Art is circular

I don't want to give away my thesis for my summative on Greek Art, but it is quite apparent. We know more about Greek art from its rebirth in the Renaissance, so I've taken all the significant movements since then and compiled them into the only fitting shape - a circle. There's no timeline because people tend to go back and forth, just like in politics. Perhaps a pendulum would be a more fitting metaphor, but I'm sticking with circle. I apologize for my messy writing.

Body without a head, or head without a body?

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. - George Patton

This is another somewhat ambiguous one for Caesar (but still of the three I found most reflective) in regards to his command.
In class we hear about the Caesar's ideology that the Roman army is a large body but it needs one strong leader to play the head role. I'd like to touch upon the fact that, though Caesar is a strong head, none of his movements would have worked if the body of Romans beneath him weren't as tactful themselves as they were. I'd just like to give them as much credit as Caesar himself. Though the body requires the head to figure out the movements, the head requires the body to physically move.

Roman mindset

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him. - General Douglas MacArthur

This could be argued as reflecting Caesar's command, but also against.
I believe it reflects his command because of all his gambles. If the army under him wasn't as revved up as they were, they could have crumbled. Much of this has to do with the Roman mindset of pleasing your general. Caesar inspired them as a whole to force their victory, no matter how unlikely their win would be. If this Roman mindset did not exist, the troops under Caesar would have suffered more losses and his command would not have been so prized.
One could say the Roman mindset actually disproves this quote as a parallel to Caesar's command, for the very reason that, other than a cultural norm, Caesar's gambles would not have succeeded as well, or at all.

Caesar's Role in the Army

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. - Martin Luther King, Jr

Caesar was a gambler on a large scale. Pretty much every move he made was controversial, because the Roman army was outnumbered time after time by his political opponent Pompey's army or from that of other countries. The essay by Adrian Goldsworthy states, "Caesar's operations could have easily ended in disaster." The essay also states that Roman's weren't as brash as one may today be led to believe - the army gambled in a calculated fashion. Though it does seem to me that they gambled no matter what state they were in.
One battle involved a hill, where Caesar was outnumbered by thousands, and yet he fought in such a way that held back portions of the army and intimidated Pompey and his army enough to back off before all of Caesar's army even saw battle. Caesar always stood strong, even when, realistically, he should have regrouped and gotten stronger. His tactic was to forge ahead no matter what, giving off the impression that his army is always ready to fight.

Hobo geniuses?

"The Cynic sect...Extremely antisocial...challenged and exposed the hypocrisy of virtually all civilized institutions...distinguished not so much by their belief in certain doctrines as by their way of life - bearded, wandering, simply dressed, carrying only a pouch and a staff..."

All I could think of when I read this was "raving hobo".
You place someone like that in our modern world, you'd find that when you walk by this person, you'd just pretend they aren't there. You ignore the opinions of someone who doesn't take care of themselves, someone who is enveloped in their complete misanthropy. It's interesting that back then they were a respected "sect".

Dignity

"I will not steal my victory"
- Alexander the Great

That is a great indication of character of Alexander the Great, that he does not consider an unfair fight victory, and he is not in it just for the land.
They had the chance to ambush the Persians the night before the Battle of Gaugamela, but his dignity would not let it happen. It shows he has respect for his opponents, and wants to be a worthy one himself. He prides himself on being able to win without having any sort of advantage.
Really makes you feel he is a great man.

Ambition = madness

The Bacchae - Euripides
"To be clever is not to be wise, and thoughts that go beyond mortal limits spell a short life. In view of this who would pursue great ambitions rather than accept his present lot? These are the ways of madmen, in my verdict, whose wits have left them." - Antistrophe

This is saying that people who push themselves are mad; in other words, Pentheus, who is pushing himself to total ignorant stubbornness just to exert his power, is mad, because he is committing blasphemy. If he just accepted the trend of people worshipping Dionysus, he would have learned the beauty of his rites, and it would have been a merry time for all. To be easygoing is to be stress-free is to be wise, perhaps, in the Bacchic view.

The monster is chilling

"If I cannot satisfy one, I will indulge the other."

Not sure whether or not it was in the book AND the movie, but when seeing it in the movie, it sent chills down my spine. It was the ultimatum given to Frankenstein by the monster, about his two desires: companionship or revenge.
Somehow I think Frankenstein should have just sucked it up and made the female monster. I mean really? Did he not see the pattern of death in his loved ones already?
The monster made it pretty clear what was going to happen - at least in the movie. Frankenstein is fully responsible for all the pain that happened to him, and yet he remained silent and did not reach out for much help at all. DESPICABLE HUBRIS IF I EVER DID SEE IT.

Good people via fear

"It is hard to believe that even a good man would stop himself from stealing and doing all kinds of other bad things, if he knew he would never get caught."

Fear does keep people in check, but that makes society sound scary. It's not so much fear as the norm. It is the norm to obey the laws and do everything you can to stay clean, which puts doing bad things out of your mind. It's just not relevant enough to think about doing.
Add an invisibility ring to this equation and you would, of course, start small. Maybe steal your Tim's coffee if you didn't have the change and were in a hurry. Minor inconveniences would be resolved. And then one day, if you saw someone doing something terrible to the one you love, you may just kill them. But it would take a long time, and, assuming you didn't share the knowledge of the ring with people, "Hey, honey! You won't believe this!" the alienation would be a slow process. But then again, people are more inclined to take personal risks for those they love. People with families can't truly alienate themselves from society.

One, single, lonely man (or woman) with no money, family, and a nasty case of psoriasis would be your likely candidate to turn lethal. I like the "what if" of the origin of evil, because there is no sudden change, it's a slow process that brings circumstances to play that are normally just impossible.

"Give me some light"

I thought about Claudius's quote from Hamlet, how he wanted to see the light, when he was overcome by his guilt. In the case of Hamlet, however, the "light" is a very dark thing, and some type of distraction from it would be the light Claudius was referring to.

What I thought of is the metaphor for light as smarts -- someone who is bright vs. someone who is dim. Just an interesting thought to tie intelligence into the truth concept, because both Hamlet and Claudius were what we would call bright -- conversational wizards. There exists a contrast between they and the rest of the cast, for example, Polonius, who is dim, and would have a hard time seeing the light.

State of mind

"...for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose--a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye."
Robert Walton in Frankenstein, Letter 1.
Mary Shelley

I picked this quote because I was reading the book so steadily; not very involved in the reading, until this quote caught my eye. I agree with this quote.
Slowly working at something you know will eventually be great because of all your time and effort really is tranquillising (tranquilising? I always thought there was only one "L"). I've been working on a painting since the beginning of December, and I experience the same tranquillity every time I work on it.

Unhappiness ages you

The Odyssey
Book 19: Penelope and her Guest

"Odysseus must have feet and hands like his by now--
hardship can age a person overnight." - Penelope

Stress is supposed to be healthy for people, though grief and pain really does age you. Just a neat thought.

Beliefs are mirrored

I thought of my own pithy little idea.
Let's just go with the general understanding that people with more conservative values tend to have religious ones as well, and people with more liberal values tend to be agnostic/atheist.
LET'S JUST SAY THAT. This is the assumption for my little idea.

Liberals think it's so silly that conservatives put their beliefs into religion -- "that could never happen", where conservatives find it so silly that liberals put their beliefs into politics -- "that could never work".

For example, conservatives are typically practical and don't believe in change, so much. They don't have much of a dream for society, they just like to stay the same and believe what they've always believed. They have faith in the familiar.
Alternately, liberals are typically open-minded to new things and advocate change, so they are dreamers in a political sense. They have hope that there will be a flawless system.

You can't stereotype either wing, I know, but it's interesting that each side has its own "silly" belief system that the other side just cannot seem to understand.

When I say conservatives, I do NOT mean neocons, by the way. Think WASP.

Quick and painless vs. slow and painful

The Odyssey
BOOK 12: CATTLE OF THE SUN
pg. 282

Eurylochus - "All ways of dying are hateful to us poor mortals,
true, but to die of hunger, starve to death--
that's the worst of all...
I'd rather die at sea, with one deep gulp of death,
than die by inches on this desolate island here!"

Kurt Cobain (from Neil Young song "Hey Hey, My My", in his suicide note) -
"It's better to burn out than to fade away."

Eurylochos is speaking of the temptation to not suffer, if the same fate is inevitable either way. It's ironic because his fate is sealed once he kills one of Helios's cattle. There is always temptation to "just get it over with", so the slow decline of whatever the case may be, either fame or life, isn't being endured. In both cases, they chose the indulgent way out, something fundamentally selfish, but somewhat understandable in desperate situations.

being at the top

"You've got to climb Mount Everest to reach The Valley of the Dolls. It's a brutal climb to reach that peak. You stand there waiting for the rush of exhiliration. But it doesn't come. You're alone and the feeling of loneliness is overpowering."
- Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls

A metaphor for the terrible thing that is show business. You climb and climb, but once you're at the top, you're completely beaten down. Your life has become fame and fortune, nothing else. All of your relationships disintegrate, and you crawl closer and closer to losing your mind. This is why many who are at the top turn to dolls (pills). You need a doll to wake up, and a doll to fall asleep again. They work faster if you take them with vodka. Your fame becomes infamy, you are referred to as "outrageous", "scandalous" and "messed up". You crack under the pressure and withdraw. Then you slowly fall into obscurity, into the Valley of the Dolls, never to rise again.
Terribly depressing book/movie.

Grief

"What good can come of grief?"
Said at least a couple of times in the tenth book of the Odyssey.

"Only pain makes it grow stronger. Only sorrow makes it kind. Contentment makes it wither, and joy seems to build walls around it. The heart is perverse, and it is cruel."
The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland, page 63.

The first quote reminded me of the second, which again brings into play suffering, and how it is required to achieve greatness. Suffering is healthy for us to grow up, to become wise, to get from point A to point B.
It is not only required for the great, but for the simple. There is no good without evil, there is no appreciation of life without suffering.

What makes one civil?

The Odyssey
BOOK 6: THE PRINCESS AND THE STRANGER

"Man of misery, whose land have I lit on now?
What are they here - violent, savage, lawless?
or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?"

This was spoken by Odysseus, about Nausicaa and her friends, as they are playing ball near the riverbank in which he sleeps. It's interesting to know that religion was, at the time, the number one basis of what would be considered civilized.
Then again, religion, in this story, was a shocking reality. Athena actually might help you if you prayed and sacrificed to her - Zeus actually would make sure you get home safe. In this case, the logical choice would have to be to face the facts and believe in these gods.
Religion, also, made a lot of sense. It really is good to be hospitable, because it helps carry out the golden rule in a much more beneficial way. Religion and respect for the gods is a must in the Odyssey.

Aristocracy is facial

The Odyssey
BOOK 4: THE KING AND QUEEN OF SPARTA

"... Once you've dined
we'll ask you who you are. But your parents' blood
is hardly lost in you. You must be born of kings,
bred by the gods to wield the royal scepter.
No mean men could sire songs like you."

This might suggest that Telemachus and Pisistratus are clean-looking, not unkempt like peasants might be. Then again, I took from this that the aristocracy in Greece at the time was facially apparent, be that a good or bad thing. It's interesting that "blood" can be recognized.

Laugh now, guys

The Odyssey.
BOOK 1: ATHENA INSPIRES THE PRINCE

Lines 184-192
"Look at them over there. Not a care in the world,
just lyres and tunes! It's easy for them, all right,
they feed on another's goods and go scot-free -
a man whose white bones lie strewn in the rain somewhere,
rotting away on land or rolling down the ocean's salty swells.
But that man - if they caught sight of him home in Ithaca,
by god, they'd all pray to be faster on their feet
than richer in bars of gold and heavy robes."

Said by Prince Temelachus to Athena (in the form of or posing as "Mentes")
about the suitors who are trying to forge their way into the family whilst Odysseus is gone.
They laugh and play now, but they wouldn't stand a chance against Odysseus.
Maybe this is foreshadowing, that maybe they'll get what's coming to them.

Gods doling out misery onto mortals..

The Odyssey.
BOOK 1: ATHENA INSPIRES THE PRINCE (pg 78-79)

Line 7-8
"But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove -
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all..."

In reference to Odysseus not being able to save his comrades from disaster.
Natural disaster? Recklessness? Oopsie, I caused a tornado again.
I'm hoping "disaster" means something recklessness actually can cause.

Line 37-40
"Ah how shameless - the way these mortals blame the gods.
From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes,
but they themselves, with their own reckless ways,
compound their pains beyond their proper share."

I'm guessing Poseidon's bringing Odysseus misery would be considered "his proper share", since Poseidon is a god, and gods provide a reasonable amount of misery to the mortals.
Then I read that Odysseus blinded the Cyclops, Poseidon's son, which may be considered recklessness, if it had no good reason behind it. Gods don't really listen to reason anyway, do they? I suppose doing something that might hurt a god would grant yourself a decade of misery. Good thinking, Odysseus.