"Biden's July 24 rebuked Trump's January 6"

"Biden's act of renunciation gives power to his words of denunciation. By demonstrating that he cared about something higher than personal ambition, the president became more credible when he accused his chief opponent of caring for nothing other than personal ambition. By surrendering the power that he'd once hoped to keep, Biden condemned by contrast the predecessor who clung to the power he'd lost."

David Frum at The Atlantic compares Joe Biden to Cinncinatus and Donald Trump to Catiline.

"Team Herodotus" vs. "Team Thucydides"

"We are, Mr. Cohen writes, in a 'golden age' of history writing. For most of human existence, the recording of the past has been 'sacred history,' propaganda put forth by a priestly caste or authorities who claimed to rule by divine right—or, sometimes, simply to be divine. History as we know it—honest and free inquiry across the disciplines—has, he argues, only been possible in two epochs. The first was the founding era of the Greeks and the Romans. The second is ours, the era initiated in 1520, when Pope Leo X commissioned Niccolò Machiavelli to write a 'History of Florence.' Homer uses histor to mean a 'good judge.' A historian's judgment is impaired when a theological thumb is on the scales—but is the judgment of secular historians any better?"

Dominic Green at The Wall Street Journal reviews Richard Cohen's Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past.

"Even if You Think You Have Never Read Thucydides, the Odds Are You Have"

"While not thought of as medical history, Thucydides's account had wide influence on plague literature to come. Works like Albert Camus' The Plague and Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year—both of which have become newly popular among those looking to better understand the novel coronavirus—mined, at times mimicked Thucydides for their own texts. In fact, the shadow cast by Thucydides' story stretches from Lucretius' On the Nature of Things to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal." 

At Slate, Robert Zaretsky discusses "The Plague That Killed Athenian Democracy."

"Thank God We Didn't Have Written Language Back When I Was A Teenager"

"By An Ancient Mesopotamian"

From The Onion.

"Shocking Biblical Study Reveals Methushael Did Not Beget Lamech"

"'This is truly fascinating, because if Lamech was never begat, then who was the begetter of Adah's two sons Jabal and Jubal, the latter being famously the first harp player ever begot?'"

From The Onion. 

"Historians Say It Still A Mystery How People In Ancient Times Didn't Just Go Crazy And Kill Themselves"

"McCullough speculated that one possible explanation was that with a life expectancy of 28, most ancients probably figured it would all be over soon enough anyway."

From The Onion.

"New Evidence Reveals Ancient Greeks Immediately Regretted Inventing Theater"

"Brubaker added that several new findings suggest the ancient Greeks also lamented encouraging those prone to pondering life's unanswerable questions out loud to call themselves 'philosophers.'"

From The Onion.

"Where This Door Has Been Closed to Contemporary Students, It Must Be Reopened"

"That sort of response, I venture to affirm, is still possible, and it is still necessary. In our time, as in all times, the voices of Vanity Fair shout at us that if only we have enough wealth and power we can get everything we want and can force others to do our will. The voice of uncivilized humanity, in other words, teaches us to be sociopaths. The voice of the old humanities, which is the voice of the best in our civilization, teaches another lesson. It teaches that our life is more valuable when we care about the sort of person we are becoming, when we learn to love what deserves to be loved, when we are admired by people whose good opinion is worth having. It prevents us from becoming ideological puppets of the powerful, it defends us against the sham values of commercialized culture, and it gives us a center that is our own. It makes us, in a word, humanior—more human."

James Hankins at American Affairs promotes a revival of the humanities.

Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair!

"Hopeful contenders for everlasting fame must run the gauntlet of numerous challenges, including the jealousy of rivals and possible extinction of their own civilisation and language. But there are some clues hidden in the life stories of those who succeeded and those who were lost along the way."

Zaria Gorvett at the BBC asks, [w]hy are some people almost instantly forgotten when they have gone, while others cling on?"

"Modern-Day Caligula Orders Everything Bagel"

"At press time, the lusty sybarite was adding a Nantucket Nectars Orange Mango juice to his order—a sinful orgy of exotic fruits that only the most reprobate of libertines dare even consider—in a final flourish of intemperance wholly in step with his bottomless, perverted cravings."

From The Onion.

"She Will Be Able to Be My Disciple"

"Even with many questions unsettled, the discovery could reignite the debate over whether Jesus was married, whether Mary Magdalene was his wife and whether he had a female disciple. These debates date to the early centuries of Christianity, scholars say. But they are relevant today, when global Christianity is roiling over the place of women in ministry and the boundaries of marriage.

"The discussion is particularly animated in the Roman Catholic Church, where despite calls for change, the Vatican has reiterated the teaching that the priesthood cannot be opened to women and married men because of the model set by Jesus."

Laurie Goodstein in The New York Times reports on the discovery of a fourth-century scrap that has Jesus of Nazareth referring to his wife.

But Andrew Brown in The Guardian says that the scrap is a fake.

I ♥ ♥

"The story of how the ♥, the heart, and love came together is a romantic tale. Progress towards union was tortuous and was influenced by, amongst other matters, herbalism, heraldry, phallus, breast, and buttock worship, the philosophers of antiquity, the devotions of the Roman Catholic church, the introduction of the penny post, and fashions in playing cards and confectionary."

Iain Gately at Lapham's Quarterly offers a "A Heart-Shaped History."

"The Romans of the New World"

"The book was sent to Spain during the Inquisition, when works written in indigenous languages were banned, and later given to the Medici Library. Largely forgotten until the early 19th century, it is available only to specialists and is seldom on public view. 'It is an incredible thrill to be able to borrow this iconic work,' Lyons says. 'This will be the first time it has returned to the New World.'"

In the Los Angeles Times, Suzanne Muchnic reviews "The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire" at the Getty Villa.

"I Wish I'd Spent Valentine's Day Eating A Prix Fixe Dinner, But I Was Too Busy Getting Beheaded"

By St. Valentine

From The Onion.

It's 4:20 Somewhere

"The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour."

The Canadian Press at CBC.ca reports the finding in China of the "world's oldest stash of marijuana."

The Gospel Truth?

"But almost immediately, other scholars began to take issue with the interpretation of Meyer and the rest of the National Geographic team. They didn't see a good Judas at all. In fact, this Judas seemed more evil than ever. Those early voices of dissent have since grown into a chorus, some of whom argue that National Geographic's handling of the project amounts to scholarly malpractice. It's a perfect example, critics argue, of what can happen when commercial considerations are allowed to ride roughshod over careful research. What's more, the controversy has strained friendships in this small community of religion scholars—causing some on both sides of the argument to feel, in a word, betrayed."

Thomas Bartlett in The Chronicle Review investigates the dispute about the National Geographic-presented Gospel of Judas.

If Adventure Has a Name

"Carbon dating by a German and Peruvian excavation team indicates that the circular plaza is at least 5,500 years old, dating to about 3,500 BC, said Cesar Perez, an archaeologist at Peru's National Institute of Culture who supervised the dig.
"That would make it older than the Great Pyramid of Giza."

Patrick J. McDonnell in the Los Angeles Times reports the discovery of the ruins of Peru's Sechin Bajo, "the oldest known urban settlement in the Americas."

The Problem with Co-Presidency

"James Wilson of Pennsylvania made the argument for a single officeholder with typical depth and precision: 'To control the executive, you must unite it. One man will be more responsible than three. Three will contend among themselves till one becomes the master of his colleagues. In the triumvirates of Rome, first Caesar, then Augustus, are witnesses of this truth. The kings of Sparta and the consuls of Rome prove also the factious consequences of dividing the executive magistracy.'
"Wilson and his allies carried the day; and their argument is as good now as when they embedded it in the Constitution."

Garry Wills explains why "Two Presidents Are Worse Than One" in The New York Times.

The Collector

"In the end, the question is not whether canons like these are good or bad—constant list-making is the predictable result of a society that nurtures the collection instinct. The question is which one you respect. Finding a curator whose taste and expertise you trust isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. Even Nick Hornby recognizes the addictive power of list-making. A few years after finishing High Fidelity, he published Songbook. It’s a list of his favorite songs."

Matthew Dessem in Good magazine ponders the practice of listmaking.

Frank M. Snowden, Jr., 1911-2007

"William Harris, a Columbia University professor who specializes in Greek and Roman history, said Snowden was the first person to write in a serious way about blacks in antiquity, and his books influenced other scholars, including George M. Fredrickson ('Racism: A Short History') and Martin Bernal ('Black Athena').
"However, Harris said: 'Snowden really wanted to find a world in antiquity which was without the plague that inflicted America throughout its history, and he pushed the evidence too far to find an ideal pre-modern, pre-medieval world. There was undoubtedly some racism in antiquity, but he talked it down to being minimal…. He was right, to a point.'"

The Los Angeles Times runs an obit for classicist Frank M. Snowden, Jr.