The biggest reason is Christianity, which forcibly suppressed and destroyed many ancient religions.
A great book about it is The Darkening Age on Amazon. Here's a link: The Darkening Age
The New Testament In It’s World is considered an introduction to Wright’s work for students. My wife read this as a starter book. She found it interesting enough to continue on into Wright’s Christian Origins series.
This translation is by Robert Dobbin from 2008, here's the Amazon link:
I’d like to recommend Letters on Ethics to Lucilius by Seneca as well (This is the U Chicago Press translation which includes all 124 letters plus a great introduction and a lot of footnotes so you’d be hard-pressed to misinterpret anything).
This is a different translation. Here's the Amazon link to the one that I'm reading:
FYI, the version that I quoted from is a translation by Robert Dobbin - https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449469
You should definitely check out The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. It will help fill in some of the gaps about just how Christianity became "the most popular/widespread/successful" (namely, because of its violent intolerance for anything perceived to be in competition with or critical of Christianity).
> Do you have any recommendations for a collection?
Yeah, in English the one I consider the best is the A. Long and M. Graver's translation, here
> Yes! This is the ongoing issue that I have. I want to give people the respect of really being present when I am talking with them but since this isn't a common trait, people who don't respect time time will hold me captive with long asinine stories.
To be fair to them, I don't think they're even aware that they are wasting other people's time. In my experience some of them may also do it as emotional defense mechanism against introspection.
> I agree and I really I like the strategy element of it, I just wonder if my time would be better utilized elsewhere. I'm just not sure what else would fulfill that interest / exercise of skill.
I'm 100% sure our time could be better spent (because my practice, at least, is imperfect). What I do is that, if indeed play, I'll keep practicing philosophy within the game. Something else I do is to switch it to another language so that I study while playing.
Christian terrorism. They did things like this in the first century AD against roman public places of worship. That is why the roman government "persecuted" them i.e. they were being held accountable for criminal behavior. If you want to learn more about early christian extremism read the darkening age by Catherine Nixey.
> They ceded nothing.
Wrong. Ionia came under Athenian control in the Delian League.
Also;
> prohibited the encroachment of Persian satrapies within three days march of the Aegean coast, and prohibited Persian ships from the Aegean
The Greco-Persian wars was a crushing defeat for Persia, which had to give up its ambitions of westward expansion. This is also the scholarly consensus, as can be read in e.g.
Holland, Tom: "Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West"
>If you haven't read the Crawley translation I suggest you do that first, his is full of good poster quotes while mine comes from a symposium:
My Crawley translation of Thucydides just arrived. It's not formatted according to the citations he uses in the square brackets: you can't use it as a companion in that way. He likely meant the Landmark Thucydides, rather than just the Crawley translation. I thought Alone was fucking with me, but really it's just Amazon's inability to cope with books that have many different editions.
And of course, you can just look up the citations online.
You reminded me of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-World-Mark-Booth/dp/1590201620
which is not about aliens per se, but about interpreting all the historical accounts differently.
>I still standby my statement that Christianity is something that included Greco-Roman culture, rather than removing it...
You cannot be serious. Christians destroyed so much of Greco-Roman culture that only one percent of literature survived: https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885
Christians are murderers and destroyers. But what you did to Hypatia and the Great Library of Alexandria will come back to you. You cannot escape karma.
“What then should a man have in readiness in such circumstances? What else than “What is mine, and what is not mine; and permitted to me, and what is not permitted to me.” I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment? “Tell me the secret which you possess.” I will not, for this is in my power. “But I will put you in chains.” Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower. “I will throw you into prison.” My poor body, you mean. “I will cut your head off.” When, then, have I told you that my head alone cannot be cut off? These are the things which philosophers should meditate on, which they should write daily, in which they should exercise themselves. ”-Epictetus ( Discourses, By Epictetus) physical version here
I'm a history noob. This book has been great:
The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome https://smile.amazon.com/dp/039305974X/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_C5PJMK0KD405JAP2AEHX?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
> erything we know about it from Christian histories from dark ages to its has a high chance of being a work of fiction just to back up Christianity
99.99% fake stuff.
https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885
They either destroyed everything or simply relabelled it as their own. That's what illiterate peasants do
I think the best that I could offer is this.
It’s not going to directly address this issue but it will clarify how the Christians lived in their world.
The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310499305/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_JNT5HCFMKPQB2Y0NF4NJ
I'm going to diverge from some and recommend you read a modern Stoicism book. Philosophy can be very dry and hard to understand without context. I very much like the books of Donald Robertson because they are written from the perspective os someone attempting to learn about Stoicism.
If you are to read an ancient source, I've found Epictetus Discourses to be approachable. https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449469
Sorry for the delay!
I really like anything by the Anglican biblical scholar NT Wright (as you’ve seen) and he’s a prolific writer.
This book of his is on my wish list:
https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Its-World-Introduction/dp/0310499305
There’s no da Vinci code conspiracy to have kept books out of the Bible. To be sure, there were candidates for inclusion that over the centuries got set aside at various ecumenical councils.
What’s interesting is that many modern translations rely upon a cache of texts
that included the extra biblical acts of Barnabas )or similar titles) however that book for whatever reason, was never included in the canon and other than theologians and academics, has faded into obscurity.
If understand correctly, most extra canonical books, like the Gospel of Thomas, got excluded just because they got more than a little wacky on the face of it and we’re being pushed by other (non Trinitarian) factions such as by the gnostics.
Bad analogy, it’s like imagine an early church council where they were deciding upon which Gospels and letters to include and then the Mormons show up and say “hey guys let’s throw in the book of Mormon, that’s cool right?” Yeah, that’s not going to happen and it’s not a conspiracy that something like that got excluded.
What is interesting are the debates and fights over the years over the exact canon. You’re probably most familiar with the apocrypha.
However Orthodoxy has several additional Deuterocanonical books on top of that. And the Ethiopian church has all of us beat with not several additional old testament books but even I believe some additional New Testament letters, some of which have never been translated into English IIRC.
Naturally, there is nothing shocking in any of these other parts of the Bible, if there were, they would either be included, or we would more strenuously challenging the others for daring to include them.
Here is a more modern, and understandable, translation: Letters on Ethics: To Lucilius by Margaret Graver and A. A. Long
> “Still, it is to come.” First, find out whether there is firm evidence that trouble is on the way. For all too often we worry about what we merely suspect. Rumor plays tricks on us—rumor, that “brings down the battle,” but brings down the individual even more. Yes, dear Lucilius, we are too quick to give way to opinion. We do not demand evidence of the things that frighten us, or check them out carefully; we quail, and take to our heels, like the army that breaks camp because of a dust cloud kicked up by a herd of cattle, or like people who are terrified by some item of anonymous gossip.” > —Seneca, Letter 13.8
The “Rumor brings down the battle” part is a proverb by Livy quoted by Seneca.
Letters on Ethics to Lucilius by Seneca. Seneca’s just my favorite Stoic philosopher in general and his works have impacted me like no other.
Alexander of Macedon, by Peter Green. Easily one of the best textbooks on the subject and highly recommended. Green compares accounts from multiple sources, visits the sites of battle, adds his own two bits and writes in a very easy to follow style - my copy is dogeared from re-reading. why werent my history textbooks written like this??
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0520071662/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_DAMuFbGRCFVPH
I usually read Seneca. Maybe try Letters on Ethics. There are other books of his that touch on other aspects of Stoicism.
Well we know by 64 AD, that Christians were in Rome. Maybe a 100+ at the time. By late 200 AD, Diocletian was persecuting Christians in all parts of the Empire. So the movement had spread far and wide over the 150+ years. I read that by Constantine, the Empire consisted of around 25% Christians. They had risen in the ranks of Imperial administration and even Constantine's Mom was a Christian. (Helen).
I don't think they held a majority in any given part of the Empire.......but were a presence that was large enough to justify wide spread persecution across the Empire. I would probably guess that the Greek and North African side of the Empire had the largest concentration.
This was a decent read on the conversion of the Empire from Paganism to Christianity: https://www.amazon.com/Darkening-Age-Christian-Destruction-Classical/dp/0544800885
USN war college uses this as a textbook: https://www.amazon.com/Landmark-Thucydides-Comprehensive-Guide-Peloponnesian/dp/0684827905
For a surprisingly good overview of history generally, I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-History-Universe-Volumes-1-7/dp/0385265204
Some suggestions for those tackling the High Politics section:
Kant's Peace and Machiavelli's Prince are short and profitable reads, but I question the value of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. Their best can be found either anthologized or summarized, without all the needless underbrush.
Thucydides is a transcendent genius, but it takes quite a bit of dedication to read his History. I highly recommend the Landmark edition, which provides tons of helpful supplemental information.
This recent translation has all of Seneca's letters. This older translation in the public domain also has all the letters.