Ancient World Now: The Gracchi, Part I

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #60. The-Mother-of-the-Gracchi by Gustave Boulanger

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Happy New Year, Everyone! I hope your holidays were full of friends, family, and food! It is my resolution to get us back on a weekly schedule. I have so much I want to share with you and this year I vow to make time! Hold me to it! Send me an email so I know you are out there listening!

Today’s podcast introduces us to two dashing and idealistic brothers whose political lives focused on land reform and empowerment for the common people. Their mother, Cornelia, was famous for her great devotion and dignity. Her example was promoted as the ideal for a Roman matron.

From Weston’s book:
“The two Gracchi brothers in blood, were both inspired with the sense of the evils produced by the decrease in the number of freemen and the increase in the number of slaves in the Roman state, and by the tendency of wealth to pass more and more into the hands of the few at the expense of the many.”

Today’s episode from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s.

Enjoy!

For some amazing 19th century prints, check out this website I’ve just discovered:
Darvill’s Rare Prints.

EXPLORE MY WEBSITE TO SEE THE AMAZING
ANCIENT WORLD ACTIVITIES I’VE CREATED!

The Iliad

The Iliad

Ancient World Now: Coriolanus, Part III

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #59.

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Alas, my trusty Compaq laptop went the way of all flesh and is no more. I lost 3 hours of work, a completed episode, when the blue screen of death appeared. Rushed the patient to Piers, computer physician extraordinaire, but it was too late.

Upon examination, contents of insides revealed a massive hairball from our kitty Thetis, Achilles’s mother. See how guilty she looks!


…Our final installment in our series on Coriolanus. Today, you will meet his mother, Volumnia, and see what lengths she is willing to go for her country! Enjoy! And then go track down your Shakespeare version!

Today’s episode from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s.

Ancient World Now: Coriolanus, Part II

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #58.       

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Sorry to be so long out-of-touch! Summer travels and beginning a new school year have kept me busy, but my classes are now dialed in and the stress of the first weeks has fallen away.

In an effort to understand these historic economic times, I’ve been watching documentaries on what happened in 2008. To hear the voice of the Roman man in the street through Plutarch’s Lives and compare it to the voice of an Occupy Wall Street protester is one of the many benefits we reap when we look at ancient writings, for these times are those times.

Scarcity of food, factious orators, a tumultuous mob of commoners, and the struggle between patrician and plebeian, all mark this episode in Plutarch’s life of Coriolanus. A gift of corn stores from the King of Syracuse arrives in a famine-wracked Rome and the elite 1% consider selling it, rather than giving it away to the citizens. And on which side of the issue did our Marcius speak out? Find out today in our second of three episodes on Caius Marcius Coriolanus, Plutarch’s tale of the ruin of a noble nature by pride.

Enjoy today’s episode from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s.

Ancient World Now: Coriolanus, Part I

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #57.

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London was amazing, as usual, and I couldn’t have done more in the 2 weeks I was there. There is much to tell you about my trip, but I am still organizing all the notes I took and will make them available in some form soon. In the meantime, here is the first of two parts of Plutarch’s Coriolanus, who most of us know from Shakespeare’s play. You will be interested to know that Shakespeare got most of his information on the ancient world from Plutarch’s Lives. This fall you will be hearing the retelling of Plutarch’s life of Julius Caesar, the historical personage who most interested Shakespeare, judging from the many references and allusions made to him across the entirety of Shakespeare’s work. Enjoy today’s episode from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s.

Ancient World Now: Philopoemen, Part II

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #56.

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Imagine the enemy is at the city gates and the residents of a Greek city sow corn in the streets to stay alive during the siege. And imagine the Roman ascendancy finding a broken Sparta (compliments of Philopoemen), only to turn it into a sort of theme-park complete with the trappings and discipline of better days.

Learn the details of Philopoemen’s leadership from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s.

Sorry to have been so out-of-touch, but that is the life of a junior high schoolteacher! Those of you who are following my work will be excited to know that I am on my way to London to research a children’s book I am working on set in Roman Britain. I hope to return with plenty of cool stories to share with you about my discoveries. See you soon!

Ancient World Now: Philopoemen, Part I

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #55.

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Imagine during battle a javelin pierces both your thighs completely through so that you cannot move. And imagine you have the guts and the strength of will to snap the javelin in half to get yourself free. That’s what happened to this famous Greek, Philopoemen, in the twilight of empire.

Learn the details of Philopoemen’s leadership from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s.

Ancient World Now: Alexander the Great, Part III

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #54.

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According to Plutarch, King Porus at the Battle of Hydaspes rode atop an enormous war elephant, who: “gave many singular proofs of sagacity and of particular care of the king, whom as long as he was strong and in a condition to fight, he defended with great courage, repelling those who set upon him; and as soon as he perceived him overpowered with his numerous wounds and the multitude of darts that were thrown at him, to prevent his falling off, he softly knelt down and began to draw out the darts with his proboscis (trunk).”

Enjoy our last episode on Alexander the Great from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s.

Ancient World Now: Alexander the Great, Part II

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #53.

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The burning of the palace at Persepolis by Alexander the Great and his entourage is one of the world’s great losses. Many would give their eye-tooth for a mere glimpse of this ancient wonder. A woman named Thais is said to have started the inferno. I’ve heard it said by a Stanford professor that the streets ran with the molten gold from the palace. Was this revenge for the Persian destruction of Athens?

Listen to this week’s podcast for details on Alexander’s march across Asia from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s.

Ancient World Now: Timoleon, Part II

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #51.

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Setting: Ancient Syracuse in Sicily. Sacked and desolate. Deserted of Greek colonists. Streets overrun with deer and wild boar.

Enter: Timoleon, ready to restore the Greek colonies of Sicily to their former glory, sans tyrants.

And even more amazing than his many successes was that by the end of his long life he had managed to avoid “the insatiable pursuit of glory and power which has wrecked so many great men.” Plutarch, like so many thinkers before him and since, tried to identify the qualities that make a great leader. Plato, Aristotle, Homer, and the epics Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and the Persian Shahnameh, all address the question of how to deal with the incompetent, malevolent, or unworthy leader. In today’s world, it sometimes seems to be an old-fashioned expectation: ethical, just, and informed leadership with a focus on the long-term. We are living in revolutionary times, and we can only hope that our world leaders have read and learned from history. Where are those leaders of old? It’s time they step out of the shadows and give us all something to hope for.

Find out how Timoleon stacks up in today’s podcast reading from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s. Enjoy!

Ancient World Now: Timoleon, Part I

Click here for direct link to audio podcast Episode #50.

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Friends, Romans, countrymen! This podcast marks our 50th episode! To celebrate, I’ll send a copy of my book to the first person who writes me at: gwen@gwenminor.com! Good luck! And thanks for making me love this!

Fratricide, intrigue, privation, and assassins. Timoleon and Dionysius II face off in today’s podcast.

Sicily has such an interesting history, and the court of Dionysius II was especially so. The story of the sword of Damocles comes from this court, and Plato hung out there a lot! Dionysius II was fascinated with Plato’s idea of the philosopher-king, and so invited Plato to Sicily to try to make him the ideal ruler. Amazing! And what happened after that was even more astounding. It didn’t work so well and Plato ended up wishing he hadn’t got involved in all the drama. He gives his account of his Sicilian adventures in his Seventh Letter. But I digress! As usual, the bad guys get more attention than the good guys. As Mark Antony said in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:”The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

What was Plutarch trying to teach us about Timoleon, the hero responsible for the revival of Greek Sicily? Find out in today’s podcast reading from Plutarch’s Lives for Boys & Girls, retold by W.H. Weston, and illustrated by W. Rainey, published in London & Edinburgh in the early 1900′s. Enjoy!