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In high school, 1958-1963, I studied Latin for four years and part of one history course involved ancient history. In university, 1963-1967, I took one course in ancient history and two of the philosophy courses brought me in touch with the philosophy of the ancients. In the next 21 years, 1967-1988 the years before I taught ancient history myself, long range historical perspectives came into many of the courses I taught, but I can not recall now precisely the names of those courses as well as in what ways and with what content ancient history was part of those programs.From 1989 to 1994 I taught ancient history, Ancient Greece(478 to 404 BC) one year and Ancient Rome(133 BC to 14 AD) the next. It was a matriculation subject producing several volumes of notes for each of the programs. Teaching these subjects over this six year period brought me into my first serious and extended exposure to classical civilization. It occurred at the time when the Mt. Carmel Project was in full swing.In the sixteen years(1995-2011) since completing my teaching of this course I have drawn on these notes and added to them significantly. The subject of classical civilization is of great interest to me particularly since there are obviously so many parallels to my own world. Such a study also provides, I find, many helpful perspectives for understanding the Baha?i Faith, its history and future. I studied Latin from 1959 to 1963, some ancient history(part of one course) at high school and at university(one course). Ancient Greece and Rome came into my reading again and again from 1964 to 1994 when, in December, my formal teaching of the subject came to an end. Now, sixteen years later(1995-2022), I have added much more reading and I possess a greater grounding in this field, although I am far from being what you could call a serious student of the history of the western classical tradition. There is just too much to consider and my academic interests are far too eclectic. With all the other subjects now striving to find a place under my academic belt, I can not expect to have more that a working knowledge for: (a) my pleasure and (b) for Baha?i purposes.I have taught many subjects in my more than thirty years of teaching and classical history, literature and philosophy did not occupy a place in these teaching experiences except incidentally from time to time. But classical studies has come to occupy a place of interest now that I have retired and no longer teach full-time or part-time. It is a place of interest I return to occasionally with varying degrees of interest. Of course, this is true of all subjects. Interest is a key and is a variable.There was a core to build on in December 1994 and that is what I have been doing for these last thirteen years since I stopped teaching ancient history five years before retiring from full-time work as a professional teacher. I have been adding more and more material to this core now that ancient history has come to occupy this place, however peripheral, in my post-retirement studies. As yet I have not had to draw on it for the purposes of Baha?i Studies, just for my personal pleasure and the occasional prose-poem.Given the variety of my other academic interests I will remain for the most part only an interested observer of the field. Expertise, it would seem, will not be granted to me in any subject. A generalist I have been and a generalist I will remain. Given the great burgeoning in the social sciences and humanities in the last half century and given the advice ?Abdu?l-Baha places before His readers in Secret of Divine Civilization for students to acquire a ?comprehensive knowledge,? it seems only appropriate that I be a generalist.
My other contact and experience with ancient Greece has been sporadic. The following is a good example of one such contact in my writing.BYRON?S LETTERS AND JOURNALS AND MINEA COMPARATIVE NOTEIn his ?preface? to The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Volume 1: A New, Revised and Enlarged Edition, With Illustrations, 1898(Project Gutenburg: Online Reader, 2006), Rowland E. Prothero writes: ?Byron's letters appeal on three special grounds to all lovers of English literature. They offer the most suggestive commentary on his poetry; they give the truest portrait of the man; they possess, at their best, in their ease, freshness, and racy vigour, a very high literary value.?Prothero continues: ?If the letters were selected for their literary value alone, it is probable that very few of those contained in the present volume would find a place in any collection formed on this principle. But biographical interest also demands consideration, and, in the case of Byron, this claim is peculiarly strong.? In the case of my letters it is also probable that very few of my letters would find a place in any collection if that collection was to be formed on the basis of quality. Who is to say what biographical interest my letters might have at a future time? I and readers shall let time take its course.Volume 1 of Byron?s letters and journal from the 1898 edition covers the period from 1798 to August 1811. It includes the letters written by Lord Byron from his eleventh to his twenty-third year. They therefore illustrate the composition of his youthful poetry, of 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers', and of the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold'. They carry his history down to the eve of that morning in March 1812 when he awoke and found himself famous--in a degree and to an extent which to the present generation would seem almost incomprehensible. Shaykh Ahmad, whom that now famous historian Nabil calls ?that luminous Star of Divine Guidance,? was over 60 when the period covered by the 2nd volume of letters concludes in April 1814. That precursor to the Bab had a dozen years left to live. Two differences between my letters and those of Byron are: (1) the whole notion of fame and celebrity is quite outside the framework and content of my letters and (2) there are no letters in my collection until I was 28.Byron was a superb letter-writer: almost all his letters, whatever the subject or whoever the recipient, are enlivened by his wit, his irony, his honesty, and the sharpness of his observation of people. However fine my letters are I don?t think I could praise my letters in the same way. Byron?s letters provide a vivid self-portrait of the man who, of all his contemporaries, seems to express attitudes and feelings most in tune with the twentieth century. In addition, they offer a mirror of his own time. And so, too, do mine. The first collected edition of all Byron's known letters that supersedes Prothero's incomplete edition at the turn of the century includes a considerable number of hitherto unpublished letters and the complete text of many that were bowdlerized by former editors for a variety of reasons. Prothero's edition included 1,198 letters. This more recent edition has more than 3,000 letters, over 80 percent of them transcribed entirely from the original manuscripts. A just estimate of Byron?s life is difficult to be formed from his letters however vivid the self-portrait. This is also true of my corpus of letters of about an equal number. It is difficult not to regret the destruction of Byron?s Memoirs in which he himself had intended his history to be told. Their loss cannot be replaced; but their best substitute is found in his letters. If my executors are faithful to their task, they will enjoy my journals, my letters, my autobiography, my poetry, indeed, much that I trust has literary value. Through Byron?s letters a truer conception of the man can be formed than any impression which is derived from biographers like Dallas, Leigh Hunt, Medwin, or even Moore. Byron's brilliant epistolary saga approached its end in the last full volume of his letters, from early October 1822 to his fateful departure for Greece in July 1823. During these months he was living in Genoa, with Teresa and her father and brother occupying an apartment in his house. Mary Shelley was staying with the Hunts in a house some distance away. Byron enlarged his circle of English acquaintances, but his liveliest correspondence was still with John Murray, Kinnaird, Hobhouse, and Moore. Of special interest are his frank letters, half flirtatious, to Lady Hardy, those to Trelawny and Mary Shelley, and a growing number to Leigh Hunt and his brother John. I?m not sure what letters of mine are of special interest: perhaps those to John Bailey and Roger White since they are the most voluminous correspondents. My epistolary saga will, in time, approach its end. But, for now, no man knoweth what his own end shall be.There is irony in Byron's advice for a reconciliation between Webster and his wife Frances, whose matrimonial virtue Byron was proud to have spared in England. And there is pathos in his letters to his halfsister urging her and her children to join him in Italy, unaware that his missives to Augusta and her replies were scrutinized by Lady Byron. There are special qualities in particular letters of mine, but I leave it to future readers to decide what these particular virtues are and in what letters.Ron PriceJanuary 27th 2006Hmm, wondering where the Greek history is in this long post. ???
from early October 1822 to his fateful departure for Greece in July 1823.
I think I've found it here while reading and struggling against this new form of trypanosomiasis! ;D
