”City of Legions...besides its great wealth above the other cities...the beauty of the meadows and groves, and magnificence of the royal palaces with lofty gilded roofs that adorned it, made it even rival the grandeur of Rome.”
"South Cadbury, famous for..." you missed a great opportunity here!
Great article as always. I find it interesting how legends and myths can become so universally entrenched and known even from such an early time, and all the while we still have no evidence that such a person, Arthur, ever even existed. And it's not just Arthur, but there are schools of thought that other historical figures, William Wallace being one that immediately springs to mind, either never existed, or were combined composite historical figures, absorbing the lives of many other people to create their mythical, historically-agreed-upon version. As always, these subjects make one realise that we actually know extremely little about the reality of our shared past, even with a plethora of surviving literature and archaeological findings. The illusion is so much easier to cling to.
Thank you, I’m glad you like my posts and shared your thoughts! And yes, I completely missed the Cadbury opportunity, not a single mention of the chocolate. How could I!
You make a great point in bringing up William Wallace. He is a fantastic parallel to King Arthur; they both show us how the historical figure and the legend have drifted so far apart from each other that separating them has become very difficult. This pattern is repeated across different cultures, Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia being one more example.
You are right, we know very little about our ancestors and our view about them can be distorted. Sometimes the view got distorted already a long time ago like in the case of medieval times being considered Dark Ages (looking at you, Petrarch from the 14th century) and we have to spend a long time to unlearn these notions.
It's also interesting that, while we laugh at how certain figures from Roman times have accumulated all these quotes and great deeds that no one person could surely have done in their lifetime, we do the same for people like Mark Twain or Winston Churchill, who are misquoted as often as they are correctly quoted. Their association with great wit and famous retorts means that every witty retort from their respective eras is attributed to them. And that's not ancient history.
"South Cadbury, famous for..." you missed a great opportunity here!
Great article as always. I find it interesting how legends and myths can become so universally entrenched and known even from such an early time, and all the while we still have no evidence that such a person, Arthur, ever even existed. And it's not just Arthur, but there are schools of thought that other historical figures, William Wallace being one that immediately springs to mind, either never existed, or were combined composite historical figures, absorbing the lives of many other people to create their mythical, historically-agreed-upon version. As always, these subjects make one realise that we actually know extremely little about the reality of our shared past, even with a plethora of surviving literature and archaeological findings. The illusion is so much easier to cling to.
Thank you, I’m glad you like my posts and shared your thoughts! And yes, I completely missed the Cadbury opportunity, not a single mention of the chocolate. How could I!
You make a great point in bringing up William Wallace. He is a fantastic parallel to King Arthur; they both show us how the historical figure and the legend have drifted so far apart from each other that separating them has become very difficult. This pattern is repeated across different cultures, Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia being one more example.
You are right, we know very little about our ancestors and our view about them can be distorted. Sometimes the view got distorted already a long time ago like in the case of medieval times being considered Dark Ages (looking at you, Petrarch from the 14th century) and we have to spend a long time to unlearn these notions.
It's also interesting that, while we laugh at how certain figures from Roman times have accumulated all these quotes and great deeds that no one person could surely have done in their lifetime, we do the same for people like Mark Twain or Winston Churchill, who are misquoted as often as they are correctly quoted. Their association with great wit and famous retorts means that every witty retort from their respective eras is attributed to them. And that's not ancient history.