1,092 words
Ezra Pound: “Make it new!”
The great monologist Jean Shepherd used to remark, “In four thousand years, no one will know that you ever existed.” This statement is shocking for modern man, who — while not believing in an immortal soul — is convinced that technological advances will soon grant immortality to his physical being. Mortality might come as a shock to deracinated modern man — who is never more than a few feet away from a hand sanitizer or a “safe zone” to protect him from the challenges of bacteria or differing opinions — yet this was not always the case. Read more …
Edited by Robert B. Strassler
Religious Piety in Sparta & Rome
Augustus as Pontifex Maximus
1,847 words
As (post-)Christian moderns, we are twice handicapped in trying to understand the religions of the ancient pagan states such as Sparta and Rome. Where we tend to think of religious belief as universalistic, other-worldly, monolatrous, and dogmatic, ancient paganism was particularistic, world-embracing, polytheistic (almost ecumenical), and non-dogmatic (but ritualistic). Read more …