King Alfred the Great (King of Wessex, r. 871-899)
“Wisdom, humility, caution, moderation, justice, mercy, discretion, constancy, benevolence, chastity and temperance. With these anchors you should fix in God the cable so that it will hold the ship of your mind.”
Ancient Greece, like too many cultures throughout history, sadly often portrayed womankind as a negative influence on the human race. According to ancient Greek myth, as told by Hesiod, the first human woman was created soon after Prometheus gave the gift of fire to mankind, which, at the time, was apparently exclusively male. Prometheus’ gift infuriated the other deities. Zeus, the king of the gods, particularly had never wanted humans to obtain fire, with its many essential benefits. Therefore, Zeus decided to mitigate Prometheus’s blessing on mankind by unleashing a secret weapon upon the earth—women.
According to the story, Zeus brought his plans to the best craftsman among the gods, Hephaestus, who personally constructed the first of all women. The woman was then brought before the gods, who began to bestow upon her numerous traits and gifts. Athena taught her how to sew and weave. Aphrodite showed her how to be graceful and flirtatious. Hermes, encouraged by Zeus, taught her how to speak with a silver tongue, as well as how to be shameless, cunning, mischievous and bold. As for tangible gifts, Athena outfitted the woman with silver clothing and an elaborately designed veil. The Graces draped a gold necklace around her neck and the gods gave her multiple garlands of fresh flowers. The most glorious gift, however, was from Hephaestus, who presented the woman with a crown of gold that, like much of his work, was immediately recognized as a masterpiece. With all the gifts and skills distributed, Zeus named the woman Pandora, which translates approximately to “All-endowed” or “All-gifts.”
With Pandora trained, outfitted and named, Zeus decided to send her as a bride to Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus, a deity who was not known for being too bright. Before Pandora left to meet with her husband-to-be, the gods each gave the bride a wedding present, all of which were stored in a jar.
When Hermes dropped off Pandora at Epimetheus’ abode, the god was utterly smitten. Despite being warned earlier by his brother, Prometheus, never to trust a gift from Zeus, Epimetheus gratefully accepted Pandora as his bride. Sometime after that fateful decision was made, Pandora opened the jar that had been given to her by the gods. According to Hesiod, once Pandora’s jar was opened, all sorts of evils and wicked spirits poured out of the container to envelop the earth and sea, causing the many woes that plague mankind. Later stories claimed that the jar had contained unimaginable blessings that, once released from the jar, would never be granted on mankind. Interestingly, Hope was the only blessing that supposedly clung to Pandora’s jar and remained inside.
Many people in the modern day think that the mythological Pandora was given not a jar, but a box. This amusing error in translation is believed to have first originated in, or was popularized by, the writings of Desiderius Erasmus in the 15th century. It must be admitted that “Pandora’s Box” does have a certain dramatic ring to it, but nevertheless, Pandora’s original box was indeed a jar.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture attribution: (Three scenes depicting Pandora and her cursed container, illustrated by Walter Crane (1845-1915), all [Public Domain] via Creative Common).
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Chuang Tzu / Zhuangzi (370/369 – 287/286 BCE)
“You begin with what is comfortable and never experience what is uncomfortable when you know the comfort of forgetting what is comfortable.”
By 896, King Alfred the Great (r. 871-899) was considered the leader of all Anglo-Saxons in England that had survived the persistent Scandinavian invasions of Britain during the 9th century. At the beginning of his reign, King Alfred had little time to do anything but keep his Kingdom of Wessex from collapsing under the onslaught of Viking armies. Yet, over time, he eventually set in motion programs that would improve the defensibility of his kingdom against the Viking raids, which could appear with little warning from the sea or from Scandinavian-controlled regions in Britain, such as Northumbria and East Anglia.
Alfred successfully increased the security of his realm by constructing a network of defensive fortifications in his kingdom and reorganizing his military. Under the new military scheme, if an invader entered Alfred’s domain in the south or west of England (as well as some of Wales), then garrisons of Anglo-Saxon forces would never be too far way. Even if the individual garrisons found that they could not defeat the Vikings forces by themselves, they could still play a vital role by bogging down the enemy until friendly troops arrived to better the odds. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, not all of Alfred’s defenses were in place when a great Viking army arrived from mainland Europe and landed in the region of Kent, England. Even so, King Alfred’s defensive network was successful—he was able to constantly pursue the Vikings, drawing them into multiple battles and sieges in 893 and 894 at places such at Farnham, Benfleet, Buttingham, Wirral and Chichester. None of the battles led to a total defeat of the Viking forces, but the fighting was consistent and persistent enough to give the Vikings some real concerns. The defenses were effective enough to convince the frustrated Viking armies to withdraw from Alfred’s kingdom in 896 and head instead for safer parts of Britain or continental Europe.
Despite the dispersal of the major Viking force to seek out softer targets, or to settle down in the Scandinavian-held lands in England (known as the Danelaw), small raids continued to be a problem for the coastlines and islands under King Alfred’s control. Alfred, however, had an answer to this—he decided to fight fire with fire. Or more appropriately, he fought water with water. To respond to the Viking threat, King Alfred developed his own modified fleet of Anglo-Saxon longships. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, these vessels were twice as long as their average Scandinavian counterpart, as well as faster, taller and more stable on the water.
One of the several unnamed chroniclers who worked on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded one of the earliest naval battles between a small Viking fleet and a contingent of the new English longships. As the chronicler told it, six Vikings ships ravaged the Isle of Wight and the southern coast of England in 896. When King Alfred heard of the raid, he dispatched nine of his own longships to hunt down the Vikings. Before the year was done, the Anglo-Saxon fleet found and blockaded the Vikings in an unknown estuary and awaited surrender or battle.
This particular band of Vikings must not have had much respect for Alfred’s longships, as only three ships (half of the Viking force) sailed out to challenge the blockade—the rest remained behind, beached in the estuary. One of the Viking ships actually succeeded in punching through the Anglo-Saxon blockade and managed to escape, although most of the crew on that ship was injured while accomplishing that feat. The other two Viking ships, however, were less successful. Alfred’s sailors captured them without too much difficulty and the Viking crews were executed.
Yet, all did not go well for the Anglo-Saxon sailors. Alfred’s men must have still been in the process of learning how best to operate their new ships, for every single one of the nine English longships apparently ran aground in the shallow waters of the estuary while they chased after the one Viking ship that broke through the blockade. Six of the Anglo-Saxon ships became stuck near the mouth of the estuary. The other three remaining Anglo-Saxon ships, however, found themselves unfortunately stranded right beside the Vikings that had remained on the beach.
With crewmen from three Viking longships and three Anglo-Saxon longships all squeezed onto a beach together, a bloody battle quickly erupted—one in which the Vikings emerged battered, but victorious. The wounded Vikings then set sail on their three ships while the rest of the grounded Anglo-Saxon crewmen could only watch in frustration as the Vikings left the estuary. The surviving English ships were stuck until the high tide thankfully lifted their ships off the riverbed.
The Vikings who survived the battle on the beach apparently suffered severe injuries during the fighting. The crews of two out of the three Viking ships from the beach evidently were so wounded that they lost their ability to sail. According to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, the ships belonging to the two worst injured Viking crews washed up in Sussex. The unfortunate wounded Vikings inside those ships were quickly captured by the locals and hauled back to King Alfred, who had the raiders summarily hanged.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Nicholas Roerich “Guests from Overseas”. From the series “Beginnings of Rus’. The Slavs.” 1901, cropped, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE)
“‘Slow’ and ‘cautious’ can equally well be ‘wise’ and ‘sensible.’ Certainly it is because we possess these qualities that we are the only people who do not become arrogant when we are successful, and who in times of stress are less likely to give in than others.”
Cassius Dio (Roman statesman and historian, c. 163-235)
“Keep your weapons always ready to hand, but do not use them either against one another or against those who are at peace.”
From the Parthenon in the Acropolis to Plato’s Academy, one mountain provided most of the marble that gave Athens its iconic look—Mount Pentelicus. During ancient times, there may have been as many as 25 quarries on the south slope of the mountain, producing carved blocks of exquisite white Pentelic marble for use in the city of Athens. To accentuate the relationship between the mountain and the city of Athens, a sanctuary to the goddess, Athena, was housed at the summit of Mount Pentelicus.
The Pentelic marble that was used in places such as the Acropolis in Athens would have been requisitioned from a quarry on Mount Pentelicus, or from the surrounding town of Penteli. After the stone was mined, it was hauled—presumably by mules, ramps and pulleys—until it reached the construction site. An estimated 20,000 tons of marble from Mount Pentelicus was moved to Athens by this method for the construction of the Parthenon. The blocks of marble that made up the Parthenon were placed upon a limestone foundation and held together by iron clamps (sealed with molten lead) and wooden pins, for added earthquake resistance.
Although quarrying on the southern slope of Mount Pentelicus was banned in Greece during the 1960, mining is still active in other regions. Historical preservationists and restorers have taken advantage of this—newly quarried blocks of Pentelic marble are being used to keep the ancient structures of Athens standing tall and proud.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture attribution: (The Acropolis at Athens painted by Leo von Klenze (1784–1864), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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The reign of King Wu of Qin was unlike any of those that had come before him. King Wu was the second ruler of the state of Qin to hold the lofty title of “king,” the first being his father, King Huiwen. Upon the death of his father around 310 BCE, King Wu ascended to the throne of a kingdom that had been continuously gaining influence and strength. The feats of this interesting king were thankfully recorded for us by the father of Chinese history, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE).
King Wu was described as a particularly strong and fit man of impressive size and stature. As you might expect, he favored people who shared his enthusiasm for fitness, bringing some of the mightiest people of Qin into his inner circle. King Wu and his muscular followers made impressive gains in the first years of the king’s rule. Some government reforms were introduced, such as exchanging the preexisting office of prime minister (xiang) with that of a chancellor (chengxiang). And, as can be expected from the Warring States Period, King Wu led the forces of Qin to victory in numerous wars against several rival states. In keeping with the ruthlessness of the time, King Wu (according to Sima Qian) gruesomely had tens-of-thousands of heads decapitated during those wars, with 60,000 men supposedly losing their heads during a campaign in the region of Yiyang.
When the king had free time between going to war and decapitating his enemies, King Wu allegedly enjoyed competing in tests of strength with his well-built companions. Around 307 or 306 BCE, King Wu was said to have challenged one particular bodybuilder named Meng Yue to a cauldron-lifting contest. It is unknown who went first in the contest, but Meng Yue faced no difficulty in the task. When King Wu stepped up to the heavy cauldron, his promising reign came to a crushing end—while lifting the weighty container, one of King Wu’s legs gave way and his knee-cap completely broke under the force.
Sima Qian wrote that King Wu died eight months after the odd incident, but did not state clearly if the king’s death was directly a consequence of the ill-fated contest. Nevertheless, it is telling that when the king died, the strongman Meng Yue was immediately put to death, along with his whole family.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture attribution: (King Wu lifting cauldron (aka rubbing of Shihuangdi, Han Dynasty gentlemen and photograph of a Chinese cauldron, in front of a scene by Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145)), all [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)
“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”
After the death of King Leonidas in the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE) during the Greco-Persian Wars, the fallen king’s nephew, Pausanias, became the regent ruler of the Agiad Dynasty of Sparta. He went on to lead the Greek coalition land forces to victory against the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea one year later.
After that, Pausanias continued his exploits, landing troops in Cyprus and later seizing Byzantium from Persian control. Yet, during this time, rumor began to spread throughout Greece, painting Pausanias as an arrogant and tyrannical man who had no sense of humility and was planning to gain tremendous personal power. His supposed donation of a tripod to the Oracle of Delphi that was loftily inscribed with his own name was seen as one of many confirmations of his poor character. Even worse, Pausanias was charged with conspiring with Persia against the Greeks.
Whether the rumors were entirely true or not, the authorities back in Sparta were displeased with the negative image that Pausanias was acquiring. They had disliked his celebrity behavior after his victory in the Battle of Plataea, but now that there were charges of tyranny and treason involved, Sparta recalled its controversial general and had him give a defense against the accusations. After delivering his side of the story, Pausanias was found innocent, but just to be safe, he was stripped of his military command.
Pausanias returned to Byzantium in an unofficial capacity, where he supposedly began to adopt some aspects of Persian culture, including wearing Persian clothing. When Athens eventually forced him out of Byzantium, Pausanias fled to the city of Colonae (modern Kolonai) in the region of Troad, Anatolia. When the continued reports of collusion with Persia persisted, Sparta called Pausanias back home, once again, where he was acquitted of another charge of treason. Between 470-465 BCE, however, Pausanias was accused of supporting or inciting the Helot (serf laborers) Revolt, which threatened Sparta’s economy and social hierarchy. Commentators from that period had mixed assessments of Pausanias’ guilt. The father of history, Herodotus (490-425/420 BCE) doubted the validity of the accusations and generally presented Pausanias in a positive light. Herodotus’s most talented immediate successor, Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE), on the other hand, never hinted at having any doubts about the proposed charges.
Whatever the truth, the accusations were convincing enough for the Spartan authorities to send a force to arrest Pausanias. The controversial general, however, saw his would-be captors, and fled to the acropolis of Sparta, where he took shelter in the temple of the Goddess of the Brazen House, a local place of worship to Athena. Rather than go into the temple in pursuit of Pausanias, the Spartans walled up the temple and deprived the man holed up inside of all food and water. The former war hero and the countrymen sent to arrest him continued their standoff for several more days, with neither side giving way. The starved Pausanias was only removed from the temple when he was on the verge of death, and, according to the legend, he died immediately after he was pulled from the sanctuary.
Interestingly, once news of the death of Pausanias spread throughout Greece, the lofty religious leadership at Delphi sided with the deceased general against Sparta. Delphi convinced Sparta to give Pausanias a hero’s funeral near the temple of the Goddess of the Brazen House and the oracle also announced that Sparta had unleashed a curse by sacrilegiously starving a man to death in sacred ground.
Written by C. Keith Hansely.
Picture attribution: (“Dying warrior” (Trojan styled), figure E-XI of the east pediment of the Temple of Aphaia, ca. 490-480 BC, cropped for social media, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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