Ancient Literature Discussion (History, Myth, Philosophy &c.)

[Daneel Rush]

The whole "Semiramis the poisoner" deal comes entirely from Voltaire's play, "Semiramis".

[Five_X]

Thanks, sensei!

[Daneel Rush]

[Historia]

Yo, yo, was my answer not adequate enough? Bah. Sure.

Anyway, to add to what Rush put,

In Voltaire's play it was Assur (some prince) who carried it out on her behalf. So, technically, Semiramis didn't actually poison anyone herself, either. She sure guilt tripped him later about it though. Pointing fingers, smh.

Something like that.

As for where he might've gotten that idea from... later Greek / Roman historians who spiced up her already pimped out legend after Ctesias, maybe. Ctesias himself was a physician, and lots of the fragments in his books talk about poison this and poison that. Now, Agrippina, on the other hand...

[Nuclear]

azasu

[asterism42]

Agrippina the poisoner comes from the theories that she hired Locusta to poison Claudius.

[LegalLoliLover]

Generally, is getting an enemy drunk or asleep and killing them whilst they are in that state something to be proud or ashamed of, even if they are "monsters"? From what I understand, most people consider killing Orochi or Shuten using such a method as "heroic", but in Skyrim, when King Olaf found that Svaknir wrote a poem about him defeating the dragon Numinex whilst Numinex was asleep, Olaf had Svaknir executed for slander (or maybe libel because it was written).

[SpoonyViking]

Really? Because a time-honoured Norse tradition was to set the mead halls of drunken enemies on fire.

[LegalLoliLover]

Well, it might be because Olaf already said that he won in a fair fight and would lose face, if he changed his story.

[SpoonyViking]

Oh, that would do it, yes.

[LegalLoliLover]

Just to confirm, the Aztecs practiced heart ripping, but not cannibalism, correct? Also, are Lucifer and Rumpelstiltskin villains or merely capitalists?

[Mujaya]

Does Nietzsche qualify in this thread? Voltaire was mentioned, so I'm going to assume that as Nietzsche was a proponent of the Greeks and as both a philologist and a historian of Greek tragedy, this is a good place to talk about my readings. I've been doing a lot of research into philosophy and psychology for the past year or so and it's taking me months to finish Thus Spake Zarathustra alongside my workload in college. I really want to read Ecce Homo and Twilight of the Idols before I go onto other philosophical works such as A Critique of Pure Reason by Kant as well as Ethics by Spinoza, also plan on reading Dostoyevsky, Milton, Dante, and the Bhagavad Gita.

[SpoonyViking]

Speaking of tragedy, can anyone recommend a good scholarly text comparing Greek tragedy to more modern tragedies, such as the ones by Racine, Shakespeare or Schiller?

[Mujaya]

Speaking of tragedy, can anyone recommend a good scholarly text comparing Greek tragedy to more modern tragedies, such as the ones by Racine, Shakespeare or Schiller?

A good chunk of psychoanalytic theory, particularly by Carl Jung and his students are analyses of the heroic archetypes in the collective unconscious that evolve over time and have done so from Greek/Roman tragedies and epics. If you want to learn more about how stories of today mirror the tales of yore, I would suggest that you read The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories by Christopher Booker.

[SpoonyViking]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I was looking for something more scholarly, more focused on tragedy, and overall, just plain good. :-)

[Mujaya]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I was looking for something more scholarly, more focused on tragedy, and overall, just plain good. :-)

If you actually want to think about something, I would suggest reading up on Jungian archetypes and maybe even reading The Birth of Tragedy by Nietzsche. You'll develop ideas about how tragedies have evolved over time as an art form. I would imagine it difficult to turn your eyes away from the works of two geniuses. Otherwise, there's this: http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/re...oll40/id/32052

[SpoonyViking]

Yeah, I've read Jung (and Campbell, and Lévi-Strauss, and Meletinsky, and so on and so forth) and Nietzsche (and Schopenhauer, Lesky, de Romilly, Aristotle himself of course, and so on and so forth). That thesis seems like it might be what I'm looking for, though, so thanks!

[Dullahan]

guess there's always hegel's Aesthetics

& walter benjamin's book on german tragic drama

[SpoonyViking]

Oh, great suggestions, Dullahan, thanks!

[LegalLoliLover]

Between all those alternate history stories, such as Man in the High Castle and Wolfenstein, where the Third Reich managed to push all the way to the US, does any ever mention any potentially awkward moments where it is discovered that certain Jewish-German athletes, such as fencer Paul Sommer, are still alive in the US? More specifically, because they were evacuated from the Holocaust by the very architect of the Final Solution (yes, you know the one).