Concordia res parvae crescent
You know, I can't believe July slipped in on me so quickly! I not only almost forgot today was July 2nd (the day John Adams thought would be celebrated as the American Independence Day); I also forgot it was the first week of July! And you know what that means?? BUY A FRIEND A BOOK WEEK!!!
This is seriously my favourite holiday ever. And THIS time, there's a contest for lots and lots of bookish prizes!
On a completely different note, the Classics-L list has been posting a couple interesting articles on genealogy:
-Genealogists discover royal roots for all
-Roots of human family tree are shallow
The last one has a paragraph on Alexander, at least.
Anyway, I found this particularly interesting, because while I had actually thought about this phenomenon before in terms of us all being descended from royalty, I hadn't really applied it to anything (in my head). And it occurs to me that when Zenobia claims her ancestry from the Ptolemies, it's not really as unlikely as it seems.
Now I wish I'd thought about that before turning in my paper!
And as applied to today, it sort of makes some of the American Revolutionaries seem more like extensions of the British monarchy . . .
This is seriously my favourite holiday ever. And THIS time, there's a contest for lots and lots of bookish prizes!
On a completely different note, the Classics-L list has been posting a couple interesting articles on genealogy:
-Genealogists discover royal roots for all
-Roots of human family tree are shallow
The last one has a paragraph on Alexander, at least.
Anyway, I found this particularly interesting, because while I had actually thought about this phenomenon before in terms of us all being descended from royalty, I hadn't really applied it to anything (in my head). And it occurs to me that when Zenobia claims her ancestry from the Ptolemies, it's not really as unlikely as it seems.
Now I wish I'd thought about that before turning in my paper!
And as applied to today, it sort of makes some of the American Revolutionaries seem more like extensions of the British monarchy . . .
posted by Glaukôpis at 6:31 PM
7 Comments:
I'd like not to seem an obnoxious coxcomb overly concerned about grammar, but shouldn't "concordia" be in the accusative?
Err, why? It's an ablative. And I didn't make it up. I actually stole it from John Dickinson's Farmer in Pennsylvania letters, but he got it from Seneca.
Well, frankly, the American revolutionaries were extensions of the British monarchy. Even if one wants to ignore the fact that the original rebellions were targeted against Parliament, and George III was only tagged as part of English tyranny later, the American Revolution was hardly a revolution of the great unwashed in the same sense that the French or Russian revolutions were. The ruling mercantile class led the fray in an effort to preserve their wealth. "No taxation without representation" is not exactly the same as "peace, land, and bread." And of course your own beloved John Adams, or "his rotundness," felt that the eventual office of the President lacked the necessary pomp and circumstance. In many ways the American Revolution was far more akin to a civil war than a revolution, as it was not a question of class but rather members of the same class with different ideologies.
Of course now we're going to get into some long debate through blogger comments, and I'll be incredibly bored and outclassed as I haven't studied revolutionary American History in any great detail since AP in the tenth grade, and then I'll just say, "fine, whatever, you've been right all along," just to shut us both up. So, ignore everything I said earlier. ;-)
:-P No, we're not. But in Johnny's defense, he was worried about looking stupid in front of a bunch of super!regal European monarchs.
But I meant more of a direct extension.
I mean, politically, it's not really the same as an extension. But I only say that because I, at any rate, feel like it implies the British monarch is still directly linked.
That and despite everything they didn't manage to upturn, there was a lot that they did. Yes, it's still the same class, but it's a class that was a little more concerned with everyone else. There was elitism and pomp (and before you complain further about what Johnny *said*, Jefferson and Washington actually displayed it more than Adams ever did), but the lines became more blurry.
It was a foot in the door that cost fewer lives than the French revolution did. And that foot in the door was certainly better than sitting around with what existed then.
Sorry! I completely misunderstood the sense of the sentence.
Believe me, I've always felt that the American Revolution turned out about a billion times better than any revolution since. I'm just saying, and I think you agree, that it was hardly a revolution of hoi polloi. And it's hardly suprising that many of the founding fathers had kinship ties to English dynasts. I'd be more surprised to learn that one of them was known to have descended from a former indentured servant. And I wasn't picking specifially on JA. I just happened to remember the "his rotundness" bit so unclench already. And truly, it's not any more of a direct extension of the British monarchy genetically than it was politically. After all, Edward III and George III were of different dynasties, assuming I am not misremembering my British history (and we both know I seldom misremember anything).
Re: erik - s'ok! We all do that sometimes, I'm sure.
Re: aina bina - Yeah, I think we mostly agree. And I'd written this comment before I poked you on AIM about it, so I was actually done clenching. ;-)
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