Astral Codex Ten

ancient Athens

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ancient Athens

Article

ancient Athens is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between February 27, 2023 and June 16, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “In ancient Athens, women, the irrational sex, were slaves to their desires”; “Ancient Athens is the classic, but medieval Iceland surely deserves a place beside it”; “Ancient Athens could do what it did because it was geographically and spiritually right on the productive edge”. It most often appears alongside Twitter, 12th-century England, 21st-century America.

Metadata

  • Category: Places
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: February 27, 2023
  • Last seen: June 16, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Highlights From The Comments On Geography Of Madness
February 27, 2023 · Original source
In 21st-century America, women are less enthusiastic about sex, often unsatisfied by it; therefore, it's only natural that men initiate most sexual encounters. In ancient Athens, women, the irrational sex, were slaves to their desires, and part of the humor of the Lysistrata was the idea that the women took their protest so seriously that they could restrain their sexual appetites.
Your Book Review: Njal’s Saga
June 16, 2023 · Original source
The second timeless theme of Njal’s Saga is freedom. To a libertarian, the history of the world is the history of oppression, petty tyrant after petty tyrant, king to bandit to emperor in quick and unbroken succession. Freedom, when it happens, is rare, partial, and quickly snuffed out. Still, there have been a few times when men could boast they were free without it sounding completely hollow. Ancient Athens is the classic, but medieval Iceland surely deserves a place beside it in this pantheon6.
Inline links: 6
Peaceful, beardless Njal is the mouthpiece of civilization, but he isn’t domesticated State cattle like ourselves. Jefferson promised the Americans “a Republic, if you can keep it”. Njal was trying to keep it. He was saying, look, we have a good thing here, sort of. Maybe not an actual good thing, it’s freezing cold and we keep murdering each other, but the thing we signed up for when we fled Norway seeking a free country for free men. But freedom requires virtue, and the particular virtue it requires of you right now is the virtue of mercy and forbearance. Ancient Athens could do what it did because it was geographically and spiritually right on the productive edge between the German barbarians on one side and the decadent Oriental despotisms on the other. We’re trying to do the same thing here, surf the tiny space between civilization and barbarism where freedom can flourish. But to make it work, you’ve got to accept this settlement where Ragnar pays you 200 pieces of silver but otherwise goes on his merry way. You can say no, but that burns a little bit of the commons; the more people do that, the more likely we are to either collapse back into barbarism or call on some king to come save us.
The Eumenides is a play from 5th-century-BC Athens (another of those brief efflorescences of human freedom - this is important!). Orestes learns his mother has murdered his father. Any man who does not avenge his father’s death is accursed. But any man who murders his mother is also accursed.