#the roman empire lasted a whole lot longer than the greeks did
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i think the reason i find jason so interesting is because the lore surrounding him is so interesting but he comes across so straightlaced which suggests to me that he does this on purpose. he forces himself into this persona of perfection and "conceal don't feel" and it fascinates me. like there's the whole thing where there are expectations for jason, as the son of jupiter and juno's champion, add to that the fact that it is implied that the romans have far less contact with the gods and especially major gods than even the greeks, and that up until very recently, jason was the only child of the big three *chef's kiss* then when you think about the emphasis on hierarchy and obedience in the roman camp and jupiter being more associated with aspects of governance than zeus, and imagine feral 'i was raised by wolves' toddler!jason being molded to fit in and groomed to lead. and consider the history of the children of jupiter, and jupiter's own history with patricide, and his father's history with patricide, and how jason is already under scrutiny for the circumstances he was born under, an oath sworn on the Styx being broken by the god of oaths who was the only one to break it on the roman side, so jason must be under a lot of pressure. he can't mess up, he doesn't get that luxury. not only does he have to be perfect, he also has to be obedient and subservient to the gods, but also a great leader to his people, and also be as inoffensive and unobtrusive as possible, but also mediocrity is not an option and he has to stand out and be tuly great but also not too great and become a threat to the gods. he is so fascinating
#jason grace#jason grace posting#i'm obsessed#the roman camp presents so many opportunities that just weren't capitalized on#partially because i feel like rick didn't really delve into how the romans treated their religion#and how it differed from the greeks#the myths and stories themselves are nearly equivalent#but their context in everyday life were so different#rick really just wrote them as the greeks but more distant from the gods and more warlike but also worse at war ???#the roman empire lasted a whole lot longer than the greeks did#and were the direct successors to the hellenic kingdoms#they took everything the greeks did and honed and perfected it#along the way absorbing stuff from everyone around them#from culture to religion#but also where greek heroes were demi gods who completed supernatural and mythical tasks#roman heroes tended to not necessarily be demigods and their heroic deeds had more to do with civic duty
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You're clearly a child and I shouldn't waste my time with you but, think of this as more so my mocking your shocking level of stupidity rather than "Responding"....
The First World War created WWII when it punished Germany even though Germany was no more guilty for the war than any other country. The allies, the EuroTrash, against the wishes of the United States, the pleading of President Wilson, punished Germany and stripped Germany of lands. And a lot of that land went to... guess where? Did you guess? Of course not.
It went to Poland.
So the peace after the First World War didn't look forward. It wasn't an actual attempt at bringing peace to Europe. It was 100% a case of "We won! We can do anything we want to you and you can't stop us!" Then as soon as Germany got strong again another war started.
A similar thing happened after the collapse of the old Soviet Union. Instead of looking forward to an ever lasting peace it was "How can we exploit them?" the "Winners" took advantage of Russia's weak state and forced concessions that they never ever wanted to make. And then Russia got powerful again.
The EuroTrash did exactly what they always have done since the fall of the Roman empire: Screwed each other without regard for tomorrow!
Now fast forward to 2013. Western Europe can't feed itself. "Europe" likely can, with the addition of eastern nations like Poland but western Europe is facing food insecurity. And here's the Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe.
This, btw, is exactly why Hitler wanted the Ukraine!
So there's a fascist coup in the Ukraine which by now most sources online have "Cleaned Up," either wrote out or downplayed the fascists, or even insisted that the fascists went away immediately after they won.
NOTE: If the fascists are no longer in power, why did Zelensky cancel elections? Hmm? Not exactly a "Democratic" thing to do, now was it?
So this fascists coup instantly sparked conflict with the autonomous regions and war broke out. It was in full swing by early 2014.
The fighting never stopped. There was an attempt at ethnic cleansing and then finally Putin moved in, annexed the territories. And that's where we are now.
The "Peace" at the end of the Cold War brought us here exactly how the "Peace" at the end of the First World War brought us to WWII.
What can I say? You don't know history, all of this is Greek to you and your precious media ordered you to believe something else...
Let me put it another way: Russia is there to stay. They don't give a fat flying fuct what you think. And this ends either when someone slaps Zelenky upside the head so hard that a clue sneaks in, or with a nuclear exchange. When that nuclear exchange happens there is nothing you wouldn't give to go back to this moment, throw that whole stinking cesspool of a Whitehouse is jail and broker a peace that the fascists in the Ukraine and the selfish bastards in the E.U. don't want.
The problem with filth like you is that you're never thinking about tomorrow or the next day. You're incapable of stopping & asking yourself, "What happens next?" And you're also not bright enough to listen to adults instead of wetting your pants and crying until you get what you want.
#suck my freedom#god is a republican#MAGA#make america great again#conservatives#trump#congress#The Ukraine
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Runaway - Part Two
~Masterlist~
Concept: Hazel Richards is a twenty-year-old woman living in London. When she meets a mysterious time-travelling alien known only as the Hunter, she’s thrust into a world of wonder she could only have imagined.
Warnings: swearing, follows S1 of Doctor Who.
As Hazel entered, she met the Hunter with a smile, and the Time Lady even smiled a little herself. "You were right, you know."
"What do you mean?" Hazel asked, walking up to the console.
"I do have a name. Asides from the Hunter, I mean." The Time Lady shrugged. "I was named Artemis the same way you were named Hazel, but my people often choose titles as well. Mainly because it's easier. Titles are meaningless, they are not names, not really. They just reflect us."
"Artemis, huh?" Hazel repeated, raising her eyebrows. "Like the goddess?"
The Hunter smirked a little. "Well, I did leave an impression on the ancient Greeks, yes. Me and my --" She cut herself off.
Hazel frowned. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It doesn't matter." The Hunter took a deep breath. "Right then, Hazel Norton, you tell me. Where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time. It's your choice. What's it going to be?"
"Forwards," Hazel replied, letting it slide.
"How far?"
"Uh..." Hazel shrugged. "One hundred years."
The Hunter set the TARDIS into motion, before landing it a few seconds later. "There you go. Step outside those doors, it's the twenty second century."
Hazel's eyes widened. "You're kidding."
"I'm not." The Hunter smirked a little. "That's a bit boring, though. Do you want to go further?"
"Fine by me," Hazel grinned. The TARDIS went into flight for a bit longer this time, before settling down again.
"Ten thousand years in the future. Step outside, it's the year 12005, the new Roman Empire."
"You think you're so impressive," Hazel accused, smirking.
The Hunter snorted. "I am so impressive."
Hazel scoffed. "You wish!"
"Right then, you asked for it. I know exactly where to go," the Hunter decided. "Hold on!" She piloted the TARDIS a lot further this time, and the flight was much more turbulent.
"Where are we?" Hazel asked when they landed. "What's out there?"
The Hunter didn't answer, just gestured towards the door with her hand. Hazel grinned, going outside and down a flight of steps. As she and the Hunter walked towards it, a large shutter in the wall descended to reveal an orbital view of the Earth. Hazel's breath hitched in her throat.
"You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible, that maybe you survive," the Hunter began. "This is the year five point five slash apple slash twenty six. Five billion years in your future, and this is the --" She checked her wristwatch. "Hold on." Her head bobbed a little bit as she counted down in her head. Outside, the sun flared and turned red. "This is the day the sun expands. Welcome to the end of the world."
Hazel's eyes widened. "I take it all back, Artemis. This is pretty damn impressive."
The Hunter smirked, leading her down a corridor. Up above, a tannoy announced a message to the whole space station. "Shuttles five and six now docking. Guests are reminded that Platform One forbids the use of weapons, teleportation, and religion. Earth Death is scheduled for 15:39, followed by drinks in the Manchester Suite."
"So, when it says guests, does that mean people?" Hazel wondered.
"Well, that depends on your definition of people," the Hunter shrugged.
"I mean people," Hazel clarified. "What do you mean?"
"Aliens," the Hunter replied simply.
Hazel frowned as they took a left. "What are they doing on board this spaceship? What's it all for?"
The Hunter raised an eyebrow. "It's not really a spaceship, more like an observation deck. The great and the good are gathering to watch the planet burn." She used her sonic screwdriver to open a wall panel and check something behind it.
"What for?"
"Fun," the Hunter shrugged. They walked into a large room lined with display cases and a huge floor-to-ceiling window looking out onto the planet below. "Of course, when I said the great and the good, what I meant is the rich. Some things never change."
Hazel shook her head. "But hold on. The sun expanding, that takes hundreds of years, right?"
"Millions," the Hunter agreed. "But the planet's now property of the National Trust. They've been keeping it preserved. See down there? Gravity satellites holding back the sun."
"The planet looks the same as ever," Hazel sighed. "I thought the continents shifted and stuff."
"They did, and the Trust shifted them back. That's a classic Earth," the Hunter explained. "But now the money's run out, nature takes over."
"How long's it got?" Hazel wondered.
"About half an hour, then the planet gets roasted like a slightly bigger-than-usual chestnut."
"Is that why we're here? I mean, is that what you do?" she asked. "Jump in at the last minute and save the Earth."
The Hunter shook her head. "I'm not saving it. Time's up."
Hazel frowned. "But what about the people?"
"It's empty," the Hunter responded. "They're all gone. No one left."
Hazel sighed, biting her lip. "It's just me now."
"Who the hell are you?" The two girls turned to see a tall, blue-skinned man with golden cat eyes striding towards them.
"Oh, that's nice, thanks. The Steward, I presume?" The Hunter looked up at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised.
"But how did you get in?" the Steward spluttered. "This is a maximum hospitality zone. The guests have disembarked. They're on their way any second now."
"Yes? We got here early, is that a problem? Look, I've got our invitation." The Hunter pulled out a leather wallet, and showed the man what looked to Hazel like a blank piece of paper. "There, see? The Hunter, plus one. I'm the Hunter, this is Hazel Norton. She's my plus one. Is that all right?"
The Steward blinked. "Well, obviously. Apologies, et cetera. If you're on board, we'd better start. Enjoy." He strode over to a podium with a microphone attached.
"The paper's slightly psychic," the Hunter told Hazel. "It shows them whatever I want them to see. Saves a lot of time."
"He's blue. An alien, right?" Hazel checked. When the Hunter nodded, she sighed. "How comes he's speaking English?"
"That'll be the TARDIS. She translates for you. Meant to mention it earlier, sorry." The Hunter bit her lip.
"Okay," Hazel nodded. "That's... cool."
"We have in attendance the Hunter and Hazel Norton. Thank you," the steward announced. "All staff to their positions." Several people who only came up to Hazel's waist appeared and started bustling around. "Hurry now, thank you. Quick as we can. Come along, come along. And now, might I introduce the next honoured guest? Representing the Forest of Cheam, we have trees, namely, Jabe, Lute, and Coffa."
Hazel blinked as a bark-skinned woman entered with two larger male escorts. "Oh, he really meant trees," she realised.
"Yep," the Hunter agreed.
"There will be an exchange of gifts representing peace. if you could keep the room circulating, thank you," the Steward requested. "Next, from the solicitors Jolco and Jolco, we have the Moxx of Balhoon."
The Hunter started patting down her pockets, and cursed when she didn't come up with anything. "Hazel, got anything we could use as gifts?"
The girl shook her head. "No, sorry."
"It's okay, doesn't matter," the Hunter told her. "This is going to be interesting."
The trio of trees stopped in front of the Hunter and Hazel. "The Gift of Peace. I bring you a cutting of my Grandfather." Jabe handed Hazel a rooted twig in a small pot.
"Thank you," the Hunter smiled politely, which Hazel noticed looked a lot different to one of her genuine smiles. "Yes, gifts. Uh, I give you in return a... a Kiss of Tranquillity." She leaned forwards and gave Jabe a quick peck on the mouth.
"How intimate," Jabe smiled.
"There's more where that came from," the Hunter winked.
"I bet there is." Jabe and her bodyguards moved on.
Hazel chanced a glance at the Hunter. "That was a nice gift."
The Hunter raised an eyebrow. "There's a queue. Besides, it was either that or we each lose a few hairs as 'cuttings of ourselves'. I figured you'd prefer the kiss. My brother would've --" She froze, clearing her throat.
"From the Silver Devastation, the sponsor of the main event, please welcome the Face of Boe," the Steward declared.
A squat blue alien rolled up to them on his travel pod. "Ah, the Moxx of Balhoon," the Hunter greeted.
"My felicitations on this historical happenstance," he replied. "I give you the gift of bodily salivas." He spat at them, and it hit Hazel in the face.
"Thank you very much," the Hunter snickered, blowing him a kiss in return. Next was a group of black-robed bipeds. "The Adherents of the Repeated Meme. I bring you a Kiss of Tranquillity." She blew them a kiss.
From underneath a robe, a large metal hand held out a silver ball. "A gift of peace in all good faith."
"Thanks," the Hunter nodded, taking the ball as she handed Hazel a tissue to get rid of the Moxx's spit.
"And last but not least, our very special guest. Ladies and gentlemen, and trees and multiforms, consider the Earth below," the Steward began. "In memory of this dying world, we call forth the last Human. The Lady Cassandra O'Brien Dot Delta Seventeen."
Hazel frowned as she saw a face in a piece of skin stretched in a rectangular frame was wheeled in. "The last Human?"
"The last pure human," the Hunter corrected, her lip curling in distaste. "If you can call that pure."
"Oh now, don't stare," Cassandra chastised in an aristocratic voice. "I know, I know, it's shocking, isn't it? I've had my chin completely taken away and look at the difference. Look how thin I am. Thin and dainty. I don't look a day over two thousand. Moisturise me. Moisturise me." One of the two men who'd wheeled her in sprayed her skin with something, and she relaxed.
"Truly, I am the last Human," she continued. "My father was a Texan, my mother was from the Arctic Desert. They were born on the Earth, and were the last to be buried in its soil. I have come to honour them and say goodbye." Cassandra sniffed dramatically. "Oh, no tears, no tears. I'm sorry. But behold, I bring gifts. From Earth itself, the last remaining ostrich egg. Legend says it had a wingspan of fifty feet and blew fire from it's nostrils. Or was that my third husband?" She chuckled. "Oh, no. Oh, don't laugh. I'll get laughter lines. And here, another rarity."
Hazel frowned, walking around the room to see just how thin Cassandra was, and turned to see a 50's jukebox being wheeled in. She didn't notice the Hunter watching her with an eagle eye, evaluating how she was taking things. "According to the archives, this was called an iPod," Cassandra announced. "It stores classical music from humanity's greatest composers. Play on!" Hazel shook her head a little as Tainted Love began to play.
"Refreshments will now be served. Earth Death in thirty minutes," the Steward stated.
Hazel caught the Hunter's eye and mouthed "I'm sorry" before running off out of the door to try and clear her head somewhere away from all the aliens. The Hunter made to follow her, but Jabe interrupted her. "Hunter?" she asked, snapping a picture with her device. "Thank you." The Hunter looked at her weirdly before leaving.
***
Hazel found herself in a corridor with a window, and stood there for a while, watching the sun. A young woman came round the corner, looking similar to the Steward, except she was wearing overalls and a baseball cap. "Sorry," Hazel muttered. "Am I allowed to be in here?"
The woman winced. "You have to give us permission to talk," she whispered.
"Uh, you have... permission?"
"Thank you," the woman smiled. "And no, you're not in the way. Guests are allowed anywhere."
"Okay," Hazel nodded, watching as the woman went over and unlocked a wall panel. "What's your name?"
"Raffalo."
"Raffalo? I'm Hazel."
"That's a lovely name, miss," Raffalo complimented. "I won't be long, I've just got to carry out some maintenance. There's a tiny little glitch in the Face of Boe's suite. There must be something blocking the system. He's not getting any hot water."
"You're a plumber," Hazel realised.
Raffalo grinned. "That's right, miss."
"They still have plumbers?"
"I hope so," Raffalo joked, "else I'm out of a job."
Hazel smiled. "Where are you from?"
"Crespallion," Raffalo replied.
"That a planet, is it?" Hazel asked.
"No. Crespallion's part of the Jaggit Brocade, affiliated to the Scarlet Junction, Convex fifty six. And where are you from, miss?" Raffalo paused. "If you don't mind me asking."
"No, not at all," Hazel shook her head, looking out of the window at the Earth. "Uh, I don't know. A long way away. I just sort of hitched a lift with this woman. I didn't even think about it. I don't even know who she is. She's a complete stranger." She sighed. "Anyway, don't let me keep you. Good luck with it."
"Thank you, miss," Raffalo smiled. "And er, thank you for the permission. Not many people are that considerate."
Hazel nodded, smiling shyly. "Okay. See you later." She made her way back to the area that they'd first arrived in.
"Would the owner of the blue box in private gallery fifteen please report to the Steward's office immediately. Guests are reminded that use of teleportation devices is strictly forbidden under Peace Treaty five point four slash cup slash sixteen. Thank you."
She rolled her eyes, going inside and sitting next to the steps, putting the ball and pot down next to her.
"Earth Death in twenty five minutes."
Hazel sighed. "Oh, thanks." She picked up the plant pot and peered at it. "Hello. My name's Hazel. That's a sort of nut. We might be related." She checked herself, and sighed again. "I'm talking to a twig."
"Oi, now, careful with that. Park it properly. No scratches!" The Hunter's voice filtered through the door, and Hazel rolled her eyes. "Hazel? You in there?" She entered, and nodded when she saw the human. "What do you think, then?" she asked as she sat opposite.
"Great," Hazel sighed. "Yeah, fine. Once you get past the slightly psychic paper. They're just... so alien. The aliens are so alien. You look at 'em... and they're alien."
"Good thing I didn't take you to the Deep South," the Hunter quipped, allowing a small smirk to rise to her lips.
Hazel looked at her curiously. "Artemis... Where are you from?"
Though it had hardly been expressive before, the Hunter's face completely shut down, only her eyes showing the pain she felt at the memory of her home. "All over the place," she replied curtly.
"From what planet?" Hazel questioned, not missing the flicker of pain spreading across the Time Lady's face.
"It's not as if you'll know where it is!" the Hunter shot back.
"Where are you from?"
"What does it matter?!"
"Tell me who you are!" Hazel shouted.
"I can't!" the Hunter yelled. Hazel blinked, shocked into silence. "I can't tell you who I am, because I don't know. I just... I don't know who I am." She took a deep, shaky breath. "Please, Haze. Don't ask me to try."
Hazel's eyes had widened considerably. This was a different side to the Hunter than she had seen before. This wasn't angry, or stubborn, or snarky, or quirky, or reserved. This was pained, and exposed. This was frightening. "All right." She went over and sat next to the Hunter, tentatively putting her arm around the woman's shoulders. "It's okay, Art. As Mikey the Pikey always says, don't argue with the designated driver." She pulled out her phone. "Can't exactly call for a taxi. There's no signal. We're slightly out of range."
The Hunter tried for a smile. "Tell you what." She took Hazel's phone apart, glancing up at the girl. "Art?"
Hazel blushed a bit. "Yeah. Short for Artemis. I mean, if you don't like it, I -"
"No, it's cool. I love it," the Hunter assured her, before handing the phone back. "Try it now."
Mystified, Hazel hit speed dial. "Hello?" Jason's voice echoed into her ear.
"Jace?" Hazel asked, her eyes lighting up as she grinned.
"What's wrong, H? You never call in the middle of the day." Hazel laughed a little at hearing his voice while she was five billion years in the future. "What's so funny, squirt?"
"Nothing," Hazel lied. "You're all right, though?"
"Yeah, course I am." Jason sounded confused as usual. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"What day is it?" Hazel inquired.
"Wednesday, all day. You and Pikey got a hangover again?" Jason asked, sighing. "You're gonna have liver failure."
"Oh, shut up, you dipshit. I was just calling cause I might be late home," Hazel laughed.
There was a pause. "Haze, is something wrong?"
Hazel grinned. "No. I'm fine. Top of the world." She hung up, and looked at the Hunter, who was wearing a small smile too.
"You think that's amazing, wait till you see the bill," she joked.
"That was five billion years ago," Hazel realised. "So, he's dead now. Five billion years later, Jace's dead."
The Hunter rolled her eyes. "Bundle of laughs, you are." Both girls looked up as the space station shook vigorously for about thirty seconds. "That's not supposed to happen."
***
"That wasn't a gravity pocket," the Hunter was saying as she marched onto the Observation Deck with Hazel. "I know gravity pockets, and they don't feel like that." She beckoned to the trees. "What do you think, Jabe? Listen to the engines. They've pitched up about thirty Hertz. That dodgy or what?"
Jabe shook her head politely. "It's the sound of metal. It doesn't make any sense to me."
"Where's the engine room?" the Hunter questioned.
"I don't know, but the maintenance duct is just behind our guest suite. I could show you and your wife," Jabe offered.
The Hunter and Hazel shared a glance. "She's not my wife."
"Partner?"
"No."
"Concubine?"
"Nope."
"Prostitute?" Jabe asked innocently.
The Hunter didn't miss the way Hazel froze, her face losing all its colour. "Definitely not," the Time Lady stated, shooting Jabe a look.
Hazel took a deep breath, looking away for a second. "Whatever I am, it must be invisible. Do you mind?! Tell you what, you two go and pollinate. I'm going to catch up with family. Quick word with Michael Jackson." She turned to go and talk to Cassandra, but the Hunter caught her elbow.
"Don't start a fight," she ordered with a small smirk, before letting the human go and offering Jabe her arm, her face back in its usual expressionless mask. "I'm all yours."
"And I want you home by midnight!" Hazel called after them, smiling as the Hunter laughed.
***
"Earth Death in fifteen minutes. Earth Death in fifteen minutes."
"So who's in charge of Platform One?" the Hunter asked as she poked around in a maintenance duct. "Is there a Captain?"
"There's just the Steward and the staff," Jabe replied. "All the rest is controlled by the metal mind."
The Hunter frowned. "You mean the computer? But who controls that?"
"The Corporation. They move Platform One from one artistic event to another," Jabe answered.
"But there's no one from the Corporation on board," the Hunter sighed.
"They're not needed," Jabe assured her. "This facility is purely automatic. It's the height of the Alpha class. Nothing can go wrong?"
The Hunter raised an eyebrow. "Unsinkable?"
Jabe tilted her head. "If you like. The nautical metaphor is appropriate."
"You're telling me." The Hunter snorted. "I was on board another ship once. They said that was unsinkable. I ended up clinging to an iceberg. Nearly got frostbite. What you're saying is, if we get into trouble, there's no one to help us out?"
"I'm afraid not," Jabe agreed.
"Fantastic," the Hunter grinned, leading her through the pipes.
The tree frowned. "I don't understand. In what way is that fantastic?"
***
Cassandra sighed as she watched the Earth and the sun, with Hazel standing next to her. "Soon, the sun will blossom into a red giant, and my home will die. That's where I used to live, when I was a little boy, down there. Mummy and Daddy had a little house built into the side of the Los Angeles Crevice. I'd have so much fun."
"What happened to everyone else?" Hazel asked. "The human race, where did it go?"
"They say mankind has touched every star in the sky," Cassandra replied.
"Right," Hazel dragged the word out sarcastically. "So you're not the last human."
Cassandra scoffed. "I am the last pure human. The others mingled. Oh, they call themselves New humans and Proto-humans and Digi-humans, even Humanish, but you know what I call them? Mongrels."
Hazel narrowed her eyes. "And you stayed behind."
"I kept myself pure," Cassandra agreed.
"How many operations have you had?" Hazel wondered.
"Seven hundred and eight." Hazel's jaw dropped. "Next week, it's seven hundred and nine. I'm having my blood bleached." Cassandra eyed her. "Is that why you wanted a word? You could be flatter, Hazel. You've got a little bit of a chin poking out."
Hazel raised her eyebrows. "I'd rather die."
"Honestly, it doesn't hurt," Cassandra assured her.
"No, I mean it. I would rather die. It's better to die than live like you, a bitchy trampoline."
Cassandra gasped. "Oh, well. What do you know."
"I was born on that planet, and so was my mum, and so was my dad, and that makes me officially the last human being in this room, cause you're not human," Hazel shook her head in disgust. "You've had it all nipped and tucked and flattened till there's nothing left. Anything human got chucked in the bin. You're just skin, Cassandra. Lipstick and skin. Nice talking." She marched off, but the Face of Boe looked at her from the corner, and she heard a voice in her head.
"Hello, Hazel."
She frowned, walking over to him. "Was that you in my mind?"
"Yes, it was. I wanted to talk to you about the Hunter."
Hazel blinked. "The Hunter? What do you mean?"
"You should trust her," the Face advised. "She will help you blossom into an incredible woman."
Strangely enough, Hazel found herself trusting the Face, as if they had already met. "I want to. She's... she's amazing. But there's so much I can't tell her. About my mum, what happened to my dad. She doesn't even know my real surname."
The Face eyed her knowingly. "She has her own haunting past. If she is to open up, you must do so too. The Hunter's memories scar her far more than any injury. The people she has lost were dearer to her than anything else, and she blames herself for their demises. She is a broken woman, Hazel, and only you can help her. She has no one else."
***
The Hunter smiled politely as they walked along. "So tell me, Jabe, what's a tree like you doing in a place like this?"
"Respect for the Earth," Jabe replied, shrugging.
"Really?" the Hunter raised an eyebrow.
Jabe nodded. "We respect the Earth as family. So many species evolved from that planet. mankind is only one. I'm another. My ancestors were transplanted from the planet down below, and I'm a direct descendant of the tropical rainforest."
"Huh. Excuse me." The Hunter used her sonic screwdriver to try and get through a computer-controlled door lock.
"And what about your ancestry, Hunter?" The Time Lady froze. "Perhaps you could tell a story or two. Perhaps a girl only enjoys trouble when there's nothing else left." Jabe sighed. "I scanned you earlier. The metal machine had trouble identifying your species. It refused to admit your existence. And even when it named you, I wouldn't believe it. But it was right. I know where you're from. Forgive me for intruding, but it's remarkable that you even exist. I just wanted to say how sorry I am." Jabe put her hand on the Hunter's shoulder, and the Time Lady took a deep breath before getting the door open, brushing a tear from her cheek brusquely.
The pair of them walked through the door into a room with a series of massive oscillating fans. "Is it me," the Hunter began, her face expressionless as she regained her composure, "or is it a bit cold? I mean, that's an effective method of air conditioning. Sort of nice and old fashioned. Wonder if they call it retro." She scanned a panel with her sonic. "Gotcha." She pulled the panel off, and a metal spider scuttled out and up the wall. "What the hell is that?"
"Is it part of the retro?" Jabe asked.
The Hunter snorted. "I don't think so. Hold on." She aimed her screwdriver at the spider, but Jabe lassoed it. "Hey, nice liana."
Jabe blushed a deeper green. "Thank you. We're not supposed to show them in public."
"Don't worry, I won't tell anybody," the Hunter winked, picking up the inert spider and sonicing it. "Now then. Who's been bringing their pets on board?"
"What does it do?" Jabe inquired.
"Sabotage," the Hunter replied darkly. "And the temperature's about to rocket. Come on."
"Earth Death in ten minutes."
***
They came across a corridor that was slowly filling with smoke. The little assistants were swarming the area, carefully not stepping in the bit where unfiltered sunlight was shining through the Steward's windows. "Hold on, get back," the Hunter ordered. She soniced the access panel for the room.
"Sun filter rising. Sun filter rising."
"Is the Steward in there?!" Jabe asked, horrified.
The Hunter nodded gravely. "You can smell him. Hold on, there's another sun filter programmed to descend." She ran off, leaving Jabe to usher the small assistants away.
***
Hazel groaned as she stirred on the floor of the room they'd arrived in.
"Sun filter descending. Sun filter descending. Sun filter descending."
Hearing this, Hazel shot upright, in time to see the piercing glare start to fill the room. She sprinted for the door, trying to get out, then hammering on it when she realised it was locked. "Let me out! Let me out!"
"Sun filter descending."
"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"
"Sun filter descending. Sun filter descending."
Suddenly, a familiar voice called from outside. "Anyone in there?"
"Artemis! Let me out!" Hazel cried, banging on the door.
"Oh, well, it would be you," the Hunter sighed.
"Open the door!" Hazel shouted.
"Hold on, I'm working on it."
"Sun filter descending. Sun filter descending. Sun filter rising Sun filter rising. Sun filter rising Sun filter rising. Sun filter descending."
Hazel heard the Hunter curse outside. "Just what we need. The computer's getting clever."
"Art, please!" Hazel screamed, running down the steps to avoid being hit by the deadly rays.
"Haze, I need you to try and keep calm for me. Which I know is a really stupid thing to say, but trust me, okay?" the Hunter asked.
Hazel nodded, breathing heavily. "Okay. Calm. I can do calm. What exactly is happening right now?"
"I'm trying to override the computer, raise the sun filter. The computer's fighting back," the Hunter replied.
Hazel whimpered as the light got closer. "Art!"
"I know," the Hunter soothed.
"The lock's melted!"
"Sun filter descending. Sun filter descending. Sun filter rising. Sun filter rising."
"Hazel?" The girl ran back up to the door as the Hunter called her name.
"I'm okay!"
"The whole thing's jammed," the Hunter told her. "I can't open the doors. Stay there!"
Hazel rolled her eyes. "Where am I going to go, Ipswich?"
***
"Earth Death in five minutes."
Jabe sighed. "The metal machine confirms. The spider devices have infiltrated the whole of Platform One."
"How's that possible?" Cassandra gasped dramatically. "Our private rooms are protected by a code wall. Moisturise me, moisturise me."
"Summon the Steward," the Moxx of Balhoon suggested.
"I'm afraid the Steward is dead," Jabe announced, wincing at the general outcry from the other guests.
"Who killed him?" the Moxx demanded.
"This whole event was sponsored by the Face of Boe," Cassandra pointed out. "He invited us. Talk to the Face. Talk to the Face."
The Hunter entered, holding a wriggling mechanical spider. "There's an easy way of finding out who's responsible. Someone bought their little pet on board. Let's send him back to master." She put the spider down, and it scuttled over to Cassandra, scanning her, before going to the black-robed group.
"The Adherents of the Repeated Meme. J'accuse!" Cassandra exclaimed.
"That's very well, and really kind of obvious," the Hunter said, rolling her eyes, "but if you stop and think about it..." She walked over to the Adherents, and when the leader tried to knock her out, she grabbed its robotic arm, yanking it off. "A Repeated Meme is just an idea. And that's all they are, an idea." She pulled on one of the wires dangling from the arm, and the Adherents all collapsed. "Remote controlled droids. Nice cover for the real troublemaker." She nudged the spider with her boot, and it scuttled over to Cassandra.
"I bet you were the school swot and never got kissed. At arms!" Cassandra cried. Her attendants raised their spray guns at the Hunter, who was unimpressed.
"What are you gonna do, moisturise me?" she raised her eyebrows.
"With acid!" Cassandra snapped, then sighed angrily. "Oh, you're too late anyway. My spiders have control of the mainframe. Oh, you all carried them as gifts, ta free, past every code wall. I'm not just a pretty face."
The Hunter crossed her arms. "Sabotaging a ship while you're still inside it? As plans go, that's pretty terrible."
Cassandra ignored the slight. "I'd hoped to manufacture a hostage situation with myself as one of the victims. The compensation would have been enormous."
"Five billion years, and it still comes down to money," the Hunter rolled her eyes.
"Do you think it's cheap, looking like this? Flatness costs a fortune. I am the last human, Hunter, me. Not that freaky little kid of yours." Cassandra blanched a little as the Hunter tilted her head, narrowing her eyes.
"Don't talk about Hazel like that," she warned icily.
"Arrest her, the infidel!" the Moxx cried.
"Oh, shut it, pixie!" Cassandra scowled. "I've still got my final option."
"Earth Death in three minutes."
"And here it comes," Cassandra smiled. "You're just as useful dead, all of you. I have shares in your rival companies, and they'll triple in price as soon as you're dead. My spiders are primed and ready to destroy the safety systems. How did that old Earth song go? Burn, baby, burn."
Jabe glared at her. "Then you'll burn with us."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I know the use of teleportation is strictly forbidden, but I'm such a naughty thing." Cassandra smirked. "Spiders, activate." The others struggled to keep their balance as a series of explosions rocked the Platform. "Forcefields gone with the planet about to explode. At least it'll be quick. Just like my fifth husband. Oh, shame on me."
"Safety systems failing."
"Bye, bye, darlings. Bye, bye, my darlings." Cassandra smiled as she and her attendants were beamed out.
"Heat levels rising."
"Reset the computer!" the Moxx of Balhoon shouted.
"Only the Steward would know how," Jabe protested.
The Hunter shook her head determinedly. "No. We can do it by hand. there must be a system restore switch. Jabe, come on. You lot, just chill." She smirked as she and Jabe ran out of the door.
***
"Earth Death in two minutes. Heat levels critical."
"Oh, and guess where the switch is," the Hunter groaned as they arrived back in the engine room, seeing the reset switch on the other side of the huge fans which were still turning. She pulled a breaker lever, and the fans slowed a little, but they sped up again as soon as she let go.
"External temperature five thousand degrees."
The Hunter stared as Jabe pulled the breaker, holding it in place. "You can't. The heat's going to vent through this place."
"I know," Jabe stated.
"Jabe, you're made of wood!" the Hunter exclaimed.
The tree fixed her with a steel look. "Then stop wasting time, Time Lady."
"Heat levels rising. Heat levels rising."
With a sigh, the Hunter nodded, and timed her walking past the first fan.
"Heat levels critical. Heat levels critical."
She glanced back at Jabe, then ran past the second fan.
"Heat levels hazardous. Heat levels hazardous."
Jabe started to combust, but she held onto the lever until she could not. When she let go, the fans sped up to faster than ever before, until they were just a blur in front of the Hunter's face.
"Planet explodes in ten..."
The Hunter looked back at Jabe, burning on the floor.
"Nine..."
She turned back to the lever, wondering how the hell she was going to get past the last fan.
"Eight..."
The Hunter closed her eyes, thinking of Hazel, trapped in Gallery 15, with nothing protecting her from the heat of the sun.
"Seven..."
She thought of Jason and how, if Hazel died here, she'd have to bring her body back to him, and watch his heart break at his sister's death.
"Six..."
She thought of herself, and what she would do without the human girl who had started changing her already.
"Five..."
She stepped past the last fan.
"Four..."
The Hunter opened her eyes, realising she had succeeded, and threw the reset switch. "Raise shields!" she yelled.
***
When Hazel entered the Observation Deck, the Hunter was talking to Jabe's bodyguards, giving them the bad news. As the two trees hugged each other, the Time Lady walked back over to the human, looking a little shell-shocked. "Are you all right?" Hazel asked softly, putting her hand on the woman's arm.
The Hunter nodded decisively. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm full of ideas, I'm bristling with them. Idea number one, teleportation through five thousand degrees needs some kind of feed. Idea number two, this feed must be hidden nearby." She grabbed the ostrich egg Cassandra had brought and smashed it open to reveal a small triangular device. "Idea number three, if you're as clever as I am, then a teleportation feed can be reversed." She pushed some of the device's buttons, and they heard Cassandra's voice before she appeared in front of them.
"Oh, you should have seen their little alien faces," Cassandra laughed, before realising where she was. "Oh."
"The last human." The Hunter shook her head in disgust.
Cassandra looked scared. "So, you passed my little test. Bravo. That makes you eligible to join, er, the Human Club."
"People have died, Cassandra. You murdered them," Hazel accused.
"Remind me of your past, freak?" Cassandra shot back, and the girl blanched, stepping back a little. "Besides, it depends on your definition of people, and that's enough of a technicality to keep your lawyers dizzy for centuries." She smirked at the Hunter, who was glaring right back. "Take me to court then, Hunter, and watch me smile and cry and flutter -"
"And creak?" the Time Lady asked.
"What?" Cassandra frowned.
"Creak. You're creaking," the Hunter pointed out emotionlessly.
"What?! Ah!" Cassandra wailed. "I'm drying out! Oh, sweet heavens. Moisturise me, moisturise me! Where are my surgeons? My lovely boys! It's too hot!"
"You raised the temperature," the Hunter reminded her. "Look what you've done to yourself."
"Have pity! Moisturise me! Oh, oh, Hunter! I'm sorry! I'll do anything!"
"Aren't you going to help her?" Hazel whispered.
The Hunter shook her head, her eyes fixed on the skin. "Everything has its time and everything dies." She leaned a little closer to Cassandra. "You tried to kill my friend. That was a mistake."
"I'm too young!" Cassandra cried, and the Hunter didn't even flinch when the skin grew too taut and dry, and exploded.
***
Hazel was stood looking out into space long after the other guests had gone. She heard the Hunter's familiar booted footsteps behind her as the woman came to stand by her side. "The end of the Earth. It's gone. We were too busy saving ourselves, no one saw it go. All those years, all that history, and no one was even looking. It's just..." Hazel trailed off, shaking her head.
Watching her, the Hunter made a decision, and held out her hand. "Come with me."
***
The pair of them stepped out of the TARDIS onto a busy London street. The Hunter watched people going about their lives for a moment before sighing. "You think it'll last forever, people and cars and concrete, but it won't. One day, it's all gone, even the sky." She swallowed, and Hazel squeezed her hand encouragingly. "My planet's gone." The human's eyes widened. "It's dead. It burned like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust before its time."
Hazel gaped at the Time Lady. "What happened?"
She raised her eyebrows briefly, ignoring the tears in her eyes. "There was a war. And we lost."
"A war with who?" Hazel asked. The Hunter didn't reply, so she changed tack. "What about your people?"
The Hunter sighed. "I'm not just a Time Lady. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. my friends, my family, everyone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own, because there's no one else."
"There's me," Hazel offered shyly.
"You've seen how dangerous it is," the Hunter pointed out. "Do you want to go home?"
Hazel shook her head decisively. How could she leave the Time Lady on her own again? "No way. I want..." she trailed off, sniffing. "Oh, can you smell chips?"
The Hunter eyed her in amusement before nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, I can."
"I want chips," Hazel murmured.
"Me too," the Hunter agreed.
"Right then, before you get me back in that box, chips it is, and you can pay," Hazel decided.
The Hunter smiled a little, shrugging. "No money."
Hazel rolled her eyes, grinning. "What sort of date are you? Come on then, tightwad, chips are on me. We've only got five billion years till the shops close." She pulled the Hunter along with her as she ran through the crowds, heading for the nearest chip shop, and the girls both laughed as they nearly ran into a business man.
~~~
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Hi i have a follow up question to your latest ask. I tried looking through your asks if you had answered something similar but only found a post about your book which is also good but not exactly what i was looking for haha. Anyway, so I was wondering what sources we have showing or referencing the historical alexanders relationship to achilles? And maybe his mothers too. Is it just in later authors works? Is it based on lost sources from alexanders time? Are there coins or anything? Thanks (:
TL;DR version: we don’t have anything from Alexander’s own day that firmly connects him to Achilles. His coins all show Herakles, and then later himself “Heraklized.”
IF the armor in Tomb II at Vergina is his (e.g., it’s his half-brother Arrhidaios in there, not Philip II), then we may have an artistic reference on the magnificent shield recovered and reconstructed via archaeological magic. The shield’s central boss shows Achilles killing Penthesileia. Is that the “Shield of Achilles” Alexander supposedly picked up at Troy, and then carried in battle like a standard? Maybe. But, either way, it’s a reference to Achilles.
Otherwise, Achilles just doesn’t show up in Macedonian artwork. As he was supposedly from Epiros next door west, that may not be a big surprise, whereas Herakles (who’s all over the place) was believed to be the ancestor of the Argead clan. Alexander’s claim to Achilles came through Mommy, Olympias.
So virtually ALL our references to Alex and Achilles are from literary sources. And those are also ALL later. Which brings us to our source problem….
—————————————
The sources for Alexander are a regular Gordion Knot. We’re gonna get into the weeds here. Stay with me. And you may want to bookmark this for yourself if you need a handy (if saucy) later reference on the Alexander sources.
I’m not sure how much the asker already knows, but let me lay out some basics for everyone, including common terminology. You can probably suss out a lot from context, but just to be clear:
“Primary” evidence means documents and materials from the time period under consideration, and “secondary” evidence means modern authors assembling/editing and writing about those sources. When we look at the ancient world, primary evidence refers to documents (writings, including inscriptions), artwork (vases, sculptures, mosaics, etc.), and material evidence (e.g., “stuff” unearthed by archaeologists).
Obviously, only a fraction of what once existed has survived. Sometimes we know of writings that are no longer “extant.” Extant means a document we still have, or at least have most of. We hear about a lot more via “testamonia” and “fragmenta.” Testamonia are mention of a document (or author) found in another document. And fragmenta are pieces of a lost work (typically) embedded as quotes in somebody else’s work. Unfortunately, ancient authors don’t always admit where they get their information. “Citing” wasn’t a thing, back then.
Now, that out of the way, let’s take a look at Alexander sources in particular.
We have 5 extant histories/biographies for Alexander, more than virtually any other ancient figure. That’s great!
Problem. Not a single one was written by anyone who knew him, saw him, or even lived when he did. Two of them aren’t even in Greek; they’re in Latin. I’ve listed them below from earliest to latest, with approximate dates, and a bit of info about the author. (While I prefer Greek transliterations, I’m using the most common spelling of the names for familiarity.)
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, specifically books 16 (Philip), 17 (Alexander), 18-20 (Successors). As “world histories,” they do talk about events in other places, including Syracuse, Athens, Sparta, and Rome. As his name suggests, Diodorus was from Sicily, and died c. 30 BCE, just as the Roman Republic was morphing into Empire. We have only books 1-5 and 11-20 of a total of 40. Books 18-20 are incomplete (fragments).
THIS IS OUR EARLIEST EXTANT SOURCE: a guy who lived in the first century BCE and was born almost 300 years after Philip of Macedon.
Let that sink in a moment.
Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni, is the better known of our two Latin histories. The author is a mystery, which complicates dating it. He lived under the empire, while the Parthians existed. A consul suffectus in late 43 CE (Claudius) has been proposed as him, but speculation abounds he might have used a nom de plume—not unlike a fanfiction author. 😊 The best study of Curtius’s work is by Elizabeth Baynam. He probably belongs to the first century, just a little earlier than Plutarch, and his work bears all the hallmarks of the Latin Silver Age.
Plutarch of Chaironeia wrote a lot, including his collection, Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans, which includes Alexander (as well as some Successors) + a massive number of essays collected under the general title Moralia. These include The Fortune of Alexander the Great, and Sayings of Kings and Commanders. Plutarch was a Dionysian priest from central Greece (Boeotia) who lived in the late first century CE, and died c. 120…that’s when HADRIAN was emperor. He belongs to a group of writers typically called the Second Sophistic.
Arrian of Nicomedia, The Anabasis and Indica, written in two different dialects of Greek (Attic and Ionic); he also wrote some philosophic stuff. We know a decent amount about him. He was an Asian Greek from modern Bithynia (the home province of Hadrian’s boyfriend Antinoos), a military man, a senator, a friend of Hadrian, a consul suffectus, and later, an archon of Athens, but most famously, governor (legate) of Cappadocia under Hadrian. He died in Athens c. 160 CE. He liked to call himself the New Xenophon and naming his work on Alexander the Anabasis (after Xenophon’s famous history) is pointed. Although Greek, he was strongly Romanized.
Justin, wrote an epitome of Pompeius Trogus’s expansive Liber Historiarum Philippicarum, which was a history of the Macedonian kingdom, written when Augustus was Empror. An “epitome” is a digest, or shortened version. Trogus’s work was 44 books. Justin’s is much, much smaller, but it’s not a true digest in that he collected what he considered the more interesting titbits rather than trying to summarize the whole thing. We do not know when he lived, precisely, and dates have been thrown out from shortly after Pompeius Trogus all the way to 390 CE! His Latin matches the second century or perhaps early third. This one doesn’t have a Loeb edition, so get the translation by John Yardley with Waldemar Heckel’s commentary on Justin.
In addition, information and stories about Alexander can be found scattered in other ancient sources, notably:
Athenaeus of Naucratus (Greece), Supper Party (Deipnosophistae), which is a weird collection of stories about famous people and food, told at a fictional dinner banguet. It’s long, and fairly entertaining reading, if you’re interested in Greek (and Roman) dining customs. Athenaeus lived in the late 2nd/early 3rd century CE, so he’s even later than most of our historians. Athenaeus used a lot of now-missing sources.
Polyaenus, Strategems. Military handbook from another late author—2nd century CE—but he’s of special interest as he’s Macedonian, our sole extant ancient source from a Macedonian, but keep in mind 500+ years passed between Alexander’s day and his. The Strategems is broken down by leader, which include Archelaus, Philip, and Alexander, plus some of the Successors, too. Until recently, there wasn’t a really good translation (the last was done in the 1800s), but it was finally updated by Krentz and Wheeler for Ares Press.
In addition, he’s mentioned in passing by sources from Strabo to Pliny the Elder to Aelian.
This gives you a good idea of what we do have, and the nature of our problem. It may also help explain what I (or other historians) mean when we talk about the danger of “Romanizing,” even with Greek authors. By the time any of them were writing, even Diodorus, Rome dominated the Mediterranean, and most of them really knew only the imperial period.
Besides the obvious problem of the distance in time, some also had axes to grind. Plutarch is probably the most obvious, as he admits he’s not writing history, but this new thing (he invented) called “Lives” (e.g., biography). More to the point, he’s writing moral tales. Ergo, his bio of Alex is really a long discourse in the old saw, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Likewise, Curtius had a lesson about the evils of Roman imperial debauchery, especially as influenced by Eastern Ways pulling good men away from Roman discipline and clemency.
So what about our now-missing historians who were used by the guys above, and lived closer to ATG’s time? Some of the more important include:
The Ephemerides, or Royal Journal: a daily account of the king’s activities similar to other Ancient Near Eastern traditions, kept by Eumenes, Alexander’s personal secretary. You’ll see them referred to chiefly when talking about Alexander’s last days, as they (supposedly) give an account of his deterioration and death. But they may (and probably were) “doctored” later. Ed Anson has an article about them: important reading.
Callisthenes, Aristotle’s nephew, the official Royal Historian…at least until he got himself in trouble with the Page’s Conspiracy and ATG had him executed (or caged, accounts differ). His history was noted even in antiquity for being flowery and effusive, despite his personal claims to be a philosopher and pretense of austerity. If Alexander wanted a Homer, it wasn’t Callisthenes. Among his failings, he attempted to write about ATG’s battles…badly (so Polybius). Still, this was the official record up till Baktria, used by all the historians still extant. Don’t confuse it with Pseudo-Callisthenes which is the chief source of the Alexander Romance.
Marsyas: Macedonian literati who went to school with the prince, and not only wrote about his childhood (his Education of Alexander was modeled on Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus) and career, but also wrote a work about Macedonian customs that I’d simply LOVE to have. If I could ask for one work from antiquity to be discovered tomorrow, that would be it.
Ptolemy I, of Egypt: Alexander’s general, the guy who stole his body and stole Egypt too in the Successor wars that followed. He was one of Arrian’s main sources when writing his histories. Despite Arrian’s declaration that Ptolemy could be trusted because it would be bad for a king to lie, we can’t trust him. Among other things, he set out to smear the name of his Successor-era rival Perdikkas, and also, apparently, made himself sound more important than he really was. 😉
Nearchus of Crete/Amphipolis, Alexander’s chief admiral and a player in the later Successor wars, wrote an account of his naval trip from India, et al., used chiefly by Arrian.
Aristobulus of Cassandreia: Arrian’s other chief source, he was an engineer, architect, and friend of the king; his main problem seems to have been a tendency to whitewash or explain away critiques of Alexander. It’s Aristobulus who claims ATG didn’t drink heavily, just sat long over his wine for the conversation (uh…I’m sure Kleitos agrees with that). It’s also from him that we get the alternative story that Alexander didn’t cut the Gordion Knot, just pulled the pin out of the yoke and untied it from inside (he didn’t cheat!). Hmmm.
Chares of Mytilene, Alexander’s chamberlain, wrote a 10-book history of Alexander that focused largely on his personal affairs. Boy, wouldn’t that be a fun read? Arrian uses him sometimes, as does Plutarch, et al. Chares is one of the chief sources on the Proskenysis Affair.
Cleitarchus, History of Alexander. Probably the best-known ancient “pop history” of Alexander, but given the ancient equivalent of 2-stars even by historians of his time. His father was a historian too, but apparently, he got more ambition than ability, and was accused of flat making up shit. He lived at Ptolemy’s court later, we think, and a recent fragment tells us he was a tutor. His date is in dispute as late 4th or middle 3rd, and he probably never actually met Alexander. Kleitarchos’s account was used heavily by Plutarch, Curtius, Diodorus, and Pompeius Trogus (Justin’s source). Even Arrian uses him occasionally.
Onesicritus, a Cynic philosopher who studied under Diogenes and later traveled with Alexander. Despite that, his reputation for honesty was even worse than Kleitarchos; Lysimakhos famously called him out publicly, and Strabo considered him a joke. It’s from Onesicritus we hear about Alexander’s sexual servicing of the Amazon Queen to give her a daughter (that’s what Lysimakhos made fun of him for: “Where was I when that happened?”).
These are the main ancient sources you’ll see mentioned, although parts of Alexander’s life are covered in smaller essays, e.g., On the Death (and Funeral) of Alexander and Hephaistion by Euphippus, which is unashamedly hostile to both men. All our fragments from Euphippos come from Athenaeus’s Supper Party, mentioned above.
We also have the Alexander Romance, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish and not my bailiwick. I refer folks to the work by Richard Stoneman.
There you go! Your handy-dandy potted summary of the ancient authors. To learn more about them, please see Lionel Pearson’s The Lost Historians of Alexander the Great, Scholar’s Press, 1983. There have been articles and material about them in other commentaries and sources, but Pearson remains useful, if somewhat dated, simply for collecting it all in one place, including mention of some minor sources I didn’t cover here.
Finally, I’m including a flowchart I’ve made for my ATG class that lists all the known sources (including several not discussed above); it is copyrighted to me, but may be used for educational purposes. Yes, yes, it really is as crazy as this chart makes it look. And keep in mind, some dependencies are speculative rather than internally confirmed. E.g., as I mentioned earlier, not all ancient sources say what/who they consulted because, againg, citing wasn’t a thing, back then.
#Alexander the Great#Sources on Alexander the Great#Classics#Arrian#Plutarch#Diodorus#Curtius Rufus#Justin#Source problems in antiquity#Lost historians of Alexander#one-stop shopping for Alexander historians#asks#ancient history#tagamemnon#historiography
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Castlevania Season 3 Review: Ellis is Gonna Ellis I Suppose.
Warning: Massive spoilers ahead because I don’t give a shit anymore so scroll down really fast if don’t want to get spoiled
Being a Castlevania fan is pure suffering, man. Not only is the video game franchise being put on ice by Konami at the time of writing, but your only form of enjoyment is a hit-or-miss Netflix Original written by a guy who admits never playing the games. I tried to enjoy the first season despite it being only four episodes long, and same thing with the second one which was longer but had a plethora of issues. Now it’s the third season, which took a year-long break to be made, and I am absolutely sorry to say it’s the absolute lowest point of the show: not only repeating the issues from the previous season, but amplifying them and failing to do anything interesting with anything new that is given. I will elaborate why I think so in this review.
So after Season 2, Dracula has been destroyed, our heroes have split up with Trevor and Sypha going their own way while Alucard has stayed behind in his father’s castle overlooking the Belmont Hold. Carmilla and Isaac have survived and are preparing to build an whole new army, the former to establish a new empire and the latter to get his revenge on her for betraying Dracula.
Even though the stakes are lower than the possible extinction of the human race which was the (possible) outcome from Season 2 which never actually came into fruition, you’d imagine they would do something inciting with this new status quo... But you’d be wrong. This season as a whole felt like padding in all conceivable manners. Not only was the pacing atrocious (which I will get into a minute), but really, nearly all of the events that occurred could have been omitted and the storyline as a whole wouldn’t have been affected somehow.
The pacing was the worst problem in Season 2 since you had the protagonists locked down inside a hold to do research on how to kill Dracula and endless exposition among the bad guys that some defenders call “vampire politics’ which ultimately went nowhere. The pacing in Season 3 is even worse since not only is it longer (10 episodes this time), you have more storylines now but each of them move at completely sluggish pace with a disproportional large amount of exposition and comparatively few action.
The Castlevania games were level-based games which had you visiting several distinct locations whether if it was inside or outside the castle. An adaptation series of Castlevania would make more sense if it was episodic in nature, perhaps even with monster of the week formula. It would have been better off for it, but the show is attempting channel Game of Thrones with an over-aching arc with sprawling individual storylines whose episodes are build up for an epic confrontation at the end, but it fails in that regard.
Trevor and Sypha’s storyline was absolutely pointless - they have no idea of the larger threat brewing with two demonic armies about to clash against each other, but they are stuck doing what basically amounts to a sidequest, investigating a evil cult operating in a small town which takes a needless long time to conclude. They completely fail in saving the townsfolk from being sacrificed and end up discovering that one of the characters that has been helping them is actually a monster all along. This only serves to make their effort completely pointless and leave the pair absolutely bitter and angry.
Not that there is any urgency in stopping Carmilla or Isaac since they come nowhere near close to trading blows to one another. In fact, Carmilla doesn’t come anywhere close to achieving her goal of raising an army of demons with Hector (who has been enslaved by her for this purpose) and it’s actually one of her lieutenants Lenore that solves this problem at the end. On the other hand, Isaac gets the closest thing to an highlight in this season by experiencing something of an character development since he is questioned by several characters that maybe humans aren’t so bad as a whole. The problem is that his development becomes inconclusive since he doesn’t learn to be anymore different than he used to.
Alucard gets sidelined like you wouldn’t believe. He spends the entire season in his castle now with two new characters, Japanese twin hunters that seek to be training so they can free their people from the vampires... Aaaaand they try to fuckin kill him, which comes out from nowhere specially after an extremely uncomfortable threesome between him and the twins. And just in case you thought the previous season was depressing enough with Alucard breaking down in tears completely alone in his castle, this one ends not only with Alucard still alone, crying, but now emulating his dad by leaving the impaled corpses of the twins in the castle’s entrance to scare off any trespassers which is the closing shot of this season.
But for me, the biggest letdown has to be Hector. He was one of my favorite characters from the games, having starred his own entry Curse of Darkness for the PS2 where he actually turns on Dracula on behalf of humanity and pursues Isaac for murdering his wife. Here, he does absolutely fuck all during the entire season except being bossed around by Carmilla’s sisters. The guy had such cool powers of summoning Innocent Devils and wielding all types of weapons (including a lightsaber) is reduced to a whimpering slave, whom I have absolutely no hope of seeing in his absolute glory. The worst part is that it was very predictable - the moment I saw Lenore saying that both her and Hector should flee together, I knew she was gonna screw him in some way. The irony is that unlike the other storylines which pull some kind of mean twist in the last second, here you already can tell what is going to happen next.
The new characters frankly do nothing for the story. The aforementioned Carmilla’s sisters are pure window-dressing and only Lenore gets the shit done by herself might I add completely independent from the others and specially Carmilla herself (who does nothing). A video game character actually does get featured - Comte of Saint-Germain, who is some kind of magician in search of his loved one who got lost in another dimension. Another step down from his video counterpart who is a time guardian that preserves the cosmic balance (though it seems they were channeling the historical figure rather than the character that happens to share the same name given their ignorance for the source material).
There are of course those typical Warren Ellis moments like three mentions of bestiality (and one goatfucking as usual) and anti-Christian commentary, though it seems to be sending some kind of mixed messages this time: in one hand Sypha comment that while she hates God, she at least admires Jesus because of his sacrifice which can be considered one of nicest things that atheists can comment about Christianity... And then the next episode features an demon that used to be a Greek philosopher who lived during post-Constantinian Roman Empire and was persecuted by Christians because of his intellect. Oh dear. With that said, it’s rather odd this guy became a demon so maybe he had it coming?
Overall, this season is a lot more weaker and lacking than Season 2, which at least had the climax in Episode 7 which some people were willing to forgive the dullness from that season. But Season 3′s climax is completely unfocused, interlaced with unnecessary and uncomfortable sex scenes and doesn’t even feature classical music from the games, which was the saving grace from the last time.
So did it have any upsides? I guess so if you look hard enough like Isaac’s schizophrenic “should I hate all humans or not” dillema which goes unresolved. Hardly anything that elevates the season or make it redeemable in some way. To be perfectly frank with you, I don’t know if I have any interest in keeping with this show. It blew away any good will Season 1 and 2 did, it barely moved the plot forward (and that if it has an overaching plot at all), the protagonists being disconnected to the main threat at large and quite frankly, none of the antagonists are as interesting as Dracula, I just don’t care what happens next. Specially if the pacing and exposition remain in place. In theory, if the series was restructured to be episodic instead of trying to be Game of Thrones, my interest in the show would have been renewed but it’s too little too late.
I guess in retrospect I should be grateful that Season 1 was so short had I knew later ones would be so tedious. There is so very little to do with Castlevania: Dracula’s Curse when you already got rid of the main villain and you don’t move the plot forward. If they want to regain my interest, do a Leon Belmont season that is episodic or heck anything else, but I don’t see them doing this because they have to give closure to this story arc, which already grew past it’s welcome and wasted everyone’s time with a season that amounted to nothing more than filler. Well, my patience has been worn thin.
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How St Paul changed the world (Full Show) | Tom Wright & Holland
Justin Brierley is joined by leading New Testament scholar
NT (Tom) Wright & popular historical writer Tom Holland to
discuss how the apostle Paul changed the world as
described in Wright’s recent book Paul: A Biography.
An agnostic in terms of his religious commitments,
Tom Holland has nevertheless described the way
that the birth of Christianity has shaped much of
what we value in Western society in terms of
human rights, culture and rule of law.
He engages with NT Wright on the way that Paul &
the early Christian movement stood in stark contrast
to the prevailing Roman culture of its day.
Introduction: Tom Wright
Today on unbelievable, we're asking:
how did St.Paul change the world?
NT Wright (or Tom Wright) as he's popularly known is
one of the world's most influential BIBLE scholars.
And his new book: “Paul a Biography” is a detailed study
of the Apostle
who brought Christianity
from Jerusalem
to the rest of the world.
Saint Paul's influence is almost incalculable,
2nd only in the world to JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF.
As he took the good news of a Jewish Messiah to
the Roman Empire that ruled the world.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has described Tom Wright's book as:
"An enthralling journey into the mind of Paul
by one of the great theologians of our time.
A work full of insight, depth &
generosity of understanding."
So it's pretty good when you can get endorsements like
that on your book jacket.
Introduction: Tom Holland
Opposite Tom Wright for today's discussion is another Tom.
Tom Holland, popular historian whose best-selling books
such as Rubicon & Dynasty have told the story of the
rise & fall of the Roman Empire.
While not a believer himself, Tom Holland is also working
on a new book on the way that Christianity became the
most revolutionary force for changing the world &
it'll be interesting to hear how you've been getting on
in that endeavour Tom.
Connection between Toms
Today is really an exchange of collegial discussion between
two people who are simply fascinated in this era of history.
What can we know from Acts & the letters in the NT about Paul,
& what are the gaps that we need to fill in about:
● Who Paul was, &
● How Paul went about his mission, &
● We’ll also talk about his famous conversion, &
● The unique way his theology developed as he
brought Jewish monotheism &
JESUS the Messiah together.
So Tom Holland & Tom Wright, welcome to the show, it’s great
to have you both joining me today.
We’ll come to you first of all Tom Wright, I'm probably going to
have to use surnames to distinguish you both today.
But you've been writing & researching Paul for decades now
haven't you? (yes) I mean the last, well, a couple of years ago
I had you on when you wrote your magnum opus—which was
(that's actually amazing that's 5 years ago that it came out,
yes extraordinary) The two volumes sort of very academic
(yes Paul & the Faithfulness of GOD)
Q1: And is this really I suppose in a sense the popular level
version of what you wrote then?
Tom Wright: Sort of yes & no, when I did that big book, several
people (both including colleagues in the discipline said:
"Wish you'd do a shorter one"
Of course part of the point of the longer one was that I've
been writing shorter things & articles.
And people had always said,
"Yeah, but you didn't explain this or
yes but surely that has to be contextualized there."
Okay, you want the big thing, here it is.
Then of course they all said it was far too long,
so it's as JESUS said:
"We danced for you & you wouldn't even sing;
& we wept & you wouldn't mourn."
But this isn't exactly a potted down version, because that
was a book on Paul's mind & theology.
Now there's a lot of mind & theology in here, but part of
the whole point of it is that what Paul was thinking & saying
was contextualized in a rich multi-layered life,
which was to do with both
his Jewish upbringing
& his amazing knowledge of
the Jewish SCRIPTURES.
And with his contextualizing in the Roman world, where
he was a citizen, & in the Greek world where he knew
his Epicureans from his Stoics.
And we see Paul navigating these things in a
multi-layered way, which I find just perpetually enthralling
because I grew up with a Paul who was basically
a brainbox who said prayers as it were.
And then the rest of it was off on the side.
The older I've got the more, the whole man (of Paul) speaks to
this whole man. And that's been really exciting.
Justin Brierley: You probably feel like you know his era
almost as well as you know your own now.
Tom Wright: Well let's put it like this, "My students mock me,
because when I say the war, I mean
the Jewish-Roman war of (66–70 AD)
—not World War one or two.
And they say, "well yeah I sort of mentally live in the 1st century,
though I've tried to diversify more recently, & get back
towards our days as well.
Justin Brierley: And just kind of give us a sense of
how you structure this particular because you called it
a biography & in that sense you are trying to write
something that's sort of a narrative.
Tom Wright: “oh yes"
Justin Brierley: It's not a sort of academic book,
in the traditional sense.
Tom Wright: No. It's not at all, I mean the only footnotes are
basically references to bits of the BIBLE, or bits of classical
sources & so on.
So there's no discussion of other scholarly views or
if I do say there are various views here, I don't actually go
into details as to who said it. You can find those elsewhere.
So this is going through from what we know about or can
infer about his early life; &
how he got to the point where
he was on the road to Damascus when dot-dot-dot,
& then what happened next...[4:33]
And as with virtually all ancient history, there are gaps.
That's quite normal, but when you have gaps in any
narrative (ancient or modern) what you can do is
probe cautiously—from either side, as it were,
with the bits you do know & say:
"Well it's possibly this, it's likely that, or
it’s almost certain that such & such.
And that's what I tried to do to construct a whole story.
Justin Brierley: And something of a gift to us, 2K years later;
that he was obviously a prolific letter writer.
Tom Wright: Well he was comparatively prolific, but actually
the letters are short, you know:
How many volumes do we have of Cicero's letters
in the lower classics? I mean just...[5:09]
Tom Holland: They go on & on..have you read them all?
Tom Wright: Exactly! Exactly they do go on & on.
And they're fascinating, they shed a flood of light &
all sorts of things in the 1st century BC Roman culture.
But for Paul we've just got these snippets
because he's writing on the go.
He's not leisured sitting there all day to compose, he's
really sending bulletins from the front as it were [5:33]
Tom Holland: Yeah
Tom Wright: So most of his time, he isn't writing letters,
so far as we know:
he's talking with people, he's preaching,
he's praying. He's always trying to organize
these little communities;
And then from time to time, he has to buzz off a letter
to somebody.
Justin Brierley: Yes & you're always obviously hearing
one side of the conversation, (yup) & you sort of have
to fill in gaps (yeah).
And you have to, I suppose as a historian Tom, what
you're doing as well as saying:
Well here is what we know is going on in the
wider culture, & that makes sense of why
Paul said this & did this..
Tom Wright: And particularly I am very fortunate in that
I came of age as a scholar just when the contemporary
revolution in modern Jewish studies was happening.
So that we've got the Dead Sea Scrolls, in good modern
editions, we've got new good editions of Josephus.
We know much much more about the early rabbis,
than we did 50 years ago because of massive work
that's gone on. [6:23]
So we can reconstruct quite a lot about
how Jews in that period were thinking.
And of course that's controversial too.
But we can see a big picture, within which then the way
Paul is going after things—makes sense if you say
take somebody in that world, who is also
very much alive to the Greek & Roman context.
But who then happens to believe that
GOD has fulfilled HIS promises
by sending a Messiah, who was then crucified.
That's bizzare.
But the sense Paul makes of it, is the sense that
it would make within that Jewish world. [6:53]
Justin Brierley: And just before we come to Tom Holland here,
that was going to be my next question.
Will people reading this book simply know a lot more
about Paul by the end of it, or will it give us a
better picture of JESUS?
The person, he was obviously speaking of.
Tom Wright: I’m not sure it would necessarily give you
a better picture of JESUS, but it would give you a
better picture of how the very first
followers of JESUS were wrestling with
the question:
What does it mean that GOD's Messiah
was crucified & raised from the dead?
You know that's not part of the game plan, but if that's
what we've got: How does that reconfigure everything?
Obviously I & many others have written quite a lot
about JESUS as well. That's another story.
But so it's probing back & I mean for me, I just go on
being fascinated by the fact that within I would say:
"20 or so years after the crucifixion,"
here is a highly intelligent man saying
he loved me & gave himself for me.
You know that is extraordinary! [7:42]
It's hard to imagine anybody saying that,
about anybody else in the last 20 years (right).
Unless all sorts of other things were true as well.
And yet Paul says it [7:53]
Justin Brierley: Tom Holland, thank you for joining us
on the program today. We've thrown you in at the deep end.
Tom Holland: You really have.
Justin Brierley: Well thank you for putting yourself in the,
you know, the opposite chair. As I say, this isn't,
sometimes this program is combative, I have a feeling
that won't be the case today.
It'll very much be a meeting of the minds.
But tell us where your interest in the whole Classical Age
really began. You've sort of been doing this all of your
adult working life, haven't you? [8:24]
Tom Holland: Well it goes right the way back to childhood
& I was the kind of child who loved dinosaurs & I liked
them because they were big & they were fierce &
they were glamourous. And they were extinct, &
my interest, I suppose, was really in the Roman army
then by extension the Roman empire.
Well it kind of was a seamless movement from
Tyrannosaurus Rex to Caesar.
And so the kind of the glamour & beauty & the power,
& the cruelty of the Greeks & the Romans,
I found very appealing. [8:58]
The contrast to that, although I went to Sunday School &
I was very interested in biblical history as well.
I found them all a bit poor-faced.
Kind of I didn't like their beards,
I preferred the clean-shaven look of Apollo.
And in a way I was kind of seduced by the glamour (yes)
of Greece & Rome, I suppose. [9:20]
So the first books I wrote about of history
were about Greece & Rome, & in many ways
—you know the appeal particularly I think of
Rome is that in certain ways they do seem very
like as you were talking about Cicero's letters
This is a man who, you know, is:
● worrying about property prices,
● he's worrying about the weather,
● he's complaining apparently (people),
yes in all kinds of ways, he seems very familiar. [9:46]
But the more you live in the minds of the Romans, &
I think even more the Greeks, the more alien they
come to seem. [9:53]
And the more frightening they come to seem.
What becomes most frightening really
is a kind of quality of callousness,
that I think is terrifying because I think
it is completely taken for granted.
There's a kind of innocent quality
about it; nobody really questions it.
Justin Brierley: And what sort of form would that take? [10:13]
Tom Holland: Well if you know, within the age of Cicero,
you know Cicero's great contemporary Ceasar is by some
accounts slaughtering a million Gauls & enslaving
another million, in the cause of boosting his political career.
And far from feeling in any way embarrassed about this,
he's kind of promoting it & say when he holds his triumph:
People are going through the streets of Rome carrying
billboards boasting about how many people he's killed.
This is a really terrifyingly alien world
& the more you look at it, the more you realize
that it is built on systematic exploitations.
So the entire economy is founded on slave labour (right),
the sexual economy is founded on the absolute right of
free Roman males to have sex with anyone that they
want in any way that they like.
And in almost every way this is a world that is
unspeakably cruel to our way of thinking.
And so this worried me more & more, & it was kind of like,
I was thinking...well you know:
I'm clearly not as I had vaguely imagined,
the era of the Greeks & the Romans in
any way really.
And so where am I coming from?
It was like a kind of itch, you know,
on your back & you can't find it.
Then this was enhanced for me, by then writing a book
about the late antiquity & the emergence of Islam
from the late religious conflict that caught the religious
& imperial context of late antiquity [11:42]
And again finding in Islam, a profound
quality of the alien, that you know there
were aspects that were familiar, but
there were many aspects of it that
again seemed deeply deeply alien.
And I began to realize that actually:
in almost every way I am Christian.
I began to realize that actually Paul, although in many
ways he seems a much less familiar figure than Cicero,
in the kind of urbane man with his property problems.
Paul never had any property [12:11],
he just made tents.
In almost every what is it? Seven letters?
Conventionally that people absolutely accepted, & as
Tom Wright was saying this is not a very lengthy
amount of writing.
But compacted into this very small amount
of writing, was almost everything that
explains the modern world [12:39]
JB: Well the Western world as we take for granted, yeah.
Tom Holland: Yes but also the way that the West has
then moved on to shape.
You know concepts, like international law for instance.
So the facts that, the concepts of human rights,
all these kind of things.. Ultimately they don't go
back to Greek philosophers, they don't go back to
Roman empiricism
>> They go back to Paul & his letters [13:02]
And I think are along with the 4 GOSPELS the most influential,
the most impactful, the most revolutionary writings that have
emerged from the ancient world.
JB: When you penned that article for the New Statesman,
where you said, what I got wrong & you sort of came out
as it were & said, "as far as my values & background
are concerned I am a Christian." (yeah)
It was interesting to see the response to that.
Because I saw lots of atheists & humanists saying,
"Oh hang-on, you know we democracy goes
back to the Greeks, don't pretend that
Christianity gave us everything
we're grateful for.”
But you honestly think that actually
people simply haven't appreciated just
how much we owe to Christianity? [13:51]
Tom Holland: Well I think that, I mean if we're talking
of Paul, I think of him as a kind of depth charge,
deep beneath the foundations of the classical world. [13:59]
And it's not anything that you particularly
notice if you're in Corinth or Alexandria.
Then you start feeling this kind of rippling outwards [14:10]
By the time you get to the 11th century, in Latin Christendom
everything has changed. And you have this guy, essentially
what is Paul's significance is that:
He sets up ripple effects of revolution
throughout Western history [14:28]
So the 11th century where with the Papacy Revolution,
essentially establishes this idea that
Society has to be reborn/reconfigured.
And the vested interests has to be torn down, & then the
Reformation, is a further ripple effect of that [14:47]
The Enlightenment is a further ripple effect of that.
Tom Wright: Very interesting.
Tom Holland: You know it's spilled out so much that now,
in the 21st century, we don't even realize where these
ripple effects are coming from.
We just take them for granted. [14:58]
JB: I can hear Tom Wright, you want to come in on this..
Tom Wright: Well I was just thinking
I haven't actually read from cover to cover, but
Steven Pinker's two books where he's saying effectively
JB: Well I had him on the show recently.
Tom Wright: Oh really? Okay he's saying, “Forget all that
religion stuff, we invented the real world as it should be
in the Enlightenment, & all we have to do is apply it
more & more rigorously.
And just kick that religion stuff into touch.”
And it's very interesting that some commentators have said,
"Well if that was going to be the case, it would work
in America better than anywhere else & look at America
& you'll see that it doesn't.”
But I think I want to respond with what Pope Benedict
said 10 years ago when he was speaking at the
United Nations, when he said:
The whole idea of human rights is absolutely
rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, & if you
try & get the fruits of that without the roots,
all you'll get is the thing will collapse..
into shrill special-interest rhetoric.
Everyone claiming the status of victim analogous
when I had these, which is exactly where we are.
[15:39-15:54]
Tom Holland: But the power of victimhood (yeah yeah) is
again something that is part of the Revolutionary
inheritance of Christianity—because that is
the point of the crucifixion.
Tom Wright: Yes & nobody in Caesar's world would have
said, “Oh I'm a victim therefore I've got to be prioritized.”
Tom Holland: Cause that'd be a scandal. [16:10]
JB: We actually had Steven Pinker in the very chair you’re
sitting on (right now) Tom Wright.
His response to this argument which at this point was
being put by Nick Spencer, who's written a very good
book as well on the evolution of the West making this
very odd move.
His argument was,
"No, Christians may have given us some
good principles. But all we need to recognize
is our universal humanity—that we're part of
the same species, we're all sentient. [16:31]
That gives us every grounding we need for treating each
other with dignity & human rights [16:37]
Tom Wright: And who thought like that in the 1st century?
I mean Paul talking about Adam & CHRIST basically. [16:39]
JB: So are you saying that kind of a belief simply can’t
emerge in a vacuum in a sense?
Tom Wright: Yeah the idea of universal humanists is
something that even in the 18th century they struggled with.
You know when missionaries went to America & came
back arguing about whether the American Indians
had souls or not?!
Were they really the same species as us?
And then John Wesley & George Whitfield
& so on saying,
"No these people have to be
taught to love GOD like any of us.
And so there's stuff going on there, which
is again rooted in human rights.
JB: And you’re part of the push back on this (Tom Holland)?
Tom Holland: In a way it seems to me that the most influence,
the single most influential phrase for why we have a notion
of a kind of common humanity is in Galatians where:
Paul says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek,
neither slave nor free, neither male nor female."
And it's there you have this idea that we are
(of course he goes on to say: "in CHRIST JESUS")
And that for the contemporary world is...(we just).
[17:12-17:45]
Tom Wright: That's what people want to do without.
Tom Holland: But of course there is an issue there, as
Daniel Boyarin, a faceted Jewish scholar writing about
Paul says,
"So Jewishness & Greekness gets dissolved into
this universal humanity, but:
What if I as a Jew want to stay a Jew?
And so in a sense, there also you have the kind of
you know: The issues that continue to obsess our society,
which is essentially—
if you don't want to be part of a kind of
universal commonality—what then do you do?
Tom Wright: The dangerous thing, I was at a conference,
in America a couple years ago. Two-three years ago,
based on the big book on Paul, & there was an
African-American Theologian woman at Fuller Seminary
who basically pushed back on me on this & said:
"The danger is when you say we're
all one in CHRIST JESUS, what that
means is that everyone else is an
honourary white male, & the white males
have got it. And that everyone else has to say,
"OK, we're sort of part of your team as it were."
[18:17-18:40]
And I said, If that's what you're hearing, that's certainly
not what I was intending; & certainly not what
Paul was intending either.
And I know Danny Boyarin, we've had this debate,
it's great fun. Because I think what we're seeing there is
very interesting cultural moment, on the cusp of modernity
& post-modernity.
And David Horrell in Exeter, his book on Paul
'Solidarity & Difference" says it all:
That on the one hand, we've got this cutlural drive
towards we're all part of this together.
It's what's going on in the European debate, at the moment.
(Yes) Solidarity, we're all just part of this nice big family
& that's how it all works in economy of scale, & so on.
And then lots of people, including in Scotland,
where I now live.
Saying, "No that's squelching our identity, &
we're not going to let you do it.
And the interesting thing is that Paul in 1 Corinthians,
is faced with the same issues:
How do you navigate past this theologically
where you're simultaneously saying:
"We've all got to be one family;
& then you're saying, but if
your conscience means that
this is where you are at the moment
here's how we'll live with that &
how we have to respect that.
And he's basically wrestling with the big issues that
we're wrestling with as well.
Doing so very sophisticatedly. [19:45]
JB: Let's come to some of his specific story, because
you do a fabulous job in the opening chapters of the book,
in setting the scene of:
● Who Paul was,
● What we can know about his background,
● the sort of Judaism that he came from.
And for me, one of the fascinating bits was you kind of
speculating on what he might have been thinking
about when he was on that famous road to Damascus.
Because I thought that was quite interesting, you know
what was occupying Paul's mind—at the moment
when that famous event occurred.
Do you just want to walk us through that?
Because I think this is probably the most famous
conversion in all of history, in a way. [20:23]
Tom Wright: Yes if conversion is the right word. [lol]
But right off the top the danger with saying conversion is
that what that word means in our world:
If I say so-and-so has just got converted,
the chances are this means that so-and-so
was probably an atheist or an agnostic; &
they have now found some sort of faith.
And one would hope it might be for me,
my new Christian faith.
That's not really at all what's going on for Paul; & it's
certainly not about swapping from one religion to another.
That's the layers of misunderstanding there, in terms of
what the word religion meant in the ancient world
—in terms of what the word religion means in our world.
Neither of those fit what's happening to Paul. [21:01]
Paul always had believed in the GOD of
Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob—the CREATOR GOD,
he never for a moment stopped believing in GOD.
He was living in a narrative which said,
"All those ancient promises have got
to come true, GOD's got to show that
HE's in the right.
That HE meant what HE said, & that HE's going to
renew the whole world.
Quite possibly, not all Jews believed this
through a Messiah—who will come & do justice &
re-establish the Temple in Jerusalem, so that GOD
will come back & live there gloriously et cetra. [21:27]
So Paul is living with that narrative, & in particular
within that, & you see this in the later Rabbis, but
it's clearly there in Maccabees as well.
There are two figures in the ancient world, Jewish world,
who Paul is identifying with: [1] Elijah & [2] Phineas.
They're the great messengers of zeal.
If you like, bad things are happening,
we've got to do some sacred violence,
to stamp out the nonsense & get Israel
back on track [21:52]
And Paul is role-modeling Phineas & Elijah, and the texts
which embody their stories are clearly present.
JB: And he was very much part of this movement
that wanted to keep the law better, yeah, so that
we hasten on this event through will. [22:07]
Tom Wright: And let's be quite clear, this is not as
used to be said in Protestant rhetoric about:
Earning my ticket to Heaven, or
doing enough good works so that
GOD will be pleased with me.
It's GOD wants to
renew & restore this world,
& for the sake of that
HE's called Israel out
to be a special people,
as HIS holy people.
And so it's for the sake of GOD's purposes
they have to do this, & make more & more Jews
do this stuff. [22:28]
So here's this bunch you are letting slide down;
& going off after a crucified Messiah,
who ever heard such nonsense? [22:34]
So Paul is off to do the Phineas thing, the Elijah thing
These are like the new prophets of Baal, & we know
what we have to do with them. [22:40]
And then if you're in that mode, how do you pray?
We know from everything Paul says, he was a person
suffused with prayer & there are standard Jewish prayers.
And it's a guess, but I'm not the only one to make this
guess that on the road to Damascus,
he was meditating like many people
in his tradition did on the throne chariot
in the beginning of the Book of Ezekiel,
where the Prophet sees the whirling wheels & then the
chariot, & then his eye is raised up & he sees the
figure sitting on the throne & he falls down
(crash as though dead).
And then the Prophet is commissioned et cetera. [23:15]
I think Paul was meditating on the Throne Chariot.
Longing to get a glimpse of the GOD
he'd worshipped all his life, & I think
he gets to that glimpse & it's
JESUS of Nazareth.
And simultaneously,
all his life is fulfilled
& all his life is shattered.
And that is just the most devastating &
the most fulfilling moment. [23:35-39]
And in a sense he spends the rest of his life
working out what that means, & encouraging
other people to explore with him.
What I wouldn't want to say is forcing them to do
& believe that because you can't force people
to do & believe that kind of stuff.
But helping them to share the sense that JESUS
really is Israel's Messiah. [23:58]
JB: Lots of people have given different explanations for
what happened to Paul, psychological, some epileptic fit
maybe who knows.
Where do you go as a historian Tom Holland, with this,
obviously very significant event that I think you'd agree
there's some historical basis to it that something
happened on the road to Damascus. [24:17]
What do you think happened there in your view?
Tom Holland: I think in the broadest context, Paul is
negotiating a tension that is inherent within the
understanding of the GOD of Israel.
Because HE is on the one hand the GOD of Israel, &
HE is on the other hand the Creator of the entire world.
So how do you negotiate that tension? (Yes)
And in the globalizing world of the Roman Empire, which
many Jews lived. This becomes a particularly pressing
issue. So to what extent is GOD the Creator of the Greeks,
Romans, & the Egyptians, & whoever else..
This is somewhere & anywhere kind of question. [24:58]
That you know we were talking about earlier;
that we still have today (human rights issues)..
And I would suspect Paul is struggling to negotiate that
as a Greek speaking Pharisee.
>> What persuades him to think the things that he does?
I think it’s profoundly mysterious! [25:19]
And I have no doubt that he did think that:
He had seen JESUS. I mean I can’t think of any other reason
that would explain why he does what he does.
I mean it’s mysterious in 2 ways really:
1.] He chucks over what presumably would have been
a very comfortable career, to essentially embark on
a life as a kind of wandering bum, where he’s going
to face repeated beatings, ultimately face death.
2.] The other is why it would ever cross his mind?
That in some way a crucified criminal is a part of
the ONE GOD of Israel?!
And the strange thing about all his letters is that although
he’s arguing repeatedly for his understanding of who
JESUS is & HE should be understood, & how HE should
be comprehended..
I mean I may be corrected on this, but I don’t think at any
point does he feel the need to actually argue that JESUS
is in some way a part of GOD.
I mean this is just taken for granted; &
everyone seems to understand this. [26:27]
Tom Wright: You’re absolutely right, it used to be so. And
when you had Larry Hurtado on the show, you presumably
discussed these kinds of things.
It used to be thought that JESUS only was regarded as fully
divine much later, like the end of the first generation or even
early second century. And only at the end of the NT period.
And I think now most NT scholars are convinced (actually)
this is on the table from the beginning. It’s certainly taken
for granted in Galatians, which I think is Paul’s earliest
blessing [26:49]
Tom Holland: Yes, & the strangeness of that is something that
we perhaps are kind of immune to, because it’s in the BIBLE,
so you read it.
But you think though, why would he think this??
Why would anyone thing this?! [27:01]
JB: Yeah in this context, it is a very strange thing for a devout
Jew to have thought.
Tom Holland: But I would guess, & I can’t remember whether
you say this in your book because I read it a couple years ago,
when in proof.
But having had presumably this kind of convulsive experience,
presumably then he turns to SCRIPTURE to try & work out
what’s happened. (JB: Yeah to try & process)
In essentially he reads through all the passages; & kind of
constructs this theology. [27:33]
Tom Wright: I think one of the thins we fail to realize, often
in modern Western Christianity—never mind the secular world
—is the stories that people had in their heads about what
GOD was going to do.
And particularly the end of the Book of Ezekiel hugely important,
7 parallels in Isaiah 40 & 52 particularly are GOD’s promised
that HE will one day come back visibly in person. [27:53]
Isaiah 40:1-31 | “Comfort, comfort MY people,”
says your GOD. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
& proclaim to her that her forced labor has been
completed; her iniquity has been pardoned.
For she has received from the hand of the LORD
double for all her sins.” A voice of one calling:
“Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our GOD in the desert.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
& every mountain & hill made low;
the uneven ground will become smooth,
& the rugged land a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
& all humanity together will see it.
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked,
“What should I cry out?”
“All flesh is like grass, & all its glory like the
flowers of the field. The grass withers & the
lowers fall when the breath of the LORD blows
on them; indeed, the people are grass.
The grass withers & the flowers fall, but the
WORD of our GOD stands forever.” Go up on
a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news.
Raise your voice loudly, O Jerusalem, herald
of good news. Lift it up, do not be afraid!
Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your GOD!”
Behold, the LORD GOD comes with might, &
HIS arm establishes HIS rule. HIS reward is
with HIM, & HIS recompense accompanies HIM.
HE tends HIS flock like a shepherd; HE gathers
the lambs in HIS arms & carries them close to
HIS heart. HE gently leads the nursing ewes.
Who has measured the waters in the hollow
of his hand, or marked off the heavens with the
span of his hand?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on a scale & the
hills with a balance?
Who has directed the SPIRIT of the LORD,
or informed HIM as HIS counselor?
Whom did HE consult to enlighten HIM,
& who taught HIM the paths of justice?
Who imparted knowledge to HIM & showed HIM
the way of understanding?
Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are considered a speck of dust on the scales;
HE lifts up the islands like fine dust.
Lebanon is not sufficient for fuel, nor its animals
enough for a burnt offering.
All the nations are as nothing before HIM;
HE regards them as nothingness & emptiness.
To whom will you liken GOD?
To what image will you compare HIM?
To an idol that a craftsman casts & a metalworker
overlays with gold & fits with silver chains?
To one bereft of an offering who chooses wood
that will not rot, who seeks a skilled craftsman to
set up an idol that will not topple?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been declared to you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the foundation
of the earth? HE sits enthroned above the circle of
the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers.
HE stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
& spreads them out like a tent to live in.
HE brings the princes to nothing & makes the rulers
of the earth meaningless. No sooner are they
planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner
have their stems taken root in the ground,
than HE blows on them & they wither, & a
whirlwind sweeps them away like stubble.
“To whom will you compare ME,
or who is MY equal?” asks the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high:
Who created all these?
HE leads forth the starry host by number;
HE calls each one by name.
Because of HIS great power & mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, & why do you assert,
O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD,
& my claim is ignored by my GOD”?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting GOD,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
HE never grows faint or weary;
HIS understanding is beyond searching out.
HE gives power to the faint & increases the
strength of the weak. Even youths may faint &
grow weary, & young men stumble & fall.
But those who wait upon the LORD will renew
their strength; they will mount up with wings like
eagles; they will run & not grow weary,
they will walk & not faint.
To dwell in the Temple, to rescue HIS people,
to do what has to be done et cetera, etc.
And those promises are kind of shimmering in the background;
& some people in the Jewish world like the author of the book
called Ben Sira, or Ecclesiasticus—seems to think that this
sort of has happened because wisdom has come to dwell in
the Temple in the form of the teaching of the Torah.
Now most Jews in Paul’s day, I don’t think believed that.
[28:13] They still taught there was something major
yet to happen.
And it is as though with Paul & indeed with the GOSPELS,
it isn’t just that they are telling JESUS stories; & somehow
saying btw there’s another dimension to this.
They are telling the story which is Israel’s
story about GOD coming back, but the only
way they can tell it is by talking about JESUS.
So it’s not just a JESUS story with a GOD dimension, it’s actually
the GOD story with the JESUS focus. [28:39]
And it’s hard for us to realize that because the last 200 years,
philosophically & theologically, we haven’t been there.
So when I look at how Paul is handling Isaiah, how he’s handling
the passages about the new Exodus with the pillar of cloud & fire
coming. Only now it’s JESUS & the SPIRIT.
You see he’s drawing on Jewish traditions about the
Presence & saving power of GOD.
And then of course they all get focused not least on that
middle chunk of Isaiah—where you get the so called
suffering servant.
And the suffering servant seems to be GOD saying
actually when you look to see what it’s like
when I come back to rescue you:
Oh my! It’s going to be like this; &
we see Jewish exegesis at the time
struggling with Isaiah 53.
● Some of them thinking, it’s a Messiah, but actually
the suffering is what HE inflicts on other people
● And other people thinking: “No it’s real suffering
but it’s the martyrs, it’s not the Messiah.”
And JESUS, then Paul picking this up
—seemed to have fused these two together.
with this extraordinary notion of a suffering Messiah. [29:40]
Who turns out to be the personal embodiment of Israel’s GOD.
And then we see this already, by early on in Paul woven into
fresh prayings of Central Jewish prayers the famous one in
1 Corinthians 8, where it’s hear O Israel, the LORD our GOD
the LORD is one, & Paul astonishingly finds JESUS inside
that, so he says for us there is one GOD the FATHER from
whom are all things we to HIM & one LORD JESUS the
Messiah through whom are all things. [30:14]
1 Corinthians 8:4-6 | So about eating food sacrificed
to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the
world, & that there is no GOD but one.
For even if there are so-called gods, whether in
heaven or on earth [as there are many so-called
gods & lords], yet for us there is but one GOD,
the FATHER, from whom all things came & for
whom we exist. And there is but one LORD,
JESUS CHRIST, through whom all things came
& through whom we exist.
So you’ve got he’s the Oscar, he’s curious, but it’s GOD & JESUS.
At the heart of Jewish monotheism Paul finds this bifurcation.
JB: And in a sense that is a massive transformation, but
at the same time somehow—for Paul it is a fulfillment.
Tom Wright: It’s a final revelation because he then obviously
looks back & says “Whoa! we now read the SCRIPTURES
with this in mind. [30:38]
HE is the image of the invisible GOD, so when
humans were made in GOD’s image—
HE is the image in whom we were made.
JB: And just how strange would this idea of a GOD who—
or a Messiah or whatever, who becomes crucified have been
in the Roman world that this message was being delivered?
Tom Holland: Beyond weird, it’d be totally beyond weird.
As Paul repeatedly says, I mean, he says that you know
“it’s foolishness, scandalous, outrageous, it’s ridiculous, &
he’s aware of this the whole time [30:58-31:12]
JB: Just how embarrassing this is in a sense.
Tom Holland: Well it is kind of I mean & that is the whole point
that (yeah) to suffer death on a cross is [31:20]
It’s the worst death that the Roman state can inflict, but it is
also shaming in the context of the Mosaic law which also
says that to be hung on a tree as a cause of (a curse).
JB: We often forget with our stylized depictions of the crucifixion
just how gory & shameful it was.
Tom Holland: Yes, absolutely & so what is happening is that
it’s like a kind of the ultimate judo throw—where you turn the
strength of your opponent against them.
The Roman power is affirmed by brutality, the governor of a
Province has the right to burn, to throw to beasts, to crucify
anyone who he feels is a danger to Roman power. [32:05]
And governors did that absolutely at the drop of a hat.
So what is happening with Paul’s proclamation of the one
GOD in some way suffering this fate is to absolutely upend
the very fabric & basis—not just of Roman power, but of
powerful stock because of course the Assumption through
from reading the Jewish SCRIPTURES was that GOD
is a warrior & GOD will overthrow Roman power.
The establishment of a kingdom of peace will in some way
be effected by the sword & what Paul is saying is that
actually the true source of power is to suffer.
And that notion, you know, that to be a victim can somehow
be a source of power is unbelievably subversive in the context
of classical antiquity. [32:56-33:05]
JB: And it’s still today to some extent, but I mean you know
it’s not as though we all believe that today.
Tom Holland: Although you see it all the time in the news
at the moment—that to cast yourself as a victim is somehow
to give yourself power. And you would only have power by
virtue of being a victim if you existed in the context of a
society that was still in its fundamentals Christian.
In the Roman world if you said I’m a victim, they’d say:
“Yeah, and...?? I’ll enslave you!” (lol) [33:27]
Tom Wright: Exactly thanks very much.
Tom Holland: Or I’ll rape you whatever.
JB: And on top of this there was also this statement, which
I think was being used in quite a political way of saying,
“JESUS is LORD” which was obvious.
Set against the idea that well, “No Caesar is lord.”
Tom Holland: If we think of Paul arriving in Galatia, it would
seem that in some way that the Galatians feel that they have a
particular relationship to the figure of Augustus. [33:58]
So they transcribe the ray’s guessed by his account of his
achievements. And it seems to have been done to a far
greater degree than anywhere else in the Roman Empire.
So they are inscribing this idea of Augustus, who describes
himself as (divi filius) son of god, son of Caesar but you know
he’s been raised up to the heavens.
He has been a prince of peace, he has established a universal
amnesty across the world & this is uangei leon, this is good news
to be proclaimed. [34:35]
But the statues of Augustus, the Res Gestae of Augustus, the
very essence of Augustus is that the peace that he has brought
has been brought by a sword.
He is an imperato, he is a general who is victorious.
This is what an emperor is, &so in the cities that Paul is
arriving at, this cult of Caesar—which is the fastest growing
cult, probably in history up until that point, you know it’s spread
like wildfire & it’s not a kind of frigid cult.
It’s a cult that people across the Roman world, invest in with a
deep emotional sense. This idea of a conquering human, who is
‘divine’ & who has risen from the earth & “gone to the heavens.”
Augustus is the epitome of earthly power (of his day).
And so in that context, the subversion that Paul is affecting
by turning up & saying actually the SON of GOD that I preach
is someone who was crucified by Roman power.
I mean you, it’s kind of makes you wince.
JB: But why did it work then? Why did anyone listen to such a
crazy message? [35:52]
Tom Wright: That’s a great question, I just want to endorse
everything that Tom said, I think it is one of the most extraordinary
turnarounds in history that the symbolism of crucifixion said:
“we run this world, & if you get in our way, we’ll rub you out.”
And that is callous brutal power.
Then to have within 20 years, the crucifixion as a symbol of all
conquering self giving love, that’s just quite extraordinary.
And as you said, we in the modern Christian world see crucifixes
we have them, we wear them, you know..as jewelry decoration,
or nice pretty things in Churches.
But actually this was like an electric chair
or a horrible gallows or something.
So why did it work?
I think if we’d have asked Paul that, he would have said because
when you announce the crucified JESUS as LORD, there is a
strange power, which he sometimes calls the GOSPEL or
other times calls the SPIRIT.
And that power goes to work in people’s minds & hearts.
And stuff happens, they find themselves gripped & grasped
by it; & I think Paul would have said there is no logical explanation.
Of course, there is no one who actually wants to sign off this.
But it’s everything that Tom Holland was saying just now was
reminding me of Mark 8, where JESUS says,
“We’re going to Jerusalem & it’s all going to happen;
& if you want to come after ME, you’ve got to be
prepared to die. Take up your cross as well.” [37:06]
I think they thought it was a metaphor.
But in fact, JESUS really meant it.
Then in Mark 10 when HE says (when James & John want
to sit int the best seats, to be HIS right & left-hand men)
& HE said:
“Don’t you realize the rulers of the nations bully people,
& harassed & lauded. We’re not going to do it that way;
we’re going to do it the other way.
Anyone who wants to be great
must be your servant.
Because the SON of MAN did not come to be served,
but to serve & to give HIS life as a ransom for many.
JESUS HIMSELF is precisely articulating
the redefinition of power with
the cross at the center of that.
Paul picks up from that, & says what he’d actually want to say:
[1] On the cross JESUS did in fact defeat the principalities,
& powers. He says that in 2 or 3 passages. HE disarms
the powers & made a public example.
Of course it didn’t look like that.
This is the theological interpretation in the light of the
resurrection. But then when you’ve got that interpretation,
you can go to work & say [38:04]
“Now actually JESUS crucified is the
fulcrum around which world history
turns & ppl find that it’s true for them"
JB: I mean this brings us to that interesting tension, that you
sit in a sense as both a believer & a historian of the
SCRIPTURES, Tom Wright. [38:16-38:31]
Because in a sense you’re saying the explanation Paul would
have given is that something supernatural happened.
This GOSPEL changed people, or are you? (lol)
And are you allowed to as a historian to say it? [38:39]
Tom Wright: It will be interesting to see what happens when
Tom Holland gets past Galileo & onto the 18th & 19th century.
Because this word supernatural has changed its meaning (OK)
the word supernatural in the Middle Ages as far as I understand
—meant a super abundance of godness over on top of, but not
excluding what goes on, so it’s what normally goes on plus some
extra dimensions.
But from the 18th century onwards, something very interesting
happened culturally & the ancient philosophy called Epicureanism
really became the dominant philosophy of the west. [39:09]
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based on the
teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 B.C.
It teaches that the greatest good is to seek modest pleasures
in order to attain a state of tranquility, freedom from fear
("ataraxia") and absence from bodily pain ("aponia").
And with Epicureanism the gods & our world are totally sepparate.
They’re made of the same stuff, they’re made of atoms, but they
have nothing to do with us—so supernatural means something
out there, as opposed to something down here. [39:23]
Then Christians trying to make sense of the faith within a basically
epicurean world, think of GOD quote intervening—so you either
have natural events or supernatural events [providence of GOD]
And I resist that dichotomy, I think it’s a product of agency.
JB: And this is of course, if you want more on this,
“the Gifford lectures” that you gave this year. [39:38]
Tom Wright: Thank you, yes.
Tom Holland: Brilliantly done [lol]
Tom Wright: That’s very nice, but unfortunately it’s gonna take a
little while before they get published. Because I’ve got some work
to do, but they are available online.
Yeah YouTube, goodness.
But the point is this, that we still in our culture & I think I say this
in on of the Givens actually. The only real question that the great
British public knows theologically:
“Does GOD intervene in the world or doesn’t HE?”
Which is why a journalist faced with the new archbishop says:
“Do you believe in the virgin birth & resurrection?”
In other words, “Are you going to be one of those embarrassing
fundamentalists, who says you believe it all? Or are you going to
be one of those equally dodgy liberals, who says you disbelieve
it all?” [40:21]
It’s a horrible dilemma.
And I’m going to say: “Wrong question”
For me as a historian, the more I know about hisotry, the more
I think yeah all sorts of odd things happen in the world.
And the idea that everything is just a closed continuum is a
very particular philosophical thing.
So I want to have it both ways actually. [40:41]
JB: How do you approach this, because we can talk about
metaphysical commitments on your part Tom Holland.
But at the end of the day, someone like you’re sitting opposite
Tom Wright. Obviously, does believe the BIBLE to be both a
historical document that we can both agree on.
You can pull apart & dissect & look at.
But it’s also a source of divine revelation at some level. [41:02]
Tom Holland: [missed initial opening, JB talked over TH]
...Rather as a kind of Darwinian rite, in the sense that I assume
Christianity triumphs, or you know achieves what it achieves.
Because it gives something that people want (yes)
They haven’t previously been given, so there’s a
social survival of the fittest.
It’s evident, most famously, from St. Paul’s stay in Athens that
there is in a sense a marketplace for gods in antiquity.
So if you think of Paul arriving in Galatia,
the Galatian gods are famously horrible. [41:38]
There’s one god that supposedly goes around punching women
in the breasts; & you think this is not kind or particularly pleasant.
The other deity in Galatia is Keyblade, who sits on a mighty
mountain & in the ecstasy of their worship, men will castrate
themselves in her honour [41:59]
And Paul kind of makes a grim joke about this, saying if his
opponents: I wish that they would castrate gods.
(Tom Wright: cut the whole lot of them)
So these are a kind of intimidating gods, these are gods
who certainly don’t love you.
Maybe you’re a philosopher & you look at the god of Aristotle,
you had to love this fixed mover, but there’s no implication
at all that it loved you back.
JB: And if it was a relationship, it was quite transactional.
(yeah) it was to keep them happy, & then we can get on
with our lives? [42:30]
Tom Holland: And that is also true of D.V. Phileas Augustus.
You know this is also a kind of transactional relationship, we
were worshiping & then please don’t come & kill us.
[Tom Wright: yeah]
Now so in that context, the GOD of the Jews, “you know, it
provokes a lot of mockery, a lot of kind of contempt” [42:47]
But also a fair degree of envy.
Because actually I think it’s pretty clear, that there are lots
of people (in the Greco-Roman world) who were quite jealous
of this idea of a GOD who loves the Jews. [42:58]
And who particularly cares for them.
And who would like to be a FATHER; & so you have these kind
of liminal figures who you know (they’re Gentiles) but they
kind of would like to have a part of this kind of Jewish vibe.
In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen,
meaning "a threshold") is the quality of ambiguity or
disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a
rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their
pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition
to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.
And in that context Paul turning up & saying:
You don’t have to give up all, you don’t have to be circumcised.
And this GOD loves you, as HE loves me! [43:22]
JB: I can see why that would have been attractive.
Tom Holland: I think you can absolutely see why that
would have been attractive (right).
And I think that clearly this does cut through to people
who are relatively prosperous & Paul mentions them
in his letters. [43:35]
Women as well as men who can provide him with funding
& with backing. But it must also have given (I mean what)
the impact it must have had on slaves. [43:49]
To be told, that you are one with the free.
To be told, you know, a slave in Rome (in a household of
a Christian) to be told you are a child of GOD.
At the time when Nero is absolutely in his pomp, &
Nero is kind of dramatizing what it is to be a 'son of'
(you know) the ‘son of a god’...
In the Augustan sense, to an astonishingly historic degree.
For a slave in the attic, in the suburbs of Rome, to be told
(I mean) it must have been overwhelming. [44:22]
Tom Wright: Also for women, it’s a point that Rodney Stark
makes in his book “The Rise of Christianity” & I think it needs
to be drawn out particularly in today’s culture [44:30]
But the valuing of women, there is no fe/male in Galatians 3,
that is almost unthinkable in a post Aristotle world—where
wo/men are almost differnt species.
And you know who’s in charge here..
Then when you see the way that Paul treats his female
co-workers in the way that..when he writes this extraordinary
letter called Romans.
One of the most amazing pieces of writing in the ancient world.
He entrusted to Phoebe, who is a deacon in the Church in
Kencreo. She takes it to Rome. [45:01]
I mean to know Tom Holland’s take on this, but my understanding
is when you give a letter to somebody to take to somebody
(or to a group); she is likely to be the person who reads it out
& quite possibly explains it [45:12]
May be the first to..
JB: There is another brilliant book, that I’m sure you’re aware of
by Paula Gouda, on this very subject.
Her novelization of Phoebe’s..
Tom Wright: I know of that.
I’m very proud of Paula, she’s a former student of mine; &
I’m looking forward to reading that book, yes. [45:25]
JB: A different, actually, interlocutor—that was a
Francesca Stavrakopoulou
(Tom Holland: Ohh she doesn’t like Paul)
JB: Well she likes Paula, & funnily enough Francesca
was a student of Paula’s (Tom Wright: right, lol, okay)
so yes its the world of books.
Tom Wright: I’m very much interested & would like to press
this further, because I do totally agree that this idea that
you can all be one. [45:49]
There is a new community, & you are loved & valued.
I was thinking about this in relation to forgiveness,
the other day. The ancient gods didn’t forgive people.
I mean Zeus & Poseidon code, you might be able to placate
them, or you might be able to sneak around when they
weren’t watching [46:04]
But the idea that they would forgive you..is quite different.
I don’t think you’d find that in the Greco-Roman world. [46:10]
And people didn’t as far as I know reckon that they were
going around needing forgiveness in that sense. [46:16]
JB: But I’m still confused at one level, as to..
I mean I accept this thesis that the reason it caught on was
because it allowed slaves to suddenly feel like they were
people who maybe wanted in on this. [46:30]
But at the same time, you make it very clear in teh book
[Tom Wirght] just how socially inconvenient it was to
be a Christian. [TW: It’s massively so]
It’s like this is a way to climb the ladder. [46:39]
Tom Wright: I mean no, absolutely not.
This is part of the problem all the way through, in the first
Thessalonians—Paul was looking back to the time when they
became believers just a few weeks earlier.
He says: “You turned from idols to serve the living & true GOD.
Now it’s hard for us to imagine what that’s like, but an ancient
city like Thessalonica or Corinth or Ephesus, or any where..
You’ve got idol temples, or temples on every street corner.
You’ve got processions & you’ve got games in honour of the
lord god so-and-so; particularly lord Caesar, [47:00-47:08]
You’ve got celebrations, regular festivals, & regular holidays,
& everyone shows up.
people areregularly coming through the streets with sacrificial
animals, it’s what you do.
And in a world where there is no such thing as private life,
except for the very very rich—everybody knows if you
suddenly aren’t showing up..
“You know that family down the street, they haven’t
been to anything this last month—what’s going on?”
“Oh haven’t you hard they’ve joined this funny new
group,...(Well who are they?) They say they’re Jews,
but they’re not—so we don’t know who they are..”
And so suddenly, you’re not doing all the things that
people in your world would normally do..[47:35-47:40]
JB: You liken it, in the modern world, as simple as say
going into Wall Street & sort of saying:
“Right we have got to abandon all of these financial
institutions..& the way we run our lives.” [47:48]
Tom Wright: Or you know, I sometimes say to people
when they ask why didn’t Paul say: Slavery was wrong?
I say, “Well, when did you last go into the pulpit on a Sunday
morning & say, “BTW it’s quite clear that motorcars are
polluting our planet & destroying our world, so I want you
to leave your cars in the parking lot & we’ll have them take
them to the dump later on. Because we’re all going to be
either walking or on horseback from now on.” [48:06]
Most congregations would not think that was a very good
sermon, but actually when you’re talking about a major
social revolution—you’re just not going to be doing those
processions anymore. [48:17]
This is why in southern Greece, they get permission to
shelter under the Jewish (law) because the Jews had
permission not to do that stuff.
And this is where a lot of the hassle comes from.
Because then when suddenly there’s a bunch of non-Jews
claiming the same permission—the authorities want to
know who are...?
Then they’ll go around to the Jewish communities:
Who are these people?
JB: Then they sense things getting out of control.
Tom Wright: I think this is the best explanation for a lot
that’s going on in Galatians particularly & I’m very interested
in Tom Holland’s insight. [48:45]
Tom Holland: Well I’ve got a slightly edgier comparison
(JB: OK go on) any comparison between the 21st century
& the 1st century is obviously you know, they’re so different.
But if you think about the spread of radical Islam,
if you think about the way people worry about their family
members becoming radicalized.
I think might have some faint echo of how it’s working.
And we were talking about Paul’s use of letters—the
reason that he can communicate across the Roman world
is because there is an enormous road system.
Which is being used by Caesar & by governors to
communicate (JB: “their gospel”), yeah.
So it’s the kind of ganglion that’s connecting the fabric of the
mighty brain of Rome. [48:55-49:31]
And Paul is kind of piggybacking on that rather in the way
that Islamic radicals are piggybacking on the internet.
Which was originally developed by the American Defense
establishment.
JB: The internet is our Roman Road Systems of today?
Tom Holland: Yeah, & so it’s using technology & infrastructure
of a superpower, to come up with things that are profoundly
opposed to it.
And in a sense part of the appeal of radical Islam, is precisely
that it is subversive of almost everything that people in secular
society take for granted. [50:05]
I’m not saying that Paul is with...I’m not comparing Paul to
a kind of ISIS.
JB: Sure, I understand the principle you’re employing.
Tom Holland: But part of that, people say,
“Why would anyone run off to Syria?”
And you know, sign-up to this terrifying cult?
In a sense, it’s precisely the challenge of it
—that becomes the appeal. [50:28]
And Paul talks a lot about the SPIRIT bringing freedom;
& that idea of being free in a world where everyone
else is not free—gives you a kind of dignity & status that
in the long run will enable people to suffer torture & even
death in the cause of affirming that. [50:55]
And to this extent, I think that Paul & the
early Christians are the ancestors of ISIS.
And are the ancestors of almost every group that defines
themselves in terms of belief.
Because they’re willing to suffer martyrdom for belief.
You don’t really get—I mean you know there’s Socrates—is
kind of an example...
But the idea that you as a slave—you’re willing to suffer death
for a belief that is really something that originates from Paul.
Tom Wright: Obviously there are parallels, & it’s very
interesting to explore those; & they go back of course to
the pre-Christian Jewish radical zealots.
As in the Maccabean period who were perepared to die
for their hope that GOD was going to renew the world [51:47]
And you see that in the book called 2nd Maccabees,
particularly..
The Second Book of Maccabees, also known as
2 Maccabees, is a deuterocanonical book originally in Greek
which focuses on the Maccabean Revolt against
Antiochus IV Epiphanes & concludes with the defeat of the
Seleucid Empire general Nicanor in 161 BC by
Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the hard work.
Tom Holland: I mean that’s also about kind of defending
land. That’s always something there. [51:55]
Tom Wright: Defending land, re-establishing the temple,
et cetra, etc. etc. sure. Yes, but what we see in Paul
is the taking of that radical ttradition which is also a
violent tradition.
I mean some of them are martyred, but some of them
are going to sharpen their swords & win an
extraordinary battle.
In the 2nd century AD, you see this with the Bar Kokhba Revolt
in 132-135, we have a brief little messianic kingdom of Judea.
The Bar Kokhba revolt was a rebellion of the Jews of the
Roman province of Judea, led by Simon bar Kokhba,
against the Roman Empire. Fought circa 132–136 AD,
it was the last of three major Jewish–Roman wars, so
it is also known as The Third Jewish–Roman War or
The Third Jewish Revolt.
Under the rule of this man, the son of the star, & they are
going to have (they think) an astonishing victory over the
Romans. So that continues on...[52:26]
What you see in Paul has all of that energy, but
turned upside down—exactly as what Tom Hollands was
saying before through the notion of the crucifixion &
resurrection of JESUS. [52:37]
That this is a different kind of victory,
won by a different kind of means.
And we see if there is a sense in which Paul is the ancestor
of ISIS, then Paul is also the ancestor of St. Francis & of
Mother Theresa.
And to the people who are saying,
“No there is a different way to
transform the world & it is the
the way of love, it is the way
of self-giving.” [52:57]
And the ancestor of people like Desmond Tutu, who you
know we forget that in the 70s, Desmond Tutu was standing
in-front of crowds of angry people (his own people) who
wanted to use violence & he was saying that is not the way
we transformed the world. [53:11]
And astonishingly, that message got through & won the day.
Though, South Africa is still difficult—but there is a message
of love & forgiveness. [53:20]
Tom Holland: Well I hesitate to bring up the subject of
Paul & the LORD in the presence of Tom Wright. [53:26]
I mean it’s a hubristic thing to do, but Paul is clearly also
(I think) the ancestor of the modern notions of
international law that ISIS is committed to overthrowing.
Because what Paul introduces in to the bloodstream of
the West; & then by extension because the West spreads
those ideas across the world.
The entire kind of global framework of how international law
is structured, is the idea that:
GOD’s law can be written on the heart.
That you no longer need the Torah, the SPIRIT will write it
on the heart & therefore you will know what is right.
And that will be illumined.
What that gives in the long run, the West is a notion that
law can be human & can be morally valid.
And that’s the great contrast with the Islamic world
—where law is in a sense (the Torah & Talmud)
you know Sharia is about the idea of GOD having
directly revealed a kind of legal rulings. [54:36]
Tom Wright: Which is imposed on people
whether they like it or not. (Yes)
Tom Holland: Whereas in the West the idea that law can
be something that is of human origin is absolutely taken
for granted.
And this is kind of the great gripe that Islamic radicals
have with international law; it’s precisely that they
recognize it’s Christian origins. [54:53-54:59]
So there’s a guy (Al Makdessi), a Palestinian Jordanian
radical, who was hugely influential intellectually on ISIS
& Al Qaeda.
And he destests Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia
is part of the United Nations; & he’s saying:
“Well the charter of the UN is of human origins”
>> It is not of divine origin.
So essentially his argument is with the Pauline idea that..
Tom Wright: That is fascinating & it goes (I mean)
obviously that’s an ancient Jewish idea..[55:27]
(The 10 Commandments).
The writing of the law on the heart is in Jeremiah
& Ezekiel—& it fits with this whole idea that basically
Pauline Christianity is to coin an odd phrase:
Judaism for the masses.
I mean Nietzsche said it was Platonism for the masses.
That’s absolutely wrong, it s in the 19th century many
Christians were Platonists & that’s a problem.
But the idea that this Jewish insight about a loving GOD
who will inscribe the law in the hearts of HIS people; &
now this could happen to anyone!? [55:51]
Tom Holland: Just as liberalism is Christianity for the masses.
Tom Wright: In a sense, up to a point lord copper. (lol)
Let’s not go there.
But then what we get with that is with Paul this extraordinary
thing which (when I was writing this book) it impinged on
me again that:
What we already see when there’s a rumour
that there’s going to be a famine coming the
Church in Antioch instantly, instead of stockpiling
food, they said we’ve got to help them down in
Jerusalem. [56:16]
And you have a sense of a trans local community, as well
as a trans-ethnic community in a way which I think is
unprecedented in ancient world.
The Jewish communities, the synagogue communities
were trans local, they were across the world.
They sort of knew about one another.
And were in touch with one anther, but it was basically
Jews & proselytes, or GOD-fearers or whoever.
And there were trans local communities of the
Roman Imperial administration & the Roman army.
But that was all jolly well, loyal to Caesar,
thank you very much. [56:47]
What you have in Christianity is a community, which Paul
insists is one. It’s a united community, & has to struggle
for that unity.
And that is precisely the origin of the UN.
That’s a Christian Pauline idea.
The problem is if you try to get it
without the roots, in an explicit belief
in this particular GOD who has rescued
the world in this particular way...
Well you can see, go to the UN today.
You can whistle for it. [57:13]
Because it’s falling apart. Because we’ve
tried to get it without the basis.
JB: Gonna have to leave it there. I wish we had more time,
but thank you so much gentlemen.
Both Tom Holland & Tom Wright for joining me on the program
today. And Tom Holland we want you back when your book
is available; & we’ll get you in another interesting discussion
about it.
Tom Wright, looking forward (we’ve got alittle bit of a plan
in the pipeline), for a regular podcast with you.
So watch this space if you’re a Tom Wright fan.
You might be able to get more conversations like this
coming to you, in the future. But for the moment thank
you both for being with me on Unbelievable.
Tom Holland: Thank you.
Tom Wright: It’s been a pleasure.
Unbelievable Christian Radio | Jul 20, 2018
Video: youtube.com/watch?v=nlf_ULB26cU
—
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Thursday December 21st 2017, Yule & Winter Solstice
Final day of Sagittarius, 6:39 pm, Waxing Crescent Moon
Today’s Post includes:
Yule traditions
old gods vs monotheistic gods
balance of dark and light
wheel of the year
some Yule stuff to do
Blessed Yule and Happy Holidays, brothers, sisters, and angels on earth!
As avowed, today shall begin my chronicles, logging magic knowledge and my personal activities. Where possible i will provide resources, and a lot of my information can be found elsewhere on my blog in other posts!
As usual I didn’t wake up into 4:20, which is a lit more distressing than it is funny, actually, and since I’m lazy, i ordered a pizza and watched the latter half of a Thor movie, WHICH got me thinking about winter and it’s gods!
History Time:
As I’m sure many, but probably not all, of you know, Yule and Christmas and Hanukkah all contend for time in December (though i don’t see why we can’t all just get along) But they all used to be during different times! Yule used to be in mid January, Christmas was late spring, and....i actually don’t know about Hanukkah, so I’ll do some research and get back to you (or you can drop me a line and teach me!) After Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the first century, it spread through the empire, and once it was made the official religion of Rome, people started spreading the good word (for better or worse).
What the priests and monks did was migrate the real date of Jesus Christ’s birth to winter to better line up with the Yule Festival, the Druid Alban Arthuan, and Saturnalia, which had previously been the Empire’s Winter festival celebrating Saturn/Kronos, lasted for 7 days, and let all classes and races interact equally in ancient Rome and it’s colonies. By grouping the ‘Wild Northerners’ festval and the old Roman festival together with the new official religion of the Empire, the Christian church managed to ease a transition of power through the late 1st century and dark ages.
So what does this tell us? Other than a lot of aggressive anti-whatever-religion-i-am-not stuff, multiple festivals were celebrated in winter. It was a time of feasting, peace, and revelry where everyone was seen as equal and good, which is a comforting thought. There was a whole lot of meat to feast on, since feed for the animals was short, there was no war or battles (George Washington is an outlier and should not be counted), and the night was long, which meant everyone was inside around their fires and candles, with nothing to do but eat.
This meant there was singing and dancing, lots of drinking alcohol, laughter and games, and, my personal favorite, story telling. People would gather in the largest house in their village, or in their family’s main house, the town hall maybe, and feast and celebrate. Obviously in places like Egypt where there was no snow, things were a bit different, but as Yule was a mostly northern Germanic and Scandinavian festival, we can comfortably exclude the Egyptian’s (for the moment). This was a time of unity and connection. Check your weapons at the door, give the poor money and food, unite in revelry and sing loud enough the ceiling shakes.
Saturn (or the Greek Kronus/Chronos) was the center of the festival Saturnalia, as he was the titan king of time. Demeter and Persephone would also receive tithes, as Proserpine was in the underworld with old Pluto, and Demeter was moping in the overworld. It was a time of renewal and rebirth, sacrifices for a return of the light and quick return to spring. The Norse Aesir also got their fair share, Loki among them, as he was both the snow they fled and the fire they thrived on. Odin, as cheif of the Aesir and the Allfader was of course top of the list, leading men on the hunt and sitting at the head of the table for feast. Thor and his goats got involved, and everyone prayed and worshiped the sun goddess, in hopes that she would be reborn and return. And the Christians celebrated St. Thomas day and the relocated birth of Christ festival
Traditions:
Yule was chiefly a festival for rebirth, the end of the old year and birth of a new one. As the Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year, early cultures who lacked knowledge of a round Earth found the briefness of the sun distressing if not downright terrifying. So they worshiped their sun deities while placating their winter deities and hoped and prayed. Lucky for them the days got longer shortly after after even if the winter carried on.
In order to preserve the power of nature subdued under all that snow, people would bring in evergreen boughs, winter plants and greenery to decorate their homes, which is now the boughs of holly, trees, and garlands we know so well. The survival of life was crucial and these evergreen boughs gave both hope and joy, since everyone knows there’s nothing quite like the smell of a pine tree.
The giving of gifts started relatively simpler than presents, but as a gift of money, food, clothes, or some other item someone needed desperately. Inviting the poor into the homes of the rich to feast and be warm and safe in this dark time was a tithe to your fellow man and to the gods. This was especially prevalent in Scandinavian culture, since Odin was known to walk about disguised as an old man and they who brought him into their home would be richly rewarded on good fortune or more practical payment.
Story telling. In a time where there were little to no roads, freezing weather, and only the rich had horses, donkeys or steeds of that kind, travelers were considered stupid, brave, or both. In the old days, many of these travelers were bards and storytellers. They too were invited in, bringing familiar tales everyone knew but the very youngest, always with a new element or twist, or else tales of far away from different lands. In exchange for a warm bed and a good meal these bards spun tales of the gods, heroes, magic, and adventure.
The gods and God:
Being Omnitheist (a tale for another day), I have a very peculiar look at how the old gods and the Abrahamic gods interact. but looking at it from a step back, we can all agree to some extent that Christianity moved throughout the empire pushing out the old gods to make way for He Who Is Three (the Christian God). For better or worse, those are the facts. However, clearly, we haven't forgotten them and they are still with us. No one is the good guy or the bad guy, no one god is to be blamed for what has happened (though I think some of the tricksters and lords of chaos and conflict are in the line of fire for recent events) And Yule, of all time sis when people should band together in acceptance and love. I guarantee, your personal deity will not damn you to punishment if you hug someone with different religion this holiday season.
The Balance of Dark and Light:
In my opinion, the saddest truth of the universe is that no matter how much we wish it, we cannot have joy without sorrow, happiness without pain, or Light without Dark. The world must stay balanced, not necessarily perfectly balanced in a single position, as this generated stagnation such as the Egyptians experienced. In order for the motion of the world to continue, there must be loses followed by victories allowing the scales of Dark and Light to tip and lean, never upending themselves but never still.
Furthermore, Dark is not always Bad, and Light is not always good, but again, that is a tale for another day.
Yule is a time of balance, of rebirth, it is the darkest time of year when the world is (supposedly) buried in snow and cold, the darkness hounding every moment and shows the end of time. And the beginning. This is a time of unity, compassion, camaraderie. Now is a time for love and acceptance, rich and poor, old and young from every culture, religion, background, race, and place. Soon a new year will come, bringing fresh flowers and sunshine and beauty and light. But for now we band together, Halfway through the dark.
As For Me:
I gave up on Christmas a long time ago. I won’t tell anyone to stop celebrating it and i will not forget what it’s supposed to celebrate but for my Christmas has too many dark memories, now more than ever. But Yule! my souls sings the praises of winter and snow and shadow. Yule is my chosen winter festival, though some may choose to celebrate them all! So tonight, for the first time in longer than i care to admit here’s my game plan:
post this long ass post
set up my alter and light candles for my gods (more below)
cleanse in moon water and smoke, both myself and my space
rebuild and reinforce my wards (Tale For Another Day)
Worship (TFAD)
play (more below)
My alter is actually my bedside table. i do use it as such, however, as soon as i lay my alter cloth there, it becomes a sacred space. Tonight, my alter will have acorns for rebirth, a small oak branch that fell on my head once, a pumpkin from Samhein, a variety of crystals including bloodstone (which is good for yule) and moonstone (because i love it). my candles will be white tea lights, here used for purity and peace, and some moon water and fruit as an offering to the gods of winter, rebirth, snow, and spring.
by ‘play’ i mean revelry in as classic a form as i can. I have chocolate lava cakes in the fridge, there’s pizza in there and my room mate is also cooking. I’m going to listen to some old timey music and watch a couple movies about witch craft and yule magic. I can give out a list of that stuff if y’all’d like to know what i have in mind. I’ll do a little casting on myself. I’ll probably sing and read a bit and maybe convince my friend to go walk with me and play Pokemon GO. That may seem out of the mood, but going outside in the night, feeling the yule energy and saying hello to every tree i pass is something I feel is important. Catching the 10 new Hoenn region Pokemon they just released is just an added bonus.
Above all Yule is a time for rebirth. Now is when you wanna cleanse and rework your wards, shields and protective spells. It’s a time for new ideas and concept, staring a new journey! Now is a good time to start new projects and become a better you. I have faith in you.
If you read this far, you’re a champ! Lots of love this Holiday season and Blessed Yule!
Blessings upon you from whosoever you choose to accept them from and merry meet again!
-Echo Celani
#chronicles#text#yule#winter#winter solcitice#long text post#old gods#long post#under the cut#happy yule#yule festival
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I kinda hate how biased my view of history is. Our school’s teachings are very euro-centric up until the 1900’s when japan and korea get some attention. From my Dutch point of view, the U.S. was never founded moreso than it just kinda popped up around world war 1 & 2. My view of history goes something like this:
History roughly summarised by yours truly
We start off slow with mostly hunter-gatherers until agriculture became a thing, and after a while villages and cities pop up, and by a while i mean a slow process of thousands of years. The greeks then pop up after mesopotamia was and then wasn’t the hot new thing, and from the greeks we just kinda slide into the romans who i guess we think are cooler now. We don’t know what happened to the greeks, we don’t know if their empire fell or whatever, they are just completely ignored after the romans pop up.
Then, when the romans fell after their empire became too big to be managable, we get dumped right into the dark ages where for a thousand years nothing of interest happens except that the christians like making ruckuses in neighbouring countries.
Then, around the 1500s, suddenly the Netherlands is the only country to exist aside from Spain, as the Spanish king gets ownership of our country and fucks with people of different religions. Did I say different religions? No, it’s all christianity except now people can’t agree on what the bible says and doesn’t say because the pope fucked up and made a single monk angry.
Anyway, in the 1500s leading up to the 1600s, there’s a war with Spain that lasts 80 years, but the Spanish king finally gets his ass handed to him. Then, 17th century the Netherlands lives a rich and prosperous life as we colonise every country with a spice. Then something happens and we’re no longer relevant, and we move into the 18th century where the french get their hands on every nobleman with a head.
Basically, this guy called Ludwig the 14th is really annoying and wants attention, and declares himself the sun king. I don’t think things went well for him. The common Frenchman at the time lived under the rule of the noblemen and the religious folk, who taxed the hell out of the poor citizens. The French then led the rebellion agains this system and essentially reinvented democracy after the Greek just kinda... faded away or something.
The 1800s is steampunk time in Europe, and people wanted more democracy as for some reason only rich people could vote. They decided to go the centrist route and let 50% of the people vote. Since this 50% of the people was only men, women got rightfully angry and launched the feminist movement. Essentially, aside from all the steampunk stuff that was really popular at the time, the political landscape as we know it and hate it today was established.
The 1900s was weird starting out, as the political landscape was updated and got the extremism buff. Extremists were now allowed to post propaganda, which was in hindsight a little bit broken. The first world war is a little too confusing for me too remember, but thankfully they streamlined the extremism system for the second installment. However, after Hitler dominated the European servers and almost crashed them, extremism was rightfully cancelled in most European servers.
However, extremism wasn’t banned in most Asian servers, and Japan got the bright idea to spam Pearl Harbor. Unbeknownst to them, the U.S.A. had already updated to the nuclear bomb patch of Humans.exe, a patch that was honestly the worst idea in human history. After the U.S. launched their nuclear missiles, humanity agreed that that was hopefully the last atomic bomb aimed at another country.
After World War 2 was finally settled with a huge victory, we get a few years of quiet. Sadly, the developers of nuclear missiles didn’t know when to stop and quickly developed planet-wiping-bombs. Both Russia and the US got a hold of these, and Russia was running on Communism (which proved to be a terrible idea). Russia took over half of Europe, putting its dividing line right through the middle of Berlin. Both America and Russia now had an Earth reset button on their hands, and ready to use it at any time. The rest of the world could do nothing, and instead lived in denial for a good 30 years as the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s looked like happy gaudy wonderlands to cope with the existential dread. Then finally in the 90’s the world could breathe a sigh of relief as the Berlin wall was broken down after Russia decided to give up.
Then in the year 2000, I was born, which proved to be an event so terrible that less than a year after my birth the middle east decided it wanted some attention and crashed two planes into New York. The 2000’s that followed was the decade of shit taste, global warming decided to get a whole lot worse, but thankfully I also brought with me the internet but also now terrible people can easily find each other to brew even worse ideas. I don’t even know what has happened in the 17 years I’ve been alive but boy if it isn’t a shitshow I don’t know what it is.
If you have anything to add, please do. I’d love a masterpost of history summarised in shitpost format.
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Crusaders and Zionists
By Uri Avnery, Antiwar.com, September 02, 2017
A few days ago I found myself in Caesarea, sitting in a restaurant and looking out over the sea. The sunbeams were dancing on the little waves, the mysterious ruins of the ancient town arrayed behind me. It was hot, but not too hot, and I was thinking about the crusaders.
Caesarea was built by King Herod some 2000 years ago and named after his Roman master, Augustus Caesar. It once again became an important town under the Crusaders, who fortified it. These fortifications are what now makes the place a tourist attraction.
For some years in my life I was obsessed with the Crusaders. It started during the 1948 “War of Independence”, when I chanced to read a book about the crusaders and found that they had occupied the same locations opposite the Gaza strip which my battalion was occupying. It took the crusaders several decades to conquer the strip, which at the time extended to Ashkelon. Today it is still there in Muslim hands.
After the war, I read everything I could about these Crusaders. The more I read, the more fascinated I became. So much so, that I did something I have never done before or after: I wrote a letter to the author of the most authoritative book about the period, the British historian Steven Runciman.
To my surprise, I received a handwritten reply by return of post, inviting me to come and see him when I happened to be in London. I happened to be in London a few weeks later and called him up. He insisted I come over immediately.
Like almost everyone who fought against the British in Palestine, I was an anglophile. Runciman, a typical British aristocrat with all the quaint idiosyncrasies that go with it, was very likable.
We talked for hours, and continued the conversation when my wife and I visited him later in an ancient Scottish fortress on the border with England. Rachel, who was even more anglophile than I, almost fell in love with him.
What we talked about was a subject I brought up at the very start of our first meeting: “When you were writing your book, did you ever think about the similarities between the Crusaders and the modern Zionists?”
Runciman answered: “Actually, I hardly thought about anything else. I wanted to subtitle the book A Guidebook For the Zionist About How Not To Do It.” And after a short laugh: “But my Jewish friends advised me to abstain from doing so.”
Indeed, it is almost taboo in Israel to talk about the crusades. We do have some experts, but on the whole, the subject is avoided. I don’t remember ever having heard about the Crusades during the few years I spent at school.
Thus is not as astonishing as it may sound. Jewish history is ethnocentric, not geographical. It starts with our forefather, Abraham, and his chats with God, and continues until the defeat of the Bar Kochba rebellion against the Romans in 136 AD.
From then on our history takes leave from Palestine and dances around the world, concentrating on Jewish events, until the year 1882, when the first pre-Zionists set up some settlements in Ottoman Palestine. During all the time in between, Palestine was empty, nothing happened there.
That is what Israeli children learn today, too.
Actually, lots of things did happen during those 1746 years, more than in most other countries. The Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Ottoman and British empires followed each other until 1948. The crusaders’ kingdoms were an important chapter by themselves.
Most Israelis would be surprised to learn that the Crusaders resided in Palestine for almost 200 years--much longer than Zionist history until now. It was not a short, passing episode.
The similarity between the Crusaders and the Zionists strikes one at first glance. Both movements moved a large number of people from Europe to the Holy Land. (During the first half century of its existence, Zionism brought almost only European Jews to Palestine.) Since both of them came from the west, they were perceived by the local Muslim population as Western invaders.
Neither the Crusaders nor the Zionists had one day of peace during their entire existence. The perpetual sense of military danger shaped their entire history, their culture and their character.
The crusaders had some temporary armistices, especially with Syria, but we, too, now have two “peace agreements” in place--with Egypt and Jordan. Without any real feelings of peace and friendship with these peoples, our agreements do also resemble armistices rather than peace.
Then as now, the Crusaders’ lot was made easier by the fact that the Arabs were constantly quarreling among themselves. Until the great Salah-a-Din (“Saladin”), a Kurd, appeared on the scene, united the Arabs and vanquished the Crusaders in the battle at the Horns of Hattin, near Tiberias. After that, the Crusaders regrouped and hung on in Palestine for another four generations.
Both the Crusaders and the Zionists saw themselves, quite consciously, as “bridgeheads” of the West in a foreign and hostile region. The Crusaders, of course, came here as the army of the West, to regain the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, wrote in his book Der Judenstaat, the bible of Zionism, that in Palestine we shall serve as the outpost of (Western) culture against (Muslim) barbarism.
The Holy City, by the way, remains the focus of a daily battle. Just this week, two extreme-right Members of the Knesset were allowed by the Israeli authorities to enter the Temple Mount area, fortunately without inciting Jewish-Muslim riots as on previous such occasions.
Also last week, our Minister of Justice, (whom I have called “the devil in the guise of a beautiful woman”), accused the Israeli Supreme Court of putting human rights above the “values of Zionism” (whatever these are). She has already introduced a bill which makes it clear that those “Zionist values” are legally superior to “democratic values” and come first.
The similarity is most apparent when it comes to peace.
For the crusaders, of course, peace was unthinkable. Their whole enterprise was based on the aim of liberating Jerusalem and the entire Holy Land (“God Wills It!”) from Islam, the deadly enemy. This excludes a priori any peace with God’s enemies.
Zionists talk endlessly about peace. No week passes without Binyamin Netanyahu releasing some touching declaration about his craving for peace. But by now it is absolutely clear that he does not dream of giving up one inch of land west of the Jordan. Just a few days ago he again publicly confirmed that he will not “uproot” one single Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Under international law every one of these settlements is illegal.
There are, of course, huge differences between the two historical movements, as huge as the differences between the 11th and 21st centuries.
Can one imagine the Templar knights with atom bombs? Saladin with tanks? The journey of Hospitalers from Clermont to Jaffa by airplane?
At the time of the crusades, the idea of the modern “nation” was not yet born. The knights were French, English or German, but foremost they were Christian. Zionism was born of the will to turn the Jews of the world into a nation in the modern sense of the term.
Who were these Jews? In 19th century Europe, a continent of new nations, they were an unnatural exception, and therefore hated and feared. But they were really an unreformed relic of the Byzantine Empire, where the very identity of all communities was based on religion. Ethnic-religious communities were autonomous and legally under the jurisdiction of their religious leaders.
A Jewish man in Alexandria could marry a Jewish girl in Antioch, but not the Christian woman next door. A Latin woman in Damascus could marry a Latin man in Constantinople, but not the Greek-orthodox man across the street. This legal structure still exists in many ex-Byzantine countries, including--you’ll never guess--Israel.
But given all the differences of time, the comparison is still valid, and provides much food for thought--especially if you sit on the shore of Caesaria, the imposing Crusaders’ wall just behind you, a few kilometers from the port of Atlit, where the last Crusaders were literally thrown into the sea when it all came to an end, just 726 years ago.
To paraphrase Runciman, I hope we learn not to be like them in time.
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“Crying Out” based on Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29 & Luke 19:28-40
I long thought that Palm Sunday was a big Yay-Jesus parade, where people shouted Hosanna to say “YAY God!” and it was clear that everyone got how great God really is and how God was working through Jesus. I thought that the enthusiasm for God and Jesus was just so big that the stones themselves were on the brink of crying out. Then I read John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg's book “The Last Week” and learned that wasn't it.
The story of Palm Sunday is so much bigger, so much deeper, and so much BETTER than what I originally understood. It was, indeed, a Yay-Jesus parade, and it did, indeed, reflect people celebrating their excitement over God's acts in the world. But a WHOLE lot was happening underneath and around it, and to understand that, we need to look at the Jesus movement itself, the thing that was being celebrated.
I'm working today largely from John Dominic Crossan's book “Who Killed Jesus: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Stories of The Death of Jesus.” When he was here last fall for a Carl lecture we learned that he goes by “Dom.” As he often does, Dom manages to get into the heart of things by explaining the context. Context is what makes his scholarship so awesome.
Jesus was a Galilean, whose ministry was centered in Galilee, right? What was Galilee? Galilee was a colony of the Roman Empire, and it was a part of what had been the Northern Kingdom of Israel. We talk about the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judea because under King David and his son King Solomon there had been a single united Jewish country, Ancient Israel, for about 80 years after 1000 BCE. It then had a civil war and split into two – north and south. The Northern Kingdom of Israel lost a war to the Assyrians in 722 BCE and its leadership was taken into exile. The Assyrian empire took over the land and imposed their customs. The Southern Kingdom did better, it didn't lose and go into exile for another 150 years, AND the Southern Kingdom also got the chance to return from exile and rebuild. Afterward, it became extra judgmental of its secessionist northern neighbors, both for the differences that had been present in the civil war AND for the fact that they were no longer a pure Jewish state, in faith or custom.
We know some of this history because of the stories of the Samaritan woman at the well and the Good Samaritan. Samaria is, after all, directly north of Judea, the Southern kingdom. What we sometimes forget is that Galilee is the region NORTH of Samaria. It was ALSO a part of the old Northern Kingdom. The difference is that in the time of the Maccabees, about 150 years before the birth of Jesus, faithful Jews from Judea moved up to Galilee to try to resettle faithful Judaism up north. The Galilee of Jesus day was multicultural and multilingual, rural, and full of faithful Jews as well as lots of people who weren't Jewish at all. It was also a colony of the Roman Empire.
Now, as Dom says, “The Jewish peasantry was prone … to refuse quiet compliance with heavy taxation, subsistence farming, debt impoverishment, and land expropriation. Their traditional ideology of land was enshrined in the ancient scriptural laws.”1 Galilee itself was a fruitful place, and the land was useful to the empire. Dom explains, “Lower Galilee's 470 square miles are divided by four alternating hills and valleys running in a generally west-east direction. It is rich in cereals on the valley floors and olives on the hillside slopes.”2 It was also pretty rich in radicalism, perhaps BECAUSE of the percentage of very faithful Jewish people who believed land to be a gift from God for the people of God.
Now, John the Baptist did NOT do his ministry in Galilee. (I JUST figured this out.) His ministry across the river in Perea, in the DESERT. I hadn't realized that Galilee didn't have deserts until Dom pointed it out. The other side of the Jordan is the side people had waited on, it is the side they entered the Promised Land from. Galilee, like Samaria and Judea, had been part of the Promised Land. According to Dom, John the Baptist “is drawing people into the desert east of the Jordan, but instead of gathering a large crowd there and bringing them into the Promised Land in one great march, he sends them through the Jordan individually, baptizing away their sins in its purifying waters and telling them to await in holiness the advent of the avenging God.”3 He was re-enacting the entrance into the Promised Land, that gift of LAND for the people. Thus he was challenging the religious, political, social, and economic bases of Roman control.4 This got him killed.
Being a colony isn't a great thing for people. That's obvious, right? Colonies exist to bring wealth to the country that controls them, and that means that the people in the colony are means of wealth production. Dom explains a bit more:
“When a people is exploited by colonial occupation, one obvious response is armed revolt or military rebellion. But sometimes that situation of oppression is experienced as so fundamentally evil and so humanly hopeless that only transcendental intervention is deemed of any use. God, and God alone, must act to restore a ruined world to justice and holiness. This demands a vision and a program that is radical, countercultural, utopian, world-negating, or, as scholars say eschatological. That terms comes form the Greek word for 'the last things' and means that God's solution will be so profound as to constitute an ending of things, a radical new world-negation.”
The best known example of this in the Bible is when God acted to free the people from slavery in Egypt. The people were oppressed, they cried out, God heard them, and sent Moses and set the people free.
That particular story is celebrated and remembered at the Passover. The Passover is holy celebration of God's action to set the people free when they had no power to free themselves. The Palm Sunday parade was a formalized entrance to the Jewish celebration of Passover in Jerusalem, at the time when Jerusalem was ALSO under Roman Imperial control. It was, thus, a very dynamic situation. The potential for Jewish upraising at Passover is the reason that the Roman Governor showed up then, with a lot of military might and show.. In fact, the Roman Governor came into the West Gate with a LARGE military parade, at about the same time that the Gospels say that the Jesus movement came in the East gate with a populist God parade.
Can you feel the tension rising?
Dom goes further into explaining how religious ideas of eschatology, of last things, work. He says that there are two models, and John the Baptist used one while Jesus used the other. The John the Baptist way was passive for humans and active for God. It was the idea that God is going to come save “us,” where us indicates a single group defined by those who know that God is about to act. This sort of eschatology is based on a future promise that God will act to save us. Dom says, “This future but imminent apocalyptic radicalism is dependent on the overpowering action of God moving to restore justice and peace to an earth ravished by injustice and oppression.”5 That might sound pretty good, until you hear the one Jesus used.
As a reminder, Jesus was baptized by John. That means he was a DISCIPLE of John (a student of John's), but one way or another he branched off of John's teachings and went his own way. The second way that Jesus ended up going is called sapiential eschatology. Dom says, “The word saptientia is Latin for 'wisdom' and sapiential eschatology announces that God has given all human beings the wisdom to discern how, here and now in this world, one can so live that God's power, rule, and domination are evidently present to all observers. It involves a way of life for now rather than a hope for life for the future. … In apocalyptical eschatology, we are waiting for God to act. In sapiential eschatology, God is waiting for us to act.”6
As far as I can understand it, this is the crux of it all. We follow Jesus, who taught us about God who is already present to us, who works with us to change things for the better. We aren't waiting on God. We're working with God. Jesus's ministry was one of proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Dom explains this well too, “the sayings and parables of the historical Jesus often describe a world of radical egalitarianism in which discrimination and hierarchy, exploitation and oppression should no longer exist.”7 The Jesus kingdom movement, “is not a matter of Jesus' power but of their empowerment. He himself has no monopoly on the kingdom; it is there for anyone with the courage to embrace it.”8 All of this may explain why they could kill Jesus, but not his movement.
It also explains why the crowds were so excited on Palm Sunday and throughout Jesus' ministry. Jesus was speaking to their problems, oppression, debt, loss of land, loss of subsistence, loss of dignity AND he was offering them the reality that God was already with them and they could change it themselves! No wonder they were having a Yay-Jesus parade.
I think the big questions this leaves US with today are about how we best live the Kingdom. If it is already here, if God is already with us, if we can partake in the radical egalitarianism, if God has given all human beings the wisdom to discern how, here and now in this world, one can so live that God's power, rule, and domination are evidently present to all observers... then what is it that we need make space for so that we can LIVE it!??? How do we access that wisdom we already have, how do we live that life that God has made possible?
Or, to put it another way, how do we step out of the world’s obsessions with consumption, acquisition, fear, existential anxiety, competition, hierarchy, and distractions SO THAT we can live the GOOD life God already made possible? Since the goal is to live in love and allow lovingness to expand in us, and I wonder if it is a matter of balance. There is a need for rest, to savor the goodness; AND there is a need for activity, to respond to the goodness. There is a need for more learning to know how to best respond, AND there is a need to teach others what we know. There is a need to attend to the goodness of life AND there is a need to attend to the brokenness and see it clearly. There is definitely a need to play – to live into joy, laughter and delight AND a need to be courageous and loving in seeking justice for all. Because part of the call of Jesus is to live a good life, and the other part is to make it possible to for others to live a good life – but not JUST a good life! The call is to a life that is a transformed, courageous, God-soaked with love.
In the end of our story we hear, “Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, order your disciples to stop.' He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.'” This is the part I had entirely wrong. It isn't that the stones are bursting with joy. It is that the people cannot be silenced because they've been empowered. God's empowering love is with them, and they've learned that they already have what they need to change their lives and change the world. And once people know that, they can't be silenced. Thanks be to God! Amen
1John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Stories of The Death of Jesus (USA: HarperSanFrancisco: 1995) 40.
2Crossan, 42.
3Crossan, 44.
4Crossan, 44.
5Crossan, 47.
6Crossan, 47.
7Crossan 48.
8Crossan, 48.
Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady
April 14, 2019
#Palm Sunday#FUMC Schenectady#UMC#Sorry World for the UMC#Schenectady#Progressive Christianity#Thinking Church#Rev Sara E Baron#Gospel of Luke#Stones Crying Out#John Dominic Crossan#Who Killed Jesus#Yay Jesus Parade#Forgot to say that Hosanna Means God Saves Us
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Roman Fempercy AU
I’ll probably write a fic for this. Oh who am I kidding, I wrote a fic for this and turned it into a 40k crossover fanfiction involving a Deathwatch Kill-team and now I’ll never get to that third Chapter of Endryd Haar: The Riven Hound for @sisterofsilence or Simple Souls.
Anyway here it goes.
Fempercy’s name is Persephone. Real original, I know, but Sally thought it sounded better than Prosperina. Persephone is also lesbian.
Speaking of Sally, she’s like a Roman Matron. Not even Juno can find something to criticize her about and Venus is jealous of her looks. If the Empire was still around she’d be Empress.
Her life and time at Yancy Academy follow Canon. But Chrion and Grover have an “Oh shit we’re screwed.” moment when they’re looking at Persephone’s grades. When it comes to translating Greek, she’s a D-. Latin translatians an A+. She always uses the Roman names when they discuss mythology in class. Plus she smiles even more when Chiron shows off his Roman legionare equipment.
Chiron actually starts cussing out Neptune. He says more cursewords that day then he has in centuries.
A child of Posidon would be bad enough, but a child of Neptune? In New York? At Camp Half-Blood’s doorstep? Does he want Chiron to retire early?
Anyway The Lightning thief happens as canon. With a few changes.
Persephone feels really isolated and unwelcome at Camp Half-Blood. She has nightmares about the campers killing her and even has a panic attack during archery practice.
Her only friends are Annabeth and Grocer. She’s uneasy around Annabeth because the idea of Minerva breaking her vow of maidenhood even if she’s technically not doing via actual sex is weird. She actually meets Hestia and she really listens to Persephone and accepts her.
Ares actually appears as Mars to Persephone after they fight and congratulates her on beating him as Ares.
After they return the Master Bolt, Persephone has to swear an oath on the Styx to never reveal the existence of Greek demigods.
Grover and Annabeth have to swear an oath to never reveal the existence of Roman demigods.
After they return to Camp Half-Blood and celebrate, Persephone leaves a few days later. Officially it’s because she’s returning home early to spend some time with her mother. Which is actually true. She and Annabeth promise to Iris message each other. Persephone and Sally spend some time in the cabin Montauk. Neptune actually briefly visits. Some family bonding time. Neptune has some Cyclops make her and Sally some very nice jewelry and a very nice Pugio for Persephone. Persephone gets a tour of Neptune’s palace. Triton told himself he was going to make a conscious effort to dislike her, but actually ends up liking her.
Lupa’s wolves show up at the Montauk cabin on their last day there. Hugs are exchanged and than it’s off to the Wolf House.
Lupa has a lot of fun training Persephone. Persephone has a lot of fun training with Lupa. Persephone’s panic attacks and nightmares stop. Persephone ends up terrorizing the wolves and some of them even beg Lupa to send her off to Camp Jupiter early because she’s adapted so well there.
Lupa actually keeps her for a day longer then she intended to. She doesn’t tell Persephone this, but she’s one of the best Roman demigods she’s trained since Jason Grace and Romulus and Remus.
During her trip to Camp Jupiter the other two gorgons show up. She kills them just like Percy did in the Son of Neptune.
Arriving at Camp Jupiter is like coming home for Persephone. She meets Jason and they hit it off. Persephone is a little upset that she can’t tell him Thalia’s fate because of her oath on the Styx. Persephone becomes Jason’s Optio in the Fifth Cohort. She pisses off Octavian, chats with the Lars and Terminus, spars with Jason and kicks his ass 55% percent of the time and becomes pretty well-respected in Camp Jupiter. Camp is a paradise for her. She feels a sense of belonging she’s never felt before. She and Jason are like siblings, and Jason confides in her some of his doubts and the pressure he’s under as a Son of Jupiter.
Meanwhile, Luke betrayed the camp and the events of the Sea of Monsters happens.
Percy actually meets Tyson during a visit to her father’s palace. Tyson makes her a cool collapsible Roman shield for her and reforges some damaged Imperial Gold weapons she and Jason recovered on a quest.
About a week after the Sea of Monsters, she begins having dreams about Heracles and what went down in the Garden of the Hesperides. About two days later the Hunters of Artemis show up at Camp Jupiter to rest and resupply. Persephone meets Zoe Nightshade and they talk. Persephone mentions her dreams and offers to return Riptide to her. Zoe refuses and tells her to keep it.
Before they leave, Zoe and Diana lay on the sales pitch thick to try and convince Persephone to join the Hunters.
At first, they think, she’s refusing because she and Jason are dating, but Persephone tells them that she and Jason are not dating because she’s lesbian and she and Jason are friends. Very close friends, but just friends. Persephone actually snaps at them and tells them they don’t know a damn thing about Jason. That’s he’s a better hero than Heracles and that apart from her and Juno, his patron, she’s his only real friend and she’s not going to abandon him. Zoe and Diana actually apologize and Zoe and Diana depart on good terms with Persephone.
After the Titan’s Curse, she get’s a tearful iris message from Annabeth about what happened. Persephone is crying herself and really wants to tell Jason his sister is alive and is now Diana’s Lieutenant.
It’s a good thing Persephone didn’t join the Hunters because soon after they leave, Reyna shows up at camp.
And damn Persephone is crushing hard. She’s nervously asking Jason what she should do and Jason is like “I don’t know I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”
Persephone does a lot of praying and offering to the Olympians, talks to Vesta when she visits and even considers asking Octavian to do his augur thing and see if Reyna is in her future.
Reyna is doing the same thing. She and Persephone have built up a solid friendship and she’s kind of realizing she’s Bi and wishing Hylla or her mother was around to give her advice.
Then the mission to retrieve those Imperial Gold Torpedo’s from the CSS Hunley in Charleston happens. The air between Reyna and Persephone is a little thick and Jason is hoping the two confess ftheir feelings for each other because sick of his two best friends tiptoeing around each other.
During the quest, Jason is separated from Reyna and Persephone.
The two actually are about to confess their feelings for one another when Venus shows up and lays on the whole “No demigod shall heal your heart.” speech.
And both of them flat out refuse and confess their feeling for each other. They tell Venus to piss off. Venus relents but warns Reyna that her fate will be passed onto another.
The two meet back up with Jason and tell Jason what happened. Jason is happy for them, but he’s praying to Jupiter for Venus to not screw things up for his friends.
After the quest preparations for the war against Saturn are made. Annabeth is informed of the events of The Battle of the Labyrinth via Iris message. Persephone, Jason and Reyna are jokingly referred to as the Triumvirate
When Jason and Reyna become Praetors, everyone expects Persephone to take Jason’s place as Centurion of the Fifth. Instead she hand Gwen the vine cane and is promoted to Tribune. As a Tribune, she serves as an official advisor to the Praetor’s, assists in the day to day running of the legion and should a cohort or two be deployed and a Praetor be unavailable, assume direct command. Octavian complains saying it was an abuse of power, but most legionaries didn’t give a damn.
There were a couple dates. A sharing of Jelly beans and kisses. Hands held when they thought no one was looking during senate meetings.
Meanwhile, the Olympian’s are debating on the Great Prophecy. Typhon has been awakened, Thalia’s joined the Hunters, and Persephone is at Camp Jupiter. Zeus suggests they bring her back to Camp Half-Blood .
Neptune, Vesta and Juno all put their foot down.
Neptune because he doesn’t want his daughter anywhere near Camp Half-Blood. Vesta told him what Persephone had to deal with at Camp Half- Blood, how isolated and uneasy she felt there.
Juno was not going to have her champion/adopted son’s best friend disappear right before they Legion’s assault on Mount Orthyrs. It would demoralize him. It’s not because she actually cares for the girl. Nope no Sirree. She still hates demigods and her husband’s bastard children.
Anyway the Legion attacks Mount Orthrys.
It goes pretty well.
Jason and Persephone make a huge hurricane and Reyna lends her strength ot the legion, they tear there way through the Titan army ranks, It’s a bitter battle, the Legion is relentless, there’s no turning back. Better to strike now than wait for the Titan Lord’s army to encircle Camp Jupiter.
Any way at the end , Jason kills Krios, Saturn’s throne crumbles to dust and the enemy is routed.
Than Saturn himself shows up.
He’s lost his host body, his scythe, his throne and taking a huge beating from the Olympians. His body is riddled with arrows from Artemis and Apollo, burned by Hestia and Hephestaeus and he took a Lightening Bolt.
But he’s still not dead, and he could kill most of the Legion before he is finally defeated.
Jason is exhausted and semiconscious after curb stomping Krios.
Reyna has given most of here strength to the legion.
Most of legion is bloodied, but unbowed. There’s no way they can kill Saturn, they can only prolong their own deaths and buy time for the Olympians show up.
So Persephone challenges him.
She summons the power of the sea and takes on Saturn herself.
With a little strength lended from Reyna, she sends Saturn screaming back to Tartarus.
When the Olympians show up, Persephone is on her knees, Riptide still clutched in her hand, bleeding from at least a half a dozen wounds.
After, the Greek demigods receive their awards, Persephone, Reyna and Jason are ushered into Olympus.
Persephone is offered immortality.
She refuses.
She makes,the gods swear on the Styx to claim their children by 13 and to pardon all the traitor demigods and titans and minor gods.
After that. There’s some peace and quiet, and things go back to normal at Camp Jupiter.
Than Jason disappears and contact with Olympus has been cut off.
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Week 11, Chapter 9
Chapter Nine Blog
The majority of Chapter nine touched base upon the different kinds of art present within this time frame, but I felt majority of the chapter itself revolved around the art that was Architecture, Colosseums, Buildings, and more so the relevance it held to the Ancient Rome civilization during this time frame. Although this chapter talked briefly about the background, and history of Ancient Rome, the adaptation of the laws, and the civilization as a whole, “The political genius of Rome lay in it’s ability to encompass, govern and assimilate cultures very different from its own. As time went on, Roman law made it increasingly easy for people from distant regions to attain citizenship even if they had never been to Rome. The city itself was the center of a great empire.” (Pg. 125, Para 1) I felt although it did give this brief overview and background of Rome, the majority of this chapter delved into the architecture, and very brief art of sculptures, and other art that was created within this era as well.
I feel a majority of these chapters more so recently then not, tend to Compare Greece to Rome more so than not. “There were important differences between the Greek and Roman approaches to history, which in some sense parallel the differences in their views of art.” (Pg. 126 Para 3) Although I found that the architecture that was present during this time frame, such as the Hadrian’s villa which was “Built from A.D 118 to 138 near Tivoli which consisted of many buildings including libraries containing works in Greek and Latin, baths courtyards, temples, plazas and a theater.” (Pg. 129 Para 4). Was extraordinary and beautiful, I personally do not find myself drawn to Architecture more so then others, but as expressed prior due to the last chapter we had read, I do enjoy and rather appreciate reading about the history of, especially gaining a better insight as to how it came forth, what sparked the creation and how it ultimately was created. I do believe architecture has beauty, and is art itself. I personally just never had much of an interest in such pieces of art myself. It seems as though, within this time period a lot of these temples, and or buildings that were created, were mostly used as places of Worship for the Gods that they believed in during this time period. In a way it was kind of a shrine for these great gods, warriors, and emperors. “the apses contained statues of gods or emperors.” (Pg. 131 Para 1) I found it particularly interesting that a lot of these temples were also more so used for Court holdings, and or legal proceedings. This in itself kind of sparks that question of, did America gain majority of what we do in today’s world from Ancient Rome, or Greek? Is everything that we more so learned, and brought forth in America just a replica of what history is present during the Greek and Roman times? Because It just seems rather intriguing that majority of what I have read throughout this term, seems to be a lot of similarities with how America, our society and or are government runs things. Such as these temples specifically for court hearings etc. “Colonnades on either side of the nave provided an articulated space for socializing, people awaiting trial, and for those transacting business.” (Pg. 131 Para 2) I just find it extremely interesting that majority of what we see today, is extremely relevant and or similar to how things were back than in an entirely different country. Like is everything America has more so a clone? Just a rather interesting thought that crossed my mind during this reading.
I also found it fairly sad that majority of these temples, such as the Forum has since been depleted, “Forum Cullum became the prototype for all later imperial forums, it must have presented a magnificent architectural spectacle but is now in ruins.” (Pg. 131, Para 2) Not only is it sad that something so unique has since decomposed among other things, It also sparks that curiosity of if something as such has since been destroyed, how in fact is any of the information or history of it truth? How does one know such history of if in fact it no longer stands? I felt that reading about all the different kinds of temples, buildings and what they were used for overall was extremely unique, and simply gives me a better idea of how and why things are the way they currently are in today’s world. It brings forth a variety of questions and then allows me to analyze and think more upon each.
The last thing I will touch on is the Sculptures that were created during this time as well. The detail of the art itself is Extravagant. Just being able to create such beauty with such little materials is seriously amazing and inspiring to me. I really liked and admired the Young Flavian, and the Bacchus and the four seasons. Just the detail used within these sculptures themselves is remarkable. In today’s world it seems rather easy for one to “sculpt” such a piece of art, yet during this time frame, that ability to truly engrave that much detail into this stone, really is inspiring to me. I admired it deeply, and it seemed that the Rome’s did during this time frame as well. “busts were usually carved in marble, often from a wax death mask, so that even the most specific physiognomic details were preserved.” (Pg. 146, Para 1) “Deep carvings creates strong oppositions of light and dark that add to the sense of mass supported by the delicate, smoothly carved surfaces of the face and neck.” (Pg. 146. Para 1) Although majority of their sculptures were admiring the God’s and or Goddesses, I still found that they held much beauty among them.
The Last portion of the chapter was about painting, and mosaic, “Roman murals are among the most significant legacies of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Hundreds of wall paintings and mosaics have been discovered among the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. They provide the greatest evidence of Greek Hellenistic painting most of which no longer survive.” (Pg. 149, Para 3) Even though some of it holds beauty, I personally felt a lot of this art was extremely terrifying and brutal, minus the “still life, or the columns and pediment. The few art that was present within this chapter, I found extremely odd. It seemed to me as if the painters were expressing more evil than not. Which in turn makes one question why? Why was the paintings more graphic and or seemingly more “evil” then compared to some of the other pieces of art we have read about throughout this course. The first one they spoke of was the Issos Mosaic, which depicts three witches.” (Pg. 149 Para 5) It expresses within this chapter that pieces of art as such were popular in “private houses, as well as public buildings.” (Pg. 149 Para 5) But why? Like it to me isn’t even fascinating it’s rather scary actually. The second pieces is The villa of the mysterious, which “is clear that some kind of sacred ritual is taking place.” (Pg. 150, Para 1) Like how in the world is this considered art? I get it though, every culture is different, but it just seems very angry. And then makes one wonder what did many who expressed and created these paintings participate in during this era? Were there human sacrifices? Was witchcraft extremely common during this time period? Why did majority of these gods and or people drawn seem to express a heck of a lot of anger toward others? I get that Greek mythology has an array of death and majority of those during this era praised those gods, and majority of what is being painted is of a great god defeating say an evil one, yet it just seems rather dark compared to what I’ve seen in the previous chapters.
I think this chapter held a lot of great information and expressed a lot of history upon this time frame, I personally enjoyed reading about this history more so than not. I really think I enjoyed the sculptures the most among the rest of them.
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But what about vampire history teachers. Vampires who read something from a text book then proceed to light the book on fire and throw it out the window because “No. that’s not even close to what really happened. Listen up nerds I’m about to teach you what really happened in France during the revolution”
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