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Guest aves376

Help Identifying A God/goddess

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Guest aves376

I got this as an essay prompt:

You have not been doing well in your history courses this quarter, and have accordingly decided to offer a sacrifice to this god or goddess (there is such a divinity, and you should make every effort to correctly identify the god or goddess in question) that looks after History students. Please descibe this rite in full, beginning with your efforts to identify the divinity in question and concluding with the ritual act of sacrifice itself.

 

After fairly extensive research, I can't figure out which Roman God/Goddess this would be. Does anybody have any ideas? Or some good online resources?

Edited by aves376

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Well ... one of the Greek Muses was thought to inspire historical poetry.

Apollo was leader of the muses and a god intimately connected with tradition and order.

Athena was generically the goddess of students and those who sought wisdom.

 

I would suggest looking those up. Here's a website that might help you: www.theoi.com

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Well ... one of the Greek Muses was thought to inspire historical poetry.

Apollo was leader of the muses and a god intimately connected with tradition and order.

Athena was generically the goddess of students and those who sought wisdom.

 

I would suggest looking those up. Here's a website that might help you: www.theoi.com

 

The Muse in question is Clio. Since there were actually no 'history students' in the ancient world, I think that (as Ursus already suggests) it comes down to a fight between her and Athena. Incidentally, Athena was also the goddess of Athens, a place where lots of young Romans went to study.

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The Muse in question is Clio. Since there were actually no 'history students' in the ancient world, I think that (as Ursus already suggests) it comes down to a fight between her and Athena. Incidentally, Athena was also the goddess of Athens, a place where lots of young Romans went to study.

 

Just wondering if you could expand on the comment about history students. Does this mean that it wasn't taught in the ancient world or that it was not a seperate subject? If so, how did Livy etc become historians. I am quite ignorant of the education in classical times beyond the bounds of Athens 5bce and the sophists and I think I just presumed the Romans (well the literary elite) were taught history etc (though why one would presume that I do not know)

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Schools, as we know them, did not exist in the ancient world. People studied with learned men. It was as if a student had one professor for all of his subjects. One did not 'major' in any one subject, but rather in all subjects. i.e., rhetoric, languages, philosophy, math, history, etc. If one were very rich, it might have been a one on one situation. It could also have been a small group in what was called a 'gymnasium'. I would guess that Livy wrote on history because he liked it and not because he 'majored' in it. I don't think that it was a 'job' for him. He was rich enough on his own account.

Edited by Gaius Octavius

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Schools, as we know them, did not exist in the ancient world. People studied with learned men. It was as if a student had one professor for all of his subjects. One did not 'major' in any one subject, but rather in all subjects. i.e., rhetoric, languages, philosophy, math, history, etc. If one were very rich, it might have been a one on one situation. It could also have been a small group in what was called a 'gymnasium'. I would guess that Livy wrote on history because he liked it and not because he 'majored' in it. I don't think that it was a 'job' for him. He was rich enough on his own account.

 

Thanks for that! Re the original post, if there was no subject simply taught as History, rather training in the liberal arts as a whole, how come there was a God/Goddess for History?- maybe your tutor should reframe the essay prompt!hehe

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