One Thing Leads To Another -- June 14, 2020

Yesterday, I mentioned I was back in my Out of Africa phase.

A reader suggested White Mischief, James Fox, 1982, which I'm now reading.

It's available on Amazon:

Warning: lyrics may not appeal to everyone -- honky-tonk -- a great bar song after midnight --

Gypsy Bitch, Devil Doll
 Recent non-Bakken posts you may have missed:

• Emily: first woman to fly F-35 into combat;
• Might we see property values around Flathead Lake surge?
• Japan and renewable energy: ain't happening;

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The Classical History Page

I find it amazing (for lack of a better word) that historians are still writing about the Greco-Persian Wars. In the current issue of The Claremont Review of Books, an essay on what Joseph Epstein calls the "war for the west."

Three books are mentioned in the essay:

• The Greco-Persian Wars, by Peter Green;
• The Persian War in Herodotus and Other Ancient Voices, William Shephere; and, 
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West, Tom Holland.

At first it can seem overwhelming, trying to keep track of all the Greek personalities, but this is the scaffolding. Know these well and you can add to the scaffolding as you go along.

Tragedians: For the grandchildren, Athens is tragedy and tragedy is Athens. There are only three tragedians you need to remember. It's hard to believe, but any Greek classical tragedies that have survived in full have come from one of these three tragedians. In chronological order:

• Aeschylus: the "old man"-- he actually fought at Salamis when the Greeks defeated the Persians;
• Sophocles: about 21 years old when he marched in the victory parade celebrating the victory;
• Euripides: born in the very year the decisive and final battle was fought.

Greek historians:

• Herodotus
• wrote Histories 40 years after the war had ended
• the father of history 
• the father of ethnography
• his writing foreshadowed modern social science
• Thucydides
• the first truly modern historian
• owed much to Herodotus
• disregarded the intervention of gods in the affairs of men and nations

The two greatest Greek poets:

• Homer
• Hesiod

Two Greek politician-generals:

• Thermistocles;
• Pericles;

Note: Alexander the Great was Macedonian.

Two philosophers:

• Socrates
• Plato

One scientist:

• Aristotle

Two mathematicians:

• Euclid
• Archimedes

One polymath:

• Pythagoras 

The gods: apparently everything "we" know about the Greek gods came from Homer, Hesiod (Theogeny), and the playwrights, particularly A, S, and E.

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On-Line Calculators

Of course, there are a gazillion on-line calculators.

One that seems to be one of the better ones at this link.