Localities also, such as open spaces, streets, baths, and theatres, had their own Genii. These were usually represented under the form of snakes see cut ; and hence the common habit of keeping tame snakes.
Pillure d' Evcoluno, i Timeline : Launch Interactive Timeline. Pictures and Media. The determined Marcellus, however, left no opportunity to chance. By this time the siege had already lasted over a year. Taking advantage of a lull in action caused by negotiations, Marcellus reconnoitered a tower at the edge of the city that appeared poorly defended.
He decided to apply the principle of Schwerpunkt —concentration of force—to that tower and planned to strike when the Greeks were feeling comfortable and oblivious. Archimedes was not fated to survive the sack of Syracuse.
Plutarch and other ancient sources hold that the mathematician remained, as ever, typically distracted even as the Romans plundered the city.
He was said to have been blissfully lost in his equations when he encountered a Roman soldier. Accounts differ as to what actually happened during the encounter. What is known is that the soldier killed Archimedes on the spot. The death of Archimedes. Attribution 4. Fortifying the family The earliest concept of genius dates back to ancient Italian spirits who were believed to protect the household. A Roman couple sit together holding hands. Heliograph by Arents after E Guillame. In Roman times, the genius spirit blessed the head of the household and his wife with children.
From life force to personal protector Ceremonies like this replenished the genius, generating new life and energy for both the spirit and the household. Socrates said he heard a voice that advised him against certain courses of action.
Inspired by the gods In ancient times, poets like Homer, Virgil and Ovid were thought to have no talent of their own. The Grace of God inspires the mind. God inspires life into man. Engraving by D Cunego, , after Michelangelo. God creates Adam. Etching by James Barry, , after his painting. An archangel reveals the physical nature of the universe to a group of natural philosophers. Engraving about astronomy. A muse reveals information about the stars to a powerful man.
Head of a man screaming. Engraving after a drawing by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The great individual Attributing genius to the work of spirits or divine inspiration was the norm until the mids.
Perhaps every place of genius is equally overzealous. Perhaps that is why they never last long. In , an anthropologist named Alfred Kroeber theorized that culture, not genetics, explained genius clusters like Athens. He also theorized why these golden ages invariably fizzle.
Every culture, he said, is like a chef in the kitchen. Eventually, though, even the best-stocked kitchen runs dry. That is what happened to Athens. Houses grew larger and more ostentatious.
Streets grew wider, the city less intimate. People developed gourmet taste. The gap between rich and poor, citizen and noncitizen, grew wider, while the sophists, hawking their verbal acrobatics, grew more influential. Academics became less about pursuing truth and more about parsing it. The once vibrant urban life degenerated. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest.
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