The Hard Core: The MoREality Chronicles Part 1 (German Edition)

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The leading Persian nobles were not, however, free from suspicion, and this suspicion was increased because the king never invited any of them to the palace, and never appeared in public. Among these nobles was Otanes, whose daughter Phaedima had been one of the wives of Cambyses, and had been transferred to his successor. The new king had some years before being deprived of his ears by Cyrus for some offense. Otanes persuaded his daughter to ascertain whether her master had really lost his ears.

Having ascertained that such was the fact and given the information to her father, the latter formed a conspiracy, and in conjunction with other Persian nobles, succeeded in forcing his way into the palace, where they slew the false Smerdis and his brother Patizithes in the eighth month of their reign, The usurpation of the false Smerdis was an attempt on the part of the Medes, to whom the Magians belonged, to obtain the supremacy, of which they had been deprived by Cyrus.

The assassination of the false Smerdis and the accession of Darius Hystaspis again gave the ascendancy to the Persians; and the anniversary of the day on which the Magians were massacred, was commemorated among the Persians by a solemn festival, called Magophonia. On this day no Magian was allowed to show himself in public. The nature of the transaction is also shown by the revolt of the Medes that followed the ascension of Darius.

Holofernes, a general of the hosts of Nebuchadnezzar, subjugated much territory for him; and finally marched against Bethulia; and there he was slain in his bedchamber by Judith, a widow of rare disposition and incredible beauty, and all his hosts dispersed. After she had done away with Holofernes she was held in esteem by the Jews to such an extent that for the rest of her days she was honored and elevated by praises of her victory and everlastingly prized.

And when she had attained the age of one hundred and fifty years she was buried beside her husband with great pomp and lamentations. Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Assyrians at Nineveh, made war against him, and summoned all who dwelled in the lands between Persia and Memphis to his aid. Vowing vengeance, he marched alone against Arphaxad and destroyed him. Later he appoints Holofernes general over his army, and sends him against the nations which refused to aid him.

He lays siege to Bethulia, a city of the Israelites. They lose heart and urge Ozias and the rulers to give way. Now in those days there lived a widow named Judith, of rare piety and beauty. She blames Ozias and the rulers for considering submission, and urges them to place their trust in God. The rulers excuse themselves, and Judith promises to do for them something that shall go down to all generations. She decks herself bravely and goes to the camp of Holofernes accompanied by her maid, who carries a bottle of wine, a cruse of oil, and a bag filled with parched corn and fine bread and cheese.

She tells him that her nation cannot be punished, neither can the sword prevail against them, except they sin against their God, but that now they are about to eat all those things which God charged them not to eat, and that they will therefore be delivered into his hands. She offers to show the way to the town, and to lead him until he comes to Jerusalem.

Holfernes is pleased and invites her to a banquet, and she accepts. He drinks deeply and is left alone with her. Praying to God for strength, she smites off his head with his own scimitar; and putting the head into her bag of victuals, she hastens to Bethulia. The next morning the Israelites fall upon their besiegers, who, finding their leader dead, lose heart and flee in wild disorder. After a long life Judith dies at the age of years, and was buried at Bethulia in the cave of her husband Manasseh. Judith is here represented by a special woodcut.

She wears the headdress and garb of the time of woodcutter. Her veil flutters about her, and in her right hand she holds a sword on the extreme sharp point of which is poised, like a marshmallow for toasting, the head of Holofernes. His eyes are closed in death, his mouth is wide open.

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The other hand of the heroine is engaged in bestowing a blessing. With the exceptions of the portrait of Ezra labeled Edras, a misspelling of Esdras and the special woodcut of Judith and Holofernes, all of the portraits on this page are different in the German edition of the Chronicle. In the th year after the building of the city of Rome, when the line of the Roman kings came to an end, the people appointed consuls in the place of kings, who were to govern for but one year so that in the passage of years they would not become too arrogant.

Of these we will here mention the foremost. The first two conducted a war against Porsena Porsemia [Porsena or Porsenna, Lars, king of the Etruscan town of Chisium, marched against Rome at the head of a vast army in order to restore Tarquinius Superbus to the throne. But the campaign did not accomplish its object.

Brutus had two sons who wanted to re-establish the kingship. Brutus caused them to be beaten with rods and then to be killed with an axe. Collatinus was relieved of his office, for it was decided that the name of Tarquinius was to be banished from the city of Rome. Junius Brutus was the son of M. Junius and Tarquinia, the sister of Tarquinius Superbus. His elder brother was murdered by Tarquinius, and Lucius escaped his brother's fate only by feigning idiocy, from which he received the name Brutus.

The story of the rape of Lucretia, wife of L. Tarquinius Collatinus, by Sextus the son of Tarquinius Superbus, and the consequent expulsion of the latter and his sons has already been related. It was Brutus who incited the Romans to this course, and it was he and Tarquinius Collatinus who were set up as the first consuls to govern the empire in lieu of a king; but as the people could not endure the rule of any of the hated race of the Tarquins, Collatinus resigned his office and retired from Rome to Lavinium.

The Cumaean Sibyl Sibylla Cumana , who lived in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, is clad in a dress of gold, and has a tall open book in her hand, and also a book in the left hand, resting on her knee. Her head is bare. She foretold that out of eternity a miraculous birth would take place in this world through a virgin; and that the iron people would come to an end and a golden people would spring up. The mention of the Cumaean Sibyl at this point is apparently intended merely as a description of the opposite portrait, which, however, in no way conforms to the description.

In the portrait she has no book in either hand, nor on her knee. She is not bareheaded, but wears a flowing veil. Her hands are in an attitude of gesture. These two Romans referring to woodcut opposite defeated the Sabines and were accorded a triumph; but Valerius died poor. The reference is apparently to P. Valerius Publicola and Posthumus. Publicola took part in the expulsion of the Tarquins, and was thereupon elected consul with Brutus BCE.

He secured the liberties of the people by several laws and ordered the lectors to lower the fasces before the people as an acknowledgement that their rights were superior to those of the consuls. He died in In the opposite portrait Publicola is associated with Postumus without text reference to the latter. Two hundred twenty-five years after the building of Rome, the Romans, having been defeated by the Sabines, elected a regent whom they called a dictator, with authority and powers greater than those of the consuls.

This was a worthy office. He slew a Gaul who challenged him, took away his golden necklace, and put it about his own neck. For this reason he and his descendants were called Torquati, which means necklace. Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus, son of L. Manlius is said to have been dull of mind in his youth, and was brought up by his father in the in the country. When the tribune M. Pomponius accused the elder Manlius on account of the cruelties he had practiced in his dictatorship, he endeavored to excite public enmity against him by representing him as a cruel and tyrannical father.

As soon as the younger Manlius heard of this he hurried to Rome, obtained admission to Pomponius early in the morning and compelled the tribune by threatening him with instant death to take an oath to drop the accusation against his father. In Manlius served under the dictator T. Quintius Pennus in the war against the Gauls, and in this campaign earned immortal glory by slaying a gigantic Gaul, from whose dead body he took the chain torquis which had adorned him, and placed it about his own neck.

From this circumstance he obtained the surname Torquatus. He was dictator in and again in He was also consul three times. Torquatus and his colleague P. Decius Mus gained a great victory over the Latins at the foot of Vesuvius, which established forever the supremacy of Rome over Latium. Shortly before the battle, when the two armies were encamped opposite one another, the consuls published a proclamation that no Roman should engage in single combat with a Latin on pain of death.

But the young Manlius, the son of the consul, provoked by the insults of a Tuscan noble, accepted his challenge, slew his adversary, and bore the bloody spoils in triumph to his father. Death was his reward. The consul would not overlook this breach of discipline, and the unhappy youth was executed by the lector in the presence of the assembled army.

This severe sentence rendered Torquatus an object of detestation among the Roman youths as long as he lived; and the recollection of his severity was preserved in after ages by the expression Manliana imperia. The Senonian Gauls were by nature a cruel and uncivilized people, and by reason of their great stature and their weapons a frightful race born, as it seems, for the extinction of mankind and the destruction of the city of Rome.

These barbarians leveled and devastated the whole city with fire and sword for six months. Their chief town was Agendicum, afterwards called Senones Sens. A portion of this people crossed the Alps about BCE, in order to settle in Italy; and as the greater part of Upper Italy was already occupied by other Celtic tribes, they were obliged to penetrate a considerable distance to the south, and took up their abode on the Adriatic Sea between the rivers Utis and Aesis between Ravenna and Ancona after expelling the Umbrians.

In this country they founded the town of Sena. They extended their ravages into Etruria; and it was in consequence of the interference of the Romans, while they were laying siege to Clusium, that they marched against Rome and took the city in BCE. From this time we find them engaged in constant hostilities with the Romans, till they were at length completely subdued and the greater part of them destroyed by the consul Dolabella in One night when the Gauls endeavored to ascend the Capitol, Manlius was aroused from his sleep by the cackling of the geese. Hastily collecting a body of men, he succeeded in driving off the enemy, who had just reached the summit of the hill.

From this heroic deed he is said to have received the surname Capitolinus. In he defended the cause of the plebians, who were suffering from their debts and the cruel treatment of their harsh patrician creditors. The patricians accused him of aspiring to royal power, and he was thrown into prison by the dictator Cornelius Cossus. The plebians put on mourning for their champion, and were ready to take up arms in his behalf, when the patricians became alarmed and released Manlius; but this act of concession made him bolder, and he instigated the plebeians to open violence.

In the following year the patricians brought him to trial on a charge of high treason. He was condemned, and the tribunes threw him down the Tarpeian rock. The members of the Manlia gens accordingly resolved that none of them should ever bear in future the praenomen of Marcus. In the time of these two Romans referring to a dual portrait of Marcus and Aeneas Manlius , occurred the Vientian Vegentian wars in which as many of the victorious Romans fell as defeated Vientians.

It possessed a strongly fortified citadel, built on a steep hill. It was one of the twelve cities of the Etrurian Confederacy, and apparently the largest of all. It was about seven miles in circumference, equal in size to Athens, and was a powerful city at the time of the foundation of Rome. The Veientians were engaged in almost constant hostilities with Rome for more than three and one half centuries, and there is a record of fourteen distinct wars between the two peoples.

Veii was at length taken by the dictator Camillus after a siege which is said to have lasted ten years. The city fell into his hands, according to the common story doubted by Livy and Plutarch , by means of a cuniculus or mine that was dug all the way from the Roman camp under the city into the citadel of Veii. So well built was the city that the Romans were anxious after the destruction of their own city by the Gauls in BCE to remove to Veii; but the eloquence of Camillus against this plan finally prevailed.

So Veii was abandoned; but after the lapse of ages it was colonized by Augustus, and made a Roman municipum. But by the time of Hadrian the city again sank into decay. From this time Veii disappears entirely from history. It stood in the neighborhood of the present Isola Farnese. In the ninth year after the conclusion of the Roman line of kings as Eusebius states the new office of Dictator was established in Rome; also that of Master of the Horse, who was subordinate to the dictator in all things.

Largus became the first dictator, and Sp. Cassius the first Master of the Horse. The dictator was superior in power to the consuls against the enemies of the state. A dictator in ancient times was an extraordinary magistrate in the Roman commonwealth. Emphasis was thus placed on the military aspect of the dictatorship, and, in fact, the office seems to have been instituted for the purpose of meeting a military crisis too serious for the annual consuls with their divided command.

The repression of civil discord was one of the motives for the institution of a dictatorship. This function of the office is attested by the internal history of Rome. In the crisis of the agitation at the time of the Licinian laws BCE a dictator was appointed. The dictator appointed to meet the dangers of war, sedition, or crime, was described as "the administrative dictator. These dictators retired from office as soon as their function was completed; but the administrative dictator held office for six months.

The powers of a dictator were a temporary revival of those of the kings, with some limitations. He was never concerned with civil jurisdiction. His military authority was confined to Italy; and his power of life and death was limited. By the lex Valeria of BCE he was made subject to the right of criminal appeal within the limits of the city. However, all the magistrates of the people were regarded as his subordinates.

The dictator was nominated by one of the consuls. But the senate claimed authority over the magistrates, and suggested not only the nomination but also the name of the nominee. After the nomination, the imperium of the dictator was confirmed by a lex curiata. To emphasize the superiority of this imperium, the dictator might be preceded by 24 lectors, and, at least in the earlier period of the office, these lectors bore the axes, the symbol of life and death, within the city walls. The first dictator is said to have been created in BCE; the last of the "administrative" dictators belongs to the year BCE.

The epoch of the Second Punic War was marked by experiments with the office, such as the election of Q. Fabius Maximus by the people, and the co-dictatorship of M. The emergency office of the early and middle republic has little in common with the dictatorship as revived by Sulla and by Caesar.

That of the former took on the form of a provisional government. Sulla was created dictator "for the establishment of a republic. Ostensibly to prevent its further use for such a purpose, M. Antonius in 44 BCE carried a law abolishing the dictatorship. The term is used in our day to designate a tyrannical ruler. Under the consulship of this Valerius referring to the portrait opposite , the exiled citizens and the fugitive slaves invaded the capitol and burned it.

It was a gruesome war, and the consul himself was slain. Publicola as well, who was also a Roman patrician, to whom the name previously had been Publius Valerius, at this time, when the Tarquins had been expelled, together with Brutus was made consul in place of Collatinus as mentioned above.

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He himself, when the battle had been engaged in which Brutus died, killed fifteen thousand three hundred men from the army of the Tarquins. And with this victory he was the first of the consuls who, carried in his chariot, celebrated a triumph, a thing that provided a very lovely spectacle to the common people without any envy.

He was, moreover, a man of great justice and fairness. The Lineage of the Roman Consuls begins here. It consists of a panel of the following portraits: Brutus and Tarquinius Tarquinus Collatinus, jointly the first consuls of Rome, until the latter was forced to resign; represented by a commonplace double portrait of two men facing one another and gesturing. Valerius Publicola and Postumus, a commonplace dual portrait of men in medieval dress.

Largus, first dictator, a rather imposing portrait of a distinguished looking medieval citizen—gesturing as usual. The Decem Tribuni, a group of ten magistrates of ancient Rome, injected into the lineage of the Roman consuls. They are represented by a small group-portrait. Marcus and Aeneas Manlius; dual portrait of not particular significance. Valerius, apparently a relative of Valerius Publicola; represented by a woodcut of an old man.

The Cumaean Sibyl has been assigned a portrait that does not agree with the text of the Chronicle.

Manlius Manilius Torquatus, strangely represented holding an open book instead of being portrayed as a soldier. Popilia the Vestal Virgin; small woodcut of a rather sad looking middle-aged woman, without headdress or veil, arms folded. Aratus Aracus , the highly renowned astrologer and poet, distinguished himself, as Augustine states, in that, together with Eudoxus, he comprehended and described all the stars. However, Augustine states that this is contrary to the Scriptures, in which God spoke to Abraham, saying: Look at the stars, count them if you can. But how can they all be counted since they cannot all be seen?

And as Aratus was not unfamiliar with astrology, he wrote an excellent book of beautiful verses on the subject[Aratus was the author of two Greek astronomical poems, which have generally been joined together, as if parts of the same work. The design is to give an introduction to the knowledge of the constellations, with the rules for their risings and settings; and of the circles of the sphere, amongst which the milky way is reckoned. The positions of the constellations, north of the ecliptic, are described by reference to the principal groups surrounding the North Pole the Bears, the Dragon and Cepheus , while Orion serves as a point of departure for those to the South.

The immobility of the earth, and the revolution of the heavens about a fixed axis are maintained; the path of the sun in the Zodiac is described; but the planets are introduced merely as bodies having a motion of their own, without any attempt to define their periods; nor is anything said about the moon's orbit.

The opening of the poem asserts the dependence of all things upon Zeus. From the general lack of precision in the descriptions it would seem that Aratus was neither a mathematician nor an observer; or, at any rate, that in this work he did not aim at scientific accuracy. Such is the first poem, which consists of verses. The second, consisting of verses, is made up of prognostications of the weather from astronomical phenomena, with an account of its effects upon animals.

The style of these two poems is distinguished by the elegance and accuracy of their diction, resulting from a study of ancient models; but it lack originality and poetic elevation; and variety of matter is excluded by the nature of the subjects. Several other poetical works on various subjects, as well as a number of prose epistles, are attributed to Aratus; but none of them have come down to us. The German edition of the does not cite the quote from Cicero's text, nor does it even mention the actual book by Cicero, stating only: In the midst of the city of Rome appeared a horrible gap or crevice, and the soothsayers interpreted this as portending the burial of a living person.

Then at Rome as Livy states , the earth opened up in a public place, and a wide chasm was formed without displacement of the soil or other force; and it could not be filled with any material. Marcus Curtius heard about this, and he thought of the temples of the gods in the vicinity. He mounted his beautiful horse, and fully accoutered, he leaped into the chasm for love of his country. And when he died the chasm closed. According to one tradition, the Lacus Curtius, which was part of the Roman forum, was called after him, because in the battle with the Romans he escaped with difficulty from a swamp into which his horse had plunged.

But the more usual tradition respecting the name of Lacus Curtius is that in BCE the earth in the forum gave way, and a great chasm appeared, which the soothsayers declared could only be filled up by throwing into it Rome's greatest treasure; that thereupon M.

Curtius, a noble youth, mounted his steed in full armour; and declaring that Rome possessed no greater treasure than a brave and gallant citizen, leaped into the abyss; upon which the earth closed over him. Aesop Esopus Adelphus, the highly renowned poet and teller of fairy tales, flourished in the time of Cyrus, the Persian king. He was a Greek, intelligent and witty, and composed excellent fables, which Romulus afterwards translated from the Greek tongue into Latin and sent to his son Tibertinus. In his stories Aesop taught people how they were to conduct themselves; and to this end he gave speech to the birds, trees and irrational animals.

If these fables are carefully studied, one will find in them not only matter for admonishment and laughter, but for sharpening of one's wits. It is said that Aesop was slain in the first year of Cyrus. Aesop, author of Fables about animals, generally with a didactic purpose, which have given their name to a whole class of stories, lived about to BCE. According to tradition he was the slave of Iadmon of Samos and met with a violent death at the hands of the inhabitants of Delphi.

When a pestilence came upon them the Delphians offered a reward for his death, and it was claimed by Iadmon, grandson of Aesop's old master. Herodotus, who is authority for this 2. Aesop must have been freed by Iadmon, or he could not have conducted the defense of a Samian demagogue Aristotle, Rhetoric 2. Legend says that he afterwards lived at the court of Croesus, where he met Solon, and dined in the company of the Seven Sages of Greece with Periander at Corinth.

The obscurity in which the history of Aesop is involved has induced some scholars to deny his existence altogether. Rinutius translated Aesop's fables in in Milan. This book may be the first printed edition of a Greek author the text provides both the Greek original and a Latin translation in Western Europe. In the twelfth year of the kingdom of Artaxerxes, and years [The German edition of the changes this number of years to Saxtillus Capitolinus were consuls, the Romans decided to suspend the power of the consuls, and elected ten men by whom the city was to be ruled without tumult. The period of their rule was a happy one as Livy says ; but they later exceeded their authority and fell.

After a year had elapsed, they were removed because of the misdeeds of Claudius Appius. His real character now betrayed itself in the most tyrannical conduct toward the plebeians till his attempt against Virginia led to the overthrow of the decemvirate. Appius was impeached by Virginius, but did not live to abide his trial. He either killed himself, or was put to death in prison by order of the tribunes. Inasmuch as the Romans had no laws up to this time, and a dispute arose between the tribunes, who judged various matters for the common people, and the consuls, the Romans, in the 13th year of Artaxerxes, sent messengers to Athens, who not only brought back the laws of Solon, but also the laws and customs of other Greek cities.

From these laws ten tables were prepared, and two tables were added to those by the Romans; so originated the celebrated Law of the Twelve Tables, in which the entire law was codified. Greed for riches gave rise to a fourth conflict; so the common people created magistrates. Fabius Ambustus, the father of two daughters , gave one to Sulpicius, a man of patrician blood, and the other to a plebeian.

Sulpicus, and the younger to C. The younger daughter Fabia induced her father to assist her husband in obtaining the consulship for the plebeian order, into which she had married. He ruled from BCE. In compromise the people were allowed to choose their own magistrates from their own order, who were to have the power of opposing with effect every measure which they might judge in anyway prejudicial to their interest. These new magistrates were to be elected annually. At first they were five in number, but in time they were increased to ten. They were called tribunes because the first of them was chosen from among the tribune militum of the different legions.

Their authority was confined to the city limits and one mile beyond the walls. Two officers, called Aediles, were appointed to aid them. The Aediles had charge of the public buildings, and later, also of the games, spectacles, and other matters of police within the city. Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, the Roman consul, was an old woman at this time. By good works she lengthened her years to eternal youth. When Coriolanus without cause besieged the city, and refused to see the embassies that were sent to him, and would not listen to the high priests, his mother diverted him from his stubborn anger and from the course which he had entered upon.

He abandoned the siege and released the city. In gratitude to those women the Romans erected a temple; and afterwards no honor was withheld from the women by the men. And the Romans ordained that the people should stand up for the women, and give them the right of way; a custom which to this day is still observed by the respectable. It was also considered fit and proper for the women to wear gold, purple dresses, and golden girdles and ornaments.

His original name was C. Marcius, and he received the surname Coriolanus from the heroism he displayed at the capture of the Volscian town of Corioli. But his haughty bearing toward the common people excited their fear and dislike, and when he was a candidate for the consulship they refused to elect him.

After this, when there was a famine in the city, and a Greek prince sent corn from Sicily, Coriolanus advised that it should not be distributed to the commons until they should give up their tribunes. For this he was impeached and condemned to exile in BCE. He now took refuge among the Volscians, and promised to assist them in a war against the Romans. He was appointed general of the Volscian army, took many towns, and advanced unresisted until he came to the Cluilian dyke close to Rome in Here he encamped, and the Romans in alarm sent to him embassy after embassy, consisting of the most distinguished men of the state.

But he would listen to none of them. At length the noblest matrons of Rome, headed by his mother Veturia, and Volumnia, his wife, with his two little children, came to this tent. His mother's reproached, and the tears of his wife and the other matrons, bent his purpose. He led back his army, and lived in exile among the Volscians till his death; though other traditions relate that he was killed by the Volscians on his return to their country. Marcus Curtius Curcius , the noble Roman youth, fully accoutered and mounted on his beautiful steed, is depicted in the act of plunging into the great chasm that opened in the earth in the region of the forum, as related in the text and accompanying note.

Rider and horse are sinking into the earth, which immediately closed over them, sealing the gap. The title is unsually large for such a relatively small-sized image. Darius, a son of Hystaspis Histaspis , the fourth king of the Persians, began his reign in the 70th year of the Jewish captivity; and, together with six other nobles, slew Smerdis and his brother Patizithes Patizitem.

They agreed among themselves that the one whose horse should neigh first on the following morning should become king of Persia. Darius so arranged matters with his master of the stables that his horse neighed before all the others, and in consequence, he was presently chosen king. When he received the kingdom, he married Atossa Atosam , the daughter of Cambyses. By her he begot Xerxes and other sons. He gave Zerubbabel Zorobabel authority to lead the Jews back to Jerusalem, to restore to them the vessels of the Temple, and to give them annually twenty talents of silver.

And so the Temple was built. Before Darius died, Egypt seceded from him. The chiefs agreed that the one of them whose horse neighed first at the appointed time should become king, and by this token Darius was chosen. He married Atossa and Arystone, the two daughters of Cyrus, and Parmis, daughter of Cyrus's son Smerdis, and Phaldime, daughter of Otanes, one of the seven chiefs.

He set his vast empire in order, dividing it into twenty satrapies, assigning to each its amount of tribute. Persia proper was exempted from all taxes except such as it had been accustomed to pay. The Babylonians revolted but were put down. Later Darius invaded Scythia, marching far into the interior of modern Russian; but after losing a number of men by famine, and being unable to meet the enemy, he was obliged to retreat.

On his return to Asia Darius sent part of his forces under Magabasus, to subdue Thrace and Macedonia, which thus became subject to the Persian Empire. The most important event in this reign was the commencement of the great war between the Persians and the Greeks. In the Ionian Greeks revolted; they were assisted by the Athenians, who burnt Sardis. Thereby they provoked the hostility of Darius. In Mardonius was sent to invade Greece with a large army, but he lost a large part of his fleet and land forces.

He was recalled, and Artaphernes appointed to command the invading army but they were again defeated, this time by Miltiades at Marathon. Darius now called out the whole force of his empire to subdue Greece, but after three years of preparation his attention was diverted by the rebellion of Egypt. He died in , leaving the execution of his plans to his son Xerxes. Xerxes Xerses , son of Darius and Atossa, and fifth king of Persia, began to reign in the th year of the Jewish captivity; and he reigned twenty years.

He appeared to be the successor of his father's wishes, to honor and worship the God of Israel. He treated the Israelites with kindness and was very friendly to Esdra, the priest. Yet he followed his father's cruelty and grimness. He conquered Egypt, and became the ruler of entire Asia.

He swept over Greece with war and an innumerable host of warriors.

Henri Alain-Fournier: Le Grand Meaulnes (1913)

He burned Athens and killed many people. But finally he was twice wounded by Leonidas, the Spartan prince, and pursued so strongly that he, whose ships formerly swarmed over the seas, was barely able in fear to make good his escape on a small fishing craft. Some time later he was slain by Artabanus, his commander. His father Darius had died in the midst of his preparations against Greece, which had been interrupted by the revolt of the Egyptians.

The first care of Xerxes was to reduce these people to submission. This done, he returned to Persia, leaving his brother as governor of Egypt. In the spring of he set out from Sardis on his memorable expedition against Greece. He crossed the Hellespont by a bridge of boats, and continued his march through the Thracian Chersonese till he reached the plain of Doriscus.

His land forces contained forty-six nations. In his march through Thrace and Macedonia he received further accession of strength, and when he reached Thermopylae his land and sea forces are said to have amounted to 2,, fighting men obviously an exaggeration! Xerxes continued his march through Thrace. After joining his fleet at Therme, he marched through Macedonia and Thessaly without meeting with any opposition until he reached Thermopylae. Here the Greeks opposed him. His fleet was overtaken by a violent storm and he lost at least ships of war, as well as an immense number of transports.

He attempted to force his way through the pass of Thermopylae, but was repulsed again and again by Leonidas, until the treachery of a Greek from neighboring Malis, named Ephialtes, enabled him to fall on the rear of the Greeks. Leonidas and his Spartans refused to leave, and were all slain. Then followed the memorable battle of Salamis, in which the Greeks won a glorious naval victory.

Xerxes witnessed the battle from a lofty seat on the shore, but only to behold the defeat and dispersion of his mighty fleet. He became alarmed for his own safety and resolved to leave Greece immediately. Leaving behind Mardonius, who undertook to complete the conquest with , of his troops, Xerxes returned to Sardis. And though the war continued for several years longer, the invasion proved a failure in the end. In Xerxes was murdered by Artabanus, who aspired to the kingship of Persia. According to Nietzsche, such reflexivity does not discredit his cosmology: The philosopher of the future will posses a level of critical awareness hitherto unimagined, given that his interpretive gestures will be recognized as such.

Yet, a flourishing life will still demand, one might imagine, being able to suspend, hide, or forget—at the right moments—the creation of values, especially the highest values. Or, do trees and other forms of vegetation? Apparently, they do not. Such problems involve, again, the question of freedom, which interests Nietzsche primarily in the positive form. Some human forms of participation in will to power are noble, others ignoble.

Oh you noble Stoics, what deceptive words these are! Imagine a being like nature, wasteful beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure, without purposes and consideration, without mercy and justice, fertile and desolate and uncertain at the same time; imagine indifference itself as a power—how could you live according to this indifference?

Living—is that not precisely wanting to be other than this nature? Is not living — estimating, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different? But this is an ancient, eternal story: It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise. Other commentators have suggested that Nietzsche, here, betrays all of philosophy, lacking any sense of decency with this daring expose—that what is left after the expression of such a forbidden truth is no recourse to meaning.

Within nature, one might say, energy disperses and accumulates in various force-points: Periodically, something exceptional is thrust out from its opposite, given that radical indifference is indifferent even towards itself if one could speak of ontological conditions in such a representative tone, which Nietzsche certainly does from time to time. Nature is disturbed, and the human being, having thus become aware of its own identity and of others, works towards preserving itself by tying things down with definitions; enhancing itself, occasionally, by loosening the fetters of old, worn-out forms; creating and destroying in such patterns, so as to make humanity and even nature appear to conform to some bit of tyranny.

From within the logic of will to power, narrowly construed, human meaning is thus affirmed. To no end, Nietzsche would answer. But nothing exists apart from the whole!

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But, what temporal model yields the possibility for these expressions? The solution takes shape as Nietzsche fills the temporal horizons of past and future with events whose denotations have no permanent tether. Will to power, the Heraclitean cosmic-child, plays-on without preference to outcomes. Within the two-fold limit of this horizon, disturbances emerge from their opposites, but one cannot evaluate them , absolutely , because judgment implicates participation in will to power, in the ebb and flow of events constituting time.

The objective perspective is not possible, since the whole consumes all possibilities, giving form to and destroying all that has come to fulfillment. Whatever stands in this flux, does so in the midst of the whole, but only for a while. It disturbs the whole, but does so as part of the whole. As such, whatever stands is measured, on the one hand, by the context its emergence creates.

On the other hand, whatever stands is immeasurable, by virtue of the whole, the logic of which would determine this moment to have occurred in the never-ending flux of creation and destruction. One is left only to describe material occurrences and to intuit the passing of time. Each simple thing or complex event is linked, inextricably, to a near infinite number of others, also demonstrating the possibilities of their happenings. If all of these possibilities could be presented in such a way as to account for their relationships and probabilities, as for example on a marvelously complex set of dice, then it could be shown that each of these possibilities will necessarily occur, and re-occur, given that the game of dice continues a sufficient length of time.

Next, Nietzsche considers the nature of temporal limits and duration. He proposes that no beginning or end of time can be determined, absolutely, in thought. No matter what sort of temporal limits are set by the imagination, questions concerning what lies beyond these limits never demonstrably cease. Time is infinite with this model, but filled by a finite number of material possibilities, recurring eternally in the never-ending play of the great cosmic game of chance. What intuition led Nietzsche to interpret the cosmos as having no inherent meaning, as if it were playing itself out and repeating itself in eternally recurring cycles, in the endless creation and destruction of force-points without purpose?

How does this curious temporal model relate to the living of life? In his philosophical autobiography, Ecce Homo, Nietzsche grounds eternal recurrence in his own experiences by relating an anecdote regarding, supposedly, its first appearance to him in thought. It is important to note that at the time of this discovery, Nietzsche was bringing his work on The Gay Science to a close and beginning to sketch out a plan for Zarathustra. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!

Here, the conceptualization of eternal recurrence, thus, coincides with questions regarding its impact: How would the logic of this new temporal model alter our experiences of factual life? Would such a thought diminish the willfulness of those who grasp it? Would it diminish our willingness to make normative decisions? What would we lose by accepting the doctrine of this teaching? What would we gain? It seems strange that Nietzsche would place so much dramatic emphasis on this temporal form of determinism. If all of our worldly strivings and cravings were revealed, in the logic of eternal recurrence, to be no more than illusions, if every contingent fact of creation and destruction were understood to have merely repeated itself without end, if everything that happens, as it happens, both re-inscribes and anticipates its own eternal recurrence, what would be the affect on our dispositions, on our capacities to strive and create?

Would we be crushed by this eternal comedy? Or, could we somehow find it liberating? Even though Nietzsche has envisioned a temporal model of existence seemingly depriving us of the freedom to act in unique ways, we should not fail to catch sight of the qualitative differences the doctrine nevertheless leaves open for the living.

The logic of eternity determines every contingent fact in each cycle of recurrence. That is, each recurrence is quantitatively the same. The quality of that recurrence, however, seems to remain an open question. What if the thought took hold of us? If we indeed understood ourselves to be bound by fate and thus having no freedom from the eternal logic of things, could we yet summon love for that fate, to embrace a kind of freedom for becoming that person we are?

Even some of the most enthusiastic Nietzsche commentators have, like Kaufmann, deemed it unworthy of serious reflection. The presentation of this idea, however, leaves room for much doubt concerning the literal meaning of these claims, as does the paucity of direct references to the doctrine in other works intended for publication. Nevertheless, intellectual histories pursuing the question of how Nietzsche has been placed into the service of all sorts of political interests are an important part of Nietzsche scholarship.

While an exhaustive survey of the way this key issue has been addressed in the scholarship would be difficult in this context, a few influential readings may be briefly mentioned. Nietzsche had many casual associates and a few close friends while in school and as a professor in Basel. On both levels of this complex issue, the work of Martin Heidegger looms paramount.

However, the plausibility of this reading has come into question almost from the moment the full extent of it was made known in the s and 60s. Nevertheless, the question remains open whether Nietzsche does not already leave the metaphysical dimensions of any problems essentially and intentionally behind in his conception of the cosmos. Notable works by Schacht, Clark, Conway, and Leiter fall into this category. In a loosely related movement, many commentators bring Nietzsche into dialogue with the tradition by concentrating on aspects of his work relevant to particular philosophical issues, such as the problem of truth, the development of a natural history of morals, a philosophical consideration of moral psychology, problems concerning subjectivity and logo-centrism, theories of language, and many others.

Due to these suspicions, moreover, common Nietzschean themes such as historical nihilism, Dionysianism, tragedy, and play, as well as cosmological readings of will to power, and eternal recurrence are downplayed in Anglo-American treatments, in favor of bringing out more traditional sorts of philosophical problems such as truth and knowledge, values and morality, and human consciousness. Nietzsche reception in the United States has been determined by a unique set of circumstances, as portrayed by Schacht and others.

The next stage of Nietzsche reception in the U. So successful was Kaufmann in this regard, that Anglo-American readers had difficulty seeing Nietzsche in any other light, and philosophers who found existentialism shallow regarded Nietzsche with the same disdain. In such a light, Schacht sees his work on Nietzsche as an attempt to bridge this institutional divide, as do other Anglo-American readers. The work of Rorty may certainly be characterized in this manner. Despite these attempts, tensions remain between Anglo-American readers who cultivate a neo-pragmatic version of Nietzsche and those who, by comparison, seem too comfortable accepting uncritically the problematic aspects of the Continental interpretation.

The following list is by no means exhaustive. A number of these writings are available to English readers, and a few are accessible in a variety of editions, either as supplements to the major works or as part of assorted critical editions. The following list offers a sample of these writings. A firsthand and secondhand biographical narrative may be followed in the collected letters of Nietzsche and his associates:. The following list is by no means comprehensive, nor does it purport to represent all of the major themes prevalent in Nietzsche scholarship today.

It is designed for the reader seeking to learn more about the intellectual history of Nietzsche reception in the twentieth century. In addition to a typically large number full-length manuscripts on Nietzsche published every year, scholarly works in English may be found in general, academic periodicals focused on Continental philosophy, ethical theory, critical theory, the history of ideas and similar themes. In addition, some major journals are devoted entirely to Nietzsche and aligned topics.

Related both to the issue of orthodoxy and to the backlash against multiplicity in Nietzsche interpretation, the value of having so many outlets available for Nietzsche commentators has even been questioned. The following journals are devoted specifically to Nietzsche studies. Friedrich Nietzsche — Nietzsche was a German philosopher, essayist, and cultural critic. The following division is typical: Post—the later period Nietzsche transitions into a new period with the conclusion of The Gay Science Book IV and his next published work, the novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra, produced in four parts between and The four major concepts presented in this outline are: The Human Exemplar How and why do nihilism and the pessimism of weakness prevail in modernity?

Again, from the notebook of Will to Power, aphorism 27 , we find two conditions for this situation: Will to Power The exemplar expresses hope not granted from metaphysical illusions. References and Further Reading a. Kritische Studienausgabe , ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, 15 vols Berlin: Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, 24 vols.

Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Berlin: At the present time, the project remains unfinished. Walter Kaufmann, New York: Cambridge University Press, The four essays of this work are available separately in other editions Human, All Too Human Menschliches, Allzumenschliches [vol. The later editions of this translation contain a helpful index.

Walter Kaufman New York: Vintage, Ecce Homo Ecce Homo , , first published , trans. Nietzsche contra Wagner Nietzsche contra Wagner , , first published , trans. Walter Kaufmann, in The Portable Nietzsche , ed.

Walter Kaufmann New York: Daniel Breazeale New Jersey: Gilman, Carole Blair, and David J. Oxford University Press, Marianne Cowan Washington, D. The Pre-Platonic Philosophers Die vorplatonischen Philosophen , lectures during various semesters at Basel from to ; ed. II, part 4 , ed. University of Illinois Press, Unpublished Writings from the Period of Unfashionable Observations vol.

Stanford University Press, Walter Kaufmann and R. Writings from the Late Notebooks writings from the Nachlass , ed. Biographies A firsthand and secondhand biographical narrative may be followed in the collected letters of Nietzsche and his associates: Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche , ed. Hackett, Conversations with Nietzsche: A Life in the Words of His Contemporaries , ed.

The following list includes a few of the most well known biographies in English. A Critical Life New York: Louisiana State University Press, Becoming a Genius New York: The Free Press, Biographie Seines Denkens Muenchen: A Philosophical Biography , trans. Shelley Frisch New York: Contemporary Styles of Interpretation , Cambridge, Mass.: Rowman and Littlefield, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany: University of California Press, Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks Ithaca: Cornell University Press, Bruce Boon New York: Selected Writings, which includes other essays devoted to Nietzsche , ed.

University of Minnesota Press, It doesn't sound much like a love story. But The Virgin Suicides is narrated in the first-person plural, ingeniously by the boys who looked on at the beautiful Lisbon sisters with awe and yearning — boys like Chase Buell, Woody Clabault, Vince Fusilli, Parkie Denton and Tim Winer, "the brain". Years later, they piece together memories of their adolescence: When the boys follow neighbourhood heart-throb Trip Fontaine to pick up the Lisbon girls for the homecoming dance, the whole world seems waiting for them.

William Fiennes Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop. There is a love affair at the centre of this novel, between rich, charismatic socialite Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. You might even call it romantic, for Gatsby appears to have everything he wants except Daisy, who is now married to another man. Yet you never directly know about their relationship.

The doomed attachment is seen entirely through the eyes of the novel's narrator, Nick Carraway. He has the lovers performing a drama that he is desperate to enrich with soulfulness. The romance and the final tragedy are the more haunting for being vicariously experienced. JM Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop.

When actress Rosemary Hoyt arrives on the French riviera, she's seduced by the dash and verve of a group of American expats gathered around successful psychiatrist Dick Diver and his beautiful patient-turned-wife, Nicole. Outwardly ideal, their marriage drawn in part from Fitzgerald's own is in fact fatally fl awed. As Rosemary is drawn deeper into their lives, she watches glamour give way to dissipation; Dick's drinking escalates and his behaviour deteriorates, leading ultimately to his personal and professional disintegration.

Almost a decade in the making, Fitzgerald's elegiac romance is a narrative of failure: Sarah Crown Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop. Few modern novels have been so acclaimed by critics and fellow novelists as The Blue Flower. Set in s provincial Saxony, it is a parable of talent and desire the blue flower a Romantic symbol of love and the unattainable , told through the story of the young German poet and philosopher Novalis, known to his family as Fritz. Poor Fritz falls hopelessly in love with year-old Sophie von Kuhn, unremarkable in looks and certainly no match for him in brains, who dies a couple of years later from tuberculosis.

Fitzgerald's genius was to bring a remote period alive through an accumulation of domestic details with an extraordinary economy of words. Hailed as her final masterpiece, the novel is as brief, luminous and intellectually charged as the life of its young hero. Emma Bovary, the wife of a kindly but dull country doctor, yearns for a life of luxury and romance that she has read about in popular novels.

When a landowning libertine takes a fancy to her, she begins an affair which ends when he abandons her on the eve of their elopement. No sooner has she recovered than she takes up with a young lawyer with whom she has weekly trysts in a hotel room. As their passion cools, her extravagance increases, and she is lured into a credit trap from which only suicide can release her.

Flaubert was prosecuted for obscenity when the book was first serialised, and it has been a bestseller ever since, becoming arguably the most famous realist novel. Claire Armistead Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop. Nobody gets what they want and nothing is quite what it seems in this masterwork of shifting perceptions, infidelities and immorality. Ford Madox Ford's first title for his greatest novel, begun on his 40th birthday, was The Saddest Story.

The Good Soldier is Edward Asburnham, the perfect English gentleman in every way — except for his fatal philandering. Recalled in rambling fashion by the emotionally desiccated Dowell the ultimate unreliable narrator , this is the story of a year friendship between two couples living in moneyed leisure in Europe, as a cure for the heart conditions of two of the spouses.

These "bad hearts" are exposed for what they really are when it is revealed that the invalids have been embroiled in an affair for many years. Suicide, madness and misery ensue. Since its publication in , writers have outdone each other in heaping superlatives on this slim, exquisite book: Forster's acidic satire on the Edwardian travelling English would have remained among his lesser works certainly compared to the later, more substantial statements that were Howards End and A Passage to India were it not for the smart decision by the period-fi lm team Merchant Ivory to use it as the material for their affectionate mids adaptation, thereby setting the template for corset rom-coms ever since.

The admittedly slight social concerns are ballasted by a genuinely affecting against-the-odds love match between piano-playing Lucy Honeychurch and wide-eyed socialist George Emerson. Andrew Pulver Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop. In John Fowles opened up the Victorian realist novel, with its driving marriage plot, to the instability of the existentialist age. Charles Smithson is a gentleman of independent means engaged to the conventional Ernestina while secretly falling in love with the intriguing Sarah Woodruff, a fallen woman who has been betrayed by the French lieutenant of the title.

Set mainly on the Jurassic undercliff at Lyme Regis, the novel plays with the idea that the Victorian bourgeoisie — and the kind of novel that represents it — is on the brink of extinction. The book's celebrated double ending meant that for a long time it was considered unfilmable, until Harold Pinter's screenplay of proved this to be magnificently untrue. KH Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop.

Set on the desolate Essex marshes, this haunting novella of the friendship between the "mis-shapen and grotesque" reclusive artist, Philip Rhayader, and the "young, primitive inarticulate" yet beautiful Fritha, after she brings him a wounded snow goose to heal, made Gallico's name and became a world wide bestseller. Accompanied only by the snow goose, Philip rescues countless men from the shores of Dunkirk in his little boat, but when the bird returns alone, the now grown-up Fritha knows she will never see the hunchback again. Ruth Hilton, an orphaned seamstress, is seduced and then abandoned by Henry Bellingham, a young squire.

Rescued by a dissenting minister, Mr Benson, and his sister, and taken to live with them in his northern English parish, she passes as a widow and slowly builds a life of quiet respectability for herself and her son. But Bellingham's return threatens all of them with exposure of the lie in which they have colluded.

At the age of 10 Jerome falls in love with his cousin Alissa and vows to dedicate his life to her happiness. She, however, in response to her mother's infidelity, dedicates her life to God. As the cousins grow, they come to very different understandings of the biblical text that gave Gide his title.

Her severe religious morality will not allow her to accept Jerome's love — though her journals show the reader that she is just as much in love with him as he with her — and on her deathbed she realises that the sacrifice she thought she was making to God, for the sake of both their souls, has been in vain. Gide almost certainly drew on his youthful attempt to woo his cousin in this, his most lyrically enchanting novel.

AN Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop. The first in Grassic Gibbon's A Scots Quair trilogy, this is the great Scottish novel, told in a lilting, lyrical tongue as beautiful as the land it describes. The men of Kinraddie, Kincardineshire, go off quiet and brave to fight and die in the first world war — and with them passes a whole way of life, that of the peasant farmers, that of Old Scotland itself.

Chris, the heroine, educated but shackled to the land, goes from girl to wife to widow in a soaring narrative that is as uplifting as it is heartbreaking. Andrew Gilchrist Buy this book at the Guardian bookshop. Dom Casmurro The greatest novel by Brazil's greatest writer. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis The Jewish community of Italy produced two great writers, Primo Levi and the author of this, one of the best books ever written about what it was to be a European Jew in the early part of the 20th century, and awake to find, with the rise of Mussolini or Hitler , that every part of a special and enchanting Italian childhood — family, friends, and lovers — was destined to disappear.

Love for Lydia "Would you love me even if I am bad to you? More Die of Heartbreak Why do gifted people find themselves "knee deep in the garbage of a personal life"? The Death of the Heart Portia, orphaned at 16, goes to London to stay with her half-brother and his wife. The Heat of the Day The sinister Harrison tells Stella that her lover, Robert, is a traitor, but that she can keep him safe if she sleeps with Harrison and does not reveal what she has been told.

Wuthering Heights The 21st-century's favourite 19th-century novel begins with Mr Lockwood renting Thrushcross Grange, in wild Yorkshire. Possession In this Booker-winning, bestselling novel subtitled "A Romance" , Byatt makes great play with the notions of possession — between lovers, and between biographers and their subjects. Breakfast at Tiffany's Those coming to Capote's novella after the movie will find an altogether darker, rougher gem than the sparkling Hollywood version.

Oscar and Lucinda It is A Month in the Country In the slimmest novel to grace a Booker shortlist, the spiritual recovery of trench veteran Tom Birkin is charted as he restores a medieval wall-painting in a rural church. A Lost Lady Marian Forrester is a beautiful woman who delights her husband, her lover, and young Niel Herbert, the narrator of this enchanting tale. An Island Tale One of Conrad's sea-dog narrators pieces together the story of Axel Heyst, benign hermit and amateur philosopher, who isolates himself from humanity on an island in the East Indies. Rebecca "Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again" has become one of the most famous first lines in fiction.

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