Do You Know When History Is Happening?

<p><span>Dear Classical Wisdom Reader,</span></p><p><span>Twenty-five years ago, I had just moved back to America. I had been there for exactly 10 days when it happened... when the history of the United States changed forever.</span></p><p><span>I was there to attend my freshman year at St. John’s College in Annapolis, a small liberal arts “Great Books” college. Living in a dorm filled with young women I barely knew, I remember someone (whose name I can’t recall) running into our room to tell us the news that fateful morning.</span></p><p><span>We all gathered in the main hall, sitting on the floor as professors explained that special phones had been set up so we could call loved ones. I remember sitting next to a long-limbed guy from New York, his head buried in his hands.</span></p><p><span>I know everyone has a story, a retelling, a memory of exactly where they were when it happened. Perhaps we can’t remember it perfectly (knowing, as we do, </span><a href="https://classicalwisdom.substack.com/p/does-memory-make-you-you"><span>how fallible our memories can be</span></a><span>), but we all knew immediately that history had happened.</span></p><p><span>And history </span><em><span>did</span></em><span> happen.</span></p><div><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"></a><source type="image/webp"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp" width="1456" height="971" alt=""></a></source><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!Wvlx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F020a5451-3a73-4a58-bc3d-e0ebd650d62f_3840x2560.webp"></a></figure></div><p>Those of us over a certain age can clearly delineate between pre- and post-9/11 America... indeed, the world. It feels like it was a simpler time, when you could meet someone at the boarding gate inside the airport... when you never had to throw away a water bottle or take off your shoes at security... when America was still considered the “coolest” place in the world.</p><p><span>Turns out, history has a way of happening... whether we like it or not. And those significant moments, when the course of history changes forever, have a habit of arriving without much warning.</span></p><p><span>Of course, 9/11 isn’t the only example. There are plenty of historic events, whether they be economic, political, social and natural, that take place the globe over, and the moments we remember depend enormously on where we happened to be.</span></p><p><span>I was applying for jobs in Hong Kong (and being turned down) when the Global Financial Crisis hit.</span></p><p><span>I cried when I heard the heartbreaking news about the Boxing Day tsunami, and again while watching the devastation in Japan unfold in the aftermath of another earthquake </span>in 2011<span>.</span></p><p><span>And, of course, we all know exactly where we were when the shutdowns first took place in response to Covid-19... when the first case was discovered in our particular city or region. (Shockingly, I happened to be getting test results in the very hospital where patient zero was being treated here in Buenos Aires!)</span></p><p><strong><span>But what about the rest of the time? Can we </span></strong><em><strong><span>feel</span></strong></em><strong><span> history as it happens?</span></strong></p><p><a href="https://classicalwisdom.substack.com/p/do-you-know-when-history-is-happening?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=share&amp;action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p><span>Did the Romans know, for instance, the moment Caesar was assassinated that his death would be immortalized forever? Did people across Alexander’s enormous empire remember exactly where they were when they first heard that the great conqueror was dead? What did the inhabitants of the Bronze Age Aegean think when Thera erupted?</span></p><p><span>Did they know they were living through events of historic significance? After all, it is much easier to recognize in retrospect.</span></p><p><span>We look back and draw clean lines through time, marking out events such as the fall of the Roman Republic, the rise of Christianity, the collapse of empires... and imagine that the people living through these moments must have felt the ground shifting beneath their feet... But did they?</span></p><p><span>Or did most people simply wake up, eat breakfast and complain about the weather?</span></p><p><span>Most of the time history doesn’t </span><em><span>actually</span></em><span> announce itself. There are usually no banners or Morgan Freeman voiceover summarizing events and helpfully informing us that something is happening.</span><em><span> </span></em><span>Indeed, for every event that genuinely changes the course of the world, there are countless others that feel enormous in the moment but are eventually reduced to a footnote....or forgotten altogether.</span></p><p><span>Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly), this problem bothered the ancients too.</span></p><h2><strong><span>Thoughtful Thucydides </span></strong></h2><p><span>When war broke out between Athens and Sparta in 431 BC, the great Greek historian, Thucydides, did something amazing and amazingly important... he began recording it almost immediately.</span></p><p><span>And he did this because he believed he was witnessing a signficant historical event. In fact, Thucydides tells us this himself at the very beginning of his </span><em><span>History of the Peloponnesian War</span></em><span>. He began writing as soon as hostilities started because he expected the conflict to be a great one...bigger than those that had come before it.</span></p><p><span>And he was right - the war would last for nearly three decades (albeit with interruptions). It devastated much of the Greek world, included a horrific plague, and contributed to the destruction of Athenian power.</span></p><div><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"></a><source type="image/webp"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg" width="960" height="600" alt=""></a></source><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!SLec!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0d3ff917-2022-4bd2-ba98-b04966035461_960x600.jpeg"></a><figcaption><em>Plague in an Ancient City</em><span>, </span>Michiel Sweerts<span>, </span>c.<span> 1652–1654</span></figcaption></figure></div><p>Thucydides had to be exiled to be able to write about it as he did... but nonetheless, he recognized the importance of the situation, <span>that he was watching pivotal history unfold.</span></p><p><span>What he didn’t know was that more than two thousand years later, we would still be reading Pericles’ Funeral Oration... that generals and political theorists would continue to discuss the Melian Dialogue... or that phrases such as the “Thucydides Trap” would be thrown around by leaders of growing superpowers. </span></p><p><span>Thucydides knew he was witnessing history, but he had no idea what history would make of it.</span></p><div><div><div><p><em><strong>Let History Be Your Guide! Subscribe today to enjoy all our articles, Ebooks, podcasts and more. Bring ancient wisdom to your modern life:</strong></em></p></div><div><div></div><div></div></div></div></div><h2><strong><span>The Ides of March Came…and Went</span></strong></h2><p><span>Then there is Julius Caesar. A dictator of Rome stabbed to death in the Senate by some of the most prominent Romans of their age... It’s a story with everything: blood, betrayal, political conspiracy. I mean, the play basically writes itself! Shakespeare only had to read the history.</span></p><p><span>Surely </span><em><span>that</span></em><span> was a moment when everyone knew something enormous had happened...right?</span></p><p><span>Perhaps they did, but the crazy thing is that they couldn’t have known what came next.</span></p><p><span>Caesar’s assassins really believed they were saving the Republic. Cicero initially rejoiced while Brutus and Cassius imagined that, with the Caesar dead, Rome would return to its old republican order.</span></p><p><span>However, with the gift of hindsight, we know differently. As such, we draw a neat line from Caesar’s murder to the civil wars to the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra and eventually to the reign of Octavian...Augustus, Rome’s first emperor.</span></p><p><span>But the Romans didn’t have that luxury. They could not see that line... and how could they? The fact of the matter is that the transformation from the fall of the Roman Republic to the rise of the Roman empire took decades.</span></p><div><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"></a><source type="image/webp"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg" width="750" height="429" alt=""></a></source><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!0qiP!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54541d01-0258-44fe-b1a4-9e9edf48763b_750x429.jpeg"></a><figcaption><strong>Caesar Crossing the Rubicon by Adolphe Yvon</strong></figcaption></figure></div><p><span>For an ordinary Roman going about his business, when </span><em><span>exactly</span></em><span> did the Republic end? Was it when Caesar crossed the Rubicon? Or his famous assassination? Was it the Battle of Actium? Or when Octavian became Augustus?</span></p><p><span>Hard to know what’s happening, when you are in the midsts of history. </span></p><h2><strong><span>The Unnoticed History</span></strong></h2><p><span>And then there is perhaps an even stranger kind of historical change... the kind that hardly looks like history at all...</span></p><p><span>Nowadays, we describe the rise of Christianity as one of the great transformations of the ancient world. Whatever your religious beliefs, its historical consequences are difficult to overstate because it reshaped institutions, art, philosophy, morality and eventually the political and cultural landscape of Europe and far beyond (</span><a href="https://classicalwisdom.substack.com/p/the-decision-that-changed-history"><span>something we have been discussing recently as well.</span></a><span>)</span></p><p><span>But imagine being alive in the Roman Empire in the first century AD… Somewhere on the distant eastern edge of the empire, a relatively obscure Jewish teacher was executed by Roman authorities, a commonplace occurrence then. His small group of devotees continued preaching with little communities appearing here and there.</span></p><p><span>Depending on where you lived, you might not have noticed at all! Back in Rome all other sorts of other events were taking place, the kind most people worry about. There were wars and taxes, fires and political intrigue. People spent the majority of their time thinking about food prices, family dramas, and the usual tricky business of just being alive.</span></p><div><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"></a><source type="image/webp"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg" width="500" height="667" alt=""></a></source><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!4l-s!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa7d1d51a-f2b6-43d2-99be-ada1027b457c_500x667.jpeg"></a><figcaption>Jesus healing the bleeding woman<span>, Roman catacombs, 300–350</span></figcaption></figure></div><p><span>If you had asked an educated Roman in AD 50 to identify the people or events that would matter most to the world two thousand years later, how likely is it that a tiny religious movement from Judaea would have made the list?</span></p><p><span>Indeed, the history that matters most may not always be the history that makes the most noise. Some of the greatest changes occur almost invisibly... like ideas that spread from person to person or technologies that alter how people act. There are institutions or religions that lose legitimacy while languages disappears.</span></p><p><span>We live in a time when almost </span><em><span>everything</span></em><span> is presented as historic. Every election is unprecedented and more important than ever. Every crisis, from the climate to AI, is existential and every new technological development promises to either change life on planet earth…or end it. Our phones send us notifications of the latest news several times a day, while social media ensures that events taking place thousands of miles away arrive in our pockets and in our minds almost instantaneously.</span></p><p><span>Whether it’s the latest political scandal or a far away mudslide, we have never been more aware of events happening in real time... </span></p><p><span>And yet that doesn’t necessarily mean we are any better at recognizing the major events that drive history.</span></p><p><a href="https://classicalwisdom.substack.com/p/do-you-know-when-history-is-happening?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=share&amp;action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p><span>Perhaps Thucydides understood that the Peloponnesian war was hugely important, even if he didn’t know what later generations would make of it. Caesar’s assassins knew they were taking part in something big, but definitely didn’t anticipate what would happen next… And countless Romans lived their lives alongside a small growing religious movement without even realizing that it would eventually completely transform their world.</span></p><p><span>So... what do you think dear reader? </span></p><p><strong><span>When we look around at everything happening today, are we witnessing important history? How can tell what will be remembered… what is significant.. and what will be forgotten?</span></strong></p><p><strong><span>And is history the events that make the headlines...or is the real history happening somewhere quieter?</span></strong></p><p><span>Add your thoughts on the topic in the discussion below. </span></p><p><span>All the best,<br>Anya Leonard<br>Founder and Director<br>Classical Wisdom</span></p><p><span>P.S. I just want to add a quick THANK YOU to our amazing members who help make this project possible. Thank you for your support and continued interest in ancient history. </span></p><div><div><div><p><strong>Not a Member yet?</strong> Each week we bring articles, ebooks, podcasts and more directly to your inbox… covering the entire ancient world from philosophy and history to mythology and literature. <strong>Make today the day you subscribe to the Classics!</strong></p></div><div><div></div><div></div></div></div></div><p></p> <p><a href="https://classicalwisdom.substack.com/p/do-you-know-when-history-is-happening" target="_blank">- Enlace a artículo -</a></p> <p>Más info en https://ift.tt/xWLNUqw / Tfno. & WA 607725547 Centro MENADEL (Frasco Martín) Psicología Clínica y Tradicional en Mijas. #Menadel #Psicología #Clínica #Tradicional #MijasPueblo</p> <p>*No suscribimos necesariamente las opiniones o artículos aquí compartidos. No todo es lo que parece.</p>