Tea at Trianon: Cleopatra and Patriotism

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Cleopatra and Patriotism

An interesting post by author Stephanie Dray about patriotism in the ancient world, particularly in the life of Cleopatra. To quote:

The English may perhaps be forgiven their belief that they invented patriotism because the term is said to have first been coined in the Elizabethan Era. However, patriotism as a personal feeling and political tool is something far older and embraced by no lesser personage than Cleopatra VII of Egypt.

The word patriotism itself finds its root from the Greek patriōtēs. Both the ancient Greeks and the Romans had a strong notion of attachment to their fellow citizens, to their cultural identities, and sometimes to their homelands. The Romans, in particular, made highly effective use of national honor to persuade their soldiers to shun personal battle glory in favor of collective might. On their rise to super power status in the ancient world the Roman Republic frequently called upon its citizenry not simply as clans and coalitions but by their collective identity as Romans.