HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY OF GREECE AND ROME

In Word From the Myths, Isaac Asimov retells the ancient stories from Chaos to the siege of Troy- and describes their influence on modern language and modern life

Isaac Asimov tells the history of a semi-civilized tribe who realized their dream of glory.

Atalanta in Calydon is a drama in classical Greek form, which revealed Swinburne’s metrical skills and brought him celebrity.

Mother of life and death and all men’s days, Earth, whom I chief of all men born would bless, And call thee with more loving lips than theirs Mother, for of this very body of thine And living blood I have my breath and live…

In this story of the most famous assassination in history, “the last bloody day of the [Roman] Republic has never been painted so brilliantly” Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate on March 15, 44 BC—the Ides of March according to the Roman calendar. He was, says author Barry Strauss, the last casualty of one civil war and the first casualty of the next civil war, which would end the Roman Republic and inaugurate the Roman Empire. “The Death of Caesar provides a fresh look at a well-trodden event, with superb storytelling sure to inspire awe” Why was Caesar killed? For political reasons, mainly. The conspirators wanted to return Rome to the days when the Senate ruled, but Caesar hoped to pass along his new powers to his family, especially Octavian. The principal plotters were Brutus, Cassius (both former allies of Pompey), and Decimus. The last was a leading general and close friend of Caesar’s who felt betrayed by the great man: He was the mole in Caesar’s camp. But after the assassination everything went wrong. The killers left the body in the Senate and Caesar’s allies held a public funeral. Mark Antony made a brilliant speech—not “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” as Shakespeare had it, but something inflammatory that caused a riot. The conspirators fled Rome. Brutus and Cassius raised an army in Greece but Antony and Octavian defeated them.

Another in a series of superb biographies of ancient leaders, G. P. Baker tackles the life and times of Gaius Octavius Augustus (63 B.C.-14 A.D.), first emperor of Rome and founder of a Roman state that endured for centuries. Physically weak and plagued by ill health, he was only eighteen years old when Julius Caesar’s assassination thrust him, as his uncle’s chief heir and adopted son, into the forefront of the subsequent political and military turmoil. This book details his ruthless path to power, in which he outmaneuvered and outfought such rivals as Cassius, Brutus, Lepidus, Mark Anthony, and Cleopatra. Augustus embodied and represented the tremendous currents that transformed Rome from a small Italian city situated on the Tiber River to a powerful empire that bestrode the known world as no other colossus ever had. Augustus was astute and artful enough to balance republican traditions with imperial realities, skillfully maintaining the delicate façade to achieve his goals, so that, late in life, he could rightfully claim, “I left Rome a city of marble, though I found it a city of bricks.”

The great conundrum of his character and the political significance of his long reign, which solidified the imperial government of Rome, render the life of Tiberius Caesar (42 B. C.-37 A. D.) second emperor of Rome and successor of Augustus a subject of perennial interest. From the mass of available evidence, two men can be constructed, both equally one, an upright, gruff soldier-statesman, austere, just, capable; the other, a corrupt, murderous tyrant with gargantuan and depraved appetites. In another in the series of superb biographies of ancient figures, G. P. Baker provides an astute and fair-minded assesment of Rome’s most psychologically complex and contradictory emperor, a man who according to Roman historian Dio Cassius “possessed many virtues and many vices.”

Here retold in all their dramatic power are some of the most exciting and influential of all Greek myths: the epic struggle of the Trojan War, the wanderings of Odysseus, the tragic destiny of Oedipus, and the heroic adventures of Herakles, Theseus, Perseus, and Jason. The author introduces the complex pantheon of Olympian gods and goddesses, describing their attributes, genealogies, and often comic relationships, and illustrates the personalities and their stories by drawing upon the artistry of the ancient culture which created them. A concluding chapter reviews the powerful and continuing imaginative legacy of Greek myth, from Botticelli to Freud.

Book by Blegen, Carl W.