Political Fools.—The almost religious love of the king was transferred by the Greeks, when the monarchy was abolished, to the polis.
An idea can be loved more than a person, and does not thwart the lover so often as a beloved human being (for the more men know themselves to be loved, the less considerate they usually become, until they are no longer worthy of love, and a rift really arises).
Hence the reverence for State and polis was greater than the reverence for princes had ever been. The Greeks are the political fools of ancient history—today other nations boast that distinction.
Ancient Greek philosophers / in Sacred geometry play
Gand mysteries lost to scholarship / deep in plaster wet.
LETTER TO PETER GAST | Turin, Sunday, DECEMBER 16, 1888*******
Important extension of the concept of “operetta.”* [parenthesis - light or humorous theme, typically having spoken dialogue] Spanish operetta. La gran via [Madrid’s most famous road that goes through the center], heard twice [ (1) Die fröhliche Wissenschaf / (2) La “Gaya” Sciencia] - main feature, from Madrid [La “Gaya” Sciencia]. Simply cannot be imported [gai saber]: one would have to be a rogue ***** and the devil of an instinctive fellow - and solemn at the same time… a trio of three [9] solemn old gigantic villains in the strongest thing that I have heard and seen [Thrice did there peal peals at the gate like thunders, thrice did the vaults resound and howl again: then did I go to the gate.] - also as music: genius cannot be formulated… since I now know a great deal of Rossini - am familiar with eight operas [898 = U | Cow mentioned in Zarathustra 8 times] - I took my favorite one, Cenerentola, as an example for comparison: it sounded a thousand times too kindhearted [“Gaya” - गाय] when compared with the Spaniards [la & Sciencia]. you see, only a complete rogue could think out even the plot 🖕- it is just like a conjuring trick the way the villains flash like lightening into view. Four or five pieces of music [AE[I]OU] which must be heard; for the rest, the Viennese waltz in the form of larger ensembles predominates [SOCIAL]. Offenbach’s Schone Helena coming after it was a sorry falling-off [Romantic opera***: Trojan war parody]. I left. It lasts exactly 1 hour.
1h = 60min;
[At point (0,0) of 60min, radius = 12; at radius 12: X2 + Y2 = 144]****
*The development of song in opera gives an ever-new future to absolute music (through an increase in symbolism) 22[110]113 | Hear the pronunciation of “Gaya” - गाय
**Two words suffice, which of course in Germany are not easily [and in fact aren’t] translated “into German”: gai saber. 34[181] April-June 1885 (gai saber been infact the proposed title for what was to become Beyond Good and Evil, “Gai Saber. Prelude to a philosophy of the future. By Frederick Nietzsche”. 35[84] May to July 1885. (Spring 1885-Spring 1886).
*** But, Sir (🫵) if your book is not Romanticism, what on earth is? Is there not a ground bass***** of anger and delight in destruction rumbling away beneath all your contrapuntal vocal art and seduction of the ear, a furious determination to oppose the entire ‘present’, a will that is not too far removed from practical nihilism and which appears to say, I would prefer that nothing were true, rather than know that you (👋) were right, that your (🙋) truth turned out to be right.’ [BOT, Intro, A7]
****Just listen, Mr pessimist and Defiler of Art, with a more attentive ear to a single passage from your own book, that not uneloquent dragon killer passage which can sound enticing and seductive to young ears and hearts; Are you telling us that this is not the genuine, true Romantics confession [“American Romantic period” - Protestantism] of 1830 beneath the mask of the pessimist of 1850 [end of period; 1870 - exactly 40 years], behind which one can hear the opening bars of the usual romantic finale dash fracture, collapse, return, and prostration before an old belief, before the old God? [BOT, Intro, A7]
***** A pattern of notes, especially a short melodic phrase (12), set in the base and repeated over and over again in the course of a musical composition. 12+12+12+12+12+12+12+12+12+12+12+12 | 144 [BOT, Intro, A7]
****** A ROGUE | 9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21+22+23+24+25+26+27
and the devil of an instinctive fellow | 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17
and solemn at the same timE | 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9
******* 888 = [18+9+5 | Center of number chains] Vav = 22
The number 22 is also significant in the Gematria field, which interprets the Hebrew alphabet as numerical values. In Gematria, the number 22 is the numerical value of the Hebrew letter “Vav,” which is often used to represent the idea of connection or unity.
Great wickedness of rebellion and sin [steps in number chains] [9+8+4]
The meaning of number 21 is that of great wickedness of rebellion and sin. After the children of Israel left Egyptian bondage, they had twenty-one major rebellious events as they wandered the wilderness. The number 13, which symbolizes depravity and sinfulness, and 21 are closely related.
Lack, disorganization, disorder (sum of starts of number chains) [9+1+1]
The number 11’s meaning in the Hebrew context is quite similar to its biblical meaning. 11 (pronounced in Hebrew as achat esre or echad asar) is associated with lack, disorganization, disorder, and other negative virtues. Khaf is the eleventh Hebrew letter, which is a numerical equivalent of the number twenty.
Redemption [(lenght of number chains) 9+17+19]
The numerical value of Hebrew word GAVLE meaning redemption, ADM meaning Adam with the final letter "mem" equal to 40, and HBLE meaning insult, gives each one 45. Occurrence The number 45 is used 3 times in the Bible. The word fidelity is mentioned 45 times in the Bible.
ect, ect…
The School of Athens was painted by the 27 year old Raphael (1483 –1520). Taking over 3 years to paint it is one of the true great works of the world that adorns the halls of power in the Vaticans' Apostolic Palace.
The School of Athens (1509 - 1511)
| ATHENIAN BLOODSTOCK |
Zeno
On the very far left, almost hidden by a pensive young boy, is the profile of Zeno of Elea (c. 490 – c. 430 BCE), disciple of Parmenides.
Famous for his paradoxes which have been presented earlier on this page, Zeno is also regarded as the first philosopher who dealt with the earliest attestable accounts of mathematical infinity.
A little known fact about Zeno is that, according to According to Plutarch (c. AD 46 – AD 120) the Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, he attempted to kill the Roman tyrant Demylus, and when failing to do so, "with his own teeth bit off his tongue, he spit it in the tyrant’s face".
Zeno’s paradoxes are all about challenging our intuitions that things have a fixed status by using logic to suggest that things can never be reduced to a single point in space, or said to have a single property. Here are some examples of Zeno’s paradoxical thinking…
Zeno: “What is moving moves neither in the pace in which it is nor in the place in which it is not.”
Zeno: “If more things than one exist, the things which exist are limitless. For there are always others between the things which exist, and again others between them.”
Hypatia
The central woman figure is believed to be Hypatia of Alexandria (350-370 to 415 AD) - the first women to make a substantial contribution to the development of mathematics. She was instrumental in developing the ideas of hyperbolas, parabolas, and ellipses.
A lesser known fact is that the hydrometer (also called an aerometer) an instrument used to determine the density of fluids is considered an invention of Hypatia.
However, according to the celebrated English historian Edward Gibbon (1737 – 1794), Hypatia
met with a grisley end been "torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader (alias Peter the Lector) and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells, and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames”.
Averroës
The man in green with his hand placed over his heart is the mediæval Andalusian Muslim polymath Averroës (1126 – 1198).
Averroës is most famous for his commentaries of Aristotle's works and he tried to reconcile Aristotle's system of thought with Islam. According to him, there is no conflict between religion and philosophy, rather that they are different ways of reaching the same truth
Heraclitus
Now for one of the main figures of the fresco, the man seated in the foreground melancholically pondering an unknown letter. The primary representation is that of the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 535 – c. 475 BCE). The philosophy of Heraclitus was immortalised, somewhat disingenuously, by Plato (c. 429 – c. 347 BCE): “Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river”. This has led to the famous misinterpretation that for Heraclitus identity is tethered to time.
What Heraclitus actually says is the following: "On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow”.
The sentence says that different waters flow in rivers staying the same. In other words, though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same. Indeed, it must be precisely because the waters are always changing that there are rivers at all, rather than lakes or ponds. The more nuanced point that Heraclitus makes, then, is not that everything is changing, but that the fact that some things change makes possible the continued existence of other things.
As an interesting addendum, the American poet Robert Frost (1874 – 1963) would have taken solace in Heraclitus' assertion that "The road up and down is one and the same”.
The second person this figure is said to represent is the Vatican sculptor, painter and architect, Michelangelo (1475 – 1564). At the time of commission Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel and the rivalry between these two artists was high - Raphael is said to have spied on Michelangelo’s progress by candle light on several occasions. Nonetheless this homage to his fellow artist has not gone un observed by historians who have also identified a different painting style for this figure, heavily influenced by Michelangelo.
Euclid
At the bottom right corner of the painting stands Euclid, bending over to demonstrate a geometrical rule to onlookers using a compass. Euclid of Alexandria (mid-300s to mid-200s BC) was a Greek mathematician. He developed what is now called Euclidean Geometry, and is accordingly remembered as the “father of geometry”.
Euclid, like Archimedes, detected strong correspondences between the physical laws of nature and the laws of mathematics, and posited a divine being who created nature according to mathematical laws. The role of the mathematician, argued Euclid, was to discover the mathematical laws according to which this divine being constructed the universe.
Euclid: “The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.”
The modern mathematician Eric Temple Bell wrote that “Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions”.
Apelles, Zoroaster & Ptolemy
In the far bottom right corner, at the front row, stand Appelles, Zoroaster - holding the celestial sphere - and Ptolemy who hold the globe with his back to us.
Appelles (300s BC) was an Ancient Greek painter. Almost all of what we know of him comes from Pliny the Elder’s histories. Appelles famously painted Phillip II of Macedon and young Alexander the Great.
Zoroaster (c. 628-551 BC), or Zarathustra, was an ancient Perisan prophet who founded the pre-Islamic religion of Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism was predicated on a fundamental dialectical struggle between the forces of truth/light/good v. untruth/dark/evil.
Zoroaster: “He who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of ten thousand prayers”.
Ptolemy (c. 100-170 AD) was an ancient Greek astronomer and geographer who held that the earth was the center of the universe, and mapped out the entire Roman Empire in his Geography.
Ptolemy: “When I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia, food of the gods.”
Aeschines
Behind Alexander the Great, standing in the left back row with his right arm outstretched, is Aeschines. Aeschines (389–314 BC) was an Ancient Greek statesman and Attic orator who was concerned with democratic theory, justice and statesmanship.
Pythagoras
The large scale seated figure at the bottom left of the fresco is non other than the pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BCE).
A multitude of mathematical and scientific discoveries were attributed to Pythagoras, including his famous theorem: a theorem in geometry that states that in a right-angled triangle the area of the square on the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of the other two sides—that is, a^2 + b^2 = c^2.
A lesser known fact is that Pythagoras was the first person known to have taught the earth was spherical.
Apollo & Athena
Raphael, the consummate frescoist and iconographer that he was, was careful in his depiction of the effigies which loom over the scene and which loosley represent the cannon of philosophers that reside beneath them.
On the left hand side - the side of natural philosophy - recognizable through the lire we can see the God Apollo. Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music and poetry.
On the right hand side – the side of Moral philosophy – recognizable by her shield is the goddess Athena. Athena was also honored for a variety of traits including the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, strategic war, mathematics, strength, strategy and the arts.
Parmenides
With his foot perched upon a marble block and his head peering back in the direction of Pythagoras is a depiction of one of the most significant pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, Parmenides of Elea (c. 510 c. 415 BCE). Promenades struggled with the metaphysics of change and attempted to defend the ontological argument against nothingness, essentially denying the possible existence of a void.
This led to his famous and counter intuitive assertion that"existence is timeless and change is impossible”.
Xenophon
Along the back row on the left stands Xenophon, gazing into the distance as Socrates speaks beside him. Xenophon (430-354 BC) is primarily remembered as a historian, and less so as an a political and moral philosopher, and Athenian military leader. Xenophon’s corpus features many different styles and genres - from biographies of kings to Socratic dialogues and treatise on horsemanship.
Xenophon: “There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform.”
Anaximander
At the front left corner sits Anaximander (c. 610-546 BC). Anaximander was a pre-Socratic philosopher, and he’s believed to be the first Western philosopher to have ever written down his ideas. He was a student of Thales, and possibly a teacher of Pythagoras.
Anaximander: “The source from which existing things derive their existence is also that to which they return at their destruction. There are many worlds and many systems of Universes existing all at the same time, all of them perishable. Immortal and indestructible, surrounds all and directs all.”
Diogenes
On the steps lies Diogenes the Cynic (c. 412-323 BC). Diogenes is generally credited as the founder of cynicism. Plutarch and Diogenes Laërtius famously recount that Alexander the Great traveled to Corinth to visit Diogenes and learn from him. Diogenes was sunbathing when Alexander arrived and asked if he could do anything for the renowned philosopher.
Diogenes: "Yes, stand out of my sunlight.”
Alexander: "If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes."
Diogenes: "If I were not Diogenes, I would still wish to be Diogenes.”
Socrates
To the left of Plato’s followers stands Socrates, deeply engaged in a discussion with several listeners. Socrates (c.470-399 BC) is considered one of the primary founders of Western philosophy, and his influence in inestimable. All Western philosophers before Socrates are broadly categorised as Pre-Socratics, and all philosophers after are effected by his thought, if not indirectly through Socrates’ influence on his student Plato, and Plato’s student Aristotle.
Socrates’ way of philosophising was to engage in discussions that followed from him questioning and thereby undermining the basic assumptions of his fellow citizens in Athens. “What is justice?” he would ask a lawyer, and in so doing reveal that the lawyer - despite assuming that he upholds justice - has no precise conception of what justice is. He sought to probe and expose the un-examined assumptions that we live by.
Socrates: “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates himself would claim that he did not know what justice truly is, that he only had an intuition of it. In fact Socrates claimed that he had no true knowledge of anything, other than that he knew nothing, and was unique in that respect, and therefore the most knowledge man in Athens.
Socrates: “One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.”
Socrates was something of a punk, even a troll. He’d nag you and prod you until you admitted that you were ignorant. But he was a troll who died for his trolling. The Athenian state ordered his execution for (1) corrupting the youth of Athens, and (2) undermining the state religion. Socrates’ bravery during his poisoning is legendary. His last words are recorded by Plato.
Socrates: "Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it."
Concerned with virtue until his death…
Plato & Aristotle
At the very center of the painting stand Plato and Aristotle, deep in discussion. Plato points upwards towards the heavens, holding the Timaeus in his left hand, and Aristotle stretches his hand outward, horizontally toward his surroundings, and holds his Ethics.
Plato (428 or 424-348/347 BC) was a student of Socrates who, like all good students, broke from the teaching of his master. Plato did not accept Socrates’ position that he did not have knowledge of the essence of things, for example the true meaning of justice. He accordingly developed his theory of forms; every particular existence of a thing is modeled on a more fundamental existence of a form or universal thing. The table in the living room is a particular manifestation of a universal table that exists in an eternal, spiritual realm. The world consists of the psychological realm, the physical realm, and the fundamental spiritual realm of forms that gives rise to particulars. We can have knowledge of the essence of things by learning of the spiritual realm. Plato’s allegory of the cave poetically demonstrates the relation between the temporal physical/psychological realms and the eternal realm.
Plato: ““It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.”
Aristotle (367 BC–347 BC) was a student of Plato, and was disenchanted with Plato’s theory of knowledge in the same way that Plato was disenchanted with Socrates’. Aristotle was taught in Plato’s academy, but eventually left to travel Greece. It was during his travels that he formulated a new theory of how we have knowledge that was based on experience in the physical world rather than - following Plato - on gaining access to abstract universal forms in the eternal realm. Aristotle became deeply engaged in biology and other sciences that involved conducting experiments and interacting with the empirical world. He accordingly developed his new theory that we gain knowledge through our sensory experiences of the physical world. He argues that the particular and universal realms are not divided, with the particular being a manifestation of the universal; instead the particular and universal are united in each individual thing, which is an expression of the universal. The universal table is abstracted from the particular table; when the particular ceases to exist, so does the universal. He is therefore recognised as a founder of empiricism. The mind is a slate upon which senses inscribe writing.
Aristotle: “What the mind thinks must be in it in the same sense as letters are on a tablet which bears no actual writing; this is just what happens in the case of the mind.”
Boethius
Described by the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (c.1407 – 1457) as the last of the Romans and the first of the scholastic philosophers, the figure on the bottom left hand of the fresco is that of Boethius (480 – c. 524).
He is the name sake of the "The Boethian Wheel" a model for his belief that history is a wheel: those that have power and wealth will turn to dust; men may rise from poverty and hunger to greatness, while those who are great may fall with the turn of the wheel
Epicurus
Sitting opposite Zeno of Elea - and often depicted with him in classical representations - is Epicurus (342 - 271 BCE). Epicurus is the namesake of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.
He equated pleasure and pain with good and evil leading him to formulate his famous paradox; It is a trilemma argument (God is omnipotent, God is good, but Evil exists); or more commonly seen as this quote:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
Alexander the Great & Antisthenes
Towards the left of the back row stands Alexander the Great (who needs no introduction) and Antisthenes, who listens to the great military leader. Antisthenes (c.446-366BC) was Greek philosopher who is often seen as the founded of the philosophy of Cynicism. Antisthenes was a student of Socrates’ and was primarily concerned with ethics.
Antisthenes believed that virtue rather than pleasure is the highest good. Pleasure is in fact evil, and the wise eschew pleasure by voluntarily undergoing pain, living an ascetic life in pursuit of virtue.
Antisthenes: “As iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious are consumed by their own passion.”
Antisthenes: “I'd rather be mad than feel pleasure.”
He was also concerned with semantics and the philosophy of language.
Antisthenes: “The investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education.”
Plotinus
Standing apart on the right hand side is the figure widely regarded to be that of Plotinus (204/5 – 270 C.E.). Considered one of the most influential philosophers in antiquity after Plato and Aristotle, Plotinus distinguished between the person and the composite of soul and body.
With clear contributions to ethical discourse, an embodied ‘Plotinusian’ person is, therefore, a conflicted entity, capable both of thought and of being the subject of the composite's non-cognitive states, such as appetites and emotions.
Plotinus holds that the state of cognitive awareness more closely identifies the person than does the non-cognitive state. in this way, a person in a body can choose to take on the role of a non-cognitive agent by acting solely on appetite or emotion. In doing so, that person manifests a corrupted desire, a desire for what is evil, the material aspect of the bodily. Alternatively, a person can distance himself from these desires and identify himself with his rational self.
Owing to the conflicted states of embodied persons, they are subject to self-contempt and yet, paradoxically, ‘want to belong to themselves’. Persons have contempt for themselves because one has contempt for what is inferior to oneself. Plotinus views ethics according to the criterion of what contributes to our identification with our higher selves and what contributes to our separation from that identification. Thus, one who is purified in embodied practices can turn unimpeded to one's true self-identity as a thinker.
Archimedes
Archimedes crouches at the bottom left corner, engrossed in writing a book that nearby pupil takes notes on. Archimedes (c. 287-212 BC) is best remembered as an Ancient Greek mathematician.
Archimedes’ mathematical discoveries are equivalent to the philosophical discoveries of Plato and Aristotle in their depth and enduring relevance. He’s thought to have anticipated modern calculus, and was one of the earliest thinkers to detect a correspondence between the behavior of physical objects and mathematical laws. He was obsessed by patterns, spheres, spirals, puzzles, infinity and reflections. He saw the beauty in mathematics, and understood the capacity for mathematical thinking and physics to alter the world.
Archimedes: “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.”
Archimedes: “Mathematics reveals its secrets only to those who approach it with pure love, for its own beauty.”
Archimedes: “Don’t disturb my circles!”
Raphael
Raphael places himself in his own painting, beside Apelles, Zoroaster and Ptolemy. Raphael made an early sketch of painting in which he was yet to include himself, as well as Heraclitus and Protogenes. Raphael is not the only contemporary figure on the canvas. The painting actually functions as an allegory; ancient figures are portrayed as simultaneously representing Renaissance figures. Leonardo da Vinci represents Plato and Michelangelo represents Heraclitus. It appears that Raphael has painted himself into the history of creative geniuses; immortality through art.
Peripatetics
To the right of Aristotle crowd a group of Peripatetics. The Peripatetics were a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece who based their ideas on those of their teacher, Aristotle. The school originated in roughly 335BC, during Aristotle’s lifetime, and ended in the 3rd century during the Roman era. The school was named after the peripatoi or ‘walkways’ of the Lcyeum temple where Aristotle taught, and habitually walked while delivering his lectures.