Stories or Questions?

        One of the long standing questions man has always asked is " how do we teach the next generation?" The importance of education is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago at the dawning of civilization. That question is in fact one that both Homer and Plato have a great influence on.  During the days of Ancient Greece, Homer's The Illiad, was so popular many people say it was the single most important book to the Greek world.  This book is filled with the tales of the fall of Troy and the gods and heroes who were there to see it all happen. It is a story driven work, where lessons of warrior ethics, honor, tradition, respect of the gods, etc. are taught. On the other hand we have the works of Plato.  Plato advised his readers to not look to these stories that taught bad moral lessons, such as war is good, throwing a temper tantrum like Achilles is okay, and rampant promiscuity ( Zeus style) is not a problem. 

     The question is more complicated than just which one is right however.  While it is easy to agree that promoting temper tantrums and promiscuity are bad,  Plato's side of the argument goes on to encourage the scrapping of books like The Illiad altogether as books used in education.   If you ever read stories from the Bible you will find that often there are bad things that happen. The writer's however, do not cut these out, but leave them in as examples of how NOT to behave!

     If we look at style we see that Homer is a writer of epic poetry. Tales that tell a really good story with morals included. We learn from the facts presented and draw the pre-determined conclusions. This style is  bit different from Plato's however, as he uses the Socratic Method, named after his teacher, Socrates.  This method is all about asking the student questions and over a period of time challenging their very views by allowing them to reach conclusions on their own. A.k.a. not being directly told all of the answers.

While Greeks love their Plato and Homer, most Americans prefer Play-Doh and the philosophy of Homey the Clown. What "Homey don't play that!"

This leads us to the end of this entry. Should we teach in stories like the days of old, or should we guard what is taught, and teach the students to think Socratically?  Alternatively, maybe there is a middle of the road route.....What do you think?
     
-Jason

How to Make a Good Story With Honey Part II

     A story by Xenophon. Xenophon, was an Athenian who lived right after the glory years of the "Golden Age of Athens." He was a friend and student of Socrates, noted for his generalship, horse-riding abilities and his works of history. While he was a soldier, he was part of a Greek mercenary band called, The Ten Thousand, who were hired to help a Persian prince named Cyrus the Younger (no relation to Cyrus the Great) over throw his brother's army and become king himself.  There was a great battle in modern day Iraq and Cyrus' forces, led by the Greeks won the day, but Cyrus was killed in the battle. With the mercenary pay master dead, the Greeks began a long march home that took them almost two years. This long and arduous journey is chronicled in Xenophon's book The Anabasis: The March of the Ten Thousand.

     The honey story occurs on this trip home in the modern day country of Turkey.   Here is Xenophon talking about what they found.

"Now for the most part there was nothing here which they really found strange; but the swarms of bees in the neighborhood were numerous, and the soldiers who ate of the honey all went off their heads, and suffered from vomiting and diarrhea, and not one of them could stand up, but those who had eaten a little were like people exceedingly drunk, while those who had eaten a great deal seemed like crazy, or even, in some cases, dying men.  So they lay there in great numbers as though the army had suffered a defeat, and great despondency prevailed. On the next day, however, no one had died, and at approximately the same hour as they had eaten the honey they began to come to their senses; and on the third or fourth day they got up, as if from a drugging".

     Apparently the soldiers had been poisoned by Grayanotoxins, a substance found in rhododendrons, azaleas and similar plants that do not bother the bees, but do bother humans. While they are not common, neither are they rare. The Black Sea area is probably one of the most well known areas where this is a problem and stories from the Greeks, Romans, and even much later are known to historians.  One such example comes from the late Roman Republic. There was a famous general known as Pompey, who led a Roman legion into a war versus a rival. This country was war-like, but far inferior to Rome and their king, Mithridates, knew it.  Mithridates kingdom was near the area where Xenophon's story had taken place and according to the story, Kateuas, one of Mithridates' advisers recalled the story of the Ten Thousand and convinced the king to retreat through this area, being careful not to eat the honey. This they did, but when Pompey and the Romans went through they decided to eat the honey and soon the whole army went into drunken convulsions.  While the Roman's lay paralyzed, Mithridates returned and massacred them.

It could be laced with poisonous honey!

     The last two posts have shown honey as medicine, as a metaphor, and as a poison.  However, honey is merely an example of how a writer can take the mundane and create rich patterns in their stories. It is fascinating to think that something as simple as this can be used in a multitude of ways to facilitate a better and more vibrant story arc....and let's be honest, isn't different and more creative what a writer should be striving after?

-Jason
  
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How to Make a Good Story With Honey Part I

  You don't think of the ancient world when you think about honey, but maybe you would if you knew some of its better stories.  Practically all early cultures used honey, whether for eating or ritual ceremonies. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Chinese all used this bee product quite liberally. Today, I would like to present a couple of accounts of honey in stories to show how something as mundane as this can be used to build up a good story.  First we will look at honey as a healing power and then we will look at honey as a metaphor.

     The Kalevala  by Elias Lonnrot, is considered by many as one of the greatest works of Finnish literature. It is a work of epic poetry composed in the the 1830's that tells of creation, magic and other things associated with Norse Epic Poetry.  One of the main figures in the poem is Wainamoinen, a hero figure who was probably a shaman. The following is a piece of the Kalevala dealing with honey.

There were nine diseases in Northland:
"Colic, Pleurisy and Fever,
Ulcer, Plague and dread Consumption,
Gout, Sterility and Cancer."
Wainamoinen, "the wise and wonderful enchanter", hastens to his people's rescue.
"Wainamoinen heats the bathrooms,
Heats the blocks of healing sandstone
With the magic wood of Northland
Gathered by the sacred river.
Then a honey heat he wakens,
Fills the rooms with healing vapors."
Then he prays to Ukko, the Great Spirit of Finland:
"On the heated blocks of sandstone
May the water turn to honey 
Laden with the balm of healing.
Send us mingled rain and honey,
Balsam from the great physician
To remove this plague of Northland."
The "eternal wise enchanter" then:
"Rubbed his sufferers with balsams
Rubbed the tissues, red and painful,
With the balm of healing flowers
Balsams made of herbs enchanted."
"The eternal wisdom singer
Thus expelled the nine diseases
Healed the tribes of Kalevala
Saved his people from destruction."

Here is a picture of Wainamoinen in despair because he was untimely born in the 1800's far too late for a good Norse Hero. Don't worry bud, you still get to save your people and dance in the rain that is mingled with honey!

     The poem above lets you see how honey is a primary emphasis of the  passage lending extra flavor to the text. That is the medicinal use, but let us now move on to the metaphor.

      The first Spanish Bible, published in 1569 is often called "The Bear Bible" because the image on the front is a bear reaching into a honey comb to get the sweet honey out. The image is a comparison of God's word being sweet like honey, encouraging the reader to reach in to pull out that sweetness.  That's number 2....a metaphor for digging deeper.  The thing that stands out in my mind is how multifaceted things we consider mundane can be when used properly.  The next entry, "How to Make a Good Story With Honey Part II" will be a Greek source that uses our favorite bee product in a third way.  Maybe the next time you get to write a story you can think of creative ways to use seemingly mundane topics to flavor your work.

-Jason

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The Venerable Bede

      There was a time when England was not called by that name. The people who inhabited that land were called the Britons and they had been part of the Roman Empire since the first century AD.  The problem came when Rome began to lose her grip on the empire.  Sometime around the year 410 Rome pulled all of her soldiers out of the island and despite the cries of protest from the Britons, that era was now over. The funny thing about leaving a large area completely unprotected is that other people decide to go there. Soon three groups of Germanic people (the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes) moved across the sea from Germany into Britain, bringing with them a culture we call Anglo-Saxon. Yes, the poor Jutes got snubbed.

    As civilization and writing began to dissipate across western Europe, there was one group who picked up the torch. This group was the Catholic Church; specifically the monastic communities of monks and nuns. Ireland and England became hot beds of learning within monasteries, and probably the prime example of an enlightened monk was the Venerable Bede. Some time around 731 A. D. Bede wrote the book The Ecclesiastical History of the English People which told the history of Britain from the invasion of Julius Caesar (54 B.C.) to his present day. This history was both political and religious, and is considered one of the finest historical works of the Middle Ages.  He is probably the most important source we have for early English history and so influences the way everyone thinks of the island.



Why did Bede leave us this large historical account? Let's look at his own words from the beginning of his book.
  
    "For if history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to imitate what is good; or if it records evil of wicked men, the good, religious reader or listener is encouraged to avoid all that is sinful and perverse, and to follow what he knows to be good and pleasing to God."

     The reason Bede is a Patriarch of Story is because his influence is so wide, but the reason he wrote to begin with is because he believed history taught us how to behave.  He was a moralist, a man who thought history should be taught because it is a series of lessons on how to live our lives. Something Plutarch,  a Roman writer was famous for in his biographies of famous Greeks and Romans (who will probably get his own blog entry at some point.)

Why do they call me Venerable you ask? Because it sounds awesome!

     Bede however, was not totally boring as you would expect something called The Ecclesiastical History of the....Zzzzzzzzzz! Here is my gem of interesting for you today.


"No reptiles are found there (in Ireland), and no snake can live there; for, though snakes are often carried there out of Britain, as soon as the ship comes near the shore, and the scent of the air reaches them, they die. On the contrary almost all things in the island are effective against poison."

Many people know the story of St. Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland,  but according to Bede the air is so good there they just kill over! Every good history book needs things magically dieing from potent smell!....And that's my message for you aspiring writers out there. Put more stench in your story!

-Jason

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Sling For Your Supper

     One little mentioned aspect of the ancient world was a practice called slinging. The only story that I can even think of that most people would know is the story of David and Goliath. The shepherd boy versus the giant! Who will win? Well we know David chose his five stones and one of them found Goliath's head. However, is slinging just a shepherd weapon? A weapon archaic even for that period of time? If we are to properly explore slinging we must travel to the other side of the Mediterranean Sea to a little group of islands south of Spain called the Balearic Islands.

      The first large outside power to interact with the Balearic Islands was Phoenicia, the early sea-faring traders of the Mediterranean, inner sea world. Thus it comes as no surprise that when the Carthaginians (who were the successors of Phoenicia) went to war with Rome during the Punic Wars we would see the Balearic Slingers in the Carthaginian armies. 

     Strabo, a Greek geographer, who lived in the Roman Empire during the time of Emperor Augustus writes a little about them. "They went into battle ungirt, with only a small buckler, and a javelin burnt at the end, and in some cases tipped with a small iron point; but their effective weapons were their slings, of which each man carried three, wound round his head".

     Now some accounts have the three slings more evenly dispersed such as: one around the head, one around the body and one around the arm.  These slings would have been different sizes and used to launch stones to a large variety of distances.  Probably not the most stylish of outfits to say the least. Diadorus Sicilus, a Roman historian, tells us another great Balearic Islands story. He says that when a boy was old enough to use a sling, (think probably in the neighborhood of 5) his mother would take his food and place it on top of a pole high enough so the boy could not reach it. Then the boy would have to learn how to knock it off with  a sling if he wanted to eat. Tough love or way to cool of a story to be true? Isn't that always the question when it comes to history? When something is that cool, how can it be true? Well, the short answer is we can't know, but remember this is the ancient world where Spartans left their unwanted babies out in the cold, Carthaginians sacrificed their children to Baal, and being a soldier was a way of life for most men in most societies.  Okay I feel better now that I have had that tangent. Lets go back to the rocks.

     While stones were very effective, capable of bashing shields and helmets in; what was even more effective was lead bullets. Certain groups would use these chunks of lead in their slings to achieve even further reach than a bow would shoot, and reaching speeds of  around 60 miles an hour. While that is fascinating; maybe the most interesting thing about these bullets for modern people however, was the graffiti. Phrases like "Take that!" "This is Yours!" "Pain!" and references to impregnation and sexual innuendos have all been found written on these stones. Why kill a guy with a rock when you can kill him AND taunt his friend?

-Jason

I'm thinking my rock will say this. How about you? Time to think up your first Balearic Rock Taunt!

 

 

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Wouldn't You Like to Find Atlantis?

     When most people think of Plato they think philosophy. Maybe they think of his book The Republic or they think of him starting the Academy of Athens.  He was a brilliant intellect, a student of Socrates, and later a mentor to Aristotle. This guy had one nice pedigree! By the time of Plato, Athens was the intellectual capital of Greece if not the whole  Mediterranean world. How many other writers can claim the distinction of having multiple schools of thought named after him? ( Platonists, Middle-Platonists, and Neo-Platonists) Notice that I never said you have to be good at naming things to be a philosopher.  Yet despite these over-flowing accolades, there is still a group of people who are driven crazy by Plato....the archaeologists.

    You see, Plato was also the guy who first started talking about this "totally real place"  called Atlantis.  The thing is, while most people consider Atlantis to never have existed there is always that chance that it is true. If you are an archaeologist exploring the bottom of the ocean for instance, how could you not hope that you find something that says "Atlantis" on it?  The idea of finding a place that was previously considered mythological is the pipe dream of the archaeologist, historian, explorer etc. It really got started when Henrich Schliemann read Homer's The Illiad and decided that even though people thought Troy was not a real place, he was going to go find it. It turns out he did just that, and so the precedent was set. As another example, archaeologists have found ruins of the Hittite civilization that previously had only been mentioned in the Bible,once again showing the possibility of finding places we like to call "mythological."

The people of Atlantis always wondered what the dolphins were trying to tell them right before Atlantis went underwater, but it wasn't until a brilliant twentieth century writer named Douglas Adams that we figured out they were saying "So long and thanks for all of the fish!"

     It turns out that while Plato had a huge impact on the Ancient and Medieval worlds' thoughts and philosophies, it seems his biggest contribution to our society is to our sense of adventure, our sense of treasure hunting, and most importantly to our vocabulary.   After all,  how many words evoke as many images in our minds as "Atlantis?"

-Jason

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