The Library of Congress

I had a truly special experience yesterday in Washington DC during my first visit to the Library of Congress - the "mother ship" for all book nerds like myself. It's pretty remarkable that I've never visited the "LoC" during any of my various trips to the District, but somehow I had never been there before. To understand the specialness of the experience, I must provide a little background.

Several years ago I started reading the biographies of all U.S. presidents. It's while reading these books that I started to develop my deep appreciation for ancient history. As I've written before, our founding fathers all had a deep knowledge of the ancient world, courtesy of writers such as Pliny, Cicero, Plutarch, Demosthenes, Caesar, Livy and countless others. While reading about our own presidents I witnessed the reality of the deep connection between ancient democracies and republics - Greece and Rome in particular - and the founding of the United States itself.

Jefferson, in particular, was an authoritative expert on the ancients and their literature. He built the largest private library in the New World, much of it collected during his residency in Paris, consisting of several thousand volumes.

During the War of 1812, however, the British burned much of Washington to the ground, including the original Library of Congress. Jefferson, who spent much of his life engrossed in debt, offered to sell his personal book collection to the young United States, forming the nucleus of the new Library of Congress. Although controversial at the time, the deal was struck and Jefferson shipped his volumes from Monticello to the District of Columbia.

The story comes full circle with my visit just yesterday to the LoC. It turns out they have Jefferson's original collection set aside for all to see, laid out in the same manner as originally arranged at Monticello. Shivers went down my spine as I viewed the collection, including the very same volumes mentioned above. The very same Demosthenes that proclaimed the dangers of the rising power of Philip of Macedon; Pliny's personal description of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Jefferson held these very books, read them, and treasured them.

In fact, these are the exact volumes that formed the bridge from ancient experiments in democracy and republic, the exact volumes that Jefferson read and re-read prior to drafting the Declaration of Independence.

That blew my mind. And because it was a beautiful, sunny day in Washington, and I found myself without a cap, I bought what is probably the only Library of Congress hat (see photo) ever sold at the gift shop. Book nerds, be very jealous!

Culture Clash

As I've written before, one of my favorite aspects of history is when different cultures from vastly different regions somehow find themselves in direct contact. Because we tend to learn, study and read about different topics in silos, it strikes me as really interesting when the silos cave in on one another. It's sort of like the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family bumping into one another at the grocery store.

Now I'm running into a similar co-mingling; not across geographies but across different aspects of culture. All of a sudden I'm hearing about it everywhere.

The most recent example has to do with the operas of Mozart, which I'm continuing to study and enjoy. For example, Mozart, born in the middle of the 18th century, is certainly a cultural phenomenon himself. But I had no idea of the content of his opera. His first opera (written at age 11, by the way) entitled Apollo and Hyacinthus is based on the Roman writings of Ovid in his metamorphoses, almost 18 centuries before his time.

It turns out that Mozart, not exactly known for his academic achievements, wrote a lot about historical figures. His opera Mithridate, King of Pontus is based on the actual Mithridates (yes, he was King of Pontus) from Asia Minor, who ruled during the late Roman Republic. Mozart's Lucio Silla is, not surprisingly, based on the Roman General and all-around bad guy Lucius Sulla - though not without wild divergence from the historical facts. There are many other examples which I won't list here.

I'm also reading about similar occurences in the Italian Renaissance, where artists set aside their religious beliefs to rediscover and immortalize the pagan gods of ancient Greece and Rome in their works.

I've also been watching a movie on the life of Marco Polo. A Renaissance Venetian in the middle of Kublai Khan's court in Mongolian China must have been quite a sight, indeed. The fact that he stayed and prospered there for more than a decade is almost unbelievable.

I guess it turns out that cultures have always had a fascination with one another. Granted, much of this culture clash has to do with the idolization of classical civilization. However, I think it actually says more about the education of society. In Mozart's day it was expected that you would know the story of Mithridates. If you didn't, you would have a really boring night at the opera.

Nowadays I could throw a stone in the middle of Times Square and not hit a soul who could tell you if Mithridates was an ancient king, a river in South America, or the nightclub in Hollywood where Lindsey Lohan was recently spotted!

A Victory for Aristotle, Courtesy of Aquinas

I am not an expert in philosophy, or Aristotle, by any stretch of the imagination. But I picked up on something that I find very interesting while reading about the great medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas. He is considered one of the great Scholastics - devoted to the practice of proving Christianity through logical argument and reason. This was pretty radical thinking for the time; the Church actually condemmed much of his writings at the time as heretical, even though he was on the Church's side of the argument.

Without getting into the complexity of Aquinas' reasoning, I just want to point out that it was largely based on the writings of Aristotle, the classical Greek philosopher who lived some 1600 years before. The Church, in fact, cited this as part of the reason that it couldn't accept Aquinas' own writings. I have to admit it doesn't seem like a good idea for the Church to want to rest it's legitimacy on the foundation of writings which predate Jesus' own life by three centuries.

But that's where it gets really weird. Although the Church wasn't thrilled with Aquinas during his lifetime, in time it changed its mind. In fact, in 1921 Pope Benedict XV officially decreed Aquinas' writings as the official philosophy of the Catholic Church (while, admittedly, indicating that his works were not exactly free from error). Now that's an about-face!

Net-net, the "official philosophy" of the Catholic Church is largely based upon the philosophy of one of the greatest Pagans of all time. Let's just agree that Aristotle was a little ahead of his time!

Lastly, and completely unrelated to the above, I just wanted to highlight this little quote from Thomas Aquinas:

"Of all human pursuits the pursuit of wisdom is the most perfect, the most sublime, the most profitable, the most delightful."

St. Thomas Aquinas

From Summa contra Gentiles, i, I

As quoted in The Age of Faith by Will Durant, page 972.

Ancient Globalisation

I just read a fascinating article in Minerva Magazine that gets to the root of one of my favorite topics, the inter-relationships of vastly different cultures from the past. The article, entitled "Ancient Globalisation" by Roberta Tomber, summarizes her book "Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepper."

It seems there was a tremendous amount of trade between the Roman and Indian peoples from the 1st century BC through the 5th century AD. As the name suggests, the book cites the finding and study of pepper and pots that have been discovered recently on the African and Indian continents.

In fact, so many pots made the journey from India to the African coastal city of Myos Hormos that the broken pottery was used to make a jetty into the Red Sea. Ancient recycling at its finest.

We typically study cultures in silos, while forgetting that they existed at the same time. We hear of the wars that are fought, but not the trade, travel, diplomacy, migration and other co-mingling that took place on a daily basis. Who knew that the Romans loved pepper so much that they had it important from a world-away?

I'm reminded of one of my favorite movie scenes, one that played an early role in luring my to the world of history. There is a scene in Anna & the King where the King of Siam receives diplomatic correspondence from then-President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The king had previously written Lincoln to ask for military assistance, a request which the President had to cordially deny.

This interplay immediately struck me as fascinating... Who would have thought that President Lincoln, literally on the other side of the planet and entrenched in a bit of a war of his own, would have had diplomatic relations and correspondence with the King of Siam?

It seems that the world has been globalized for a long time indeed.

GreekFest 2009

My wife and I just came back from the annual Greek Festival at a nearby Orthodox Christian church. Ever since going to Greece in 2004 we've often enjoyed Greek culture and food, and today was no exception.

From my perspective, that of an amateur enthusiast of ancient Greek history and culture, the modern celebration always seems a little funny. It's an odd mix of secular and non-secular, ancient and modern. There are obvious references to ancient culture (the village of shops and vendors is called the "Agora") while the food and drink is more recent. They even serve my favorite Greek beer, appropriately called Mythos.

The event is almost exclusively non-religious, openly welcoming all, regardless of creed. Everyone enjoys the Greek food, music, local dancers and a stroll through the Agora. A nice extra touch, however, is the opportunity to take a half-hour church tour. Plenty of folks, including my wife and I, enjoyed the chance to see the beautiful interiors of the Byzantine church, while learning a little about its history and distinctions from Western beliefs and practices.

We left with the obligatory box of Greek pastries, one of which I'm eating right now. It's hard to imagine a better excuse to take in a little culture!

Appreciating Ancient Islam

I know that I'm one of the few Westerners that desperately wants to visit all of the countries of the Middle East. I can hear it now, "Why would anyone want to go there?"

For me it's because the Islamic world offers a glimpse into such an unexpectedly rich past. "For five centures, from 700 to 1200, Islam led the world in power, order, and extent of government, in refinement of manners, in standards of living, in humane legislation and religious toleration, in literature, scholarship, science, medicine, and philosophy" (Source: The Age of Faith, Will Durant, p. 341).

I've read volumes on the subject, and it's simply awesome what these people did at such an early age. The fact is, ancient Islam during this period represents the height of civilization and culture, comparable to any in history.

For example, only at the peak of Alexandria's prominence under the Ptolemies were books held in such a similarly high repute. Patrons exhausted fortunes to build tremendous libraries, and engaged agents to travel the known world to acquire rare and important volumes. And by the way, they read these books.

Poetry, interestingly, was written by virtually all. Caliphs and commoners alike took the time to write poetry on a daily basis, share it with one another, and outdo their colleagues in eloquence, wit and wisdom.

A little known fact is that we owe much of the extant Plato, Aristotle and many other classical writings to Islamic bibliophiles who translated them into Arabic. While the dark ages shrouded Europe, leaving its libraries to destruction and decay, the courts of Baghdad, Cairo, Moorish Spain and countless other cities held such writings in great esteem. The Renaissance welcomed the Arabic texts back across the Mediterranean, translating them into a variety of European languages.

Medicine, science, astronomy, philosophy, architecture and art all experienced similar apogees in ancient Islam.

What I wouldn't give to experience these cultures in their original, living glory. Modern politics aside, these were, and are, amazing cultures, far more worthy of exploration than the most popular tourist destinations of our time. They're vastly different places now, but every bit as fascinating.

Minerva Magazine

During a recent visit to the Michael C. Carlos museum at Emory University I discovered a magazine, entitled Minerva, that I'm really excited about. With my birthday approaching I didn't hesitate to ask for a gift subscription. My father obliged and I just received the first copy.

Billed as The International Review of Ancient Art & Archaeology, it's right up my alley. The bulk of the content consists of detailed reviews on upcoming museum exhibits, from all around the world, that focus on ancient art and archaeology. Minerva is presented with full page glossy photography, and appears to be geared towards those with a serious interest - as opposed to your typical history buff - in ancient history.

Topics in this initial issue include Buddhist Gandhara in Bonn, Babylon at the British Museum (which my wife and I are going to miss by less than one week during our upcoming trip!), Terracotta and Demons in Ancient Egypt, and Etruscans in Rome.