The fall of the Republic

Just as the constant conflict between the Plebeians and the Patricians plagued the whole of Roman history, the grand republic was stricken with the continuous battle between great individuals and the senate. By its very nature, Rome is based on triumph and glory and thus the rise of individuals was inevitable. One such individual was Julius Caesar; he rose to power and eventually declaring himself dictator for life and completely nullifying the power of the Senate. Obviously, the senate resented the power that Caesar gave to himself and thus concluded that killing him was necessary to return the glory of senate and the republic. However, killing Caesar was not the solution to the senate’s problem, for the ideas of individual triumph were ingrained into Roman society. The time of the republic was over.

From the very beginning Rome was a place of violence as well as triumph and glory. It began with the brothers Remus and Romulus; after the founding of Rome they soon became very jealous of each other and soon entered into conflict. Romulus won and the personal glory and triumph of victory over his brother was his. Later in its history, the young men of Rome, lusting after the Sabine women, conquered the nearby tribe, capturing and raping the women and claiming them in their triumph.  Even the republic itself was born of violence and glory, it was the rape of Lucretia that led to the people of Rome overthrowing the old Etruscan kings and founding the glorious republic. The republic was designed around a two-class system, the plebeians and the patricians. The patrician class created the republic in order to preserve their own power and triumph, which in itself undermines the very idea of a republic. The quest for power and glory is a deep part of the Roman way and the foundation for most of its ideals. This was a great flaw in the creation of the republic, a flaw that would see to its downfall.

Caesar was not the first great individual to rise to power in the republic. The rise of great individuals started as early as the Punic wars with Carthage. After Hannibal had finally been defeated using the tactic of Guerilla warfare, Scipio led the Roman army, in the third Punic war, all the way through Spain and into Africa; arriving finally at the walls of Carthage where he defeated them and salted the land in a symbolic and practical gesture to prevent anything from sprouting from the spot ever again. He did this not only Rome’s but also for his own personal triumph and glory. After Scipio came the reformist brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus who gained much personal power and prestige through the promise of reforms such as land distribution, social reforms, and debt forgiveness. They became very prominent individuals and took on more powerful roles, thus diminishing the power of the senate. Tiberius Gracchus was ended during a riot when he announced that he would seek re-election and Gaius killed himself after being declared a public enemy because of his attempt to make headway in his policies. Around 30 years later two new great individuals arose to take power away from the Senate. Marius and Sulla began a civil war that would led to Sulla entering Rome with his army and taking power away from the Senate. After his tyrannical reign, which including the use of proscription lists, he returned power to the Senate. One can speculate that after so many individuals taking power and personal glory from that of the Senate, they would take no chances with Caesar.

Caesar began his campaign of personal glory with the creation of the First Triumphant, where in he, Pompey, and Crassus divided up the Roman territory and ruled them themselves, completely removing the Senate from the equation. After Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, the Senate declared him as an enemy of the Senate and the people of Rome. He then “crossed the Rubicon” forcing the Senate to evacuate the city. Caesar declared himself dictator for life, perma-consul, thus completely undermining the power of the Senate. By assassinating him, the Senate believed that the republic would be restored. This thought had merit as after the reigns of Tiberius, Gaius, and even Sulla, the republic was restored and the Senate was put back the position of power. However, Caesar was the final straw and after the next generation of Octavian and Antony form the second triumphant, the power of the Senate had died and the republic had finally crumbled.

From Scipio to Caesar, the republic was riddled with great individuals rising above the power of the Senate. It was only a matter of time for a group of individuals to come along to finally end the Senate’s power. The assassination of Julius Caesar was merely a vain attempt to maintain something that had already died.

Siddhartha: Rejection of Teachers

Siddhartha journeys to achieve enlightenment and to discover himself. Throughout his journey, he stops and learns under many different teachers; these teachers share with the knowledge that they have obtained over the course of their lives. However during his journey, Siddhartha constantly rejects his teachers, for he treats them only as a stepping stone and not as all knowing beings. For Siddhartha, teachers are merely a gateway and a stepping stone towards further knowledge and wisdom.

Siddhartha had many teachers over the course of his life. The first of which, his father, raised him from a young age to be the ideal son. Siddhartha was the perfect son and was destined to be the perfect Brahmin. Everyday he purified himself in the river and everyday he performed listened to his father's teachings. He practised meditation, thinking the almighty Om and contemplating the Atman. However,he never felt satisfied, he felt the “restlessness of his soul. And so, he began to question his father's teachings and he started thinking about things for himself. He soon after reject his father and chose instead to join the Samanas of the forest. With the Samanas Siddhartha learned the ways of renouncement in every way; “All he now wore was the loincloth and the unstitched, earth-coloured cloak. He became completely empty as a person and with that emptiness he lost all sense of ego and desire. After many years of eating only once a day and having to beg for that food, Siddhartha begins to question the difference between his fating and forced immunity to pain and simply drinking a few cups of rice wine and playing a game of dice. He wondered whether starving in a forest was truly the path to enlightenment. He sees the Samana's way of life as circular and that the sixty year old teacher has yet to achieve Nirvana. Siddhartha then thought that maybe the way of the Gautama was the best direction. After many years with the Samana's, he left to join the mighty Buddha.

With Buddha Siddhartha learned the way of the middle path. However, when he first encountered the Sublime One, Siddhartha immediately believed that he would not learn anything new from him; for he had heard his teachings many times from secondhand accounts. After hearing the Buddha's words, Siddhartha chooses not to follow along this path because he came to a realization. Siddhartha tells Gautama, that even though his teachings are perfection, such perfection cannot be obtained from teachings, it must be obtained through experience. As he says, talking to the Buddha, “It came to you from your own seeking, on your own path, through thinking, through meditation, through knowledge, through illumination. It did not come through a teaching!” “You cannot, tell anyone in words and through teachings what happened to you in the hour of your illumination.” Siddhartha then leaves the Sublime one, knowing that enlightenment is only possible through experience and self discovery. He then travels to a town where he meets a women by the name of Kamala. She teaches him about the art of love and passion. In a way, she teaches him to indulge himself into the finer things of life, he begins to wear nice clothes and shoes and he joins with a merchant named Kamaswami. Under Kamaswami's teaching, Siddhartha learned how to do good business and how to further indulge into the pleasures of nature. However, he never accepted the merchants way of life, he works for Kmaswami purely for knowledge and cares not if a business deal goes sour. Siddhartha immersed himself in this life and he enjoyed the games of dice that blinded him from the sufferings of life. After much time with Kamaswami and Kamala, Siddhartha carried on and left his life of luxury for he realized the destructive nature of his actions. He left for a life of simple contemplation; contemplation that he rediscovered at the side of a river.

With the river, Siddhartha discovered his final teachers, the ferryman named Vasudeva and the river itself. From him Siddhartha learns much about simply listening to the river and in fact absorbing the knowledge that river imparts on those that are willing to listen. Vasudeva also shares with Siddhartha the art of ferrying people across the river as well working the rice paddy and building oars. From the river Siddhartha learns how to listen “with a silent heart, with a waiting, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgement, without opinion.” This is the greatest wisdom that he will ever realize. Vasudeva and the river are the only teachers that Siddhartha does not reject, because it is with them that truly understands life, the world around him, and himself. It is next to the river that he reaches illumination, he reaches enlightenment, and he achieves Nirvana.

Siddhartha wonders the land in search of teachers, not directly for their lessons, but instead for their knowledge into how he can achieve wisdom for himself. He uses all these teachers for their knowledge. At first Siddhartha seeks these teachers for their wisdom, however he soon learns that “no one is granted deliverance through a teaching” and for him to achieve his goals of wisdom, he must do so on his own, without teachings and only with experience. This is the essence of the story. He realizes that “wisdom cannot be communicated.” and that “knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.” From all his teachers, from his father to the river, he learns only knowledge. Wisdom was something that Siddhartha learns for himself from his experiences in his life.

From the very beginning of his journey, Siddhartha is seeking to truly understand life and what it is to be alive. He sought out teachers for their knowledge, but soon rejected them in his search for wisdom. To Siddhartha, the teachers were only a stepping stone for him to use to begin to understand the world for himself on his path to enlightenment, illumination, and Nirvana.

Another civilization taking over the world.

In the years 1200-1600 AD, the world had set itself up for a Eurocentric future. If only a few things had gone differently, the world as we know it today could have been completely different. It would have been entirely possible for another culture to dominate the world; however several key events led to European domination.

During that four hundred year period of history, each culture had the potential to dominate the globe. The Aztecs were at the height of their civilization and controlled almost all of central Mexico. Given the time they would have been able to push further. China was by far the most advanced civilization in the world, thriving in the grandeur of the Ming Dynasty. They had built a massive "treasure fleet", commanded by Admiral Zheng He, to sail and explore the world and to discover its riches for the glory of China. The Muslim world of the Middle East had held the spot of dominating power for the last 400 hundred years. They spread Islam from the gates of Vienna, all the way down to India and up across Africa and into Spain. If it hadn't been for a few key events that led to European domination, the world could have been a very different place.

In the years 1200-1600 AD, events took place that led to the downfall of the other civilizations and to the rise and establishment of a Eurocentric world. After exploring the world in a fleet of 600ft long ships, China had decided that the world had nothing to offer them and they descended into a period of isolationist and xenophobic attitudes. Because they closed their borders to anything foreign, Europeans were eventually able to catch up and overtake them in terms of technological and cultural advancement. Islam's downfall came at the hands of Genghis Khan's golden horde. The Mongols swept across Asia and into the Middle East destroying everything as they went, including the cultural and intellectual hub, Bagdad. After this Muslim culture became very stagnant and unwilling to accept new ideas and advance. Like with China, Europe was able to catch up and overtake them. The fall of the Aztecs actually came at the hands of the Europeans themselves. The arrival of Spain led to the Aztecs being conquered very quickly. If they had been given more time, the Aztecs would have been able to withstand and repel the Spanish. All these major historical events lined up as to give Europe a chance to begin its path to world domination.

If the Mongols hadn't invaded, the Chinese hadn't become isolationist, or the Aztecs been given more time, the world could have become a completely different place. It is impossible to speculate as to how the world would have been different if something had changed, but our Eurocentric world will not last forever.

Siddhartha:Loss of the Son

After losing his son, Siddhartha now sees people in a completely new way. He now sees people "less cleverly, less proudly, but also more warmly." Siddhartha no longer felt foreign to the child people he ferried. This suggests that with the loss of his son, Siddhartha now feels as though he is one of the child people, more so then his life as a merchant. He has now felt the loss and pain that the people around him feel. He understood them and considered them to be brothers.

Siddhartha: The Child People

The child people are, in Siddhartha's mind, the lowly workers and the rich merchant men for whom they work. They simply choose to enjoy what life has given them and to strive only for personal gain. They value only what they see in front of them, and that is wealth. To them wealth and material possession is their only concern. They care not for the thoughts of a traveler nor for the teachings of a divine one. This is also their weakness. They focus only on possessions and if those possessions are lost, they have nothing. However, if one values yourself and the wisdom of experience, as Siddhartha has, you be a much happier person, for these things cannot be lost.

Siddhartha: The Brahmin's son

What kind of child is Siddhartha?

Living with his Brahmin parents, Siddhartha originally seems like any other obedient child. However, this soon changes as we learn that Siddhartha is considered to be something greater, a “prince among the Brahmins.” Unfortunately for his parents, as well as the Brahmins, Siddhartha becomes very sceptical and begins to question the ways of Brahmins. He begins to question the ways of his religion. Later, Siddhartha begins to become very egotistical, in the sense that he knows that he is special and that he looks down on others because of it. He shows his ego very much towards his dear friend, Govinda, who he describes as “his shadow”. Near the end of the chapter, Siddhartha stands up to his father, something that one did not do, by refusing to move until his father allowed him to go into the forest to follow the Samanas. In this act of standing until “the first gleam of day entered the room” shows that Siddhartha possesses real courage and has a strong will to stand up for what he believes in.

Greece essay

The ancient Greeks are still known today as being the “Golden age” of civilization. They became masters of sculpture, architecture, art, but they also became the masters of war. The two images, showing armor from the Peloponnesian wars and the Elgin marbles, represent two aspects of Greek life. Despite war being considered by many to be something barbaric, to the Greeks, war was as much an art as was the building of the Parthenon or the plays performed in their amphitheaters.

From the very beginning of Greek civilization, war has been not only an integral part of their society, but also something that the Greeks perfected. Some of the very first Greeks, the Mycenaeans, were predominately a warrior based culture. It was Agamemnon, the Mycenaean king, who conquered all of Greece and united it under his banner. He also brought the Greek armies across the Aegean to the walls of Troy, where they performed one of the most brilliant acts of deceit the ancient world has ever seen, the Trojan horse. The Greeks took pieces from their own ships to construct a colossal wooden horse, in which Greek soldiers would hide and wait for the Trojans to bring it inside; once inside the city the Greek soldiers opened the gates and the army proceeded to burn Troy to the ground. Later in Greek history, arose the Spartans; a warrior people who had mastered warfare by using something know has the Hoplite formation. They used this Hoplite formation to hold off the Greeks at the battle of Thermopylae, even though they lost, 300 Spartans alongside several thousand Greek allies were able to fend off over 200,000 Persian soldiers. Xerxes army and navy would later be crushed at the battles of Plateau and Salamis respectively, thus suffering the same embarrassing defeat that his father did many years earlier at the battle of Marathon. Around 330BC, Alexander the Great took the Greek art of war and used it to finally defeat the Persian Empire, bringing him all the way to the Indus valley. After Alexander’s death, the Greek style warfare was used everywhere in the entire known world. The Greeks spend just as much time refining the art of war as they did constructing developing the art of sculpture and architecture.

The Greeks are considered by many to be the founders of modern culture. They were the first people to truly be able to capture the human form and they were the first to perform plays, such as Lysistrata, in large amphitheatres. In this case, the Elgin marbles represent the Greeks contribution to the finer arts such as sculpture and architecture. In the world of sculpture, The Greeks were the first to represent the human form with near perfection. Polycleitus, was the most notable of all the Greek sculptors, he carved people in an idealistic and almost god-like sense. The most notable aspect of Greek culture was their architecture. They developed two styles: Doric and Ionic, both of which are still widely used in many of today’s buildings. One of Greece’s greatest architectural achievements was the Parthenon. The Parthenon is a massive temple built to Athena, the patron god of Athens, which was built on top of the Acropolis. It is the single largest Doric structure in existence and is considered one of the most copied buildings in the world. The Greeks have a legacy of being one of the greatest contributors to modern society and their achievements are still marveled today.

For the Greeks, the architecture of their buildings and the perfection of their sculptures were just as important as the art of warfare and battle. From the beginning of the Mycenaeans to the death of Alexander war was as much as art as was architecture and sculpture.

The Apollo vs The Mask

 

When determining which culture is considered the higher society, we must consider many facets of said civilizations. When considering whether the Greeks or a primitive tribe is at a higher state of civilization, it is best we examine two prominent sculptures: the Apollo of Belvedere or the mask. The Apollo represents a much higher state of civilization then the African mask. This statement can be supported by looking at the values, religion, and civilization in which the sculptures have been produced.

By examining the values of each of the cultures, we can see a clear difference, and these difference are reflected in the sculptures. The Greeks put a large value on knowledge. This value of knowledge is reflected in the high level of skill and craftsmanship put into the Apollo. The skill and craftsmanship that can only be achieved by a more civilized society. Although the mask also requires a great deal of skill, the tribal society does not put a high value on such skills, as its values lie elsewhere. The tribal society is significantly more family based. They value things such as the community and mutual support of the family, as we saw in the film “The Gods Must be Crazy”. The ability to provide an animal to eat is more prized then the ability to carve some dude out of a pretty rock.

Religion is another key aspect of a society and is greatly represented in these two sculptures. Both the mask and the Apollo actually represent a major part of their societies religion. Apollo is, of course, the god of the sun, while the mask represents an animal deity. Showing the Apollo as naked and in a very regal stance, suggests a very open and high minded society. Kenneth Clarke said “the gods are like ourselves, only more beautiful” , he is of course referring to the Apollo and how it is shown has being the perfection of the human form. In the case of the mask, it represents something much darker. Kenneth Clarke also said in reference to the mask “it is a world of fear and darkness ready to inflict horrible punishment for the smallest infringement of a taboo” thus Clarke has stated that the tribal society has chosen to accept and react to their world rather then to try and understand it. Compared to the Greeks this makes their religion and society less developed and less able to develop on fear of retribution. However, the main aspect of early tribal societies was goddess worship. As we see on the island of Malta, goddess worship was prominent and some will say that the worship of female dieties leads to a more peaceful society. Although this is true, a we saw no evidence of warfare, The Maltese people disapeared around 2500 BC and thus did not live a sustainable existence.

The great differences between the civilizations of the Greeks and the tribals truly set the bar as to which one is in a higher state of civilization. Whereas the tribals work as a cohesive group to fight for their survival, the Greeks have progressed enough to allow for specialization within their society. Specialization within the Greek society has allowed for greater advancement in civilization and technology. The specialists have the ability to develop their craft and continue to strive for something new. The ability to strive for something new has allowed the Greeks to build a more permanent and long lasting civilization. However, the ability to strive for something new is lost on the tribal societies, mostly due to the need for survival. This need for survival has prevented them from being able to think things through with greater depth. If they stopped to think, they would die. However, some groups have had the time, such as the people of the Lasceaux caves. But these peaceful and primitive societies were not sustainable, as we can see with the Minoans and the Maltese. These people attempted to strive for something new, but ultimately failed because they forgot to include a key aspect of a strong civilization, defense, something that the Greeks did very well.

As seen in modern times, the hunter and gatherer lifestyle of the tribal society have evolved into a speciality of its own. More of Greek society is seen in today's world, we have perfected specialization to the point that we are codependent on a wider array of specialists. There are many similarities between our civilization and the Greeks and if we consider ourselves to be in the highest state of civilization, by analogy the Greeks were higher then the tribals