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144-481: Jane Ellen Harrison (9 September 1850 – 15 April 1928) was a British classical scholar and linguist . With Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert , Harrison is one of the founders of modern studies in Ancient Greek religion and mythology . She applied 19th-century archaeological discoveries to the interpretation of ancient Greek religion in ways that have become standard. She has also been credited with being

288-536: A spectrum of theistic probability —the likelihood that each assigns to the statement "God exists". Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so accepted in the Western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatism —the notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are in denial. Some atheists have challenged

432-476: A theistic naturalism . Nevertheless, Oppy argues that a strong naturalism favors atheism, though he finds the best direct arguments against theism to be the evidential problem of evil, and arguments concerning the contradictory nature of God were one to exist. Some atheists hold the view that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheists present deductive arguments against

576-466: A Roman audience saw a play adapted from the Greek by Livius Andronicus. Andronicus also translated Homer's Odyssey into Saturnian verse. The poets Ennius, Accius, and Patruvius followed. Their work survives only in fragments; the earliest Latin authors whose work we have full examples of are the playwrights Plautus and Terence . Much of the best known and most highly thought of Latin literature comes from

720-405: A divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselves—to be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs it—and that atheists, therefore, have

864-418: A god either leads to moral relativism and leaves one with no moral or ethical foundation, or renders life meaningless and miserable. Blaise Pascal argued this view in his Pensées . There is also a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions , or that " there are no atheists in foxholes ". There have, however, been examples to

1008-445: A god range from 500 million to 1.1 billion people . Atheist organizations have defended the autonomy of science , freedom of thought , secular ethics and secularism . Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include the lack of evidence , the problem of evil , the argument from inconsistent revelations , the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified , and

1152-509: A label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577. The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme , and appears in English about 1587. Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god . In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of

1296-521: A learned vocabulary of international application. Thus, Latin grew from a highly developed cultural product of the Golden and Silver eras of Latin literature to become the international lingua franca in matters diplomatic, scientific, philosophic and religious, until the 17th century. Long before this, Latin had evolved into the Romance languages and Ancient Greek into Modern Greek and its dialects . In

1440-416: A lost Attic drama that featured Sisyphus , which has been attributed to both Critias and Euripides , claims that a clever man invented "the fear of the gods" in order to frighten people into behaving morally. Does then anyone say there are gods in heaven? There are not, there are not, if a man is willing not to give foolish credence to the ancient story. Consider for yourselves, don't form an opinion on

1584-615: A means of explanation, and opposed arguments from religious authority . Other critics of religion and the Church during this time included Niccolò Machiavelli , Bonaventure des Périers , Michel de Montaigne , and François Rabelais . Historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that the Reformation had paved the way for atheists by attacking the authority of the Catholic Church, which in turn "quietly inspired other thinkers to attack

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1728-582: A new friendship with Hope Mirrlees , whom she referred to as her "spiritual daughter". Harrison retired from Newnham in 1922 and then moved to Paris to live with Mirrlees. She and Mirrlees returned to London in 1925 where she was able to publish her memoirs through Leonard and Virginia Woolf 's press, The Hogarth Press . She died at age 77 at her home in Bloomsbury . She was buried in St Marylebone Cemetery , East Finchley . Harrison

1872-482: A number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism and Christian atheists . Atheism is accepted as a valid philosophical position within some varieties of Hinduism , Jainism , and Buddhism . Ideas that would be recognized today as atheistic are documented from the Vedic period and the classical antiquity . Atheistic schools are found in early Indian thought and have existed from

2016-467: A persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate. Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as divine laws , requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy , and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do. Philosophers Susan Neiman and Julian Baggini among others assert that behaving ethically only because of

2160-424: A proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category. Most atheists lean toward ontological monism : the belief that there is only one kind of fundamental substance. The philosophical materialism is a view that matter is the fundamental substance in nature. This omits the possibility of a non-material divine being. According to physicalism , only physical entities exist. Philosophies opposed to

2304-599: A punishable offense. During the Early Middle Ages , the Islamic world experienced a Golden Age . Along with advances in science and philosophy, Arab and Persian lands produced rationalists who were skeptical about revealed religion, such as Muhammad al Warraq (fl. 9th century), Ibn al-Rawandi (827–911), and Abu Bakr al-Razi ( c.  865 –925), as well as outspoken atheists such as al-Maʿarri (973–1058). Al-Ma'arri wrote and taught that religion itself

2448-513: A reasonable expectation of public punishment. Although Voltaire is widely considered to have strongly contributed to atheistic thinking during the Revolution, he also considered fear of God to have discouraged further disorder, having said "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." The philosopher David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism , and Immanuel Kant 's philosophy has strongly questioned

2592-520: A transcendent single deity. Different cities often worshipped the same deities, sometimes with epithets that distinguished them and specified their local nature. The earliest surviving philosophy from ancient Greece dates back to the 6th century BC, when according to Aristotle Thales of Miletus was considered to have been the first Greek philosopher. Other influential pre-Socratic philosophers include Pythagoras and Heraclitus . The most famous and significant figures in classical Athenian philosophy, from

2736-603: A version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean region and Europe; thus Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic ( c.  8th to 6th centuries BC), Classical ( c.  5th to 4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic ( c.  3rd century BC to 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and

2880-545: Is a Greek creation". Ancient philosophy was traditionally divided into three branches: logic, physics, and ethics. However, not all of the works of ancient philosophers fit neatly into one of these three branches. For instance, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics have been traditionally classified in the West as "ethics", but in the Arabic world were grouped with logic; in reality, they do not fit neatly into either category. From

3024-482: Is a justified and rational true belief, but offers no extended epistemological justification because current theories are in a state of controversy. Martin instead argues for "mid-level principles of justification that are in accord with our ordinary and scientific rational practice." Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological , assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God

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3168-623: Is a philosophical position or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection; however, the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism. Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism , but has also been contrasted with it. Some of the ambiguity involved in defining atheism arises from the definitions of words like deity and god . The variety of wildly different conceptions of God and deities lead to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping

3312-634: Is a type of incandescent stone", an affirmation with which he tried to deny the divinity of the celestial bodies. In the late fifth century BCE, the Greek lyric poet Diagoras of Melos was sentenced to death in Athens under the charge of being a "godless person" (ἄθεος) after he made fun of the Eleusinian Mysteries , but he fled the city to escape punishment. In post-classical antiquity, philosophers such as Cicero and Sextus Empiricus described Diagoras as an "atheist" who categorically denied

3456-405: Is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as

3600-432: Is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist." Implicit atheism is "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism is the conscious rejection of belief. It

3744-657: Is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools: "Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But almost every work of

3888-477: Is human do I account alien.") Harrison began formal study at Cheltenham Ladies' College , where she gained a Certificate, and, in 1874, continued her studies in the classics at Cambridge University 's Newnham College . Her early work earned Harrison two honorary doctorates, an LLD from University of Aberdeen in 1895, and DLitt from the University of Durham in 1897. This recognition afforded Harrison

4032-445: Is inconsistent with theism. For example, Oppy says arguing for naturalism is an argument for atheism since naturalism and theism "cannot both be true". Fiona Ellis describes the "expansive naturalism" of John McDowell , James Griffin , and David Wiggins while also asserting there are things in human experience which cannot be explained in such terms, such as the concept of value, leaving room for theism. Christopher C. Knight asserts

4176-584: Is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" Similar arguments have been made in Buddhist philosophy . Vasubandhu (4th/5th century) outlined numerous Buddhist arguments against God . Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud have argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , influenced by

4320-550: Is no era in history in which the link was tighter. Medieval education taught students to imitate earlier classical models, and Latin continued to be the language of scholarship and culture, despite the increasing difference between literary Latin and the vernacular languages of Europe during the period. While Latin was hugely influential, according to thirteenth-century English philosopher Roger Bacon , "there are not four men in Latin Christendom who are acquainted with

4464-430: Is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering , and where divine love is hidden from many people. Epicurus is credited with first expounding the problem of evil. David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) cited Epicurus in stating the argument as a series of questions: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he

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4608-405: Is not even an attempt to assert and emphasize women's privilege of womanhood; it is simply the demand that in the life of woman, as in the life of man, space and liberty shall be found for a thing bigger than either manhood or womanhood – for humanity. (84–85, Alpha and Omega ) To this end, Harrison's motto was Terence 's homo sum; humani nihil mihi alienum est ("I am a human being; nothing that

4752-403: Is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. In early ancient Greek , the adjective átheos ( ἄθεος , from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning "ungodly" or "impious". In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in

4896-401: Is one of the most influential works of twentieth-century literature. Atheist Atheism , in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities . Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism , which is

5040-568: Is opposition to the teaching of Latin in Italy, it is nonetheless still compulsory in most secondary schools. The same may also be said in the case of France or Greece. Indeed, Ancient Greek is one of the compulsory subjects in Greek secondary education, whereas in France, Latin is one of the optional subjects that can be chosen in a majority of middle schools and high schools. Ancient Greek is also still being taught, but not as much as Latin . One of

5184-629: Is positively correlated with irreligion. He found that there are much lower concentrations of atheism and secularity in poorer, less developed nations (particularly in Africa and South America) than in the richer industrialized democracies. His findings relating specifically to atheism in the US were that compared to religious people in the US, "atheists and secular people" are less nationalistic , prejudiced , antisemitic , racist , dogmatic , ethnocentric , closed-minded, and authoritarian, and in US states with

5328-558: Is still seen as a foundational aspect of European culture. The legacy of the classical world is not confined to the influence of classical languages. The Roman Empire was taken as a model by later European empires, such as the Spanish and British empires . Classical art has been taken as a model in later periods – medieval Romanesque architecture and Enlightenment-era neoclassical literature were both influenced by classical models, to take but two examples, while James Joyce 's Ulysses

5472-602: Is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist. Michael Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism. Agnostic atheism encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. However, many agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism. According to atheists' arguments, unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions. Atheist criticism of agnosticism says that

5616-556: Is usual to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism. For the purposes of his paper on "philosophical atheism", Ernest Nagel contested including the mere absence of theistic belief as a type of atheism. Graham Oppy classifies as innocents those who never considered the question because they lack any understanding of what a god is, for example one-month-old babies. Philosophers such as Antony Flew and Michael Martin have contrasted positive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism

5760-445: Is very well regarded and remains at the heart of much of our art today. For example, ancient Greek architecture gave us the classical orders: Doric , Ionic , and Corinthian . The Parthenon is still the architectural symbol of the classical world. Greek sculpture is well known and we know the names of several ancient Greek artists: for example, Phidias . With philology, archaeology, and art history, scholars seek understanding of

5904-676: The Archaeological Institute of America in 1879), including many foreign archaeological institutes in Athens and Rome (the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1881, British School at Athens in 1886, American Academy in Rome in 1895, and British School at Rome in 1900). More recently, classical archaeology has taken little part in the theoretical changes in the rest of the discipline, largely ignoring

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6048-481: The Carolingian Renaissance , was barely read in the twelfth century, while for Quintilian the reverse is true. The Renaissance led to the increasing study of both ancient literature and ancient history, as well as a revival of classical styles of Latin . From the 14th century, first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe, Renaissance Humanism , an intellectual movement that "advocated

6192-557: The Roman Empire destroyed most evidence (cultural artefacts) of earlier, conquered civilizations, such as that of the Etruscans . The English word philosophy comes from the Greek word φιλοσοφία, meaning "love of wisdom", probably coined by Pythagoras. Along with the word itself, the discipline of philosophy as we know it today has its roots in ancient Greek thought , and according to Martin West "philosophy as we understand it

6336-537: The Roman Empire , Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and the Imperial cult of ancient Rome in particular. There was, however, a heavy struggle between Christians and pagans, in which each group accused the other of atheism, for not practicing the religion which they considered correct. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became

6480-469: The argument from nonbelief . Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities; therefore, they argue that the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove the existence of gods but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism. Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism , contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism

6624-513: The late antique period . Late Latin survived long after the end of classical antiquity, and was finally replaced by written Romance languages around the 9th century AD. Along with literary forms of Latin, there existed various vernacular dialects, generally known as Vulgar Latin , in use throughout antiquity. These are mainly preserved in sources such as graffiti and the Vindolanda tablets . Latin literature seems to have started in 240 BC, when

6768-530: The origins of religion , Harrison argues that religiosity is anti-intellectual and dogmatic , yet she defended the cultural necessity of religion and mysticism. In her essay The Influence of Darwinism on the Study of Religion (1909), Harrison concluded: Every dogma religion has hitherto produced is probably false, but for all that the religious or mystical spirit may be the only way of apprehending some things, and these of enormous importance. It may also be that

6912-419: The pagan deities. Gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity. With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual , supernatural , or transcendental concepts. Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to

7056-526: The 1960s at the University of Konstanz . Reception studies is concerned with how students of classical texts have understood and interpreted them. As such, reception studies is interested in a two-way interaction between reader and text, taking place within a historical context. Though the idea of an "aesthetics of reception" was first put forward by Hans Robert Jauss in 1967, the principles of reception theory go back much earlier than this. As early as 1920, T. S. Eliot wrote that "the past [is] altered by

7200-549: The 19th century, little new literature was still being written in Latin – a practice which had continued as late as the 18th century – and a command of Latin declined in importance. Correspondingly, classical education from the 19th century onwards began to increasingly de-emphasise the importance of the ability to write and speak Latin. In the United Kingdom this process took longer than elsewhere. Composition continued to be

7344-666: The 20th century, the study of classics became less common. In England, for instance, Oxford and Cambridge universities stopped requiring students to have qualifications in Greek in 1920, and in Latin at the end of the 1950s. When the National Curriculum was introduced in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1988, it did not mention the classics. By 2003, only about 10% of state schools in Britain offered any classical subjects to their students at all. In 2016, AQA ,

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7488-796: The 5th to the 3rd centuries BC, are Socrates , his student Plato , and Aristotle , who studied at Plato's Academy before founding his own school, known as the Lyceum . Later Greek schools of philosophy, including the Cynics , Stoics , and Epicureans , continued to be influential after the Roman annexation of Greece, and into the post-Classical world. Greek philosophy dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics , metaphysics , ontology , and logic , as well as disciplines which are not today thought of as part of philosophy, such as biology and rhetoric. The language of ancient Rome

7632-460: The 6th century AD, the word had acquired a second meaning, referring to pupils at a school. Thus, the two modern meanings of the word, referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality and the standard texts used as part of a curriculum, were both derived from Roman use. In the Middle Ages , classics and education were tightly intertwined; according to Jan Ziolkowski, there

7776-612: The Closet and into the Field: Matriculture, the Lesbian Perspective, and Feminist Classics", discussed the neglect of Harrison by the academy, and tied that neglect to an unpopularity of lesbian perspectives in the field. Mary Beard 's numerous essays and her book on Harrison's life, ( The Invention of Jane Harrison , Harvard University Press, 2000), as well as several other biographies of Harrison, have moved

7920-488: The Epicureans was to attain ataraxia ("peace of mind") and one important way of doing this was by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and the need to fear divine punishment after death. Euhemerus ( c.  300 BCE ) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers and founders of the past. Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus

8064-576: The Greek Cyrenaic school . This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as heterodox due to its rejection of the authority of Vedas and hence is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy . It is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement in ancient India. Satischandra Chatterjee and Dhirendramohan Datta explain in An Introduction to Indian Philosophy that our understanding of Chārvāka philosophy

8208-535: The Greek word into the Latin átheos . The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists , with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other. The term atheist (from the French athée ), in the sense of "one who ... denies the existence of God or gods", predates atheism in English, being first found as early as 1566, and again in 1571. Atheist as

8352-471: The Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic grammars." Greek was rarely studied in the West, and Greek literature was known almost solely in Latin translation. The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod , whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, along with most of Plato, were unavailable in Christian Europe. Some were rediscovered through Arabic translations; a School of Translators

8496-571: The Study of Greek Religion (1903), was to proceed from the ritual to the myth it inspired: "In theology facts are harder to seek, truth more difficult to formulate than in ritual." Thus she began her book with analyses of the best-known of the Athenian festivals : Anthesteria , harvest festivals Thargelia , Kallynteria  [ de ] , Plynteria , and the women's festivals , in which she detected many primitive survivals, Skirophoria , Stenia and Haloa . Harrison alluded to and commented on

8640-477: The United States, philhellenism began to emerge in the 1830s, with a turn "from a love of Rome and a focus on classical grammar to a new focus on Greece and the totality of its society, art, and culture." The 19th century saw the influence of the classical world, and the value of a classical education , decline, especially in the United States, where the subject was often criticised for its elitism. By

8784-488: The advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations. Some prominent atheists—most recently Christopher Hitchens , Daniel Dennett , Sam Harris , and Richard Dawkins , and following such thinkers as Bertrand Russell , Robert G. Ingersoll , Voltaire , and novelist José Saramago —have criticized religions, citing harmful aspects of religious practices and doctrines. The 19th-century German political theorist and sociologist Karl Marx called religion "the sigh of

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8928-513: The ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine ("common") or Biblical Greek, and its late period mutates imperceptibly into Medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earlier form it closely resembles Classical Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classical and earlier periods included several regional dialects. Ancient Greek

9072-406: The authority of the new Protestant churches". Deism gained influence in France, Prussia, and England. In 1546, French scholar Etienne Dolet was executed upon accusation of being an atheist. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza was "probably the first well known 'semi-atheist' to announce himself in a Christian land in the modern era", according to Blainey. Spinoza believed that natural laws explained

9216-415: The basis of my words! Protagoras has sometimes been taken to be an atheist, but rather espoused agnostic views, commenting that "Concerning the gods I am unable to discover whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form; for there are many hindrances to knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life." The Athenian public associated Socrates ( c.  470–399 BCE ) with

9360-565: The belief that at least one deity exists. Historically, evidence of atheistic viewpoints can be traced back to classical antiquity and early Indian philosophy. In the Western world, atheism declined after Christianity gained prominence. The 16th century and the Age of Enlightenment marked the resurgence of atheistic thought in Europe. Atheism achieved a significant position worldwide in the 20th century. Estimates of those who have an absence of belief in

9504-467: The charges of atheism at his trial. From a survey of these 5th-century BCE philosophers, David Sedley has concluded that none of them openly defended radical atheism, but since Classical sources clearly attest to radical atheist ideas Athens probably had an "atheist underground". Religious skepticism continued into the Hellenistic period , and from this period the most important Greek thinker in

9648-482: The city of Rome was founded in 753 BC; in reality, there had been a settlement on the site since around 1000 BC, when the Palatine Hill was settled. The city was originally ruled by kings, first Roman, and then Etruscan – according to Roman tradition, the first Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, ruled from 616 BC. Over the course of the 6th century BC, the city expanded its influence over

9792-487: The classical period written in the classical languages of Latin and Greek. The roots of classical philology lie in the Renaissance , as humanist intellectuals attempted to return to the Latin of the classical period, especially of Cicero , and as scholars attempted to produce more accurate editions of ancient texts. Some of the principles of philology still used today were developed during this period; for instance,

9936-478: The classical period, with poets such as Virgil , Horace , and Ovid ; historians such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus ; orators such as Cicero ; and philosophers such as Seneca the Younger and Lucretius . Late Latin authors include many Christian writers such as Lactantius , Tertullian and Ambrose ; non-Christian authors, such as the historian Ammianus Marcellinus , are also preserved. According to legend,

10080-484: The consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error." In Great Britain, William Hammon and physician Mathew Turner authored a pamphlet in response to Joseph Priestley 's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever . Theirs was the first work in English to openly defend atheism, and implied that established sentiment of Christianity made speaking up in defense of atheism an act with

10224-716: The contents of this mystical apprehension cannot be put into language without being falsified and misstated, that they have rather to be felt and lived than uttered and intellectually analyzed; yet they are somehow true and necessary to life. (176, Alpha and Omega ) World War I marked a deep break in Harrison's life. Harrison never visited Italy or Greece after the war: she mostly wrote revisions or synopses of previous publications, and pacifist leanings isolated her. Upon retiring (in 1922), Harrison briefly lived in Paris, but she returned to London when her health began to fail. During

10368-412: The contrary, among them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes". There exist normative ethical systems that do not require principles and rules to be given by a deity. According to Plato's Euthyphro dilemma , the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessary or arbitrary. The argument that morality must be derived from God , and cannot exist without a wise creator, has been

10512-558: The cornerstone of an elite higher education. The word classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus , meaning "belonging to the highest class of citizens." The word was originally used to describe the members of the Patricians , the highest class in ancient Rome . By the 2nd century AD the word was used in literary criticism to describe writers of the highest quality. For example, Aulus Gellius , in his Attic Nights , contrasts "classicus" and " proletarius " writers. By

10656-509: The criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." Sam Harris criticizes Western religion's reliance on divine authority as lending itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism . Multiple studies have discovered there to be a correlation between religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when religion is held because it serves ulterior interests) and authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice. These arguments—combined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate

10800-425: The cultural applications of Charles Darwin 's work. Harrison and her generation depended upon anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (who was himself influenced by Darwin and evolutionary ideas) for some new themes of cultural evolution , especially his 1871 work, Primitive Culture: researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art, and custom . After a socially Darwinian analysis of

10944-693: The dangers of religion, such as the Crusades , inquisitions , witch trials , and terrorist attacks —have been used in response to claims of beneficial effects of belief in religion. Believers counter-argue that some regimes that espouse atheism , such as the Soviet Union , have also been guilty of mass murder. In response to those claims, atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have stated that Stalin's atrocities were influenced not by atheism but by dogmatic ideology, and that while Stalin and Mao happened to be atheists, they did not do their deeds in

11088-504: The development of atheism was the philosopher Epicurus ( c.  300 BCE ). Drawing on the ideas of Democritus and the Atomists, he espoused a materialistic philosophy according to which the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention (see scientific determinism ). Although Epicurus still maintained that the gods existed, he believed that they were uninterested in human affairs. The aim of

11232-495: The divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians were also accused of being atheistic. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later radical and reformist theologians. The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of free thought and skeptical inquiry. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as

11376-406: The dominant classical skill in England until the 1870s, when new areas within the discipline began to increase in popularity. In the same decade came the first challenges to the requirement of Greek at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, though it would not be finally abolished for another 50 years. Though the influence of classics as the dominant mode of education in Europe and North America

11520-530: The earliest to survive to us today, probably composed in the eighth century BC. These early epics were oral compositions, created without the use of writing. Around the same time that the Homeric epics were composed, the Greek alphabet was introduced; the earliest surviving inscriptions date from around 750 BC. European drama was invented in ancient Greece. Traditionally this was attributed to Thespis , around

11664-400: The eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, along with a few fragments. Sixty years after the end of Aristophanes' career, the next author of comedies to have any substantial body of work survive is Menander , whose style is known as New Comedy . Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes , the nature of the world, and

11808-457: The end of the fifth century BC. Surviving Greek comedy begins later than tragedy; the earliest surviving work, Aristophanes ' Acharnians , comes from 425 BC. However, comedy dates back as early as 486 BC, when the Dionysia added a competition for comedy to the much earlier competition for tragedy. The comedy of the fifth century is known as Old Comedy , and it comes down to us solely in

11952-640: The entirety of Latium . Around the end of the 6th century – traditionally in 510 BC – the kings of Rome were driven out, and the city became a republic. Around 387 BC, Rome was sacked by the Gauls following the Battle of the Allia . It soon recovered from this humiliating defeat, however, and in 381 the inhabitants of Tusculum in Latium were made Roman citizens. This was the first time Roman citizenship

12096-516: The existence of God, which assert the incompatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status, immutability , omniscience , omnipresence , omnipotence , omnibenevolence , transcendence , personhood (a personal being), non-physicality, justice , and mercy . Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient , omnipotent , and omnibenevolent God

12240-464: The existence of gods, recommending that one should suspend judgment regarding the matter. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers. The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity. Early Christians were widely reviled as "atheists" because they did not believe in the existence of the Graeco-Roman deities. During

12384-505: The existence of the gods, but in modern scholarship Marek Winiarczyk has defended the view that Diagoras was not an atheist in the modern sense, in a view that has proved influential. On the other hand, the verdict has been challenged by Tim Whitmarsh , who argues that Diagoras rejected the gods on the basis of the problem of evil , and this argument was in turn alluded to in Euripides' fragmentary play Bellerophon . A fragment from

12528-599: The fifth and fourth centuries BC, has traditionally been considered the height of Greek civilisation. The Classical period of Greek history is generally considered to have begun with the first and second Persian invasions of Greece at the start of the Greco-Persian wars, and to have ended with the death of Alexander the Great . Classical Greek culture had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried

12672-456: The first time after the reforms of the 1880s, though it did not become part of Oxford's Greats until much later. The second half of the 19th century saw Schliemann 's excavations of Troy and Mycenae ; the first excavations at Olympia and Delos ; and Arthur Evans ' work in Crete, particularly on Knossos . This period also saw the foundation of important archaeological associations (e.g.

12816-567: The first woman to obtain a post in England as a 'career academic'. Harrison argued for women's suffrage but thought she would never want to vote herself. Ellen Wordsworth Crofts , later second wife of Sir Francis Darwin , was Jane Harrison's best friend from her student days at Newnham, and during the period from 1898 to Ellen's death in 1903. Harrison was born in Cottingham , Yorkshire on 9 September 1850 to Charles and Elizabeth Harrison. Her mother died of puerperal fever shortly after she

12960-580: The form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These different groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or "cults" in the plural, though most of them shared similarities. Also, the Greek religion extended out of Greece and out to neighbouring islands. Many Greek people recognized the major gods and goddesses: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes, Demeter, Hestia and Hera; though philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to posit

13104-554: The fully professional sense – an ambitious, full-time, salaried, university researcher and lecturer". Between 1880 and 1897, Harrison studied Greek art and archaeology at the British Museum under Sir Charles Newton . Harrison then supported herself lecturing at the museum and at schools (mostly private boy's schools). Her lectures became widely popular and 1,600 people ended up attending her Glasgow lecture on Athenian gravestones. She travelled to Italy and Germany, where she met

13248-411: The highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious states, the murder rate is higher than average. Joseph Baker and Buster Smith assert that one of the common themes of atheism is that most atheists "typically construe atheism as more moral than religion". One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrary: that denying the existence of

13392-518: The history and culture of a civilization, through critical study of the extant literary and physical artefacts, in order to compose and establish a continual historic narrative of the Ancient World and its peoples. The task is difficult due to a dearth of physical evidence: for example, Sparta was a leading Greek city-state , yet little evidence of it survives to study, and what is available comes from Athens , Sparta's principal rival; likewise,

13536-422: The idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has been defined as the absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God." Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that: "The man who is unacquainted with theism

13680-494: The largest army Rome had yet put into the field was wiped out, and one of the two consuls leading it was killed. However, Rome continued to fight, annexing much of Spain and eventually defeating Carthage, ending her position as a major power and securing Roman preeminence in the Western Mediterranean. The classical languages of the ancient Mediterranean world influenced every European language, imparting to each

13824-515: The largest exam board for A-Levels and GCSEs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, announced that it would be scrapping A-Level subjects in Classical Civilisation, Archaeology, and Art History. This left just one out of five exam boards in England which still offered Classical Civilisation as a subject. The decision was immediately denounced by archaeologists and historians, with Natalie Haynes of The Guardian stating that

13968-421: The last decade of the eighteenth century, scholars of ancient philosophy began to study the discipline historically. Previously, works on ancient philosophy had been unconcerned with chronological sequence and with reconstructing the reasoning of ancient thinkers; with what Wolfgang-Ranier Mann calls "New Philosophy", this changed. Another discipline within the classics is "reception studies", which developed in

14112-509: The last two years of her life Harrison was living at 11 Mecklenburgh Square on the fringes of Bloomsbury. In A Room of One's Own (1929), in addition to female authors, Virginia Woolf also discusses and draws inspiration from Harrison. Harrison is presented in the essay only by her initials separated by long dashes, and Woolf first introduces Harrison as "the famous scholar, could it be J---- H---- herself?" The critic Camille Paglia (see Paglia's 1990 book Sexual Personae (passim), and

14256-658: The long essay "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf" in Paglia's Sex, Art and American Culture: New Essays , 1993) has written of Harrison's influence on her own work. Paglia argues that Harrison's career has been ignored by second-wave feminists , who Paglia thinks object to Harrison's findings and efface the careers of prominent pre–World War II female scholars to bolster their claims of male domination in academia. Tina Passman , in 1993 in her article "Out of

14400-535: The loss of the A-Level would deprive state school students, 93% of all students, the opportunity to study classics while making it once again the exclusive purview of wealthy private-school students. However, the study of classics has not declined as fast elsewhere in Europe. In 2009, a review of Meeting the Challenge , a collection of conference papers about the teaching of Latin in Europe, noted that though there

14544-708: The materialism or physicalism include idealism , dualism and other forms of monism. Naturalism is also used to describe the view that everything that exists is fundamentally natural, and that there are no supernatural phenomena. According to naturalist view, science can explain the world with physical laws and through natural phenomena. Philosopher Graham Oppy references a PhilPapers survey that says 56.5% of philosophers in academics lean toward physicalism; 49.8% lean toward naturalism. According to Graham Oppy, direct arguments for atheism aim at showing theism fails on its own terms, while indirect arguments are those inferred from direct arguments in favor of something else that

14688-488: The middle of the sixth century BC, though the earliest surviving work of Greek drama is Aeschylus ' tragedy The Persians , which dates to 472 BC. Early Greek tragedy was performed by a chorus and two actors, but by the end of Aeschylus' life, a third actor had been introduced, either by him or by Sophocles . The last surviving Greek tragedies are the Bacchae of Euripides and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus , both from

14832-400: The modern sense was extremely rare in ancient Greece. Pre-Socratic Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way and interpreted religion as a human reaction to natural phenomena, but did not explicitly deny the gods' existence. Anaxagoras , whom Irenaeus calls "the atheist", was accused of impiety and condemned for stating that "the sun

14976-505: The most notable characteristics of the modern study of classics is the diversity of the field. Although traditionally focused on ancient Greece and Rome, the study now encompasses the entire ancient Mediterranean world, thus expanding the studies to Northern Africa and parts of the Middle East . Philology is the study of language preserved in written sources; classical philology is thus concerned with understanding any texts from

15120-417: The name of atheism. People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious , but some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity . It has been said that atheism is not mutually exclusive with respect to some religious and spiritual belief systems, including modern Neopagan movements. In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated

15264-402: The need for the term "atheism". In his book Letter to a Christian Nation , Sam Harris wrote: In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non- astrologer " or a "non- alchemist ". We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism

15408-474: The needle toward greater appreciation of Harrison's achievements, as well as further understanding of the context in which she worked. Books on the anthropological search for the origins of Greek religion and mythology, include: Classics In Western civilization, the study of the Ancient Greek and Roman classics was considered the foundation of the humanities , and they traditionally have been

15552-537: The observation that if a manuscript could be shown to be a copy of an earlier extant manuscript, then it provides no further evidence of the original text, was made as early as 1489 by Angelo Poliziano . Other philological tools took longer to be developed: the first statement, for instance, of the principle that a more difficult reading should be preferred over a simpler one, was in 1697 by Jean Le Clerc . The modern discipline of classical philology began in Germany at

15696-548: The opportunity to return to Newnham College as a lecturer in 1898, and her position was renewed continuously until Harrison retired in 1922. She had been a candidate for the Yates Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at University College London after Reginald Stuart Poole had died in 1895. The hiring committee had recommended Harrison to the position, but that decision was blocked by Flinders Petrie in favor of Ernest Gardner . Petrie argued that while Harrison

15840-436: The oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people ". He goes on to say, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo,

15984-450: The original text than any existing manuscript, could be reconstructed. Classical archaeology is the oldest branch of archaeology, with its roots going back to J. J. Winckelmann 's work on Herculaneum in the 1760s. It was not until the last decades of the 19th century, however, that classical archaeology became part of the tradition of Western classical scholarship. It was included as part of Cambridge University's Classical Tripos for

16128-440: The origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece. Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself. Greek religion encompassed the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in

16272-472: The other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these." Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa . The rejection of a personal creator "God" is also seen in Jainism and Buddhism in India. Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy , but atheism in

16416-551: The plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines, and these "improved" versions were performed throughout the 18th century. In the United States, the nation's Founders were strongly influenced by the classics, and they looked in particular to the Roman Republic for their form of government. From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin. In this period Johann Winckelmann 's claims for

16560-436: The popularity of " New Archaeology ", which emphasized the development of general laws derived from studying material culture, in the 1960s. New Archaeology is still criticized by traditional minded scholars of classical archaeology despite a wide acceptance of its basic techniques. Some art historians focus their study on the development of art in the classical world. Indeed, the art and architecture of ancient Rome and Greece

16704-478: The present as much as the present is directed by the past"; Charles Martindale describes this as a "cardinal principle" for many versions of modern reception theory. Ancient Greece was the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period , beginning in the eighth century BC, to the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC. The Classical period , during

16848-645: The same year. These two major works caused Harrison to be awarded honorary degrees from the universities of Durham (1897) and Aberdeen (1895). Harrison was engaged to marry the scholar R. A. Neil , but he died suddenly of appendicitis in 1901 before they could marry. Harrison became the central figure of the group known as the Cambridge Ritualists . In 1903, her book Prolegomena on the Study of Greek Religion appeared. Harrison became close to Francis MacDonald Cornford (1874–1943), and when he married in 1909 she became extremely upset. She then made

16992-694: The scholar from Prague, Wilhelm Klein . Klein introduced her to Wilhelm Dörpfeld who invited her to participate in his archaeological tours in Greece. Her early book The Odyssey in Art and Literature then appeared in 1882. In 1888, she began to publish in the periodical that Oscar Wilde was editing called The Woman's World on "The Pictures of Sappho". She ended up translating Mythologie figurée de la Grèce (1883) by Maxime Collignon as well as providing personal commentary to selections of Pausanias, Mythology & Monuments of Ancient Athens by Margaret Verrall in

17136-418: The sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods". The term ἀσεβής ( asebēs ) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render átheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης ( atheotēs ), "atheism". Cicero transliterated

17280-617: The specialised science and technology vocabularies, the influence of Latin and Greek is notable. Ecclesiastical Latin , the Roman Catholic Church's official language, remains a living legacy of the classical world in the contemporary world. Latin had an impact far beyond the classical world. It continued to be the pre-eminent language for serious writings in Europe long after the fall of the Roman Empire. The modern Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Galician, Catalan) all derive from Latin. Latin

17424-589: The study and imitation of classical antiquity", developed. Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe, introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to Western Europe. This reintroduction was initiated by Petrarch (1304–1374) and Boccaccio (1313–1375) who commissioned a Calabrian scholar to translate the Homeric poems . This humanist educational reform spread from Italy, in Catholic countries as it

17568-418: The superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements, while in the literary sphere, G. E. Lessing "returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement". In the United Kingdom, the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century. The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have been one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School . In

17712-450: The term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as "disbelief in God". Skepticism , based on the ideas of David Hume , asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know for sure whether or not a god exists. Hume, however, held that such unobservable metaphysical concepts should be rejected as "sophistry and illusion". Michael Martin argues that atheism

17856-520: The times of the historical Vedic religion . Among the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, Samkhya , the oldest philosophical school of thought, does not accept God, and the early Mimamsa also rejected the notion of God. The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical Chārvāka (or Lokāyata ) school that originated in India around the 6th century BCE is probably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India, similar to

18000-452: The trends in pre-Socratic philosophy towards naturalistic inquiry and the rejection of divine explanations for phenomena. Aristophanes ' comic play The Clouds (performed 423 BCE) portrays Socrates as teaching his students that the traditional Greek deities do not exist. Socrates was later tried and executed under the charge of not believing in the gods of the state and instead worshipping foreign gods. Socrates himself vehemently denied

18144-415: The turn of the nineteenth century. It was during this period that scientific principles of philology began to be put together into a coherent whole, in order to provide a set of rules by which scholars could determine which manuscripts were most accurate. This "new philology", as it was known, centered around the construction of a genealogy of manuscripts, with which a hypothetical common ancestor, closer to

18288-572: The unprovability of a god's existence does not imply an equal probability of either possibility. Australian philosopher J.J.C. Smart argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalized philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic." Consequently, some atheist authors, such as Richard Dawkins , prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic, and atheist positions along

18432-595: The very possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Both philosophers undermined the metaphysical basis of natural theology and criticized classical arguments for the existence of God . One goal of the French Revolution was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy . Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and

18576-690: The work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin , "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory, and practice." He reversed Voltaire 's aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on secularity and non-belief and concluded that societal well-being

18720-450: The workings of the universe. In 1661, he published his Short Treatise on God . Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes , espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurrences. By the late 17th century, deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals. The first known explicit atheist

18864-451: Was Latin, a member of the Italic family of languages . The earliest surviving inscription in Latin comes from the 7th century BC, on a brooch from Palestrina . Latin from between this point and the early 1st century BC is known as Old Latin . Most surviving Latin literature is Classical Latin , from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD. Latin then evolved into Late Latin , in use during

19008-420: Was a "fable invented by the ancients" and that humans were "of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains". Despite the fact that these authors were relatively prolific writers, little of their work survives, mainly being preserved through quotations and excerpts in later works by Muslim apologists attempting to refute them. In Europe, the espousal of atheistic views

19152-493: Was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment who is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature (1770) but also Christianity Unveiled . "The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence,

19296-707: Was adopted by the Jesuits , and in countries that became Protestant such as England, Germany, and the Low Countries, in order to ensure that future clerics were able to study the New Testament in the original language. The late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition, as writers consciously adapted classical models. Classical models were so highly prized that

19440-403: Was an atheist . Harrison was, at least ideologically , a moderate suffragist . Rather than support women's suffrage by protesting, Harrison applied her scholarship in anthropology to defend women's right to vote. In responding to an anti-suffragist critic, Harrison demonstrates this moderate ideology: [The Women's Movement] is not an attempt to arrogate man's prerogative of manhood; it

19584-531: Was an expert on religion, she did not have the knowledge base Gardner did, so he got the job and worked closely with Petrie for 30 years. Harrison's first monograph, in 1882, drew on the thesis that both Homer 's Odyssey and motifs of the Greek vase-painters were drawing upon similar deep sources for mythology, the opinion that had not been common in earlier classical archaeology, that the repertory of vase-painters offered some unusual commentaries on myth and ritual. Her approach in her great work, Prolegomena to

19728-447: Was born and she was educated by a series of governesses . Her governesses taught her German, Latin , Ancient Greek and Hebrew , but she later expanded her knowledge to about sixteen languages, including Russian . Harrison spent most of her professional life at Newnham College , the progressive, recently established college for women at Cambridge . Mary Beard described Harrison as "the first woman in England to become an academic, in

19872-583: Was extended in this way. Rome went on to expand its area of influence, until by 269 the entirety of the Italian peninsula was under Roman rule. Soon afterwards, in 264, the First Punic War began; it lasted until 241. The Second Punic War began in 218, and by the end of that year, the Carthaginian general Hannibal had invaded Italy. The war saw Rome's worst defeat to that point at Cannae ;

20016-460: Was in decline in the 19th century, the discipline was rapidly evolving in the same period. Classical scholarship was becoming more systematic and scientific , especially with the "new philology " created at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. Its scope was also broadening: it was during the 19th century that ancient history and classical archaeology began to be seen as part of classics, rather than separate disciplines. During

20160-406: Was later criticized by Plutarch for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods". In the 3rd century BCE, the Hellenistic philosophers Theodorus Cyrenaicus and Strato of Lampsacus were also reputed to deny the existence of the gods. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus ( c.  200 CE ) compiled a large number of ancient arguments against

20304-550: Was rare during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages (see Medieval Inquisition ). There were, however, movements within this period that furthered heterodox conceptions of the Christian god, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his nominalist limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that

20448-493: Was set up in the border city of Toledo, Spain , to translate from Arabic into Latin. Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were other differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages. Catullus , for instance, was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period. The popularity of different authors also waxed and waned throughout the period: Lucretius , popular during

20592-622: Was the German critic of religion Matthias Knutzen in his three writings of 1674. He was followed by two other explicit atheist writers, the Polish ex-Jesuit philosopher Kazimierz Łyszczyński (who most likely authored the world's first treatise on the non-existence of God ) and in the 1720s by the French priest Jean Meslier . In the course of the 18th century, other openly atheistic thinkers followed, such as Baron d'Holbach , Jacques-André Naigeon , and other French materialists . Baron d'Holbach

20736-526: Was the language of Homer and of classical Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to the vocabulary of English and many other European languages, and has been a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions since the Renaissance. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in other scientific terminology. The earliest surviving works of Greek literature are epic poetry . Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey are

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