennenzulernen reisen wir weit zurück vor die Zeitwende und besuchen den altorientalischen und noch ganz freshen hellenistischen Kulturraum. Willkommen also in der antiken Telenovela rund um Arsinoe II ... :: SHOWNOTES :: - The Exploress: Arsinoë II. Queenmaker of Ptolemaic Egypt https://www.theexploresspodcast.com/episodes/arsinoe - Stuff you missed in history class: Arsinoe II, Ptolemaic Queen https://www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-you-missed-in-history-cl-21124503/episode/arsinoe-ii-ptolemaic-queen-79987830/ - Ägyptens große Königinnen ARTE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZCuWeu81JE - Die Geschwisterehe Arsinoes II. und Ptolemaios II.im Spiegel der Forschung von 1895 bis 1932 / Sabine Müller https://www.genderopen.de/bitstream/handle/25595/1592/Müller_2005_Geschwisterehe.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y - Der Frauen Atlas / Joni Seager - No more Bullshit / Hg Sorority - Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men / Caroline Criado Perez - Funk 16. Dezember 2020: 13 Fragen: Frauenquote per Gesetz- müssen Männer Macht abgeben? https://www.zdf.de/kultur/13-fragen/frauenquote-13f-100.html - Veros Gesangseinlage: https://youtu.be/Mue6Vc_T9Ds :: MUSIK :: Cosimo Fogg – Jazzaddicts Feel My Sax - DJ Quads :: ARTWORK :: Anna Zehetgruber Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
060: Ptolemaic Egypt - A Traveler's Guide to Alexandria

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 14, 2021 50:19


Alexandria, or Alexandria-by-Egypt as it was called, was the easily the greatest city of the Hellenistic Age. Founded by Alexander the Great in 332/331, it became the pet project of the Ptolemaic dynasty, who turned it into the capital of their mighty empire. Through the dynasty's direction and enormous amounts of money, the city was endowed with magnificent works of art and architecture, all the while playing host to an great body of scholars and artists. From the cosmopolitan makeup of its population to its legendary monuments like the Lighthouse of Pharos and the Library, I will be giving a sightseeing tour of Alexandria during its heyday under the reign of the Ptolemies. Show Links Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/060-ptolemaic-egypt-a-travelers-guide-to-alexandria/) Episode 060 Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/060-ptolemaic-egypt-a-travelers-guide-to-alexandria-transcript.pdf) The History of North America Podcast Anchor (https://anchor.fm/mark-vinet) Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-of-north-america/id1534971777) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/hellenisticagepodcast) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

After Alexander
Echoes of Alexander 2- A Shadow over India

After Alexander

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2021 7:06


India would be one of the last bastions of the Hellenistic kingdoms, which would survive for forty years after the collapse of Ptolemaic Egypt. However, the shadow Alexander the Great cast over the subcontinent would extend further than mere territory. From religion to cosmology, the influence left by the Yavanas would be profound... Sources for this episode: 1) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Alexander the Great (online) [Accessed 25/03/2021]. 2) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Bodhisattva (online) [Accessed 25/03/2021]. 3) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Menander I (online) [Accessed 25/03/2021]. 4) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Milinda Panha (online) [Accessed 25/03/2021].

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
059: Ptolemaic Egypt - Kingdom of Gold, Kingdom of the Nile

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2021 47:51


Herodotus described Egypt as the gift of the Nile River, and without a doubt the Ptolemaic rulers took full advantage of the land's agricultural prosperity. In addition to their exploitation of the Nile's annual inundation, the Ptolemies would introduce the most rigorously developed (or exploitative) taxation system ever seen in Egypt, and would enable them to become the wealthiest people in the world of the 3rd century BC. We will take a look at the administrative layout of Hellenistic Egypt in order to see how the Ptolemaic dynasty oversaw such a financial juggernaut, ranging from the day-to-day operations of their many officials to grand imperial projects such as the reclamation of the Fayyum Oasis. Show Links Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2021/04/12/059-ptolemaic-egypt-kingdom-of-gold-kingdom-of-the-nile/) Episode 059 Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/059-ptolemaic-egypt-kingdom-of-gold-kingdom-of-the-nile-transcript.pdf) The Ozymandias Project: iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ozymandias-project/id1537896277) Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/5BomB9FPUjX2nPzXazYk1E) Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheOzymandiasP1) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/hellenisticagepodcast) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
058: Ptolemaic Egypt - Two Lands, Two Peoples, One Ruler

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 27, 2021 30:57


Throughout the three centuries of Ptolemaic control over Egypt, their dynasty can be best described as having a split identity. Ruling from Alexandria, the new intellectual and cultural capital of the Greek-speaking world, the Ptolemies were very much Hellenistic kings and queens. But Egypt was an ancient land, and they needed to come to terms with the pharaonic tradition that had dominated Egyptian life for the better part of 3,000 years. As the longest reigning dynasty in Egyptian history, the Ptolemies adopted the role and iconography of the pharaoh to great success. They were also capable of developing new ways to project their power, whether through the establishment and promotion of royal cults and new deities like Serapis, or incorporating the image of splendor and abundance as part of their propaganda. In this episode, we will see how the Ptolemies successfully legitimized their rule in the eyes of both Greeks and Egyptians alike. Show Links Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2021/02/27/058-ptolemaic-egypt-two-lands-two-peoples-one-ruler/) Episode 058 Transcript: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/058-ptolemaic-egypt-two-lands-two-peoples-one-ruler-pdf.pdf) Pontifacts: Podbean (https://pontifacts.podbean.com/) Twitter (https://twitter.com/pontifactspod?s=20) iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1387540364?ls=1&mt=2) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
Interview: On the Army of Ptolemaic Egypt w/ Dr. Paul Johstono

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 21, 2020 42:23


Though the longest-lived and most wealthy of the Hellenistic "Big 3", the Ptolemaic rulers in Egypt have never really held the distinction as a major military player in the violent struggles of the Hellenistic period, instead often seen as decadent and lazy as per the writings of those like Polybius. Dr. Paul Johstono joins us to discuss his new book “The Army of Ptolemaic Egypt, 323-204 BC: An Institutional and Operational History”, which seeks to challenge this claim and reassert the role of the Ptolemaic kingdom as a significant military force in the Mediterranean, capable of meeting the demands of maintaining a large land and sea empire amidst powerful rivals and often inhospitable environments. Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2020/12/21/interview-on-the-army-of-ptolemaic-egypt-w-dr-paul-johstono/) "The Army of Ptolemaic Egypt, 323-204 BC: An Institutional and Operational History" Links: Pen & Sword (https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Army-of-Ptolemaic-Egypt-323-to-204-BC-Hardback/p/17980) Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/Army-Ptolemaic-Egypt-323-Institutional/dp/1473833833) Dr. Paul Johstono Links: Twitter (https://twitter.com/ProfPaul_J) Academia.edu (https://air-af.academia.edu/PaulJohstono) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Redbubble (https://www.redbubble.com/people/HellenisticPod/shop?asc=u) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

Rude History
Season 1, Episode 4: Cleopatra, Part 1

Rude History

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2020 53:08


This week, we're talking about one of the more maligned women in history: Cleopatra VII of Ptolemaic Egypt! Cleopatra was the last pharaoh, but she was not an actual Egyptian: Her ancestor, Ptolemy I, was a Macedonian Greek who claimed the land in part by running off with Alexander the Great's mummified corpse. The Ptolemies were...a lot. In this episode, Clerika discuss the hot mess incest express that was Ptolemaic Dynasty, and how Cleopatra made the best of the absolute shit sandwich she inherited. We cover her early reign--during which she was kicked out by her own court--and her "epic romance" with Julius Caesar, who was old enough to be her dad. Asides include whether or not a severed head EVER makes an appropriate gift, and which one of us would have willingly banged Caesar. Sources: Cleopatra and Antony: Power, Love, and Politics in the Ancient World by Diana Preston Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff Got Something to Say to Us? rudehistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media! @rudehistory on twitter, instagram, and facebook rudehistoryeducation on tumblr

Greystone Conversations
The Septuagint as Biblical Commentary - Part 1

Greystone Conversations

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2020 48:05


What difference might it make to our relationship to the Septuagint if we saw it not only as a translation of the Hebrew OT into Greek and as a translation often used in the NT, but also as the first true commentary on the Hebrew Old Testament? How might this approach to the Septuagint illuminate our understanding of biblical hermeneutics and the nature of Holy Scripture?In the exilic or early post-exilic period, Hebrew gave way to Aramaic as the lingua franca and classical Hebrew started to fade from use. Then, when the Jews became Hellenized on account of the diaspora provoked by the rise of Alexander the Great and of the Greek empires, Greek became the primary language for Jews. This combination of historical developments helps explain why the Septuagint became the Old Testament for many Jews leading up to and into the New Testament era, especially those living in Ptolemaic Egypt and other deeply Hellenized areas.The Septuagint is primarily a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek--this much is common knowledge. But what is less known and appreciated is that the Septuagint may also be viewed as the first commentary on the Hebrew Old Testament. To be sure, this is true along the lines of what translation necessarily is: not simply a wooden replacement of one word in one language with the allegedly equivalent word in another language. Rather, all translations involve a measure of commentary, of explanation and sense-making, given the way languages work. And yet the ways that the Septuagint provides explanations of the Hebrew Scriptures disclose not only ancient views of how the biblical text works as text but also valuable insights into how the Scriptures read and interpret themselves, including the long-standing curiosity of how the New Testament writers read the Old Testament. Given that the month of December has just begun, this is an excellent opportunity for us to think a bit about the Septuagint since an interesting example of its importance comes to us in Matthew 1:23 as a citation of Isaiah 7:14--those famous words of the Prophecy of Isaiah that he spoke to Ahaz, which in Hebrew says "behold the young woman shall conceive," but in the Septuagint reads, "Behold the virgin shall conceive." Matthew is citing the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Old Testament. This suggests that the language of the "virgin birth"--the virgin birth of Jesus of Nazareth--is not only a faithful rendering of the meaning of the Hebrew word for a young woman but, in what is often overlooked even by the most enthusiastic defenders of the virgin birth among evangelicals, the very notion--which is to say the very vocabulary--of the "virgin" birth of Jesus is something we owe specifically to the Septuagint which uses the word virgin to clarify the nature of Mary's state when she brings us the Messiah. Despite this rather key role in reading Scripture, the Septuagint has strangely enjoyed precious little serious attention among seminary students and writers in biblical and theological studies. With this in mind, today's Greystone Conversations episode is a conversation on this very subject with Matthew Albanese. This conversation will be a two-part series, with today's episode introducing the subject. Now in his final stage of finalizing his Doctorate of Philosophy at Oxford University, in which he worked on Septuagint Isaiah, Matthew Albanese is also one of Greystone's recently appointed Associate Fellows focusing his Greystone activity in the large area of what has long been termed "Oriental Studies." In the months and years to come, our Lord willing, we can look forward to Matthew teaching series and modules for Greystone in Christian Syriac, Aramaic, the Septuagint, and various portions of the canon of Christian Scripture.

All Things Policy
Ep. 452: What Ancient Egypt Tells Us About Ourselves

All Things Policy

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2020 43:23


Cleopatra, the last active ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt is closer to our time than the Great Pyramid of Giza was to her time. How did ancient Egypt last so long? And how did it combine dynamism with endurance? Anirudh Kanisetti joins Aditya Ramanathan to discuss the origins, ascent, and eventual decline of this astonishing civilization and why it matters to us.You can follow Anirudh on twitter: @AKanisetti(https://twitter.com/AKanisetti)You can follow Aditya on twitter: @adityascripts(https://twitter.com/adityascripts)You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app.

Buried Secrets Podcast
Ancient Egyptian Tomb Raider and Wizard Prince Setne

Buried Secrets Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2020 36:50


A look at the magic-filled legends of Prince Setne, a character based on the son of Ramesses II, who goes on a tomb-raiding journey to acquire a magical book. And it's the prequel to the stories about his 12-year-old boy wizard son, Se-Osiris. Setne I, or Setne Khamwas and Naneferkaptah, is a tale that's survived on papyrus from Ptolemaic Egypt. It about a wizard who descends into a tomb to collect a book written by the god Thoth, only to find it guarded by ghosts. Indiana Jones-style hijinks ensue. Highlights include: • An eternal snake (ouroboros) • A magical glowing book hidden inside a series of boxes • The ancient city of Memphis, Egypt • The wrath of Thoth • A look at different types of Ancient Egyptian writing systems Note: This episode contains brief mentions of drowning, suicide, incest, soliciting sex for money, killing children, and disinterring corpses For all of our shownotes, including our sources, visit buriedsecretspodcast.com. You can listen to more audio on our patreon ($3/month): https://www.patreon.com/buriedsecrets Follow us on instagram @buriedsecretspodcast E-mail us at buriedsecretspodcast@gmail.com. 

Death of the Roman Republic
Chapter 13: Grudge Match, and Affairs in Alexandria and Africa

Death of the Roman Republic

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2020 35:54


In this episode, Julius Caesar’s civil war against Pompey Magnus and the Optimates continues, and a decisive victor is decided.  We also glimpse at life in Ptolemaic Egypt, and introduce Queen Cleopatra.  We see the civil war she’s embroiled in, who she allies with to win her throne, and how that affects the Roman Republic.Our essential question to keep in mind throughout the episode is: What did Pompey need to win the Civil War, and maintain power after, if he won? And what did Caesar need to win the Civil War, and maintain power after, if he won?Suicide is a prevalent theme in this episode, and is mentioned a lot at the end of the episode.  In one instance, a historical figures suicide is descriptive, and some may consider it graphic.  This is in no way meant to glorify suicide, but so we can understand why this historical figure did what he did, and how that affected others.  If you would like an edited MP3 of this episode with less descriptive elements, you can contact the show by emailing dotrrpod@gmail.com. The US National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255 if you feel like you need support. Check out the show’s website. Check out the show on YouTube, and relive and share short episode highlights!  Follow the show on Twitter @DOTRRPod for Roman history memes, show updates, and more!  Contact the show by emailing dotrrpod@gmail.com.  Intro/Outro Music: “Into Uncertainty’’ from Jay Man - OurMusicBox.  Thumbnail made with Bannersnack.  “Smooth and Sexy R&B” Death of the Roman Republic (DOTRR) is an educational podcast, and any clips from other media is used to transform and elevate its educational content, using modern media to help people relate to a 2000 year old story. (Speaking as a not-Fair Use expert), DOTRR seeks to use Fair Use, in transforming media clips used for educational purposes, and in that Death of the Roman Republic will never make a profit (no advertisements, Patreon, etc.).

Working Over Time
"Stomping Over The Known World" - Elephant Traders in the Hellenistic Period

Working Over Time

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 1, 2020 53:32


(recorded over zoom) Elephants, ivory, and war, oh my! Join Karen and historian Tim Moller as they discuss the ancient elephant trade sponsored by Ptolemaic Egypt nearly 3,000 years ago. An exotic earful, indeed!

The French History Podcast
Napoleon, Egypt and the Birth of Modern Egyptology with Dr. Tara Sewell-Lasater

The French History Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2020 22:03


Intro (Gary speaking): Today’s special episode is by Dr. Tara Sewell-Lasater Dr. Sewell-Lasater received her Ph.D in history from the University of Houston in 2020. Her research focuses on Hellenistic Egypt, numismatics, and gender, specifically exploring the roles open to royal women in Ptolemaic Egypt and the expressions of female power on coinage. Her dissertation […]

History Storytime - For Kids

Cleopatra echoes through history. But who really was she? Sophie (age 7) and Ellie (age 5) explore her life. We hear of her dreams for Egypt, her alliance with Rome and her love for Julius Caesar and later Mark Antony.----more---- We explore how she was maligned by Roman historians. But through the trials and tribulations are the tale of a brave woman confronting the prejudices of her age. We explore her world of Ptolemaic Egypt and how it differed from Ancient Egypt. We live her battle with her brother as she grows up in a sexist, patriarchal society. We follow her as she is delivered by carpet to Caesar (DHL and Fedex eat your heart out). We appreciate how Roman jealously of her, and of Caesay destroyed Rome from within. Then in a twist we see how her love affair with Mark Antony led to the final destruction of the Roman Republic and the Emperorship of Octavian / Augustus. All with songs, music and sound effects. - What was Egypt under the Ptolemies. - Who really was Cleopatra - What was happening in the Roman Republic - Of Caesar and Pompey - Caesar’s defence of Alexandria - How Cleopatra and Caesar fell in love – the carpet - Caesar’s conquest of the East – Veni, Veni, Veci - Roman jealously against Caesar - The Ides of March - The betrayal of Brutus - The Murder of Caesar - The revenge of Octavian and Antony - The Second Triumvirate - The breach between Octavian and Antony - The Battle of Actium - The Death of Antony - The Death of Cleopatra - The Empire of Augustus If you like this episode then you might like our Roman Empire Episode: https://www.historystorytime.com/e/roman-empire-people-and-society/ Or our Hannibal episode: https://www.historystorytime.com/e/hannibal-and-his-elephants-cross-the-alps/ Or our Boudicca episode: https://www.historystorytime.com/e/boudicca-and-the-roman-conquest-of-britain/ Or our Fall of Rome episode: https://www.historystorytime.com/e/the-fall-of-the-roman-empire-and-the-end-of-roman-britain/  

The Exploress Podcast
Arsinoë II, Queenmaker of Ptolemaic Egypt

The Exploress Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 11, 2020 38:31


Cleopatra maneuvered her way through Egyptian, Greek, and Roman politics, defying the odds to keep the Ptolemaic dynasty – and Egypt's independence – going. But what of all the Cleopatras who came before her? In delving into Cleo's life, I found a host of interesting women in the family that shaped her. But only one amongst them truly set the tone for the dynasty, creating a mold that had royal Ptolemaic women ruling not from behind their husbands, but beside them. That woman is Arsinoë II. Let's dive into the wild and crazy ride that was her life. This episode is sponsored by Hank Green, whose new book A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is out as of July 7, 2020.

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
Interview: On Rulership & Ruler-Cults in Ptolemaic Egypt w/ Henry Bohun

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 14, 2020 34:12


With an Egyptologist's perspective, PhD student Henry Bohun joins the show to help explore the complexities of the relationship between the Greco-Macedonian rulers of the Ptolemaic Dynasty with that of their native Egyptian subjects. Despite being Macedonian to the core, the Ptolemies nevertheless saw themselves as heirs and continuators of the Pharaonic tradition, and the ways in which they did are explored in this episode. Title Theme: Seikilos Epitapth with the Lyre of Apollo, played by Lina Palera (https://soundcloud.com/user-994392473) Show Links Website/Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2020/06/14/interview-on-rulership-ruler-cults-in-ptolemaic-egypt-w-henry-bohun/) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Discord (https://discord.gg/VJcyUcN) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
Interview: On the Islamic Reception of Cleopatra w/ Yentl Love (thequeerclassicist.com)

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 11, 2020 24:03


The legacy of Cleopatra, the last independent queen of Ptolemaic Egypt and arguably the most famous figure of the Hellenistic period, is not just limited to the works of William Shakespeare. Joining us today is Yentl Love, creator and writer of the website "The Queer Classicist", who talks about the reception of Cleopatra (Qalūbaṭrah) in the Islamic tradition. Title Theme: Seikilos Epitapth with the Lyre of Apollo, played by Lina Palera (https://soundcloud.com/user-994392473) Show Links Website/Episode Notes: (hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2020/06/11/interview-on-the-reception-of-cleopatra-in-the-islamic-world-w-yentl-love-the-queer-classicist/) Yentl Love Links: Website (www.thequeerclassicist.com) Twitter (https://twitter.com/queerclassicist) Instagram (https://instagram.com/thequeerclassicist?igshid=mg7awqgr219p) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Discord (https://discord.gg/VJcyUcN) Show Merchandise: Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/HellenisticAgePod) Donations: Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast) Amazon Book Wish List (https://tinyurl.com/vfw6ask)

Dungeon Deep Dive

The first 20 sided die dates back to Ptolemaic Egypt, but people have been playing games a long time before our favourite polyhedron was born. It's another week of recording at home, and an edit shipped off to a fan with far more RAM than us (thanks Brooke). We take a snapshot of children's games, wander through some game theory, argue about the monty hall problem, and show you all the games the Buddha wouldn't play.While you're all trapped in your houses, please get in touch via our social pages @dungeondeepdive on facebook, twitter, and instagram, or email us at deepdivetnc@gmail.comUntil next time, keep playing games!Subscribe to us on ITUNES, STITCHER, SPOTIFY, RADIOPUBLIC or your podcatcher of choice.Find us on FACEBOOK, TWITTER or INSTAGRAM.

War And Conquest
{7.8} Caesar's Revolt: A Typical Egyptian Century or So

War And Conquest

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2020 32:19


332- 48 BC: A brief history of Ptolemaic Egypt before Caesar and Pompey would come to it's shores both seeking the support of the king. Pompey gets a present from the Egyptians and Cleopatra steps into the historical spotlight Song: Low by Wage War- Pressurewww.warandconquest.comwarandconquestpcast@gmail.comhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdUOD52RBg1BBm_zndE-DdAWar and Conquest Podcast on Facebookwarandconquestpcast on Instagramwarandconquest1 on Twitter Venmo: @Warand Conquest

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
035: Ptolemaic Egypt - War & Peace in the 'Birdcage of the Muses'

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2019 34:35


The reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282-246 B.C.) would be the height of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, and his capital of Alexandria would become one of the most  prosperous economic and intellectual centers in the world. Its wealth, in conjunction with Ptolemy's meddling in foreign affairs would invite conflict both from the neighboring Seleucid Empire in the 1st and 2nd Syrian War, and from within via the likes of Magas of Cyrene, testing the mettle of what one scholar calls  "the Mediterranean superpower of the early-middle 3rd century B.C." Title Theme: Seikilos Epitapth with the Lyre of Apollo, played by Lina Palera (https://soundcloud.com/user-994392473) The History of Egypt Podcast Website (https://egyptianhistorypodcast.com/) iTunes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-egypt-podcast/id626129639) Show Links Website/Episode Notes (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2019/11/25/035-ptolemaic-egypt-war-peace-in-the-birdcage-of-the-muses/) Bookmark Contest Preview (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/ptolemy-bookmark.jpg?w=317&h=423) Ptolemaic Family Tree (https://hellenisticagepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/reign-of-ptolemy-ii-part-2.pdf) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Discord (https://discord.gg/VJcyUcN) Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast)

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
034: Ptolemaic Egypt - The (Incestuous) Lion's Brood

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2019 34:23


With the death of Ptolemy I Soter, the Hellenistic World would be subject to a collection of his formidable children: Ptolemy II Philadelphos, Arsinoe II, Magas, and Ptolemy Ceraunus. We also spend considerable time discussing the incestuous royal sibling marriages that would become standard policy of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Title Theme: Seikilos Epitapth with the Lyre of Apollo, played by Lina Palera (https://soundcloud.com/user-994392473) Special thanks to Nicholas C. for editing work The History of the British Isles Podcast iTunes(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-the-british-isles/id1384286703) Website (https://anchor.fm/historyofbritishisles) Show Links Website/Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2019/11/10/034-ptolemaic-egypt-the-incestuous-lions-brood/) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Discord (https://discord.gg/VJcyUcN) Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast)

The Hellenistic Age Podcast
033: Ptolemaic Egypt - Ptolemy I: Son of Lagus, Son of Ra

The Hellenistic Age Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2019 57:08


Ptolemy I Soter, a former commander of Alexander the Great turned King and Pharaoh of Egypt, was perhaps the craftiest out of all of Alexander's Successors. A talented commander and even more brilliant politician, Ptolemy would wield diplomacy and intrigue with a deft hand, founding what would become the longest lasting Hellenistic Kingdom in his nearly 40-year reign. Title Theme: Seikilos Epitapth with the Lyre of Apollo, played by Lina Palera (https://soundcloud.com/user-994392473) Show Links Website/Episode Notes: (https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/033-ptolemaic-egypt-ptolemy-i-son-of-lagus-son-of-ra/) Social Media: Twitter (https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod) Facebook (www.facebook.com/hellenisticagepodcast/) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hellenistic_age_podcast/) Discord (https://discord.gg/VJcyUcN) Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/hellenisticagepodcast)

The Christian History Podcast
3.55 Greek Rule in Egypt: Ptolemy the 3rd through Ptolemy the 6th

The Christian History Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 23, 2018


In this episode, I cover the history of Ptolemaic Egypt between Ptolemy the 3rd Euergetes and Ptolemy the 6th Philometor. So, the time period between 245 and 145 BC. In this period were several wars in Syria, a potential failed attempt by a Ptolemy to enter the 2nd temple, and internal conflict. A time setting the stage for the arrival of the toddler Jesus to Egypt. After listening, let me know what you think.

Profane Humanities Podcast
The Profane Egyptologist E1. Casting Cleopatra's Shadows with author Emily Holleman.

Profane Humanities Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2018 66:56


This week’s guest is a growing voice in historical fiction. Emily Holleman is the author of two books, Cleopatra’s Shadows and The Drowning King, both set in ancient Egypt during the reign of the last Ptolemaic rulers. However, her career was not always geared in that direction. With an interest in the systems and motivations behind peoples’ influences, perceptions and behaviours, Emily took a major in sociology before becoming an editor at high profile political news site Salon.com.  In her prose she shines a light on the ancient world which is both captivating and unflinching, painting a picture of Ptolemaic Egypt which could make even Game of Thrones look tame, and indeed her historical fiction has been called "the Game of Thrones of ancient Egypt…" . As a fan of her work, I’ve been looking forward to this interview for a very long time, and I encourage anybody with an interest in historical fiction to check out her work. Links are included below for your convenience.    Where to find Emily -  https://emilyholleman.com/ @emilyholleman    Cleopatra's Shadows http://a.co/0q5EaJ1   The Drowning King http://a.co/2PjdH0F    The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson http://amzn.eu/9i5p11D    D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d'Aulaire et al. http://a.co/bPRrQcO   Ptolemaic Egypt https://www.ancient.eu/Ptolemaic_Dynasty/   Recommended/further reading  Antony and Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy http://amzn.eu/4khI0Bv              

High Country Ministry
The Ten Horned Beast

High Country Ministry

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2018


The Ten Horned BeastB. Keith Chadwell, 7.2018 update If an area is dark and we need to see into that area, it makes sense that we would not spend time arguing about the darkness, just flood the area with light.   So… lets shine some light on Daniel, chapter 7:  Daniel 7: v23: "Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.                     Enters: Alexander the great  24a: "And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:…"      Enters: The Diadochi (Alexanders’ ten immediate successors) 24b: "…and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings;"     Enters:  Rome 25: "And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.      Enters: Roman occupation of Israel (the Saints of the Most High)Enters:  Jesus the Christ; time is divided; BC/AD                            see blog teaching: The dividing of time                     26: "But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end."        27:  "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him."         Enters: The promise of the Father and the new creation (Luke 12:32  Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  Matthew 5:3  Blessed arethe poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.) 28: "Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart." Exit:  The old creation (Eph_3:5  Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; ) Now just a bit of factual historical background: 1st  Kingdom…………………Babylonian followed by………………… Mede’s followed by.................…Persian’s  followed by………………… Alexander the Great followed by................... The Diadochi; who were          10 generals who became kings and were from Alexander’s Kingdom; eventually all to be taken over & becoming a part of the Roman Empire.  This is the set up right after Alexander dies;  1.  Ptolemy  …………….......in   Egypt 2.  Lysimachos *………... in   Thrace 3.  Leonnatus     ………....in   Hellespontine & Phrygia 4.  Eumenes………….…......in   Cappadocia 5.  Peithon…………............in   South half of Media 6.  Astropates………….....in   North half of Media 7.   Antigonus…………....in  Lycia, Pomphylia & Pisidia 8.   Menander…………....in  Lydia 9.   Asandrus………… ....in  Caria 10. Laomedon  …………. in  Syria * “Lysimachos was just as successful as his rivals in playing in the role of a new style king” (pg 51) The Greek World After Alexander 323-30 BC The History of these Kings & these Kingdoms and those formed at their expense extends over the 3rd  and 2nd  centuries BC. It is this that constitutes the Hellenistic period proper…… "Hellenistic Period : Following the death of Alexander, the Macedonian generals began to partition his vast empire among themselves. The disagreements arising from this division resulted in a series of wars from 322 to 275 BC, many of which took place in Greece. Thus, one of the characteristics of the Hellenistic period, which lasted from the death of Alexander until the acquisition of Greece as a Roman province in 146 BC, was the deterioration of the Greek city-states as political entities and the gradual decline of Greek political independence as a whole. Nevertheless, the Hellenistic period was marked by the triumph of Greece as the fountainhead of culture, and its way of life was adopted, as a result of Alexander’s conquests, throughout most of the ancient world." Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. Hebrews 9:26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.             “ The capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, Alexandria, which had been founded by Alexander in 332 BC, developed into a center of Greek learning rivaling and occasionally surpassing Athens. Every part of the Hellenistic world devoted itself to the cultivation of art and intellect. Such men as the mathematicians Euclid and Archimedes, the philosophers Epicurus and Zeno of Citium, and the poets Apollonius of Rhodes and Theocritus were characteristic of the age. So strongly was Hellenistic culture implanted that it became one of the most important elements in early Christianity.""Ancient Greek ideas about art, architecture, drama, philosophy, and mathematics greatly influenced Western civilization. Among the most influential of Greek cultural achievements is the Parthenon in Athens, an outstanding example of classical architecture. The Greek teacher and philosopher Socrates affected Western speculative thought and philosophy with his emphasis on dialogue and rational argument. Greek scientists developed methods of reasoning to demonstrate mathematic principles. Greek dramas set structural and thematic styles emulated by great Western playwrights such as William Shakespeare. " "In Alexandria the Jews came into contact with Greek learning, which profoundly influenced the later religious thought of the world; here the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the   Septuagint, was made before AD 100". Daniel 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."…….As the Hellenistic monarchies declined in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, the Romans gradually extended their control over Greece and the Middle East. The Roman civilization that subsequently became dominant was in many ways a continuation of Hellenistic culture.”Rome:   “Another King will arise & will subdue 3 Kings”   (Daniel 7:24b)  ” Alexanders’ chief officers, all Macedonians, included Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus.During the winter of 280-281 BC Seleucus, the last of the “Diadochi” (Alexanders companions to have participated in Alexanders conquest & subsequently shared the inheritance.)  The empire of Alexander was by now finally divided into 3 Kingdoms.”    1.  Egypt:The Ptolemies reign would last until the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC and then would be taken over by Rome  (ROMAN CONQUEST)2.  Syria Asia minor & upper Satraps: The Seleucidreign  would last until after the long conflict with Rome and finally disappear in 64 BC when Pompey & Syria were made into a province.  (ROMAN CONQUEST) 3.  Macedon:The Antigonids lost their Kingdom at the battle of Pydna before the (Rome) legions of Aemilius Paullus in 168 BC (ROMAN CONQUEST)."Hellenistic Age (4th-1st century BC), period between the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great and the establishment of Roman supremacy, in which Greek culture and learning were preeminent in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.” It is called Hellenistic (Greek Hellas, "Greece") to distinguish it from the Hellenic culture of classical Greece. The Hellenistic world was dominated by three great monarchies founded by the successors of Alexander:  Egypt,under the Ptolemies; Syria, ruled by the Seleucids;  and Macedonia,under the Antigonids.” As the Hellenistic monarchies declined in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, the Romans gradually extended their control over Greece and the Middle East. The Roman civilization that subsequently became dominant was in many ways a continuation of Hellenistic culture.“Greek rule (which itself meant a variety of things) came to an end, generally in favor of Roman rule, at different dates, in different places between 168 B.C. and AD 72;  even then the distinctive city-based culture of the Greeks, modified by centuries of interaction with non-Greek cultures, continued to evolve in new ways for many more centuries.”  (pg.2) The above is a quote from the book; “THE GREEK WORLD AFTER ALEXANDER 323-30 BC”, by Graham Shipley, published by Routledge an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, copy write by Graham Shipley 2000.  (Keith’s library)     Other direct quoted excerpts used in this article, unless otherwise noted, are taken from; Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.~ ~ ~

Historicool
Historicool Episode 20 - Cleopatra II

Historicool

Play Episode Listen Later May 8, 2017 39:41


Historicool is a podcast which delves into some of history's interesting figures and events. Your hosts, Matt Nelson and Wayne Bridgman will seek to bring these to life for you, the fascinated listener, with interesting facts and a dose of mischievous humour. This episode see part two of our series on the milk moistened monarch... Cleopatra VII Philopator (clever girl), known to history simply as Cleopatra, was the last active ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, briefly survived as pharaoh by her son Caesarion. After her reign, Egypt became a province of the recently established Roman Empire. Typical! But how did Egypt (and indeed Caesar) find itself on such a wild ride?

Urantia Book
121 - The Times of Michael’s Bestowal

Urantia Book

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2014


The Times of Michael’s Bestowal (1332.1) 121:0.1 ACTING under the supervision of a commission of twelve members of the United Brotherhood of Urantia Midwayers, conjointly sponsored by the presiding head of our order and the Melchizedek of record, I am the secondary midwayer of onetime attachment to the Apostle Andrew, and I am authorized to place on record the narrative of the life transactions of Jesus of Nazareth as they were observed by my order of earth creatures, and as they were subsequently partially recorded by the human subject of my temporal guardianship. Knowing how his Master so scrupulously avoided leaving written records behind him, Andrew steadfastly refused to multiply copies of his written narrative. A similar attitude on the part of the other apostles of Jesus greatly delayed the writing of the Gospels. 1. The Occident of the First Century After Christ (1332.2) 121:1.1 Jesus did not come to this world during an age of spiritual decadence; at the time of his birth Urantia was experiencing such a revival of spiritual thinking and religious living as it had not known in all its previous post-Adamic history nor has experienced in any era since. When Michael incarnated on Urantia, the world presented the most favorable condition for the Creator Son’s bestowal that had ever previously prevailed or has since obtained. In the centuries just prior to these times Greek culture and the Greek language had spread over Occident and near Orient, and the Jews, being a Levantine race, in nature part Occidental and part Oriental, were eminently fitted to utilize such cultural and linguistic settings for the effective spread of a new religion to both East and West. These most favorable circumstances were further enhanced by the tolerant political rule of the Mediterranean world by the Romans. (1332.3) 121:1.2 This entire combination of world influences is well illustrated by the activities of Paul, who, being in religious culture a Hebrew of the Hebrews, proclaimed the gospel of a Jewish Messiah in the Greek tongue, while he himself was a Roman citizen. (1332.4) 121:1.3 Nothing like the civilization of the times of Jesus has been seen in the Occident before or since those days. European civilization was unified and co-ordinated under an extraordinary threefold influence: (1332.5) 121:1.4 1. The Roman political and social systems. (1332.6) 121:1.5 2. The Grecian language and culture — and philosophy to a certain extent. (1332.7) 121:1.6 3. The rapidly spreading influence of Jewish religious and moral teachings. (1332.8) 121:1.7 When Jesus was born, the entire Mediterranean world was a unified empire. Good roads, for the first time in the world’s history, interconnected many major centers. The seas were cleared of pirates, and a great era of trade and travel was rapidly advancing. Europe did not again enjoy another such period of travel and trade until the nineteenth century after Christ. (1333.1) 121:1.8 Notwithstanding the internal peace and superficial prosperity of the Greco-Roman world, a majority of the inhabitants of the empire languished in squalor and poverty. The small upper class was rich; a miserable and impoverished lower class embraced the rank and file of humanity. There was no happy and prosperous middle class in those days; it had just begun to make its appearance in Roman society. (1333.2) 121:1.9 The first struggles between the expanding Roman and Parthian states had been concluded in the then recent past, leaving Syria in the hands of the Romans. In the times of Jesus, Palestine and Syria were enjoying a period of prosperity, relative peace, and extensive commercial intercourse with the lands to both the East and the West. 2. The Jewish People (1333.3) 121:2.1 The Jews were a part of the older Semitic race, which also included the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, and the more recent enemies of Rome, the Carthaginians. During the fore part of the first century after Christ, the Jews were the most influential group of the Semitic peoples, and they happened to occupy a peculiarly strategic geographic position in the world as it was at that time ruled and organized for trade. (1333.4) 121:2.2 Many of the great highways joining the nations of antiquity passed through Palestine, which thus became the meeting place, or crossroads, of three continents. The travel, trade, and armies of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Parthia, and Rome successively swept over Palestine. From time immemorial, many caravan routes from the Orient passed through some part of this region to the few good seaports of the eastern end of the Mediterranean, whence ships carried their cargoes to all the maritime Occident. And more than half of this caravan traffic passed through or near the little town of Nazareth in Galilee. (1333.5) 121:2.3 Although Palestine was the home of Jewish religious culture and the birthplace of Christianity, the Jews were abroad in the world, dwelling in many nations and trading in every province of the Roman and Parthian states. (1333.6) 121:2.4 Greece provided a language and a culture, Rome built the roads and unified an empire, but the dispersion of the Jews, with their more than two hundred synagogues and well-organized religious communities scattered hither and yon throughout the Roman world, provided the cultural centers in which the new gospel of the kingdom of heaven found initial reception, and from which it subsequently spread to the uttermost parts of the world. (1333.7) 121:2.5 Each Jewish synagogue tolerated a fringe of gentile believers, “devout” or “God-fearing” men, and it was among this fringe of proselytes that Paul made the bulk of his early converts to Christianity. Even the temple at Jerusalem possessed its ornate court of the gentiles. There was very close connection between the culture, commerce, and worship of Jerusalem and Antioch. In Antioch Paul’s disciples were first called “Christians.” (1333.8) 121:2.6 The centralization of the Jewish temple worship at Jerusalem constituted alike the secret of the survival of their monotheism and the promise of the nurture and sending forth to the world of a new and enlarged concept of that one God of all nations and Father of all mortals. The temple service at Jerusalem represented the survival of a religious cultural concept in the face of the downfall of a succession of gentile national overlords and racial persecutors. (1334.1) 121:2.7 The Jewish people of this time, although under Roman suzerainty, enjoyed a considerable degree of self-government and, remembering the then only recent heroic exploits of deliverance executed by Judas Maccabee and his immediate successors, were vibrant with the expectation of the immediate appearance of a still greater deliverer, the long-expected Messiah. (1334.2) 121:2.8 The secret of the survival of Palestine, the kingdom of the Jews, as a semi-independent state was wrapped up in the foreign policy of the Roman government, which desired to maintain control of the Palestinian highway of travel between Syria and Egypt as well as the western terminals of the caravan routes between the Orient and the Occident. Rome did not wish any power to arise in the Levant which might curb her future expansion in these regions. The policy of intrigue which had for its object the pitting of Seleucid Syria and Ptolemaic Egypt against each other necessitated fostering Palestine as a separate and independent state. Roman policy, the degeneration of Egypt, and the progressive weakening of the Seleucids before the rising power of Parthia, explain why it was that for several generations a small and unpowerful group of Jews was able to maintain its independence against both Seleucidae to the north and Ptolemies to the south. This fortuitous liberty and independence of the political rule of surrounding and more powerful peoples the Jews attributed to the fact that they were the “chosen people,” to the direct interposition of Yahweh. Such an attitude of racial superiority made it all the harder for them to endure Roman suzerainty when it finally fell upon their land. But even in that sad hour the Jews refused to learn that their world mission was spiritual, not political. (1334.3) 121:2.9 The Jews were unusually apprehensive and suspicious during the times of Jesus because they were then ruled by an outsider, Herod the Idumean, who had seized the overlordship of Judea by cleverly ingratiating himself with the Roman rulers. And though Herod professed loyalty to the Hebrew ceremonial observances, he proceeded to build temples for many strange gods. (1334.4) 121:2.10 The friendly relations of Herod with the Roman rulers made the world safe for Jewish travel and thus opened the way for increased Jewish penetration even of distant portions of the Roman Empire and of foreign treaty nations with the new gospel of the kingdom of heaven. Herod’s reign also contributed much toward the further blending of Hebrew and Hellenistic philosophies. (1334.5) 121:2.11 Herod built the harbor of Caesarea, which further aided in making Palestine the crossroads of the civilized world. He died in 4 B.C., and his son Herod Antipas governed Galilee and Perea during Jesus’ youth and ministry to A.D. 39. Antipas, like his father, was a great builder. He rebuilt many of the cities of Galilee, including the important trade center of Sepphoris. (1334.6) 121:2.12 The Galileans were not regarded with full favor by the Jerusalem religious leaders and rabbinical teachers. Galilee was more gentile than Jewish when Jesus was born. 3. Among the Gentiles (1334.7) 121:3.1 Although the social and economic condition of the Roman state was not of the highest order, the widespread domestic peace and prosperity was propitious for the bestowal of Michael. In the first century after Christ the society of the Mediterranean world consisted of five well-defined strata: (1335.1) 121:3.2 1. The aristocracy. The upper classes with money and official power, the privileged and ruling groups. (1335.2) 121:3.3 2. The business groups. The merchant princes and the bankers, the traders — the big importers and exporters — the international merchants. (1335.3) 121:3.4 3. The small middle class. Although this group was indeed small, it was very influential and provided the moral backbone of the early Christian church, which encouraged these groups to continue in their various crafts and trades. Among the Jews many of the Pharisees belonged to this class of tradesmen. (1335.4) 121:3.5 4. The free proletariat. This group had little or no social standing. Though proud of their freedom, they were placed at great disadvantage because they were forced to compete with slave labor. The upper classes regarded them disdainfully, allowing that they were useless except for “breeding purposes.” (1335.5) 121:3.6 5. The slaves. Half the population of the Roman state were slaves; many were superior individuals and quickly made their way up among the free proletariat and even among the tradesmen. The majority were either mediocre or very inferior. (1335.6) 121:3.7 Slavery, even of superior peoples, was a feature of Roman military conquest. The power of the master over his slave was unqualified. The early Christian church was largely composed of the lower classes and these slaves. (1335.7) 121:3.8 Superior slaves often received wages and by saving their earnings were able to purchase their freedom. Many such emancipated slaves rose to high positions in state, church, and the business world. And it was just such possibilities that made the early Christian church so tolerant of this modified form of slavery. (1335.8) 121:3.9 There was no widespread social problem in the Roman Empire in the first century after Christ. The major portion of the populace regarded themselves as belonging in that group into which they chanced to be born. There was always the open door through which talented and able individuals could ascend from the lower to the higher strata of Roman society, but the people were generally content with their social rank. They were not class conscious, neither did they look upon these class distinctions as being unjust or wrong. Christianity was in no sense an economic movement having for its purpose the amelioration of the miseries of the depressed classes. (1335.9) 121:3.10 Although woman enjoyed more freedom throughout the Roman Empire than in her restricted position in Palestine, the family devotion and natural affection of the Jews far transcended that of the gentile world. 4. Gentile Philosophy (1335.10) 121:4.1 The gentiles were, from a moral standpoint, somewhat inferior to the Jews, but there was present in the hearts of the nobler gentiles abundant soil of natural goodness and potential human affection in which it was possible for the seed of Christianity to sprout and bring forth an abundant harvest of moral character and spiritual achievement. The gentile world was then dominated by four great philosophies, all more or less derived from the earlier Platonism of the Greeks. These schools of philosophy were: (1335.11) 121:4.2 1. The Epicurean. This school of thought was dedicated to the pursuit of happiness. The better Epicureans were not given to sensual excesses. At least this doctrine helped to deliver the Romans from a more deadly form of fatalism; it taught that men could do something to improve their terrestrial status. It did effectually combat ignorant superstition. (1336.1) 121:4.3 2. The Stoic. Stoicism was the superior philosophy of the better classes. The Stoics believed that a controlling Reason-Fate dominated all nature. They taught that the soul of man was divine; that it was imprisoned in the evil body of physical nature. Man’s soul achieved liberty by living in harmony with nature, with God; thus virtue came to be its own reward. Stoicism ascended to a sublime morality, ideals never since transcended by any purely human system of philosophy. While the Stoics professed to be the “offspring of God,” they failed to know him and therefore failed to find him. Stoicism remained a philosophy; it never became a religion. Its followers sought to attune their minds to the harmony of the Universal Mind, but they failed to envisage themselves as the children of a loving Father. Paul leaned heavily toward Stoicism when he wrote, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” (1336.2) 121:4.4 3. The Cynic. Although the Cynics traced their philosophy to Diogenes of Athens, they derived much of their doctrine from the remnants of the teachings of Machiventa Melchizedek. Cynicism had formerly been more of a religion than a philosophy. At least the Cynics made their religio-philosophy democratic. In the fields and in the market places they continually preached their doctrine that “man could save himself if he would.” They preached simplicity and virtue and urged men to meet death fearlessly. These wandering Cynic preachers did much to prepare the spiritually hungry populace for the later Christian missionaries. Their plan of popular preaching was much after the pattern, and in accordance with the style, of Paul’s Epistles. (1336.3) 121:4.5 4. The Skeptic. Skepticism asserted that knowledge was fallacious, and that conviction and assurance were impossible. It was a purely negative attitude and never became widespread. (1336.4) 121:4.6 These philosophies were semireligious; they were often invigorating, ethical, and ennobling but were usually above the common people. With the possible exception of Cynicism, they were philosophies for the strong and the wise, not religions of salvation for even the poor and the weak. 5. The Gentile Religions (1336.5) 121:5.1 Throughout preceding ages religion had chiefly been an affair of the tribe or nation; it had not often been a matter of concern to the individual. Gods were tribal or national, not personal. Such religious systems afforded little satisfaction for the individual spiritual longings of the average person. (1336.6) 121:5.2 In the times of Jesus the religions of the Occident included: (1336.7) 121:5.3 1. The pagan cults. These were a combination of Hellenic and Latin mythology, patriotism, and tradition. (1336.8) 121:5.4 2. Emperor worship. This deification of man as the symbol of the state was very seriously resented by the Jews and the early Christians and led directly to the bitter persecutions of both churches by the Roman government. (1337.1) 121:5.5 3. Astrology. This pseudo science of Babylon developed into a religion throughout the Greco-Roman Empire. Even in the twentieth century man has not been fully delivered from this superstitious belief. (1337.2) 121:5.6 4. The mystery religions. Upon such a spiritually hungry world a flood of mystery cults had broken, new and strange religions from the Levant, which had enamored the common people and had promised them individual salvation. These religions rapidly became the accepted belief of the lower classes of the Greco-Roman world. And they did much to prepare the way for the rapid spread of the vastly superior Christian teachings, which presented a majestic concept of Deity, associated with an intriguing theology for the intelligent and a profound proffer of salvation for all, including the ignorant but spiritually hungry average man of those days. (1337.3) 121:5.7 The mystery religions spelled the end of national beliefs and resulted in the birth of the numerous personal cults. The mysteries were many but were all characterized by: (1337.4) 121:5.8 1. Some mythical legend, a mystery — whence their name. As a rule this mystery pertained to the story of some god’s life and death and return to life, as illustrated by the teachings of Mithraism, which, for a time, were contemporary with, and a competitor of, Paul’s rising cult of Christianity. (1337.5) 121:5.9 2. The mysteries were nonnational and interracial. They were personal and fraternal, giving rise to religious brotherhoods and numerous sectarian societies. (1337.6) 121:5.10 3. They were, in their services, characterized by elaborate ceremonies of initiation and impressive sacraments of worship. Their secret rites and rituals were sometimes gruesome and revolting. (1337.7) 121:5.11 4. But no matter what the nature of their ceremonies or the degree of their excesses, these mysteries invariably promised their devotees salvation, “deliverance from evil, survival after death, and enduring life in blissful realms beyond this world of sorrow and slavery.” (1337.8) 121:5.12 But do not make the mistake of confusing the teachings of Jesus with the mysteries. The popularity of the mysteries reveals man’s quest for survival, thus portraying a real hunger and thirst for personal religion and individual righteousness. Although the mysteries failed adequately to satisfy this longing, they did prepare the way for the subsequent appearance of Jesus, who truly brought to this world the bread of life and the water thereof. (1337.9) 121:5.13 Paul, in an effort to utilize the widespread adherence to the better types of the mystery religions, made certain adaptations of the teachings of Jesus so as to render them more acceptable to a larger number of prospective converts. But even Paul’s compromise of Jesus’ teachings (Christianity) was superior to the best in the mysteries in that: (1337.10) 121:5.14 1. Paul taught a moral redemption, an ethical salvation. Christianity pointed to a new life and proclaimed a new ideal. Paul forsook magic rites and ceremonial enchantments. (1337.11) 121:5.15 2. Christianity presented a religion which grappled with final solutions of the human problem, for it not only offered salvation from sorrow and even from death, but it also promised deliverance from sin followed by the endowment of a righteous character of eternal survival qualities. (1338.1) 121:5.16 3. The mysteries were built upon myths. Christianity, as Paul preached it, was founded upon a historic fact: the bestowal of Michael, the Son of God, upon mankind. (1338.2) 121:5.17 Morality among the gentiles was not necessarily related to either philosophy or religion. Outside of Palestine it not always occurred to people that a priest of religion was supposed to lead a moral life. Jewish religion and subsequently the teachings of Jesus and later the evolving Christianity of Paul were the first European religions to lay one hand upon morals and the other upon ethics, insisting that religionists pay some attention to both. (1338.3) 121:5.18 Into such a generation of men, dominated by such incomplete systems of philosophy and perplexed by such complex cults of religion, Jesus was born in Palestine. And to this same generation he subsequently gave his gospel of personal religion — sonship with God. 6. The Hebrew Religion (1338.4) 121:6.1 By the close of the first century before Christ the religious thought of Jerusalem had been tremendously influenced and somewhat modified by Greek cultural teachings and even by Greek philosophy. In the long contest between the views of the Eastern and Western schools of Hebrew thought, Jerusalem and the rest of the Occident and the Levant in general adopted the Western Jewish or modified Hellenistic viewpoint. (1338.5) 121:6.2 In the days of Jesus three languages prevailed in Palestine: The common people spoke some dialect of Aramaic; the priests and rabbis spoke Hebrew; the educated classes and the better strata of Jews in general spoke Greek. The early translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek at Alexandria was responsible in no small measure for the subsequent predominance of the Greek wing of Jewish culture and theology. And the writings of the Christian teachers were soon to appear in the same language. The renaissance of Judaism dates from the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. This was a vital influence which later determined the drift of Paul’s Christian cult toward the West instead of toward the East. (1338.6) 121:6.3 Though the Hellenized Jewish beliefs were very little influenced by the teachings of the Epicureans, they were very materially affected by the philosophy of Plato and the self-abnegation doctrines of the Stoics. The great inroad of Stoicism is exemplified by the Fourth Book of the Maccabees; the penetration of both Platonic philosophy and Stoic doctrines is exhibited in the Wisdom of Solomon. The Hellenized Jews brought to the Hebrew scriptures such an allegorical interpretation that they found no difficulty in conforming Hebrew theology with their revered Aristotelian philosophy. But this all led to disastrous confusion until these problems were taken in hand by Philo of Alexandria, who proceeded to harmonize and systemize Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology into a compact and fairly consistent system of religious belief and practice. And it was this later teaching of combined Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology that prevailed in Palestine when Jesus lived and taught, and which Paul utilized as the foundation on which to build his more advanced and enlightening cult of Christianity. (1338.7) 121:6.4 Philo was a great teacher; not since Moses had there lived a man who exerted such a profound influence on the ethical and religious thought of the Occidental world. In the matter of the combination of the better elements in contemporaneous systems of ethical and religious teachings, there have been seven outstanding human teachers: Sethard, Moses, Zoroaster, Lao-tse, Buddha, Philo, and Paul. (1339.1) 121:6.5 Many, but not all, of Philo’s inconsistencies resulting from an effort to combine Greek mystical philosophy and Roman Stoic doctrines with the legalistic theology of the Hebrews, Paul recognized and wisely eliminated from his pre-Christian basic theology. Philo led the way for Paul more fully to restore the concept of the Paradise Trinity, which had long been dormant in Jewish theology. In only one matter did Paul fail to keep pace with Philo or to transcend the teachings of this wealthy and educated Jew of Alexandria, and that was the doctrine of the atonement; Philo taught deliverance from the doctrine of forgiveness only by the shedding of blood. He also possibly glimpsed the reality and presence of the Thought Adjusters more clearly than did Paul. But Paul’s theory of original sin, the doctrines of hereditary guilt and innate evil and redemption therefrom, was partially Mithraic in origin, having little in common with Hebrew theology, Philo’s philosophy, or Jesus’ teachings. Some phases of Paul’s teachings regarding original sin and the atonement were original with himself. (1339.2) 121:6.6 The Gospel of John, the last of the narratives of Jesus’ earth life, was addressed to the Western peoples and presents its story much in the light of the viewpoint of the later Alexandrian Christians, who were also disciples of the teachings of Philo. (1339.3) 121:6.7 At about the time of Christ a strange reversion of feeling toward the Jews occurred in Alexandria, and from this former Jewish stronghold there went forth a virulent wave of persecution, extending even to Rome, from which many thousands were banished. But such a campaign of misrepresentation was short-lived; very soon the imperial government fully restored the curtailed liberties of the Jews throughout the empire. (1339.4) 121:6.8 Throughout the whole wide world, no matter where the Jews found themselves dispersed by commerce or oppression, all with one accord kept their hearts centered on the holy temple at Jerusalem. Jewish theology did survive as it was interpreted and practiced at Jerusalem, notwithstanding that it was several times saved from oblivion by the timely intervention of certain Babylonian teachers. (1339.5) 121:6.9 As many as two and one-half million of these dispersed Jews used to come to Jerusalem for the celebration of their national religious festivals. And no matter what the theologic or philosophic differences of the Eastern (Babylonian) and the Western (Hellenic) Jews, they were all agreed on Jerusalem as the center of their worship and in ever looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. 7. Jews and Gentiles (1339.6) 121:7.1 By the times of Jesus the Jews had arrived at a settled concept of their origin, history, and destiny. They had built up a rigid wall of separation between themselves and the gentile world; they looked upon all gentile ways with utter contempt. They worshiped the letter of the law and indulged a form of self-righteousness based upon the false pride of descent. They had formed preconceived notions regarding the promised Messiah, and most of these expectations envisaged a Messiah who would come as a part of their national and racial history. To the Hebrews of those days Jewish theology was irrevocably settled, forever fixed. (1339.7) 121:7.2 The teachings and practices of Jesus regarding tolerance and kindness ran counter to the long-standing attitude of the Jews toward other peoples whom they considered heathen. For generations the Jews had nourished an attitude toward the outside world which made it impossible for them to accept the Master’s teachings about the spiritual brotherhood of man. They were unwilling to share Yahweh on equal terms with the gentiles and were likewise unwilling to accept as the Son of God one who taught such new and strange doctrines. (1340.1) 121:7.3 The scribes, the Pharisees, and the priesthood held the Jews in a terrible bondage of ritualism and legalism, a bondage far more real than that of the Roman political rule. The Jews of Jesus’ time were not only held in subjugation to the law but were equally bound by the slavish demands of the traditions, which involved and invaded every domain of personal and social life. These minute regulations of conduct pursued and dominated every loyal Jew, and it is not strange that they promptly rejected one of their number who presumed to ignore their sacred traditions, and who dared to flout their long-honored regulations of social conduct. They could hardly regard with favor the teachings of one who did not hesitate to clash with dogmas which they regarded as having been ordained by Father Abraham himself. Moses had given them their law and they would not compromise.* (1340.2) 121:7.4 By the time of the first century after Christ the spoken interpretation of the law by the recognized teachers, the scribes, had become a higher authority than the written law itself. And all this made it easier for certain religious leaders of the Jews to array the people against the acceptance of a new gospel. (1340.3) 121:7.5 These circumstances rendered it impossible for the Jews to fulfill their divine destiny as messengers of the new gospel of religious freedom and spiritual liberty. They could not break the fetters of tradition. Jeremiah had told of the “law to be written in men’s hearts,” Ezekiel had spoken of a “new spirit to live in man’s soul,” and the Psalmist had prayed that God would “create a clean heart within and renew a right spirit.” But when the Jewish religion of good works and slavery to law fell victim to the stagnation of traditionalistic inertia, the motion of religious evolution passed westward to the European peoples. (1340.4) 121:7.6 And so a different people were called upon to carry an advancing theology to the world, a system of teaching embodying the philosophy of the Greeks, the law of the Romans, the morality of the Hebrews, and the gospel of personality sanctity and spiritual liberty formulated by Paul and based on the teachings of Jesus. (1340.5) 121:7.7 Paul’s cult of Christianity exhibited its morality as a Jewish birthmark. The Jews viewed history as the providence of God — Yahweh at work. The Greeks brought to the new teaching clearer concepts of the eternal life. Paul’s doctrines were influenced in theology and philosophy not only by Jesus’ teachings but also by Plato and Philo. In ethics he was inspired not only by Christ but also by the Stoics. (1340.6) 121:7.8 The gospel of Jesus, as it was embodied in Paul’s cult of Antioch Christianity, became blended with the following teachings: (1340.7) 121:7.9 1. The philosophic reasoning of the Greek proselytes to Judaism, including some of their concepts of the eternal life. (1340.8) 121:7.10 2. The appealing teachings of the prevailing mystery cults, especially the Mithraic doctrines of redemption, atonement, and salvation by the sacrifice made by some god. (1340.9) 121:7.11 3. The sturdy morality of the established Jewish religion. (1341.1) 121:7.12 The Mediterranean Roman Empire, the Parthian kingdom, and the adjacent peoples of Jesus’ time all held crude and primitive ideas regarding the geography of the world, astronomy, health, and disease; and naturally they were amazed by the new and startling pronouncements of the carpenter of Nazareth. The ideas of spirit possession, good and bad, applied not merely to human beings, but every rock and tree was viewed by many as being spirit possessed. This was an enchanted age, and everybody believed in miracles as commonplace occurrences. 8. Previous Written Records (1341.2) 121:8.1 As far as possible, consistent with our mandate, we have endeavored to utilize and to some extent co-ordinate the existing records having to do with the life of Jesus on Urantia. Although we have enjoyed access to the lost record of the Apostle Andrew and have benefited from the collaboration of a vast host of celestial beings who were on earth during the times of Michael’s bestowal (notably his now Personalized Adjuster), it has been our purpose also to make use of the so-called Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (1341.3) 121:8.2 These New Testament records had their origin in the following circumstances: (1341.4) 121:8.3 1. The Gospel by Mark. John Mark wrote the earliest (excepting the notes of Andrew), briefest, and most simple record of Jesus’ life. He presented the Master as a minister, as man among men. Although Mark was a lad lingering about many of the scenes which he depicts, his record is in reality the Gospel according to Simon Peter. He was early associated with Peter; later with Paul. Mark wrote this record at the instigation of Peter and on the earnest petition of the church at Rome. Knowing how consistently the Master refused to write out his teachings when on earth and in the flesh, Mark, like the apostles and other leading disciples, was hesitant to put them in writing. But Peter felt the church at Rome required the assistance of such a written narrative, and Mark consented to undertake its preparation. He made many notes before Peter died in A.D. 67, and in accordance with the outline approved by Peter and for the church at Rome, he began his writing soon after Peter’s death. The Gospel was completed near the end of A.D. 68. Mark wrote entirely from his own memory and Peter’s memory. The record has since been considerably changed, numerous passages having been taken out and some later matter added at the end to replace the latter one fifth of the original Gospel, which was lost from the first manuscript before it was ever copied. This record by Mark, in conjunction with Andrew’s and Matthew’s notes, was the written basis of all subsequent Gospel narratives which sought to portray the life and teachings of Jesus. (1341.5) 121:8.4 2. The Gospel of Matthew. The so-called Gospel according to Matthew is the record of the Master’s life which was written for the edification of Jewish Christians. The author of this record constantly seeks to show in Jesus’ life that much which he did was that “it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.” Matthew’s Gospel portrays Jesus as a son of David, picturing him as showing great respect for the law and the prophets. (1341.6) 121:8.5 The Apostle Matthew did not write this Gospel. It was written by Isador, one of his disciples, who had as a help in his work not only Matthew’s personal remembrance of these events but also a certain record which the latter had made of the sayings of Jesus directly after the crucifixion. This record by Matthew was written in Aramaic; Isador wrote in Greek. There was no intent to deceive in accrediting the production to Matthew. It was the custom in those days for pupils thus to honor their teachers. (1342.1) 121:8.6 Matthew’s original record was edited and added to in A.D. 40 just before he left Jerusalem to engage in evangelistic preaching. It was a private record, the last copy having been destroyed in the burning of a Syrian monastery in A.D. 416. (1342.2) 121:8.7 Isador escaped from Jerusalem in A.D. 70 after the investment of the city by the armies of Titus, taking with him to Pella a copy of Matthew’s notes. In the year 71, while living at Pella, Isador wrote the Gospel according to Matthew. He also had with him the first four fifths of Mark’s narrative. (1342.3) 121:8.8 3. The Gospel by Luke. Luke, the physician of Antioch in Pisidia, was a gentile convert of Paul, and he wrote quite a different story of the Master’s life. He began to follow Paul and learn of the life and teachings of Jesus in A.D. 47. Luke preserves much of the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” in his record as he gathered up these facts from Paul and others. Luke presents the Master as “the friend of publicans and sinners.” He did not formulate his many notes into the Gospel until after Paul’s death. Luke wrote in the year 82 in Achaia. He planned three books dealing with the history of Christ and Christianity but died in A.D. 90 just before he finished the second of these works, the “Acts of the Apostles.” (1342.4) 121:8.9 As material for the compilation of his Gospel, Luke first depended upon the story of Jesus’ life as Paul had related it to him. Luke’s Gospel is, therefore, in some ways the Gospel according to Paul. But Luke had other sources of information. He not only interviewed scores of eyewitnesses to the numerous episodes of Jesus’ life which he records, but he also had with him a copy of Mark’s Gospel, that is, the first four fifths, Isador’s narrative, and a brief record made in the year A.D. 78 at Antioch by a believer named Cedes. Luke also had a mutilated and much-edited copy of some notes purported to have been made by the Apostle Andrew. (1342.5) 121:8.10 4. The Gospel of John. The Gospel according to John relates much of Jesus’ work in Judea and around Jerusalem which is not contained in the other records. This is the so-called Gospel according to John the son of Zebedee, and though John did not write it, he did inspire it. Since its first writing it has several times been edited to make it appear to have been written by John himself. When this record was made, John had the other Gospels, and he saw that much had been omitted; accordingly, in the year A.D. 101 he encouraged his associate, Nathan, a Greek Jew from Caesarea, to begin the writing. John supplied his material from memory and by reference to the three records already in existence. He had no written records of his own. The Epistle known as “First John” was written by John himself as a covering letter for the work which Nathan executed under his direction. (1342.6) 121:8.11 All these writers presented honest pictures of Jesus as they saw, remembered, or had learned of him, and as their concepts of these distant events were affected by their subsequent espousal of Paul’s theology of Christianity. And these records, imperfect as they are, have been sufficient to change the course of the history of Urantia for almost two thousand years. (1343.1) 121:8.12 [Acknowledgment: In carrying out my commission to restate the teachings and retell the doings of Jesus of Nazareth, I have drawn freely upon all sources of record and planetary information. My ruling motive has been to prepare a record which will not only be enlightening to the generation of men now living, but which may also be helpful to all future generations. From the vast store of information made available to me, I have chosen that which is best suited to the accomplishment of this purpose. As far as possible I have derived my information from purely human sources. Only when such sources failed, have I resorted to those records which are superhuman. When ideas and concepts of Jesus’ life and teachings have been acceptably expressed by a human mind, I invariably gave preference to such apparently human thought patterns. Although I have sought to adjust the verbal expression the better to conform to our concept of the real meaning and the true import of the Master’s life and teachings, as far as possible, I have adhered to the actual human concept and thought pattern in all my narratives. I well know that those concepts which have had origin in the human mind will prove more acceptable and helpful to all other human minds. When unable to find the necessary concepts in the human records or in human expressions, I have next resorted to the memory resources of my own order of earth creatures, the midwayers. And when that secondary source of information proved inadequate, I have unhesitatingly resorted to the superplanetary sources of information. (1343.2) 121:8.13 The memoranda which I have collected, and from which I have prepared this narrative of the life and teachings of Jesus — aside from the memory of the record of the Apostle Andrew — embrace thought gems and superior concepts of Jesus’ teachings assembled from more than two thousand human beings who have lived on earth from the days of Jesus down to the time of the inditing of these revelations, more correctly restatements. The revelatory permission has been utilized only when the human record and human concepts failed to supply an adequate thought pattern. My revelatory commission forbade me to resort to extrahuman sources of either information or expression until such a time as I could testify that I had failed in my efforts to find the required conceptual expression in purely human sources. (1343.3) 121:8.14 While I, with the collaboration of my eleven associate fellow midwayers and under the supervision of the Melchizedek of record, have portrayed this narrative in accordance with my concept of its effective arrangement and in response to my choice of immediate expression, nevertheless, the majority of the ideas and even some of the effective expressions which I have thus utilized had their origin in the minds of the men of many races who have lived on earth during the intervening generations, right on down to those who are still alive at the time of this undertaking. In many ways I have served more as a collector and editor than as an original narrator. I have unhesitatingly appropriated those ideas and concepts, preferably human, which would enable me to create the most effective portraiture of Jesus’ life, and which would qualify me to restate his matchless teachings in the most strikingly helpful and universally uplifting phraseology. In behalf of the Brotherhood of the United Midwayers of Urantia, I most gratefully acknowledge our indebtedness to all sources of record and concept which have been hereinafter utilized in the further elaboration of our restatement of Jesus’ life on earth.]

New Books in Ancient History
Joyce Tyldesley, “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt” (Basic Books, 2008)

New Books in Ancient History

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2008 65:44


“Swords and Sandals” movies always amaze me. You know the ones I'm talking about: “Spartacus,” “Ben-Hur,” “Gladiator,” and the rest. These movies are so rich in detail–both narrative and physical–that you feel like you are “there.” But the fact is that we don't and really can't know much about “there” (wherever “there” happens to be in the Ancient World) because the sources are very, very thin. As Joyce Tyldesley points out in her terrific Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (Basic Books, 2008), Cleopatra is a mystery and necessarily so. We don't know who her mother was, when she was born, what she looked like, whom she married, and a host of other details about her life. That means, of course, that every dramatist from Shakespeare on has been, well, making stuff up about Cleopatra. Actually, many of the “primary sources” about her are full of invention because they were written long after the events they describe by Roman authors who just didn't like her very much. They did like a good story, so they embellished, as any good storyteller will. Joyce is an excellent storyteller herself, but she takes no poetic license. She tells us just what can be known–and trust me, that's more than enough to hold our attention! This book is a great read for anyone interested in learning about the real world of Ptolemaic Egypt. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven't already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in Women's History
Joyce Tyldesley, “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt” (Basic Books, 2008)

New Books in Women's History

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2008 65:44


“Swords and Sandals” movies always amaze me. You know the ones I'm talking about: “Spartacus,” “Ben-Hur,” “Gladiator,” and the rest. These movies are so rich in detail–both narrative and physical–that you feel like you are “there.” But the fact is that we don't and really can't know much about “there” (wherever “there” happens to be in the Ancient World) because the sources are very, very thin. As Joyce Tyldesley points out in her terrific Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (Basic Books, 2008), Cleopatra is a mystery and necessarily so. We don't know who her mother was, when she was born, what she looked like, whom she married, and a host of other details about her life. That means, of course, that every dramatist from Shakespeare on has been, well, making stuff up about Cleopatra. Actually, many of the “primary sources” about her are full of invention because they were written long after the events they describe by Roman authors who just didn't like her very much. They did like a good story, so they embellished, as any good storyteller will. Joyce is an excellent storyteller herself, but she takes no poetic license. She tells us just what can be known–and trust me, that's more than enough to hold our attention! This book is a great read for anyone interested in learning about the real world of Ptolemaic Egypt. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven't already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in Biography
Joyce Tyldesley, “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt” (Basic Books, 2008)

New Books in Biography

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2008 66:10


“Swords and Sandals” movies always amaze me. You know the ones I’m talking about: “Spartacus,” “Ben-Hur,” “Gladiator,” and the rest. These movies are so rich in detail–both narrative and physical–that you feel like you are “there.” But the fact is that we don’t and really can’t know much about “there” (wherever “there” happens to be in the Ancient World) because the sources are very, very thin. As Joyce Tyldesley points out in her terrific Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (Basic Books, 2008), Cleopatra is a mystery and necessarily so. We don’t know who her mother was, when she was born, what she looked like, whom she married, and a host of other details about her life. That means, of course, that every dramatist from Shakespeare on has been, well, making stuff up about Cleopatra. Actually, many of the “primary sources” about her are full of invention because they were written long after the events they describe by Roman authors who just didn’t like her very much. They did like a good story, so they embellished, as any good storyteller will. Joyce is an excellent storyteller herself, but she takes no poetic license. She tells us just what can be known–and trust me, that’s more than enough to hold our attention! This book is a great read for anyone interested in learning about the real world of Ptolemaic Egypt. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in African Studies
Joyce Tyldesley, “Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt” (Basic Books, 2008)

New Books in African Studies

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2008 65:44


“Swords and Sandals” movies always amaze me. You know the ones I’m talking about: “Spartacus,” “Ben-Hur,” “Gladiator,” and the rest. These movies are so rich in detail–both narrative and physical–that you feel like you are “there.” But the fact is that we don’t and really can’t know much about “there” (wherever “there” happens to be in the Ancient World) because the sources are very, very thin. As Joyce Tyldesley points out in her terrific Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (Basic Books, 2008), Cleopatra is a mystery and necessarily so. We don’t know who her mother was, when she was born, what she looked like, whom she married, and a host of other details about her life. That means, of course, that every dramatist from Shakespeare on has been, well, making stuff up about Cleopatra. Actually, many of the “primary sources” about her are full of invention because they were written long after the events they describe by Roman authors who just didn’t like her very much. They did like a good story, so they embellished, as any good storyteller will. Joyce is an excellent storyteller herself, but she takes no poetic license. She tells us just what can be known–and trust me, that’s more than enough to hold our attention! This book is a great read for anyone interested in learning about the real world of Ptolemaic Egypt. Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices