Thoth's Library

  It was commonplace in ancient Rome to accept foreign gods into the Romans pantheon and Rome was in fact home to many foreign gods, but just how foreign were these gods? This essay will be looking at Rome’s attitude towards foreign gods. In doing so it will particularly look at the cult of Cybele and the cult of Isis as examples of foreign cults in Rome. This essay will particularly be focusing on why these two cults would have been considered foreign context. It will also be looking at how these cults were viewed by the Romans because of their otherness. The cult of Cybele is a particularly strange foreign cult seeing as Cybele is an essential part of roman society, but at the same time its members are ridiculed and ostracized because of their strange practices. To understand the position Cybele has within Roman society one must look at the conditions under which she was brought into Rome. The Romans won a victory in 207 BCE, but Hannibal was still in Italy. In 205 B...

  Cicero is viewed as a master of rhetoric. As Catherine Steel said, “Rhetoric was the object of profound meditation throughout Cicero’s life.” (2013) Arguably it is the one thing that made him successful as a politician. In this essay will be looking at Cicero’s second  Oratio In Catilinem  and the ways in which Cicero uses Rhetoric to persuade his audience to look beyond reason and simply believe everything he says. There is not a single conservable misdeed that Cicero does not accuse Catiline of. In fact, the only thing Cicero does not accuse Catiline of is of being a good man: For imagine every type of criminality and wickedness that you can think of; he has been behind them all. In the whole of Italy there not one single poisoner, gladiator, robber, assassin, parricide, will-forger, cheat, glutton, wastrel, adulterer, prostitute, corrupter of youth or youth who has been corrupted, indeed any nasty individual of any kind whatever, who would not be obliged to admit he ...

  Euripides is much more than just an ancient Athenian playwright. He is very innovative and moves away from the traditional way of looking at Greek mythology and Greek tragedy. In this essay, I will be looking at how Euripides's plays differ from those before him. I will do so by specifically looking at his play “Electra” and how it differs from Aeschylus’s play “The Libation Bearers.” I will specifically look at how Euripides chose to depict his characters, what effect this had on his plays, what different types of characters he chose to put into his play, and why and possible reasons why he decided to depict them as he did. I will also look at how Euripides's plays are different from the Homeric tradition and possible reasons why this is the case. Why does Euripides choose to move away from the traditional way of doing things? W. Geoffrey Arnott provides us with an answer to this question in his article Double the Vision: A Reading of Euripides' 'Electra': The Ho...

  This essay will look at the Etruscans. It will specifically focus on the different periods of Etruscan history, that Sinclair Bell and Alexandra A. Carpino divide into the “Transition from the Prehistoric”, the “ Villanovan Period”, the “Orientalizing Period”, “Archaic Period”, “The Classical Period.” in their book  “A Companion to the Etruscans.” It will also look at the place of women in Etruscan society, the effect Greek influence had on Etruscan society and the difference between the funerary and the non-funerary context of the Etruscans. Most of the information we have about Etruscan culture is archaeological. As such this essay will look at archaeological evidence to examine each one of these categories.   In the “Transition from the Prehistoric”  one can see that the quality of the goods found in tombs improved increasingly. This included pottery as well as metal works and ornaments. To demonstrate this, I would look at the evolution of metalwork throughout ...