Month: December 2021

Cicero’s full name is Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC). He was a statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher and Academic Skeptic in the Roman society. It is believed by a lot of people that Cicero was one of the greatest rhetoric (According to Google, rhetoric means “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques”) masters in history. He had a very unusual kind of power. This pow.er was that in the arguments in which he participated in, he was very persuasive. This is a very unusual kind of power. He was also a lawyer and a politician. While he was a lawyer, he had a verbal confrontation in which he attacked a guy. His name was Catiline. Catiline at that time was a part of the Roman senate. However, he had his very own organizations. It was because of this that there were suspicions drifting through the city that he might overthrow the city.

In this political orientation delivered by Cicero, he used his rhetoric skills to address Catiline. The goal of Cicero in this orientation was to make Catiline want to leave the city, though he does not make this obvious in this speech. The entire orientation was focused on this one point. With a master of rhetoric being a lawyer and “attacking” people must have really intimidated them. If I were Catiline, then I would try to persuade Cicero to believe why I did what I did, which in this case is building his own organization. Cicero made accusations against Catiline which may or may not have been true. But, basically, Cicero considered Catiline a huge threat toward the Romans and the Roman Republic. Cicero’s accusations against Catiline were actually not specific nor direct. In this way, he did not refer specifically to any wrongdoings that Catiline might have done. If I were Catiline, then I would try to get Cicero to specify his accusations and provide solid proof for them.

I wonder why Catiline never never tried to change the mind of Cicero. Maybe because they were true. Maybe because they did have solid proof and there was nothing that he could have done. Maybe because they never gave him to talk and defend themselves. There were multiple things that he could have done to defend himself, yet he did not use any of them. There were also multiple things that Cicero could have done to make Catiline not able to talk, or just not want to talk. Or maybe Catiline thought it would just be best if he remained silent.

After he was banished along with his army, some time later he attacked Rome which was what he was going to do anyway.

The reasons for Catiline’s silence is unknown to us because it was not recorded in the text. If I were in Catiline’s place, then I would confront Cicero and ask of what proof they have. And depending on the answer, things would go from there.

Works and Days was written by Hesiod. Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet. It is believed that Hesiod was active from 750 BC and 650 BC, which is about the same as Homer (writer of  The Odyssey and The Iliad). Works and Days is a didactic poem. It was written around 700 BC and contains eight hundred and twenty-eight lines.

The Eumenides was written by Aeschylus. Aeschylus was another ancient Greek poet. He specialized in Greek tragedies and very often in his life, he wrote multiple Greek tragedies, some of which survived to this day. He was often called the Father of Greek Tragedy. The Eumenides was considered as being culturally important by scholars. It was also considered as being originally published in 458 BC.

In these two plays, there are two very different world views on cause and effect ethically in history. In Greek civilization, there is confusion on ultimate sovereignty throughout the history of the Greeks. For example, Zeus is king of the gods, yet, he does not have ultimate sovereignty over the world. He owns the gods, but only part of the world. All the gods share all the world. This causes a lot of confusion on which god the people should follow because each god has a different set of rules and laws. This causes some confusion, so it is up to the people to decide which god to follow. Even though these plays are different in some ways, they also have some similarities in other ways.

In Works and Days, Hesiod tells his brother Perses how to live a good life. He hopes that once Perses knows of this advice, he will ignore the courts and share a large portion of land with Hesiod (which he inherited from his father once he died). Part of this advice is telling Perses not to listen to the courts, but rather omens sent by the gods. In The Eumenides, it says that the gods are above men, however, the gods give men the power of judgement in the courts and that men should listen to them. These two statements are very similar even though these statements come from two very different books. Works and Days and The Eumenides, which are very different on world views and many other things, but there are some similarities, which you just saw here. There are many other similarities, however, I do not know of any more.

It also says that in Works and Days, Hesiod says to his brother that he needs to directly obey the gods, which is part of his “brotherly advice” on how to “live a good and prosperous life” (He can do this by listening to the omens sent by the gods, like what I said in the last paragraph). In The Eumenides, it says that the gods gave man this power, so man should listen to the courts (exactly what Hesiod does not what Perses to do in Works and Days). This is a huge difference between Works and Days and The Eumenides. It is very confusing.

The Libation Bearers is a second part of a trilogy written by a Greek playwright named Aeschylus.

Aeschylus was born in Eleusis, Greece 6th century BC and died in Gela Italy 5th century BC. He was an ancient Greek who wrote many Greek tragedy’s, one of which is The Libation Bearers. He is commonly called the “Father of Greek Tragedy”. His plays were so good that some of them that have survived to this day have been made into movies!

In this tragedy, the dialogue is continued from the first part of the play. Remember, The Libation Bearers is the second part to a tragic play. This entire series is based on a series of blood guilt justice which takes place inside the house of the man Agamemnon. Like several different tragedies, this one takes place after the Trojan War. It is also effected by the Trojan War. A series of events after and as a result of the Trojan War.

In this tragic, the main character Orestes has come face-to-face with a very difficult decision. After his father, Agamemnon is murdered, Orestes has sworn to the god Apollo that he will avenge his father and kill the murderer that killed his father. However, a little while later, he finds out that his father’s murderer is his own mother, Clytaemnestra. And Clytaemnestra found a new lover, Aegisthus. They were in the killing of Agamemnon together. If Orestes does not avenge his father, then he will face the insane consequences of Apollo and the furies (spirits that haunt you until you die if you do not keep a promise to do something) of his father. They inflict a lot of pain and suffering on you. However, if he kills his mother, Clytaemnestra, then he will have to face her household furies. Either way, he will suffer at the hands of the furies. This is a very hard decision. He eventually seeks advice on what he must do and ends up killing his mother. After that, he says that he must flee and go far away to avoid his mother’s household furies.

Back then, there was not a system of government like there is today now. Back then, if someone killed a family member of yours, then it was your family’s responsibility to avenge that dead family member of yours. It was an “eye for an eye” world back then.

If Orestes was alive today, then he would need a completely different course of action. This series began with Agamemnon offering his daughter, Iphogenia, as a sacrifice during the Trojan War. Then Clytaemnestra avenged Iphogenia by killing Agamemnon. And Orestes avenged Agamemnon. If they had a government system like the one we have today, then the murders would be taken to court. However, these murders were personal to the families. there was no government to stop them. If Orestes was alive today, then he would have taken this matter to the court, and they could have solved the problem. If Orestes had been living today, then things would have been different.