Classical Wisdom Speaks

It's not the most intuitive comparison: Alexander the Great and Hernán Cortés... but what does the Macedonian Conquerer and the Spanish Conquistador have in common? We look at their commanding abilities, motivations as well as some of the larger questions that emerge from comparing the conquests of the Persian and Aztec Empires....Featuring Justin D. Lyons, Associate Professor of Political Science, Cedarville University in Ohio and author of the book: Alexander the Great and Hernán Cortés: Ambiguous Legacies of Leadership and Anya Leonard of Classical Wisdom. You can purchase Justin's book, Alexander the Great and Hernán Cortés: Ambiguous Legacies of Leadership, Here. You can learn more about Classical Wisdom and Classical Wisdom Speaks at: https://classicalwisdom.com/You can also get a FREE E-book on "Money, Gold and the End of an Empire" Here: https://classicalwisdom.com/free-e-book-money-gold-endofanempire/

Is Sparta under attack? Or is it time for a new look at the ancient power? Myke Cole, author of “The Bronze Lie: Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy” counts up Sparta’s wins and losses and asks: What if, in fact, the Spartans weren’t such great warriors? And what does that mean for us today?We discuss if this is true, the implications of this research and just as importantly... How should we really remember Sparta? Myke Cole is an American author of history, fantasy, and science fiction. His emergency response career spans service in the US military, intelligence, law enforcement services as well as firefighting. He starred on CBS’ investigative TV show Hunted, and Discovery Channel’s Contact. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Slate, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, and The New Republic. To purchase Myke's new book,  “The Bronze Lie: Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy”, click here: https://www.amazon.com/Bronze-Lie-Shattering-Spartan-Supremacy/dp/1472843754For more information about Classical Wisdom's Podcast Classical Wisdom Speaks, please check out our website at: http://classicalwisdom.com​​​Get our recent Magazine - dedicated to Ancient Music - with our Classical Wisdom Litterae Magazine subscription Here: https://classicalwisdom.com/product/classical-wisdom-litterae-magazine-subscription/

Why did a system of over 1,500 autonomous city-states that had resisted a massive invasion in 480 BC, lose their independent statuses to Macedon 150 years later when they were far richer and more powerful? Victor Davis Hanson, Professor Emeritus of classics at California State University and Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, delves into the fall of ancient Greece's city-states. This discussion took place LIVE on Saturday, August 21st as part of Classical Wisdom's Symposium 2021: The End of Empires and the Fall of Nations. If you would like to watch all the recordings please go to: https://courses.classicalwisdom.com/product/symposium-2021-the-end-of-empires/or email us at info@classicalwisdom.com.About our speaker:Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and chair of the Military History Working Group; Victor is a scholar of ancient and modern warfare and the author of many books. He is a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno, and the annual Wayne and Marcia Buske Distinguished Visiting Fellow in History at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and was a recipient of the Bradley Prize in 2008. Victor Davis Hanson's newest book, "The Dying Citizen" was just released on October 5th: https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Citizen-Progressive-Globalization-Destroying/dp/154164753XAbout our Moderators: Alexandra Hudson is an author and founder of Civic Renaissance - an intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth and reviving the wisdom of the past. She's working on her first book on civil discourse for St Martin's Press. Alexandra O. Hudsonwww.civic-renaissance.comwww.alexandraohudson.com Anya Leonard is the founder and director of Classical Wisdom, a site dedicated to bringing Ancient Wisdom to Modern minds. Her children's book, "The Lost Poetess" will be released later this month. https://classicalwisdom.com/https://classicalwisdom.com/product/sappho-the-lost-poetess/

Celebrated historians Niall Ferguson, James Hankins of Harvard University and renowned philosopher Angie Hobbs delve into the end of empires: How they meet their demise and what that means to us in the here and now. Hosted by Jack Visnjic of Ancient Greece Declassified Podcast, this conversation covers Ancient, Renaissance and the more modern state of states.   This discussion took place LIVE on Saturday, August 21st as part of Classical Wisdom's Symposium 2021: The End of Empires and the Fall of Nations. If you would like to watch all the recordings please go to: http://classicalwisdom.com/symposium or email us at info@classicalwisdom.com. About our Panelists: Niall Ferguson, MA, DPhil, FRSE, is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is the author of sixteen books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize.He is an award-making filmmaker, too, having won an international Emmy for his PBS series The Ascent of Money. In 2020 he joined Bloomberg Opinion as a columnist. In addition, he is the founder and managing director of Greenmantle LLC, a New York-based advisory firm, a co-founding board member of Ualá, a Latin American financial technology company, and a trustee of the New York Historical Society and the London-based Centre for Policy Studies. His most recent book, The Square and the Tower, was published in the U.S. in 2018, and was a New York Times bestseller. A three-part television adaptation, Niall Ferguson’s Networld, aired on PBS in March 2020. His most recent book, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, has just been published by Penguin.Angie Hobbs gained a degree in Classics and a PhD in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. After a Research Fellowship at Christ’s College, Cambridge, she moved to the Philosophy Department at the University of Warwick; in 2012 she was appointed Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a position created for her. Her chief interests are in ancient philosophy and literature, and ethics and political theory from classical thought to the present, and she has published widely in these areas, including Plato and the Hero (C.U.P). Her most recent publication for the general public is Plato’s Republic: a Ladybird Expert Book. She contributes regularly to radio and TV programmes and other media, including 22 appearances on In Our Time on Radio 4. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and Westminster Abbey and been the guest on Desert Island Discs, Private Passions and Test Match Special.She was a judge of the Man Booker International Prize 2019 and was on the World Economic Forum Global Future Council 2018-9 for Values, Ethics and Innovation.Dr. James Hankins, professor of History at Harvard University and an intellectual historian specializing in the Italian Renaissance. He is the general editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library, which publishes bilingual editions of important Latin works of the Renaissance as well as author of many books, including, Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft.

What control do we have over the End of Empires? And how can we prepare for their inevitable fall? Professors A.A. Long and William B Irvine and cognitive behavior therapist, Donald Robertson discuss the role we as individuals can play during the decay of empires...and how we can mentally fortify ourselves for inevitable changes.  This discussion took place LIVE on Sunday, August 22nd as part of Classical Wisdom's Symposium 2021: The End of Empires and the Fall of Nations. If you would like to watch all the recordings please go to: http://classicalwisdom.com/symposium or email us at info@classicalwisdom.com About our Panelists: Donald Robertson is a writer, trainer, psychotherapist, and an expert on the relationship between modern cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and classical Greek and Roman philosophy. He is also the founder of Modern Stoicism and the author of ‘How to Think Like a Roman Emperor’.William B. Irvine is professor of philosophy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, USA.  He is the author of eight books that have been translated into more than twenty languages.  Among them are A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (Oxford University Press, 2008) and most recently, The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher’s Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient (W.W. Norton, 2018).  He is currently at work on a book about thinking critically, but with an open mind, in the age of the internet.Anthony Arthur Long is a British and naturalised American classical scholar and Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Classics and Irving Stone Professor of Literature Emeritus, and Affiliated Professor of Philosophy and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many books, including Greek Models of Mind and Self, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life, as well as most recently, Seneca: Fifty Letters of a Roman Stoic.

Joel Bowman, of Bonner Private Research, interviews Anya Leonard from Classical Wisdom about the End of Empires and the Fall of Nations... in anticipation of this week's Symposium 2021 (August 21/22).Make sure to secure your tickets (and Pay what YOU want) here: https://classicalwisdom.com/symposium-2021-speakers/ Find out more about Bonner Private Research: https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/Time stamps - A rough guide...(00:50) - Intro(02:00) - START(02:15) - A marital disclaimer from Athens, Greece(03:05) - Don’t believe everything you hear (or read in the newspapers)(04:05) - Greece is open for business... Come visit!(04:45) - Exploring the ancient Greek concept of Xenia(05:45) - Time travelling to a pre-budget airline Europe(07:15) - Public space vs. private anxieties: developing a sense of community(09:05) - Philosophy in the time of Plague - lessons from the ancients(13:00) - The art of cherry picking - the best of the best from the classics(17:45) - Contemporary issues viewed through the lens of the past(20:05) - Rome and the USA: The rise and fall of empires, then and now(22:15) - How canceling history dooms us to repeating its mistakes(22:55) - What can we know? The search for truth, even when we’re wrong(25:15) - The End of Empire and Fall of Nations: A Classical Wisdom Symposium(28:15) - Rise of the historians: Niall Ferguson on Doom Politics(28:45) - Speaker Roster: A who’s who of the coming symposium(31:35) - Ancient Athens... from the comfort of your own home!(33:15) - Libate while I contemplate? Where can I register?(35:15) - Adrift in the Aegean: Where to next?(36:22) - END

Who were the Seleucids?? The largest and most diverse empire of the Hellenistic world, and yet so under-appreciated and overlooked... What do we know about this empire and why do we know so little? This week's podcast is with Derek L., the host and creator of the Hellenistic Age Podcast about this vast and vastly overlooked period of history.Now, if you find the rise and fall of empires fascinating, then we do have very exciting news... We have officially launched tickets to Classical wisdom’s symposium 2021: the end of empires and the fall of nations, taking place august 21st and 22nd.  We are thrilled to have an amazing line up of some of the most brilliant minds to discuss history, philosophy and mythology. Join Niall Ferguson, Edith hall, Donald Roberson, Paul Cartledge, to name just a few! Make sure to secure your tickets at: https://classicalwisdom.com/symposium/. Best of all - we want to make sure anyone and everyone can join us for this star studded event. If you can’t afford the ticket price, just email us at info@classicalwidsdom.com and we will help you out! You can learn more about the Hellenistic Age with Derek's podcast at: https://hellenisticagepodcast.wordpress.com/Or follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/HellenisticPod

Formed in 379 BC to combat the Spartan threat...Hailed by Plato as a force that could never be beaten...The last hope to preserve the freedom of Greece...Buried together on the spot they fell....300 male lovers reveal a dramatic ancient tale whose story will leave you gripped into the end. James Romm of Bard College, and author of the Sacred Band, discusses Sex, Soldiers and Thebes with Cambridge Professor, Paul Cartledge, and Columbia Professor, Helene Foley. Moderated by Anya Leonard of Classical Wisdom. They delve into the history of Thebes, the evolution of male eros and the essential role of the Sacred Band in fighting for Greek democracy. About the Speakers: James Romm is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College and specializes in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization.  Dr. Romm is author of several books, including Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero, Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and most recently, “The Sacred Band: Three Hundred Theban Lovers fighting to save Greek Freedom”. Paul Anthony Cartledge is the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Clare College. He has published extensively on Greek history over several decades, including The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece, Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past as well as Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece (2020) Helene P. Foley is Professor of Classical Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University and a member of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality at Columbia. She specialises in ancient Greek literature, women and gender in antiquity, and the reception of classical drama. Helene is author of many books, her most recent being Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stag.Anya Leonard, Founder and Director of Classical Wisdom, a platform dedicated to bringing ancient wisdom to Modern Minds.   For more information about Classical Wisdom and Podcast Classical Wisdom Speaks, please check out our website at: http://classicalwisdom.comYou can buy the speakers' excellent books below: The Sacred Band: Three Hundred Theban Lovers fighting to save Greek Freedom: Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient GreeceReimagining Greek Tragedy on the American StagSign up to get Classical Wisdom's Free newsletter as well as a FREE E-book on the "Two Sides of Jesus", Here: https://classicalwisdom.com/free-e-book-two-sides-of-jesus/

Super heroes and super twisted plots... is Sophocles a better psychological playwright than Euripides? How can we understand ancient art? And would Plato have liked cubism? This Classical Wisdom Speaks Episode is with Nickolas Pappas, Professor of Philosophy and Executive Officer of the Philosophy Program, at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is an expert in Plato and author of several books, including "Plato's Exceptional City, Love, and Philosopher, Politics” and “Philosophy in Plato's Menexenus” as well as “The Routledge Guidebook to Plato's Republic.”We discuss how we can understand ancient art and theater and the role psychology plays in its understanding...You can purchase Nicklas’ book,  "Plato's Exceptional City, Love, and Philosopher, Politics”, here: https://www.routledge.com/Platos-Exceptional-City-Love-and-Philosopher/Pappas/p/book/9780367424473 For more information about Classical Wisdom's Podcast Classical Wisdom Speaks, please check out our website at: http://classicalwisdom.comSign up to get Classical Wisdom's Free newsletter as well as a FREE E-book on the "Two Sides of Jesus", Here: https://classicalwisdom.com/free-e-book-two-sides-of-jesus/ 

What about Thebes? When thinking of the ancient Greek world, Athens and Sparta are the cities that jump to mind. Of Course the birth of Democracy and the Elite Warrior society capture the imagination right away. Perhaps after that, with the help of capitals and Hannibal's elephants, one might conjure Corinth or Carthage... but Poor little Thebes, so instrumental in history and mythology, often gets overlooked. In fact, when it comes to mythical origin legends, Thebes is rivaled only by Troy itself.  It was in Thebes that Cadmus, one of the very first Greek Heroes, founded the citadel Cadmea and there sown the seeds of the Spartoi or "Sown Men", the origin of the Theban nobility.It was in Thebes young Dionysus was sewn into his father’s godly thigh after he had accidentally blown up poor the mother, Semele, into smithereens after jealous Hera tricked Zeus’s young lover into demanding the king of gods show his full - lightning bolt - glory.  It was in Thebes that the seven gated wall was built by Amphion and his brother Zethus. It was in Thebes the tale of Laius, whose misdeeds culminated in the tragedy of Oedipus and the wars of the Seven against Thebes, took place. Outside the city walls, the path where Antigone dragged the dead body of her brother was a popular ancient tourist attraction.  And of course it was in Thebes that Heracles, arguably the most famous of all the Greek heroes was born and raised. But it is not only for the incredibly rich and extensive myths that Thebes deserves our attention. Its historical relevance can not be understated; at one point Thebes was the most powerful city in ancient Greece. This peak culminated in 371 BC when the Thebans enjoyed a remarkable victory against Sparta - all due to the Sacred Band of Thebes. But who were these ancient warriors? What role did they play in Theban history... and maybe more importantly, what did the discovery of the burial site of the sacred band reveal about Thebes, its role in ancient politics as well as ancient Greek culture? This June 8th, you can find out. James Romm, chair of Classics at Bard College and author of "The Sacred Band", discusses Sex, Soldiers and Thebes with Cambridge Professor and author of “Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece”, Paul Cartledge, and Columbia Professor, Helene Foley. Join this fascinating conversation (including Q&A), hosted by Classical Wisdom, on Tuesday, June 8th, 2021 at noon EDT (That’s NY Time)  to discover the history of Thebes, the evolution of male eros and the essential role of the Sacred Band in fighting for Greek democracy. Simply to go to https://classicalwisdom.com/sex-soldiers-thebes/ to learn how you can watch and participate in this live event for free.