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Homer Wrote A Tortoise And Hare Fable Before Aesop

By
thehistorianshut
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By the 5th century BCE, a collection of fables featuring a cast of personified animals with moral tales to tell became associated with a legendary figure called Aesop. One of the few pieces of information that the ancients could agree upon about Aesop was that the storyteller likely lived in the 6th century BCE and that he supposedly was born in some Greek-associated region. Because of Aesop’s vague or unknown background, he is widely regarded as a semi-legendary, or possibly purely-mythical, figure. Whatever the case, somebody (or some people) wrote the timeless stories. These scattered fables, like the collected works attributed to so many of the ancient sages in East Asia, were probably compiled by students and fans, eventually resulting in a collection of Aesop’s Fables often called the Aesopica.

Of Aesop’s many fables, the tale of the hare and the tortoise is one of the most popular. In the story, a slow tortoise challenges a speedy hare to a foot race. The hare, confident in the disparity of quickness between the two animals, eagerly accepted the challenge. After the race began, the tortoise fell so far behind in the race that the hare decided to take a nap on the side of the path. The clever tortoise, however, calmly kept crawling along the race path, eventually surpassing the sleeping hare to win the race.

Interestingly enough, Homer wrote a similar story centuries before Aesop. Homer’s tale, however, did not feature animals, but instead pitted the lame-legged god, Hephaestus, against the spry and lusty god, Ares. The story in question takes place in book VIII of The Odyssey, beginning around line 260.

As the story goes, Odysseus met an incredibly talented bard named Demodocus in the blessed community of Phaeacia. While Odysseus was staying in the region, Demodocus took up a lyre and began to perform a song about an embarrassing scandal that occurred at the home of the gods on Mount Olympus. This was Demodocus’ story:

According to the bard, Hephaestus, the talented craftsman of the Greek gods, won Aphrodite’s hand in marriage after producing a series of wondrous presents. These gifts, however, were sent to Zeus, not Aphrodite, and the resulting union was an arranged marriage. Consequently, Aphrodite did not return Hephaestus’ affection and was predisposed to extramarital affairs, especially with handsome Ares, the god of war.

Unfortunately for Aphrodite and Ares, one of the ablest informants in the Greek pantheon, the sun god Helios, was a close friend of Hephaestus. Helios spotted the two lovers fooling around in broad daylight while he was doing his daily rounds. Helios immediately sent this information to Hephaestus, who, upon receiving the news, stormed off to his workshop with revenge on his mind.

Channeling his rage and sense of betrayal, Hephaestus constructed a metallic masterpiece of a net. It was made of chains so fine that they could not be easily seen by the naked eye, while also being strong enough that even the gods could not pull the links apart. With this net in hand, Hephaestus returned to his home and marched into his bedroom. There, he threw the net around the feet of the bed, and also hung other sections to the rafters. When the trap was set, the invisible spider web of chains weaved all around the bed, just waiting for some unsuspecting prey to enter the room.

With his preparations done, Hephaestus loudly announced to his wife and neighbors that he was leaving on an impromptu vacation to Lemnos. Hephaestus, however, did not go very far. Instead, he found a hiding spot and contacted Helios to keep an eye on his house.

Ares, for his part, was completely fooled by Hephaestus’ sudden departure from town. When he could no longer see Hephaestus, the god of war quickly rushed over to Hephaestus’ house, where he eagerly found his beloved Aphrodite. Within moments of their clandestine encounter, the two flushed lovebirds inevitably fluttered over to the bedroom. Yet, as soon as they lay down on the bed, their hearts, which had been beating with longing and anticipation, suddenly began to thump with a cadence of terror. As soon as they hit the bed—in whatever state of dress they were in—the trap was triggered and the net caught its prey. Like the tortoise from Aesop’s fable, Hephaestus caught his rival sleeping.

By now, Helios had already informed Hephaestus that Ares was in the house. Accordingly, the craftsman of the gods returned home where he triumphantly found his wife and her lover entangled in his net, which was so tight that the two inside where stuck exactly as they were the moment the net fell. After seeing that his trap had worked, Hephaestus sent word to all of the gods, calling them forth to witness the sad creatures he had caught in his net. The goddesses, who had an inkling of what they would find, decided not to go to Hephaestus’ house. Zeus and Hades also interestingly ignored the craftsman’s call. Yet, many other important male gods curiously wandered over to the house to see why Hephaestus was shouting.

Poseidon, Apollo and Hermes were mentioned by name as having entered the home to see the spectacle inside. The gods in attendance, all except Poseidon, immediately began laughing at the chained lovers on the bed and started cracking jokes about the situation. Between these eruptions of laughter, one of the observers commented:

“The tortoise catches up the hare. See how our
slow-moving Hephaestus has caught Ares, though no god on
Olympus can run as fast. Hephaestus may be lame, but he has
won the day by his cunning.”
(The Odyssey, Book VIII, approximately line 330)

After the other gods had made their jokes, the unimpressed Poseidon finally convinced Hephaestus to release the captives. After the net was undone, the lovers fled Mount Olympus in disgrace, with Ares huffing and puffing off to Thrace and Aphrodite going into self-exile at Cyprus, where the Graces tried to comfort the distressed goddess with gifts of new clothing and oils.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan, painted by Alexandre Charles Guillemot (1786 – 1831), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

Homer

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Homer (flourished c. 700)

“Young people are thoughtless as a rule.”

  • The Odyssey (Book 7, approximately between lines 290-300) by Homer, translated by E. V. Rieu and edited by D. C. H. Rieu. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.

A Dragon Sighting Allegedly Ended The Political Career Of A Han Dynasty Chancellor

By
thehistorianshut
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Zhang Cang was one of the longest serving officials in the early years of the Han Dynasty. He had joined the founder of the dynasty, Liu Bang, during the massive rebellion against the Qin regime, which took place from 209-206 BCE. While Liu Bang was fighting against rival rebels to become the new emperor, a process that took place between 206-202 BCE, he gave Zhang Cang various government positions in his growing realm, such as governor and prime minister. There were, however, even greater appointments in store for Zhang Cang in the coming years. It was after Liu Bang secured the title of Supreme Emperor, thereafter becoming known as Emperor Gaozu, that Zhang Cang would really start to ascend through the Han Dynasty social ladder.

Zhang Cang was granted the title of marquis of Beiping in 201 BCE and a few years later, in 196 BCE, he was also named as the marquis of Huainan. Zhang Cang also became the master of calculation, and, during the reign of Gaozu’s successor, Emperor Hui, he was promoted to the lofty government position of imperial secretary in 193 BCE. He also survived the deadly years of palace intrigue under Empress Dowager Lü (a span of time from 195-180 BCE) to be appointed as chancellor by Emperor Wen in 177 BCE. In short, Zhang Cang was a long-serving government official who had been respected by several generations of emperors. While many other powerful members of the Han court had been removed from power, exiled or executed, Chancellor Zhang had instead achieved decades of steady success. He had such job security that only an otherworldly force could dislodge him from his good fortune. Unfortunately for Zhang Cang, that is exactly what reportedly happened.

One of Zhang Cang’s jobs was to determine how the Han Dynasty aligned with the universe. With this in mind, he had to make findings such as which element the Han Dynasty corresponded to and which color should be honored by the new line of emperors. After studying these matters, Zhang Cang concluded that the Han Dynasty was aligned with the element of water and that the color black should be revered.

In the later part of the chancellor’s career, still during the reign of Emperor Wen, a scholar from the region of Lu published a rebuke against Zhang Cang’s findings in the matter of the Han Dynasty’s element. The scholar, a certain Gongsun Cheng, stated that the Han Dynasty did not correspond to water, but instead was more in line with earth. When Emperor Wen heard of this opposing view, he asked Zhang Cang to look into the matter. Chancellor Zhang, of course, humored the emperor, but quickly denounced Gongsun Chen’s findings to be erroneous and false.

Gongsun Chen, however, had one last finding to publish. He declared that, in proving the validity of his views, he could predict that a dragon would soon be spotted in China. He even specifically proposed that the color of the dragon would be yellow. When the claims reached the capital city, Zhang Cang disregarded these predictions just as he had the others.

Not long after the publication of these statements, Zhang Cang received terrible news. A dragon had reportedly been seen flying above Chenji and, as Gongsun Chen had predicted, it was said to have been yellow in color. When this rumor reached Emperor Wen, he immediately invited Gongsun Chen to join the court and appointed him as a member of the advisory erudite counsel. Once Gongsun Chen entered the government, he began to revise Zhang Cang’s earlier findings, adjusting the calendar and regulations, but doing so with the element of earth as his foundation, instead of water.

The dragon incident dealt an irreparable blow to Zhang Cang’s influence. After Gongsun Chen’s arrival at court, Chancellor Zhang began to distance himself from government life and he finally retired completely around 162 BCE. Even after his departure from government, however, Zhang Cang continued to have good fortune. He spent his peaceful retirement on his estates in the company of hundreds of concubines. He supposedly lived to be over a hundred years old and lost all of his teeth by the end of his life, requiring him to get most of his nutrition from milk. The long-lived marquis breathed his last in 152 BCE, during the reign of Emperor Jing.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Recreation of a Qing dynasty flag (1889-1912), 1889. Details based on Flags of maritime nations. United States. Navy Dept. Bureau of Equipment 1899, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

  • The Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Plutarch

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Plutarch (c. 50-120)

“There is no difference between a friend and a mercenary except that the former is kept by the way he is treated and addressed, and the latter by money.”

  • On Sparta (Life of Cleomenes, section 13), excerpted from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, translated by Richard J. A. Talbert. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.

The Tragically Ironic Mercy Of Lord Ding

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

In 221 BCE, King Zheng of Qin completed his family’s multigenerational conquest of China and became the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Yet, his dynasty had difficulty adapting to peace. Qin’s advantages in times of war—eradication of feudalism, extreme autocratic rule, and the promotion of legalism over religion or moral philosophy—quickly became irksome to the Chinese people when there was no more war to distract the mind. In the end, it was primarily the First Emperor’s fearsome reputation that kept the unhappy population subdued. As a result, in 209 BCE, only one year after the emperor’s death, widespread rebellions sprung up throughout the empire in a mass movement to oust the Qin Dynasty. The rebels succeeded in seizing the Qin capital city by 207 BCE, and the last monarch of the Qin Dynasty (who had demoted himself to the rank of king) was executed by 206 BCE.

The rebellion against the Qin Dynasty was a time of incredible social mobility. It was an age when former nobles and generals were deposed or executed while peasants and swamp bandits became the new generation of kings. Although the Qin emperors had been overthrown and China had been shattered back into a patchwork of kingdoms, few of the new kings could forget the idea of imperial rule. The new kingdoms began to fight amongst themselves, jostling for power in the new order. Eventually, two of the kings—Liu Bang in Han and Xiang Yu in Chu—began to dominate post-Qin China, forcing the other kingdoms to choose a side in an inevitable civil war.

A certain man named Lord Ding chose to fight on the side of Xiang Yu. To the people living in that age, without the benefit of hindsight, Xiang Yu would have, indeed, seemed like a great choice. He had been the commander-in-chief of the rebel forces, and he was the one who granted or affirmed the kingships of the other rebels-turned-monarchs. He was even the one who placed Liu Bang on the throne of Han in 206 BCE. In addition, Xiang Yu was a brilliant military strategist and a warrior with a fearsome reputation. He was also reportedly much more polite and respectful than Liu Bang. Nevertheless, Liu Bang had a clear advantage in one important aspect of rule. Whereas Xiang Yu liked to do everything himself, Liu Bang was adept at recruiting wise advisors and deputizing his followers to accomplish important tasks.

From 205-202 BCE, Liu Bang and Xiang Yu wrestled for supremacy in China. During these years, the king of Han was battered by many defeats as a result of Xiang Yu’s military prowess. In 205 BCE, Liu Bang suffered what was perhaps his most devastating loss, in a battle near Pengcheng, which took place along the Sui River. After the battle, there were so many Han dead in the river that the water reportedly stopped flowing. In the aftermath of the battle, Liu Bang’s family was also captured.

At the time of this catastrophic battle, Lord Ding was an officer in Xiang Yu’s army. He led his force in pursuit of the remnants of Liu Bang’s force, which was retreating back to the west. He reportedly intercepted the fleeing king, or, at least, had the ability to block Liu Bang’s escape. Yet, when he had the defeated king in his grasp, Lord Ding had a change of heart—he was convinced that Liu Bang was a worthy man, so Lord Ding decided to withdraw back to Xiang Yu and allowed the king of Han to slip away and rebuild.

Years later, after Xiang Yu was killed at the decisive Battle of Gaixia in 202 BCE, Lord Ding went to see the man he had spared at Pengcheng. By then, King Liu Bang had become Supreme Emperor and would later be given the posthumous name of Emperor Gaozu, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty. If Lord Ding had been imagining a warm reception with rewards and titles for his past act of mercy, then he must have been quickly disappointed.

Perhaps, if Lord Ding had defected to Liu Bang’s side while the civil war was still ongoing, his fate would have been kinder. Yet, as it was, Emperor Gaozu was now the monarch of a new imperial regime and he had important precedents to set. As such, the emperor was faced with a dilemma when Lord Ding arrived. By rewarding the man, he would in effect be applauding the disloyalty of a vassal to his liege. As a new emperor, Gaozu needed to stamp out any hint of disloyalty or insubordination, even if it had been directed at his old rival, Xiang Yu. Therefore, Emperor Gaozu reportedly had Lord Ding arrested and beheaded as an example of what happens to disloyal nobles.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Fresco of two men from a Han dynasty tomb in Sian, Shensi. Housed in the Xi’an University of Technology. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

  • Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Aristotle

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)

“One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one day. Similarly, neither can one day, or a brief space of time, make a man blessed and happy.”

  • From The Nicomachean Ethics (Bekker number 1098a) by Aristotle, translated by J. A. K. Thomson (Penguin Classics, 2004).

The Private Fossils And Antiques Museum In An Island Villa Of Augustus

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Augustus and his predecessor, Julius Caesar, both were said to have lived surprisingly sober lifestyles. They were reported to have been health fanatics, who dined calculatedly on nutritious food and strictly moderated their alcohol consumption. While they spent lavishly on public works and entertainment, they allegedly kept the furnishings in their own abodes fairly simple. Yet, like all people, Augustus and Julius Caesar had their guilty pleasures. For Caesar, this was women and a dooming curiosity of kingship. As for Augustus—he apparently had a weakness for antiques.

According to the Roman biographer, Suetonius (c. 70-130+), there was a villa on the Italian island of Capraea, located off the Campanian coast, which Augustus cherished greatly. He chose that villa to be the home of various historical or archeological finds that he encountered during his travels around the Mediterranean. In that laidback island environment, nicknamed affectionately ‘Do-Nothing Land’ or ‘Lubberland’, guests could browse through Augustus’ vast collection of rare objects, which supposedly included bones from giants and sea monsters, as well as the weapons and armor of legendary heroes of antiquity.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Photograph from a sculpture art museum, [Public Domain] via maxpixel.net).

Sources:

Anna Komnene

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Anna Komnene  (c. 1083-1153)

“What happens to us at the hands of others should not bring war on those who have done no wrong; and if the war has no just pretext, then all is lost–ships, arms, men, the whole of our military preparation.”

  • From The Alexiad (Book I, section 15) by Anna Komnene, translated by E.R.A. Sewter, (Penguin Classics, 2009).

The Disgraced Ancient Roman Admiral Who Did Not Heed The Sacred Chickens During The First Punic War

By
thehistorianshut
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At the start of the First Punic War (264-241 BCE), Carthage had a pronounced naval advantage over Rome. Yet, in 260 BCE, the Romans utilized their wealth and engineering brilliance to quickly constructed a fleet of warships that could challenge Carthage. The Carthaginians, however, still arguably had better ships and more talented sailors. In response, the Romans devised clever tactics and contraptions to give themselves an advantage over the Carthaginians, such as hooked platforms that could allow Roman marines to attack the crews of Carthaginian ships as if it was a land battle.

Rome’s new fleet and naval tactics quickly proved effective. In 260 BCE, they defeated Carthage in a sea battle at Mylae. This victory allowed them to ferry troops to seize the island of Corsica in 259 BCE. After that, the fleet was confident enough to even sail to the Carthaginian homeland in North Africa, where Rome won two major sea battles, in 256 BCE and 255 BCE respectively, which took place off the coast of Tunisia. When the Roman army, which had followed the fleet to Tunisia, suffered a costly defeat at the hands of the Carthaginians in 255 BCE, the Roman fleet was able to ferry the survivors to safety.

Even though the invasion of Africa had not gone well, Rome’s campaigns in Sicily were coming along smoothly. By 250 BCE, Rome had won a devastating victory over the Carthaginian army in Sicily and besieged the Carthaginian strongholds of Lilybaeum (modern Marsala) and Drepanum (modern Trapani). The Roman navy assisted in these sieges by blockading the regions from the coast and launching raids against vulnerable targets.

Now, having mentioned some of the overwhelming successes of the Roman Navy thus far in the First Punic War, it is time to cue the unfortunate admiral, Publius Claudius Pulcher. He was a Roman consul who was in charge of the fleet in 249 BCE. At the time, the ships under his command allegedly numbered 123 vessels, in total. With this fleet, Claudius Pulcher cornered the Carthaginian navy in the harbor of Drepanum. With the enemy in his clutches, the admiral was faced with the choice between cautiously maintaining a blockade or launching a sudden attack on the Carthaginian ships.

As people from the ancient world often did, Claudius Pulcher watched for omens, or signs of the gods’ will. The biographer, Suetonius (c. 70-130+), wrote about Claudius Pulcher’s pre-battle attempt at divination in his brief history of the Claudii family in the section on Emperor Tiberius, from The Twelve Caesars. According to Suetonius’ account, Claudius Pulcher conveniently had some sacred chickens on his ship, and the behavior of these chickens was thought to reflect the pleasure or displeasure of the gods. Therefore, when the sacred chickens refused to eat their feed, it was interpreted as a bad omen for the battle. By this point, however, Claudius Pulcher, was apparently irreversibly eager to go forward with his assault on the harbor of Drepanum, despite the wise counsel of his sage chickens.

According to Suetonius’ likely-embellished account, Claudius Pulcher expressed his distaste for the sacred chickens’ verdict by allegedly shouting, “If they will not eat, let them drink!” and then impiously had the chickens tossed overboard (The Twelve Caesars, Tiberius, sec. 2). With that, the admiral signaled his ill-fated attack against the harbor of Drepanum. The battle turned out to be just as horrible as the sacred chickens had warned. Of the 123 ships under Publius Claudius’ command, only 30 survived the disastrous battle, including the admiral’s own ship. When Publius Claudius returned to Rome, he was promptly slapped with a huge fine and was even accused of treason. Fortunately, he is known to have lived for a few more years after the notorious incident.

As an interesting side note, Suetonius also wrote about another scandalous incident involving Claudius Pulcher’s sister. According to the tale, the disgraced admiral’s sister was traveling in a carriage through the streets of Rome, when she became thoroughly annoyed at the slow traffic in the city. In a fit of ancient road rage, she allegedly shouted, “If only my brother were alive to lose another fleet! That would thin out the population a little” (The Twelve Caesars, Tiberius, sec. 2). Suetonius claimed that Claudius Pulcher’s sister was consequently tried for treason because of her comments, though he neglected to record how the trial ultimately ended.

Publius Claudius’ blunder at Drepanum caused Rome to lose all of its momentum in the First Punic War. Following the destruction of their navy, the Romans had to scale back their assault on Lilybaeum and Drepanum. In 242 BCE, however, the Romans built a new fleet of a reported 200 ships, with which they were able to assert their naval superiority over Carthage and finally end the First Punic War in 241 BCE.

Written by C. Keith Hansely.

Picture Attribution: (1882 illustration of Publius Claudius Pulcher consulting the sacred chickens during the Punic War, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

Thucydides

By
thehistorianshut
-

 

Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE)

“Different eye-witnesses give different accounts of the same events, speaking out of partiality for one side or the other or else from imperfect memories.”

  • History of the Peloponnesian War (Book I, section 22) by Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner (Penguin Classics, 1972).
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