Why did Plato write the Republic? I give here not an answer, but elaborations on the question. I drafted these during the latter of two readings of the Republic, engaged in with two different groups of people in the last two years with the Catherine Project.
Village whose name I don’t know
between Yeniköy and Tarabya, Sarıyer, Istanbul
Behind me is a gated community
where every house has a swimming pool
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
There is a lot about R. G. Collingwood on this blog. Apparently that is why I had the opportunity to write the text below. Something close to it was included in Turkish last year with the Turkish translation of R. G. Collingwood’s Religion and Philosophy.
As Rome was traditionally founded on seven hills, so seven hills have been identified within the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, New Rome.
The theme of seven hills is found in Turkish culture today, as for example in
This is about a tour in 2013, roughly following part of the chapter called “The Seventh Hill” in Sumner-Boyd and Freely, Strolling Through Istanbul (revised and updated edition, London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010). There are no really spectacular sites along the tour. This fact itself makes the tour remarkable: it shows how many interesting things lie beyond the main tourist centers of the city.
Here is a Google map I made of the sites visited.
I created this post originally, not long after the tour it describes; however, I posted it on my departmental website, although this blog did exist in those days too. I last edited the post on the departmental site, Monday, July 2, 2018. I return to it now because of friends’ interest in Byzantine sites in Istanbul (also I have completed the posts about the books of the Iliad that began in November).
As I said, the sites visited here are not spectacular, but they may still be remarkable. The Byzantine ones are:
See also a later post, “Samatya Tour, July, 2018,” for more in this area, including
On Sunday, March 24, 2013, my friend Cédric and I took the tram to Aksaray. We passed under an elevated boulevard to reach Valide Sultan Camii, constructed in the late nineteenth century, in the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire.
The games of Book XXIII of the Iliad have not been enough to let Achilles sleep. He tosses and turns,
yearning for the manhood and valorous might of Patroclus, thinking on all he had wrought with him and all the woes he had borne, passing through wars of men and the grievous waves. (lines 6–9)
It occurs to me to ask: Is that what we call a description? It is a “setting down in words”; however, if it is a “verbal portrait,” this only goes to show what a remarkable power we have, to know what somebody is thinking by how he looks.
Atatürk Kent Ormanı
Tarabya, Sarıyer, İstanbul
May 11, 2023
Ottoman fountain
Harbor of Tarabya (Θεραπειά) on the Bosphorus
Sarıyer, Istanbul, May Day 2023
The bay was called Φαρμακία by Medea
according to Dionysius of Byzantium (2nd century c.e.)
in his Anaplous (“sailing up”) of the Bosporos
Rough translation by Brady Kiesling:
§ 68 Immediately following is the bay call [sic] Pharmakias, from Medeia the Colchian, who deposited coffers of drugs here. It is, however, a very fine and commodious place for fishing and ideal for beaching ships. For right up to the edge of the beach it is deep and very safe from the winds. A multitude of fish are attracted here. The forest, however, is dense, with a deep wood of every species, and meadows, as if the land were competing with the sea. Its circumference is shaded by a forest overhanging the sea, through the middle of which a river descends noiselessly.
Along the coast to the left
towards the Sea of Marmara
is the Pitheci Portus
again according to Dionysius:
§ 66 Beneath this prominent coast follows a bay in which is Harbor of Pithex, whom [sic] they say was a king of the barbarians who lived here who together with his sons led Asteropaios in the crossing to Asia. From here the shore is broken and steep.
Achilles slew the ambidextrous Asteropaeus in Book XXI of the Iliad
He will be giving away the spoil now, in Book XXIII
Map source: Richard Talbert, editor
Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World
Princeton University Press, 2000
The fascinating moments in the Iliad are when somebody has to make a decision.
Wednesday morning, April 12, 2023
Akarsu Sokağı (“Runningwater Street”)
Tarabya, Sarıyer, Istanbul
In Book XVII of the Iliad, Zeus pitied the immortal horses, Xanthus and Balius, as they wept for the slain Patroclus: “For in sooth there is naught, I ween, more miserable than man among all things that breathe and move upon earth.”
Monday morning, April 17, 2023
Sarıyer, Istanbul
Kefeliköy / Δικαία Πέτρα
(There exist a map and memoir of this settlement)
“The feeling of helplessness and humiliation in the face of an abuse of power is an awful one.” That’s what Achilles found out, back in Book I of the Iliad; however, the words themselves, dated April 11, 2023, are by Claire Berlinski. Her Agamemnon is Elon Musk.
“And when they were come near, as they advanced one against the other, then first unto Aeneas spake swift-footed goodly Achilles: ‘Aeneas, wherefore hast thou sallied thus far forth from the throng to stand and face me?’ ” (Iliad 20.176–9)
Kireçburnu (“Lime Point”)
Κλειδὴς καὶ κλεῖθρα τοὺ Πόντου (“Lock and Key of the Pontus”)
Sarıyer, Istanbul
Sunday morning, March 26, 2023
Book XIX of the Iliad is all talk. This annoys Achilles, but is important for Agamemnon and Odysseus, and they should know better—Odysseus even says so.
Achilles gets ready to fight while Patroclus lies dead
(or, one of two well-fed street-dogs goes through the motions of defense)
Şalcıkır Parkı, Tarabya
Sarıyer, Istanbul
Sunday morning, March 26, 2023
Twelve Trojan warriors die, merely because Achilles shouts at them across the Achaean trench. That is all Achilles does, in Book XVIII of the Iliad, and no more deaths are reported—unless we count the ones depicted around the city at war, on the shield that Hephaestus forges for Achilles at the request of Thetis. (See note 1)
“Achilles, dear to Zeus, roused him,
and round about his mighty shoulders Athene flung her tasselled aegis,
and around his head the fair goddess set thick a golden cloud,
and forth from the man made blaze a gleaming fire.” (Iliad 18.203–6)
Kireçburnu (“Lime Point”)
Κλειδὴς καὶ κλεῖθρα τοὺ Πόντου (“Lock and Key of the Pontus”)
Sarıyer, Istanbul
Sunday morning, March 26, 2023
Polytropy 