Roger Pearse

In modern times, yes. Although I notice that people have actually stopped expecting progress in every field except the technological.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

No Robots

Guilty. And, no, it wasn't nice. A more reactionary son-of-a-bitch would be hard to imagine. Hypatia and Nestorius are among his victims. A real thug.

Roger Pearse

I try to be a bit more open-minded. Cyril does appeal to some people, although I've never quite worked out why, so clearly I miss something.

He's an easy man to dislike, it's true. He inherited his uncle's role as political leader and gang-boss in Alexandria. I don't think that he ordered the murder of Hypatia -- that occurred after she was foolish enough to enrage the Alexandrian mob, something even Ptolemaic kings feared to do. But he certainly engineered the deposition and exile of Nestorius, by bribing the imperial eunuchs.

But then he was a tough man in a tough role in a corrupt society, and perhaps he had fewer choices than we realise.

Theodoret of Cyr thought he was a scumbag, anyhow.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Richard Carrier

I have no idea what you are talking about. Trajan's statement has nothing in it of any relevance to your stated law, nor does my dissertation address such a strange generalization.

BTW, it's your exceptionless generalization I see no evidence of, not the idea that some people in some eras see their generation as at the pinnacle of progress in some respects (though your Trajan quote fails to be relevant even to that), but rarely is this true of everyone in any generation, or in regard to everything that is seen to advance, while there are just as many if not more who believe the reverse in any generation, that theirs is the depth of a decline in one respect or another (even if not in all), or who imagine something in between, recognizing cycles of decline and progress with their own era anywhere on the spectrum (yet at neither the pinnacle of progress nor decline)--in other words, there are so many diverse views in many eras that your generalization seems false to me.

Richard Carrier

That's actually strictly true. Though there were certain integrated notions of progress in the 19th century that appear to be the unique product of the 17th century (and thus did not obtain in antiquity), the ancients had their own scattered ideas of progress.

Moreover, as also in the 19th and 20th centuries, so also in the Greco-Roman era, there were views of progressivism, degeneration, and cyclical progress and decay with "modern" society anywhere in the cycle, in other words a full spectrum of ideas. Views also differed by domain, e.g. whether society was progressing politically or morally were two different things, so also whether society was progressing technologically or scientifically (which were in turn two different things). Religious progress was yet another distinct domain.

And even if an ancient author believed he was observing progress in one or more of these domains, he might disagree over its value. For example, Seneca railed against the visible technological progress of the Roman Empire (as also against the routine and pervasive innovation in religion going on around him), yet at the same time singing the praises of present and future scientific progress. In contrast, Petronius poked fun at Seneca's ludditism, favoring more the side of Cicero, Vitruvius, and Hero who saw technological progress as good and necessary (and were also fans of scientific progress as well). But to be fair, there were even those who railed against modernization in the 17th-19th centuries, right on into the 20th and 21st centuries.

I have a chapter on the ancient evidence in my forthcoming book (as pertains mainly to scientific progress), and there I cite the leading scholarship on modern progressivism as it contrasts with ancient (in all domains except religion, although I think a whole additional story could be told there).

So I'll leave it at that for now.

Richard Carrier

Whether you mean of superstition, or of its lessening severity among the elite (vs. the masses), my proof lies in my extensive experience with the writings of the Roman elite. If you disagree, then we'll have to leave it at that. I'm not going to start up a course here in Roman Religion 101. Unless someone is going to pay me.


Not really. You took a statement of mine out of context and for some reason assumed I was talking about the whole Roman populace, even though the very next sentence should have clarified I was only speaking of the literate elite. Evidently I need to be hyper-specific when communicating with you, as you don't cope with context well.


Now I'm confused. Since you don't seem to have understood what I claimed, I now have no idea what you are claiming you claimed to be the opposite of what you think I claimed.

All I said was that the Imperial Roman elite resembled in many respects the Imperial British elite, in regard to attitudes toward religion: a mixture of rationalism and superstition, with a growing preponderance of the former in one measure or another. Or in other words, they weren't all cooky fans of crazy things like the bizarre (and remarkably unique) rules of the Flamen Dialis, any more than all Jews are obsessively observant of Halakha (even though thousands still are).

Again, if you disagree, I'm not going to argue the point. As long as you correctly understand what I actually said and meant, I'm done here.


There were numerous Catholics in Britain and the British colonies, whose membership contributed notably to the literate elite (especially after 1830). I was using them as an example only, referring to the fact that even the literate elite were still believing and doing things like this, not that they were all believing and doing the same things (much less that they were all Catholics!). I also gave the example of spiritualism, yet somehow you did not assume I meant all the British elite were attending seances. So how did you make the mistake only the one time, but understand me in the other instance? I suppose you thought I meant by "with a Church" the Church (as in CofE) rather than (quite literally) a Church (as in one of many). At any rate, if I confused you, now you know what I meant. So you can untie your knickers and go for tea.

Jeffrey Gibson

Why should I have?

Because you spoke of these being attended by "the sillier set".

Please don't blame me for your ambiguous prose.

Jeffrey