Alexander the Great, at the age of 32 years ( he only reigned for 12 years) had conquered a huge empire; he had taken over all Greece and the Persian Empire and he had arrived to India; he had conquered Asia Minor and Egypt; he had founded dozens of cities, which he named Alexandria, the most famous was that one in Egypt. He had become a mythical being, about whom dozens of biographies and stories, some true and some fantastic, were written.
“There is no beauty without a regular proportion”. (Plato, Timaeus 87c)
To be exact the phrase of Plato says: “Everything that is good is beauty, and beauty is not without relations or regular proportions.” Also in Philebus 64c he says: “The measure (metron) and proportion (Symmetria) performed everywhere beauty and perfection “
A very old mentalist tests the love of a father
There is a television series of American network CBS some success called “The Mentalist” which has some success. The protagonist, recognizes himself as “mentalist”, working with the police to solve all kinds of cases and to identify those guilty of crimes using his insight, his mental agility and analysis and his great capacity for observation human behavior, which react in certain ways to certain stimuli. The mind and its power is the only instrument that is served. Sometimes he is not very orthodox and law-abiding when using certain methods, but the result is always the identification and punishment of criminals.
Some notes on the “Magi” , the three Wise Men
One of the most deeply rooted festivals in folk and Christian religious life is the “Adoration of the Three Kings other Three Wise Men”. In this event they come together many elements of different religious and cultural backgrounds. We can recall the religious ferment of the Roman Empire, precisely time when Jesus was born, flattering all syncretism. Christian religion have incorporated many elements of Eastern religions of Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Persia, Asia Minor, Egypt, Judea and especially of Greco-Roman and philosophical thought. In all these syncretic religions astral component, highly developed among the Chaldeans in Mesopotamia, is very important.
Mythical Hippolytus and martyr Hippolytus: disturbing coincidences
The hero Theseus escaped the labyrinth of Crete with the help of Ariadne, who he promised marriage to, but he abandoned her on Naxos. Theseus is the father of Hippolytus, whom he had from an Amazon, by some calle Antiope or Hippolyta or Melanippe or just the Amazon. Then Theseus married Phaedra, the sister of Ariadne. Many centuries after the mythical time, there was another Hippolytus, a Christian martyr.
The library is a Greek creation
Alexandria was the spiritual and cultural capital of the world from the third century BC to the fifth or sixth century AD. Under the largest library of Antiquity, which sought to retain all the knowledge stored in books systematically with exemplary sense of intellectual freedom, lived and worked a college or community of wise and educated persons and scholars who developed the physics, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, geography, engineering, medicine, philosophy, literature, grammar, rhetoric … They were the basis of Western knowledge.
Was Pericles a Keynesian?
The majestic buildings of the Acropolis of Athens, which have caused much admiration from antiquity until today, were built by Athenians unemployed people. The beautification of Athens is attributed to Pericles and are quoted the great artists like Ictinos, Callicrates, Phidias …
Adequate number of diners at banquet
One of the most important social events since ancient times is the banquet or symposium. Participate in the same food at the same table identifies people, according to the elemental adage “you’ll have what you eat” , in an elementary exercise in logic, who eat the same, reared in the same.
A modern Zeuxis
Recently the Prado Museum has celebrated a painting exhibition titled “Juan Fernandez Labrador. Still Lifes “. Juan Fernandez is a painter of the Spanish Golden Age, little known, who painted mostly “still lifes”. His representative works are paintings of “bunches of grapes”.
Importance of music in the ancient Greek world
Most of the linguistic terms used in “music” are of Greek origin.