Norman F. Cantor

“What the Acropolis in Athens looked like, including the Parthenon of the gods, is best told today at the British Museum in…

— Norman F. Cantor

“National historical myths are a way of giving identity and more authenticity to a people. Exodus flattered the Jews half a millennium…

— Norman F. Cantor

“The Fathers of the American Constitution, well-versed in the classical heritage, consciously constructed an awkward governmental system like republican Rome's: much better…

— Norman F. Cantor

“The ultimate triumph of Christianity was aided by the internal drive within Roman paganism toward some kind of monotheism. By 150 A.D.,…

— Norman F. Cantor

“When historians and literary scholars talk about the classical heritage, or the legacy to Western civilization from antiquity, they are primarily thinking…

— Norman F. Cantor

“Judaism was a legal religion in the Roman Empire; Christianity was not until the first Christian emperor ascended the throne in the…

— Norman F. Cantor

“An economy built on slave labor is vulnerable in two ways. One, availability of forced labor discourages technical innovation. The very wealthy…

— Norman F. Cantor

“The mindset of antiquity lacked economic science and sociological theory. The ancients did rather well with political narrative, although, except for Thucydides,…

— Norman F. Cantor

“The central concern of Egyptian art, literature, and architecture was the divine world order -- the pharaoh and the gods, who were…

— Norman F. Cantor

“There are other special problems connected with the discovery of ancient cities. Alexandria was ravaged by fires and street fighting, and its…

— Norman F. Cantor

“In ethics [Aristotle] had two bright ideas. First, that extreme behavior of selfishness and self-sacrifice don't work for most people; look for…

— Norman F. Cantor

“There was no money economy in Egypt, and all exchange of goods was carried out by barter. Each citizen paid a tax…

— Norman F. Cantor

“[Egyptian] advances in medicine, however, as well as in other areas of science, were limited to their attempts to solve the problems…

— Norman F. Cantor

“Sacramental attachments to a dying a resurrected savior was a common idea in the Roman Empire. The religion of Mithraism, very popular…

— Norman F. Cantor

“[Roman] society became steadily more cosmopolitan. By 212 A.D., all inhabitants of the empire, except for slaves, were deemed to be citizens.…

— Norman F. Cantor

“The Stoics taught a life of restraint and control, the personal cultivation of learning, beauty, and reason. The Stoics asked the Romans…

— Norman F. Cantor

“Saint Augustine proliferated central theological and political doctrines of the Church, following Saint Paul closely. History is the scene of the struggle…

— Norman F. Cantor

“The great impact of Hellenistic culture was, however, no in natural science, but in the more Plato-inspired imaginative literature. The modern novel…

— Norman F. Cantor

“from its beginning, Egypt was a densely settled agricultural community. Its soil was rich, and because farming necessarily ceased during the months…

— Norman F. Cantor