New Humanists

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Strange omens, plague, occult religious rites. King Tullus Hostilius' reign collapses in something like supernatural madness. The great Ancus Marcius takes over, but is finally deceived by a rich, mysterious newcomer to Rome: Lucius Tarquinius Priscus. Join Jonathan and Ryan as they outline how the first of the Tarquins takes the throne after first disinheriting his own nephew, and then effectively disinheriting the sons of Ancus Marcius, whom Lucius was bound to protect.

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita: https://amzn.to/3gYwtbh

Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/3NtNBSj

Rene Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781570753190

Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana: https://amzn.to/3qgEcWN

Fustel de Coulanges's La Cité Antique (French): https://amzn.to/3yzATuZ

Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City (English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Lysander is a troubling figure. As a child, he was a charity case who excelled his more affluent peers; he never cared for wealth, and yet overlooked the rapaciousness of his friends, allowing money and luxury into Sparta, corrupting it. He liberated the Greek world from the yoke of Athenian imperialism, but then installed oligarchic juntas to rule with an iron fist. He conquered Athens itself, but campaigned at a war council to spare the city from destruction. But once inside the city, he threatened the Athenians with extermination if they didn't obey him. Alex Petkas, the host of the Cost of Glory podcast, joins Jonathan and Ryan in discussing Plutarch's account of the extraordinary Lysander.

Alex Petkas's Cost of Glory podcast (Lysander 1): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lysander-1-death-of-democracy/id1580153815?i=1000565510664

Ancient Life Coach: https://ancientlifecoach.com/

Speak Lead Retreat: https://ancientlifecoach.com/retreat/

Herodotus' Histories: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400031146

Isocrates' Evagoras: https://amzn.to/40NyCaP

Pindar's Olympian Odes: https://amzn.to/429sk6m

Plutarch's Parallel Lives, including Lysander (Loeb edition): https://amzn.to/3HjDnC8

Plutarch's Parallel Lives, including Lysander (Penguin edition): https://amzn.to/44amYK5

University of Chicago's Penelope Parallel Lives: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/home.html

Euripides' Electra: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226035598

Xenophon's Anabasis: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780307906854

Andrew Roberts's Napoleon: A Life: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780143127857

Sean McMeekin's Stalin's War: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781541672796

Alex Petkas's Cost of Glory episode 1 on the Anabasis: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/xenophon-anabasis-i-power-highlights/id1580153815?i=1000597494893

Xenophon's Hellenika: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400034765

Steven Pressfield's Tides of War: https://amzn.to/3oQF9Eq

Paul Cartledge's Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta: https://amzn.to/3LDaFi3

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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In his wise and humane Didascalicon, the teacher, canon regular, and mystical theologian Hugh of St. Victor lays out his advice and instructions for teachers and students engaged in liberal study. The heir of centuries of thought in Christendom on the liberal arts, Hugh and his contemporaries were on the precipice of a revolution--the western rediscovery of Aristotle and the subsequent revolution of theology and philosophy, championed above all by Thomas Aquinas. University of Dallas professor John Peterson joins Jonathan and Ryan to discuss the Didascalicon and its role in liberal education.

Classical Education Graduate Program at the University of Dallas: https://udallas.edu/braniff/academics/ma/classical_education/

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon (Latin): http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/1096-1141,_Hugo_De_S_Victore,_Didascalicon,_LT.pdf

Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon (English): https://archive.org/details/didascaliconmedi00hugh/mode/2up

Bruce A. Kimball's The Liberal Arts Tradition: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780761851325

Ryan N.S. Topping's Renewing the Mind: https://amzn.to/41xlb08

W.H. Cowley's The Seven Liberal Arts Hoax: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27565196

New Humanists episode on Giambattista Vico: https://podcasts.apple.com/hr/podcast/messing-up-your-kids-education-episode-xxxviii/id1570296135?i=1000591833664

Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion 3.0: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781119712619

John Peterson's Review of Teach Like a Champion 3.0: https://www.pdcnet.org/principia/content/principia_2022_0001_0001_0119_0123+

Plato's Republic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780465094080

Augustine's Confessions: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199537822

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita: https://amzn.to/3gYwtbh

Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/3NtNBSj

Jacob Klein's The Idea of Liberal Education: https://www.scribd.com/document/46831695/The-Idea-of-Liberal-Education-Jacob-Klein

Martianus Capella's The Marriage of Philology and Mercury: https://amzn.to/41NZh8t

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Does Plato, and philosophy more generally, belong in schools? In a lecture, professor and Davenant Institute VP Colin Redemer suggests that Plato is too dangerous to be allowed into classical schools. Jonathan and Ryan take a look at this lecture and at the response it received, focusing on esoteric writing, reason versus revelation, and the Platonic-Christian-American synthesis.

The Davenant Institute's Reforming Classical Education: https://davenantinstitute.org/reforming-classical-education

Austin Hoffman's Awkward Family Dinner: A Review of Reforming Classical Education: https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/02/awkward-family-dinner-a-review-of-reforming-classical-education/

Colin Redemer's Revisiting Platonic Education: The Ever Shareable Feast: https://adfontesjournal.com/web-exclusives/revisiting-platonic-education-the-ever-sharable-feast/

Leo Strauss's Persecution and the Art of Writing: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226777115

Plato's Theages: https://amzn.to/3UE4DRl

T.S. Eliot's Second Thoughts About Humanism: https://muse.jhu.edu/document/408

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Irving Babbitt was the architect of New Humanism. He was also T.S. Eliot's mentor at Harvard. But in 1928, the newly Anglican Eliot's essay criticizing his old mentor's humanistic project was published, which provoked a terse, and sharp, rebuke from Babbitt. What is the relationship between traditional religion and humanistic learning? Can humanism provide society with the standards needed for democratic life? In this episode, we take a look at Babbitt's and Eliot's writings on the subject.

T.S. Eliot's The Humanism of Irving Babbitt: https://muse.jhu.edu/document/374

T.S. Eliot's Second Thoughts About Humanism: https://muse.jhu.edu/document/408

Irving Babbitt's Democracy and Leadership: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780913966556

Jay Parini's Irving Babbitt Revisited: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3856831

The Davenant Institute's Reforming Classical Education: https://davenantinstitute.org/reforming-classical-education

T.S. Eliot's Little Gidding: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/winter/w3206/edit/tseliotlittlegidding.html

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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The duel between the Horatii brothers and the Curiatii brothers seemed to settle the Roman-Alban dispute and give Rome authority over Alba. But wily Mettius Fufetius has a trick or two up his sleeve. Meanwhile, the one surviving Horatius brother strikes down his sister in cold blood, an incident Jacques-Louis David drew but never ended up painting. The civilized three-on-three duel now threatens to give way to an all-out war of extermination between Rome and Alba. This is the sixth episode of "No Republic Was Ever Greater," a podcast series examining the rise of the Roman Empire through the work of Livy and Machiavelli. 

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita: https://amzn.to/3gYwtbh

Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/3NtNBSj

Fustel de Coulanges's La Cité Antique (French): https://amzn.to/3yzATuZ

Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City (English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542

Jacques-Louis David's Oath of the Horatii: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_the_Horatii

Nicolas Poussin's Rape of the Sabine Women: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women#/media/File:L'Enl%C3%A8vement_des_Sabines_%E2%80%93_Nicolas_Poussin_%E2%80%93_Mus%C3%A9e_du_Louvre,_INV_7290_%E2%80%93_Q3110586.jpg

Arlette Clavet's Unpublished Studies for 'The Oath of the Horatii': https://www.jstor.org/stable/1552932

Corneille's Horace: https://amzn.to/41zF1Iy

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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After the long peace of Numa's reign, Rome gets a new king, even more ferocious than Romulus: Tullus Hostilius. As soon as he comes to power, he begins looking for a way to start a war (while keeping a good conscience about it). This is the fifth episode of "No Republic Was Ever Greater," a podcast series examining the rise of the Roman Empire through the work of Livy and Machiavelli. 

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita: https://amzn.to/3gYwtbh

Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/3NtNBSj

Fustel de Coulanges's La Cité Antique (French): https://amzn.to/3yzATuZ

Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City (English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542

Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140449235

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780547928210

Hesiod's Theogony: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199538317

Jacques-Louis David's Oath of the Horatii: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_the_Horatii

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Abraham Lincoln spent less than 1 year of his life going to school. Nevertheless, he became a lawyer, a surveyor, and one of the greatest statesmen in American history. He also carried on correspondence with one of the country's leading Shakespearean actors about the relative merits of different plays and speeches in Shakespeare's dramatic oeuvre. In no speech is the self-educated Lincoln's close attention to the Bard more in evidence than in his political comeback speech, the Peoria Address denouncing the Kansas-Nebraska Act. What do the veiled Shakespearean references in that speech reveal about Lincoln and the crisis that slavery posed to free government?

Abraham Lincoln's Peoria Speech: https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/peoriaspeech.htm

Ted J. Richards's Lincoln and Shakespeare at Peoria: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10457097.2021.1983355?journalCode=vpps20

Lewis E. Lehrman's Lincoln at Peoria: https://amzn.to/3WXKW6p

Lord Charnwood's Abraham Lincoln: A Biography: https://amzn.to/3wXmTdw

Folger Shakespeare Library's Hamlet: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780743477123

Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69379/an-essay-on-criticism

Harry Jaffa's Crisis of the House Divided: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226391182

Harry Jaffa's A New Birth of Freedom: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781538114322

John Channing Briggs's Lincoln's Speeches Reconsidered: https://amzn.to/3xnDyqV

Diana Schaub's His Greatest Speeches: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781250763457

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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When Romulus dies, the city of Rome is riven by ethnic conflict between Romans and Sabines, and class conflict between senators and plebeians. The city cannot agree on its next king; an interregnum ensues. The stalemate is eventually resolved in favor of Numa Pompilius, who is crowned king of Rome in a mysterious, mystical ceremony which almost seems like a human sacrifice. This is the fourth episode of "No Republic Was Ever Greater," a podcast series examining the rise of the Roman Empire through the work of Livy and Machiavelli. 

Livy's Ab Urbe Condita: https://amzn.to/3gYwtbh

Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy: https://amzn.to/3NtNBSj

René Girard's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780804722155

Plato's Republic: https://amzn.to/3H2XOU1

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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John Milton's clarion call to educators to "repair the ruins of our first parents" has inspired countless teachers and parents in the classical education movement and beyond. But is Milton really the classical education ally he appears to be? In "On Education" he pays lip service to grammar, logic, and rhetoric - the three components of the Trivium - but he also disparages scholasticism, ignores metaphysics, and deplores medieval education. Join Jonathan and Ryan as they discuss Milton's education manifesto.

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

John Milton's Of Education: https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/of_education/text.shtml

Johann Heinrich Alsted's Loci Communes: https://digitale.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/vd17/content/titleinfo/5175418

Jan Comenius' Orbis Pictus: https://amzn.to/3vQb08A

Hans H. Ørberg's Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: https://amzn.to/3hoLz7V

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Support the show