Browsing by Author "Atkinson, John"

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    Benjamin Farrington: Cape Town and the Shaping of a Public Intellectual
    (2010) Atkinson, John
    Benjamin Farrington, an Irish Protestant, joined the University of Cape Town, Classics Department in 1920, and wrote articles for De Burger to win Afrikaner support for Sinn Fein and the Irish Republic. He was credited with initiating a conference in Paris in 1922, to launch the Irish World Organisation. Disillusioned by its stillbirth he effectively shut down the Irish Republican Association of South Africa and its newspaper, The Republic, which he had founded and edited. Prominent in the circle of Ruth Schechter, whom he later married, he engaged with the likes of Hogben and Bodmer. Disengaged from active politics by mid-1922, he emerged as a public intellectual in Marxist and Leninist/Trotskyist groupings. Inspired by Karl Marx's thesis on the Epicurean theory of atomism, he campaigned against determinism, and in particular against fundamentalist and superstitious attacks on experimental science. Thus in the classical context he presented Socrates' mix of disembodied mathematics, ethics and theology as a major block to Greek physical science long before Christianity. Farrington's scientific humanism is evidenced in his translations of the Africana texts of Ten Rhyne and Grevenbroek, and in his work on Vesalius. At UCT he advanced Classics from primarily language study to the broader study of history, science and culture. He could be labelled a public intellectual by virtue of his lectures to groups in the community, articles and reviews in the press, and publications for a general readership. But he took his model rather from Epicurus.
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    On Judging Alexander: A Matter of Honour
    (2007) Atkinson, John
    Cartledge's insistence that Alexander was guided by the heroic 'moral code of honour' is considered in terms of paradigms established in Stewart's Honor, and in contrast with Holt's view of the 'Homeric code'. This paper deals first with Alexander's pursuit of honour in the successive phases of his career, and then with his attempt to accommodate competing codes of honour as he won control of the Achaemenid Empire.
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    Plague in the Graeco-Roman world, 430 B.C.-A.D. 600
    (1988) Truter, Elsie; Atkinson, John; Forder, A
    This dissertation concerns itself with the study of epidemics between 430 B.C. - A.D. 600, in an attempt to find positive evidence for the existence of bubonic plague in the ancient world. Most major studies on the Black Death have concerned themselves with the great pandemics of the Middle Ages and none (to my knowledge), have systematically examined the ancient records for earlier evidence of the disease. The time period chosen for this study, from the Athenian Plague to the Plague of Justinian, contains some relatively well documented epidemics, which has made it possible, in some cases, to identify the disease. Plague is a complicated disease, dependent on numerous factors for its successful spread, but few historians have considered this. The word 'plague' was loosely used in ancient texts to denote any epidemic disease with a high mortality rate and not a specific microbial infection. Most historians however translate 'plague' as bubonic plague and make no attempt at a medical analysis of the symptoms given by a particular author. The point of this dissertation is to examine the ancient epidemics from a medical as well as a historical angle. Our evidence for the existence of epidemic diseases comes from a variety of sources, and these are examined. Sculptures and frescoes show numerous chronic and acute disorders. Human remains have shown evidence of certain diseases, while animal and parasitic remains have helped to confirm the existence of certain species instrumental in the spread of a specific disease. However, written texts are the most reliable source for obtaining a detailed account of the symptoms and accurate interpretation of these texts is therefore important. To achieve this, the symptoms mentioned by an ancient author are compared and contrasted, through the use of tables, with the symptoms of some of the known infectious diseases of today. This dissertation will show that epidemics which were previously labelled plague could either not be identified as such, or were misdiagnosed. Evidence does point to the existence of bubonic plague in the ancient world, but it never reached epidemic proportions until A.D. 600.
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    The role of the traditional Mediterranean diet in the development of Minoan Crete : archaeological, nutritional and biochemical evidence
    (1997) Riley, Frank Richard; Atkinson, John
    Archaeological evidence reveals that a diet consisting of mainly of cereals, pulses and olives, supplemented by fish and with a low percentage of animal products, was consumed on Crete in the Minoan period, as it was up to this century. Modem clinical and biochemical research indicates that this traditional 'Mediterranean diet' offers certain nutritional and health benefits depending on the balances of the components - particularly relating to moderately high carbohydrate intake, low saturated (mainly animal) fatty acids and the presence of beneficial fatty acids of vegetable (especially olive) and fish origin. It has been demonstrated that intake of these latter fatty acids is associated with reduction in cardiac pathology and the development of visual and mental acuity in neonatal infants. Beneficial effects in certain cancers and auto-immune diseases are also being investigated. Lipid analyses of samples of Cretan olive oil and Aegean fish (identified taxonomically from faunal remains and Minoan frescoes) confirm good levels of both essential and other dietary fatty foods. An assessment of the nutritional benefits of the Minoan diet and its possible role in the development of Minoan Crete are investigated, using archaeological, demographic, biochemical and skeletal evidence.