Agrippina the Younger

Effective and exemplary political leaders are those who can achieve the greatest good for the general population, serve as an example to the people they represent, and resist the temptations of power. In The Education of Cyrus, Xenophon describes Cyrus as the embodiment of these traits, but Book 8 shows the Persian empire immediately disintegrating after his demise. It would seem that altruism and success as a leader are inadequate, and that Cyrus’ hopes of leaving a legacy disbanded along with…

Long ago, Native Americans were a threat to caucasian settlers in the new America. In the realistic fiction novel, White Indian, by Donald Clayton Porter, he tells the story of the Seneca tribe. At the time, the Seneca was a powerhouse of a nation, raiding any town in their way, slaughtering innocent people. The leader of the Seneca, Ghonka, also known as The Great Sachem, was not one to be messed with. While invading a settlers town, Ghonka was raiding a specific house, about to kill everyone…

How do we live ‘according to nature’ in the Stoic doctrine? Do you agree with this doctrine? Stoicism is one of the branches of ancient philosophy originally founded by Zeno of Citium (300 BC). What is Stoicism? Stoic philosophy is not a series of philosophical claims about the nature of the world, of what we can know or what is right or wrong. Instead, Stoicism is commonly described to be an attitude, a way of life (Sellar, 2006). More importantly, the stoics have repeatedly stated in their…

“Farewell, good strato. Caesar now be still: I killed not thee with half so good a will” (5.5.78). “Julius Caesar” is a historic Roman story about the genius scheme Marcus Brutus conspires against Caesar. Brutus conspires to kill Julius Caesar and deals with the consequences in a rather brutal way. Brutus is the definition of a tragic hero and demonstrates the qualities a tragic hero needs. A tragic hero is a character that makes a decision that leads to their fate.The characters actions often…

The movie High Noon portrays the elements of a Greek tragedy. In High Noon, we see a very close relationship between what Aristotle described as the essential elements to a tragedy and what we see unfold throughout the movie. We see all of the six elements; plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song, shown in some form throughout the movie, although, Aristotle says that plot and character are primary, so those will be the two elements of focus. In exploring plot and character, the…

The sculptural portrait of Faustina the Elder is made of marble and was sculpted between the years of 140 and 160 A.D. She is a Roman piece by an unknown artist, and is housed in the Getty Villa. Faustina is composed of strong lines and shapes to draw the viewer into the vertical dominant composition. Multiple forms break down into triangular shapes that bring the eye up and down the length of the piece, in order to add some movement to her otherwise static pose. Faustina the Elder stands…

Gaius Plinius Secundus (best known as Pliny the Elder), a Roman author, philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire once said, “Home is where the heart is.” This statement still speaks true to most people today. Anyone who is in the real estate or homebuilding business knows that people do not buy houses; they buy homes. That is why new homebuilders spend thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars upgrading and decorating their model homes. One such homebuilder,…

Sometimes people are driven to murder as a form of ultimate revenge. Authors that write gothic literature will often use situations like this to make their story. In And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie shows how people take a situation into their own hands and try to play god. At the end you find out that Justice Wargrave murdered himself and the 9 other guest on the island because they had all been a part of a murder, but weren't convicted. Likewise in “Haircut,” Ring Lardner also shows a…

Hans Holbein the younger was an extremely dominant figure in German renaissance art and was considered the very best of portrait artists. Hans Holbein aided in evolving German art from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Holbein worked in many artistic mediums like portraits and more abstract ones like jewelry and metal work. On the more painting orientated side of things, he was also brilliant at religious history oriented paintings, altarpieces, miniature portraits, illustrations and…

The book “American Jezebel” was written in 2004 by Eve LaPlante, who is from Massachusetts and has written various other books about powerful and influential women in history. The thing that makes this book unique is that Anne Hutchinson is actually an ancestor of LaPlante which allows her to have a different point of view on the situation and she is able to write the book in a different way and explain it differently than another author would. Anne Hutchinson was a woman of change who was very…