Miltiades the Younger

"Helmet of Miltiades". The helmet was given as an offering to the temple of Zeus at Olympia by Miltiades. Inscription on the helmet: ΜΙLTIAΔES. Archaeological Museum of Olympia.

His helmet read Miltiades dedicates this helmet to Zeus.

Miltiades the Younger (Greek: Μιλτιάδης ὁ Νεώτερος; c. 550 BCE – 489 BCE) or Miltiades IV (Greek: Μιλτιάδης Δ`) was the son of one Cimon,^[1] a renowned Olympic chariot-racer.^[2] Miltiades considered himself a member of the Aeacidae,^[2] and he was a member of the prominent Philaid clan. He is known mostly for his role in the Battle of Marathon; as well as his rather tragic downfall afterwards. His son Cimon was a major Athenian figure of the 470s and 460s BCE. His daughter Elpinice is remembered for her confrontations with Pericles, as recorded by Plutarch.

Thracian Chersonese[link]

Miltiades made himself the tyrant of the Greek colonies on the Thracian Chersonese, forcibly seizing it from his rivals and imprisoning them. His step-uncle Miltiades the Elder, and his brother Stesagoras, had been the ruler before him. When Stesagoras had died, Miltiades was sent to rule the Chersonese, around 482 BCE. His brother's reign had been tumultuous, full of war and revolt. Wishing for a tighter reign than his brother, he feigned mourning for his brother's death. When men of rank from the Chersonese came to console him, he imprisoned them. He then assured his power by taking in 500 troops. He also married Hegesipyle, the daughter of king Olorus of Thrace.

Thracian Chersonese was forced to submit to Persian rule. Miltiades became a vassal of Darius I of Persia, joining Darius' expedition against the Scythians around 513 BCE. Miltiades had suggested destroying the bridge across the Danube which Darius used to cross into Scythia, leaving Darius to die. The others were afraid to do this, and so it never happened, but Darius was aware of Miltiades' scheming; and so his rule in the Chersonese was a perilous affair since this point. He joined the Ionian Revolt of 499 BCE against Persian rule, establishing friendly relations with Athens and capturing the islands of Lemnos and Imbros, which he eventually ceded to Athens, who had ancient claims to these lands.^[3] However, the revolt collapsed in 494 BCE and in 492 BCE Miltiades fled to Athens to escape a retaliatory Persian invasion. His son Metiochos was captured by the Persian fleet and made a lifelong prisoner, but was nonetheless treated honorably as a de facto member of the Persian nobility. Arriving in Athens, Miltiades initially faced a hostile reception for his tyrannical rule in the Thracian Chersonese. Having spent three years in prison he was sentenced to death for the crime of tyranny. However, he successfully presented himself as a defender of Greek freedoms against Persian despotism and escaped punishment.

Battle of Marathon[link]

The Battle of Marathon

Miltiades is often credited with devising the tactics that defeated the Persians in the Battle of Marathon.^[4] Miltiades was elected to serve as one of the ten generals (strategoi) for 490 BCE.^[5] In addition to the ten generals, there was one 'war-ruler' (polemarch), Callimachus, who had been left with a decision of great importance.^[5] The ten generals were split, five to five, on whether to attack the Persians at Marathon now, or later.^[5] Miltiades was firm in insisting now, and convinced this decisive vote of Callimachus for the necessity of a swift attack.^[6]

He also convinced the generals of the necessity of not using the customary tactics, as hoplites usually marched in an evenly distributed phalanx of shields and spears, a standard with no other instance of deviation until Epaminondas.^[7] Miltiades feared the cavalry of the Persians attacking the flanks, and asked for the flanks to have more hoplites than the center.^[8] Miltiades also had his men run, something like a mile, in full armor to resist any swift attack of the Persians.^[8] This was very successful in defeating the Persians, who then tried to sail around the Cape Sounion and attack Attica from the west.^[9] Miltiades got his men to quickly run to the western side of Attica overnight, causing Datis to flee at the sight of the soldiers who had just defeated him the previous evening.^[9]

Expedition at Paros[link]

The following year, 489 BCE, Miltiades led an Athenian expedition of seventy ships against the Greek-inhabited islands that were deemed to have supported the Persians. The expedition was not a success. His true motivations were to attack Paros, feeling he had been slighted by them in the past.^[10] The fleet attacked the island, which had been conquered by the Persians, but failed to take it. Miltiades suffered a bad leg wound during the campaign and became incapacitated. His failure prompted an outcry on his return to Athens, enabling his political rivals to exploit his fall from grace. Charged with treason, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was converted to a fine of fifty talents. He was sent to prison where he died, probably of gangrene from his wound. The debt was paid by his son Cimon.^[11] Pheidias later erected a statue in Miltiades' honor of Nemesis,^[11] the deity whose job it was to bring sudden misfortune to those who had experienced an excess of fortune, in the temple of the goddess at Rhamnus. The statue was said to be made of marble provided by Datis for a memorial to the Persians' expected victory.^[11]

See also[link]

• Archaeological Museum of Olympia

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Creasy, Edward Shepherd. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: from Marathon to Waterloo. New York: Crowell, 1880. ISBN 1-60620-952-3
• Hammond, N.G.L., Scullard, H.H. eds. Oxford Classical Dictionary, Second Edition; Oxford University Press 1970; ISBN 0-19-869117-3
• Herodotus Histories ISBN 0-19-282425-2

External links[link]

• Photo essay of Miltiades helmet
• Livius, Miltiades by Jona Lendering.

Miltiades or Miltiadis (short: Miltos) is a Greek name. Several historic persons have been called Miltiades (Μιλτιάδης).

• Miltiades the Elder (died c. 524 BC) wealthy Athenian, and step-uncle of Miltiades the Younger
• Miltiades the Younger (c. 550–489 BC), tyrant of the Thracian Chersonese and the Athenian commanding general in the Battle of Marathon
• Pope Miltiades (died 314), African saint and pope
• Miltiades Football Club, a football (soccer) club in Pyrgos, Greece, named after the general

Other people named Miltiadis[link]

• Miltiadis Evert, Greek politician, born 1939
• Miltos Gkougkoulakis, Greek footballer, born 1977
• Miltiadis Goulimis, Greek politician, born 1844
• Miltiadis Iatridis, Greek naval officer in World War II, born 1906
• Miltiadis Manakis, one of the Manakis brothers, Greek pioneering photographer and filmmaker, aka Milton Manachia, born 1882
• Miltos Sachtouris, Greek poet, born 1919
• Miltiadis Sapanis, Greek footballer, born 1976

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Dimitrie Cantemir
Portrait of Dimitrie Cantemir (engraving)
Born	October 26, 1673 Silişteni, Moldavia
Died	August 21, 1723 Dmitrovka near Kharkov, Kharkov's Cossack regiment, Imperial Russia
Nationality	Moldavia, Romania

Dimitrie Cantemir (Romanian: [diˈmitri.e kanteˈmir]; 1673 – 1723) was twice Prince of Moldavia (in March–April 1693 and in 1710–1711). He was also a prolific man of letters – philosopher, historian, composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer.

His name is spelled Dimitrie Cantemir in Romanian, Dmitriy Konstantinovich Kantemir (Дми́трий Константи́нович Кантеми́р) in Russian, Dimitri Kantemiroğlu in Turkish, Dymitr Kantemir in Polish, Dimitrios Kantemiris (Δημήτριος Καντεμίρης) in Greek and Demetre Cantemir in several other languages.

Life and family[link]

Born in Silişteni (renamed Dimitrie Cantemir and now located in Vaslui County, Romania), Dimitrie was the son of Moldavian Voivode Constantin Cantemir (and brother to Antioh Cantemir, himself Prince), of the low-ranking boyar Cantemireşti family. His mother, Ana Bantăş, was a learned woman of noble origins. (Cantemir never forgot his paternal ancestry, but while in Constantinople because of his name similarity locals inspired him to claim descent from Khan Temir, an early 17th century khan of the Budjak Tatars – see Moldavian Magnate Wars on some occasions.)

His education began at home, where he learned Greek and Latin and acquired a profound knowledge of the classics. Between 1687 and 1710 he lived in forced exile in Istanbul, where he learned Turkish and studied the history of the Ottoman Empire at the Patriarchate's Greek Academy, where he also composed music.

In 1693, he succeeded his father as Prince of Moldavia – in name only, as the Ottomans appointed Constantin Duca, favoured by Wallachian Prince and, despite many shared goals, forever rival of the Cantemirs Constantin Brâncoveanu; his bid for the throne was successful only in 1710, after two rules by his brother (whom he represented as envoy in the Ottoman capital). He had ruled only three weeks^[1] when he joined Peter the Great in his campaign against the Ottoman Empire (see Russo-Turkish War, 1710–1711) and placed Moldavia under Russian suzerainty, after a secret agreement signed in Lutsk.

Defeated by the Turks in the battle of Stănileşti (July 18–July 22, 1711), Cantemir sought refuge in Russia, where he and his family finally settled (he was accompanied by a sizeable boyar retinue, including the chronicler Ion Neculce). There, he was awarded the title of Knyaz (Prince) of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great and received the title of Reichsfürst (Prince) of the Holy Roman Empire from Charles VI. He died at his Dmitrovka estate near Oryol in 1723 (on the very day he was awarded the Roman-German princely title). In 1935, his remains were carried to Iaşi.

Posthumous portrait of Anastasia Ivanovna, Countess of Hesse-Homburg, Princess Trubetskaya by Alexander Roslin (1757)
Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria

He was married twice: in 1699, to Kassandra Cantacuzene (1682–1713), member of the Cantacuzino family (the daughter of Prince Şerban Cantacuzino), and in 1717 to Anastasia Trubetskaya (1700–1755; from the Trubetskoy house).

Portrait of Princess Ekaterina Dmitrievna Golitsyna by Louis-Michel van Loo (1759)
Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

Cantemir's children were rather prominent in Russian history. His elder daughter Maria Cantemir (1700–1754) attracted the attention of Peter the Great who allegedly planned to divorce his wife Catherine and marry her. Upon Catherine's ascension to the throne, she was forced to enter a convent. His son Antioh Cantemir (Antiokh Dmitrievich in Russian) (1708–1744) was also the Russian ambassador to London and Paris, a prominent satirical poet, and Voltaire's friend. Another son, Constantin (Konstantin Dmitrievich; 1703–1747), was implicated in the Galitzine conspiracy against Empress Anne and exiled to Siberia. Finally, Dimitrie's younger daughter Smaragda (1720–1761), the wife of Prince Dmitriy Mikhailovich Galitzine, was a friend of Empress Elizabeth and one of the great beauties of her time.

Works[link]

History, geography, philosophy and linguistics[link]

In 1714 Cantemir became a member of the Royal Academy of Berlin. Between 1711 and 1719 he wrote his most important creations. Cantemir was known as one of the greatest linguists of his time, speaking and writing eleven languages, and being well versed in Oriental scholarship. His oeuvre is voluminous, diverse, and original; although some of his scientific writings contain unconfirmed theories and inaccuracies, his expertise, sagacity, and groundbreaking researches are widely acknowledged.

Dimitrie Cantemir in Ottoman dress.

The best known is his History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire. This volume circulated throughout Europe in manuscript for a number of years. It was finally printed in 1734 in London, and later it was translated and printed in Germany and France. It remained the seminal work on the Ottoman Empire up to the middle of the 19th century – notably, it was used as reference by Edward Gibbon for his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Afterwards, the work was largely contested, for some of its sources were doubtful.

In 1714, at the request of the Royal Academy in Berlin, Cantemir wrote the first geographical, ethnographical and economic description of Moldavia, Descriptio Moldaviae. As many of his books it circulated first in manuscript and was only later published in Germany (first in 1769 in a geographical magazine, and then in 1771 the first edition as a book). Around the same time he prepared a manuscript map of Moldavia, the first real map of the country. It contained a lot of geographical detail as well as administrative information. Printed in 1737 in the Netherlands, it has been used by all cartographers of the time as an inspiration for their own maps of Moldavia.

Other writings:

• A history and notation of Ottoman court music.

• The first critical history of Romania as a whole, under the name of Hronicul vechimii a romano-moldo-valahilor – approx. "Chronicle of the durability of Romans-Moldavians-Wallachians" (1719–1722).

• The first Romanian language novel, the cryptic Historia Hieroglyphica (1705), to which he furnished a key, and in which the principal persons are represented by mythological beasts; it is the history of the two Wallachian ruling houses of Brâncoveanu and Cantacuzino.

• A philosophical treatise, written in Romanian and also in Greek, translated into Arabic, under the title Divanul sau Gâlceava Înţeleptului cu lumea sau Giudeţul sufletului cu trupul (Iaşi, 1698) – Le divan ou la dispute du sage avec le monde ou le jugement de l'âme avec le corps in French ("The Divan or The Wise Man's Parley with the World or The Judgement of the Soul with the Body").

• An unfinished second treatise (Istanbul, 1700), Sacrosantae scientiae indepingibilis imagio or Imaginea ştiinţei sacre, care nu se poate zugrăvi ("The Image of the Sacred, Undepictable Science").

• An introduction to Islam written for Europeans.

• A biography of Jan Baptist van Helmont (Cantemir, 1709).^[2] This work is cited by Debus (2002),^[3] on pages 212-213.

Due to his many esteemed works he won great renown at the high courts of Europe. His name is among those who were considered to be the brightest minds of the world on a plaque at the Library of Sainte-Genevieve in Paris, next to those of Leibnitz, Newton, Piron, and other great thinkers.

Musicology[link]

Soviet stamp devoted to Dimitrie Cantemir, 1973 (Michel 4175, Scott 4132).

Some of Cantemir's compositions are part of the regular repertory of Turkish music ensembles. In 1999, the Bezmara ensemble have recorded an album, Yitik Sesin Peşinde ("In Search of the Lost Sound") from the Cantemir transcriptions using period instruments.^[4]

In 2000, Golden Horn Records released a CD exploring Cantemir's compositions, European composers of Cantemir's era, and folk music of Moldavia. Featuring solo improvisations on kemençe (Turkish bowed fiddle) and tanbur (Turkish long-necked plucked lute) by famed master Íhsan Özgen and early music ensemble Lux Musica directed by Linda Burman-Hall, the project fulfills an ambitious endeavor by Özgen and Burman-Hall to meld early European music styles and instruments with today's Turkish art music styles and instruments, with Cantemir as their touchstone.^[5]

In 2009, Alia Vox published a CD and booklet of music performed by the Hespèrion XXI ensemble and invited musicians under the baton of Jordi Savall. The recording and booklet both pertain to “The Book of the Science of Music” by Cantemir and the Sephardic and Armenian musical traditions. Seven of Cantemir's compositions are included in the recording along with other Turkish, Armenian and Sephardic music. ^[6]

He had around 40 compositions in the Ottoman music of which few are performed today, but his greatest service to the Ottoman music is the fact that he helped survival of 350 instrumental pieces by recording them in a certain notation (the ebced) script he developed in his work Edvar which he presented to Sultan Ahmed III.

The most recent publication of his abovementioned work, reprint along with complete transcription and explanations, is: Kantemiroğlu, Kitâbu 'İlmi'l-Mûsiki alâ Vechi'l-Hurûfât, Mûsikiyi Harflerle Tesbit ve İcrâ İlminin Kitabı, Yalçın Tura, Yapı Kredi Yayınları, Istanbul 2001, ISBN 975-08-0167-9. Romanian historian and musicologist Eugenia Popescu-Judetz has numerous works on Cantemir, the most recent of which being a monograph (in English, also translated into Turkish): Prince Dimitrie Cantemir, Theorist and Composer of Turkish Music, Eugenia Popescu-Judetz, Pan Yayıncılık, Istanbul 1999, ISBN 975-7652-82-2.

References[link]

Sources consulted

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Endnotes

Bibliography[link]

• Gusterin, Pavel. Первый российский востоковед Дмитрий Кантемир / First Russian Orientalist Dmitry Kantemir. Мoscow, 2008. ISBN 978-5-7873-0436-7.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dimitrie Cantemir

• (Romanian) Biography
• Genealogy of the Cantemir family
• Music of Cantemir (Golden Horn Records)
• Music CD with booklet: Istanbul - Dimitrie Cantemir - Jordi Savall (Alia Vox)
• Istanbul. Dimitrie Cantemir - "Le livre de la Science de la Musique" - "The Book of the Science of Music" - Hespèrion XXI - dir. Jordi Savall

• (Latin) Descriptio Moldaviae at Latin Wikisource
• (Romanian) Istoria ieroglifică at Romanian Wikisource

Uncle Remus in Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation, 1881

"Old Plantation Play Song", from Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation, 1881

Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African-American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881. A journalist in post-Reconstruction Atlanta, Georgia, Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books.

Structure[link]

Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore, collected from Southern United States blacks. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop's fables and the stories of Jean de La Fontaine. Uncle Remus is a kindly old former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him.

The stories are told in Harris's version of a Deep South slave dialect. The genre of stories is the trickster tale. At the time of Harris' publication, his work was praised for its ability to capture plantation negro dialect.^[1]

Br'er Rabbit ("Brother Rabbit") is the main character of the stories, a likable character, prone to tricks and trouble-making who is often opposed by Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. In one tale, Br'er Fox constructs a lump of tar and puts clothing on it. When Br'er Rabbit comes along he addresses the "tar baby" amiably, but receives no response. Br'er Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as Tar Baby's lack of manners, punches it, and becomes stuck.^[2]

Controversy and Legacy[link]

The animal stories were conveyed in a manner in which they were not deemed as ostensibly racist by many among the audiences of the time. By the mid-20th century, however, the dialect and the "old Uncle" stereotype of the narrator, was considered politically incorrect and demeaning by many black people, on account of what they considered to be racist and patronizing attitudes toward blacks. Providing additional controversy is the story's context in the Antebellum south on a slave owning plantation, a setting that is portrayed in a passive and even docile manner. Nevertheless, Harris' work was, according to himself, an accurate account of the stories he heard from the slaves when he worked on a plantation as a young man. He claimed to have listened to, and memorized, the African American animal stories told by Uncle George Terrell, Old Harbert, and Aunt Crissy at the plantation; he wrote them down some years later. He acknowledged his debt to these storytellers in his fictionalized autobiography, 'On the Plantation' (1892). Many of the stories that he recorded have direct equivalents in the African oral tradition, and it is thanks to Harris that their African-American form is preserved.

Harris himself said, in the introduction to Uncle Remus, that he hoped his book would be considered:

...a sympathetic supplement to Mrs. Stowe's [author of Uncle Tom's Cabin] wonderful defense of slavery as it existed in the South. Mrs. Stowe, let me hasten to say, attacked the possibilities of slavery with all the eloquence of genius; but the same genius painted the portrait of the Southern slave-owner, and defended him.^[3]

Mark Twain read the Uncle Remus stories to his children, who were awed to meet Harris himself. In his Autobiography Twain describes him thus:

He was the bashfulest grown person I have ever met. When there were people about he stayed silent, and seemed to suffer until they were gone. But he was lovely, nevertheless; for the sweetness and benignity of the immortal Remus looked out from his eyes, and the graces and sincerities of his character shone in his face.

Twain wrote that "It may be that Jim Wolf was as bashful as Harris. It hardly seems possible...." Jim Wolf being a person from the first humorous story Twain ever told—the story recorded in "Jim Wolf and the Cats".

Film and music adaptations[link]

The stories have inspired at least three feature films. The first and best known is Walt Disney's Song of the South, released in 1946. The film was a combination of live action and animation. Disney hired vaudeville and radio actor James Baskett to portray Remus, saying: "We want [the audience] to see 'Uncle Remus' and not some actor whose personality is already known to them through other screen roles." Baskett's appearance, a large black man with a round face, contrasts with the appearance of Uncle Remus in earlier book illustrations by Frederick S. Church, A. B. Frost, and E. W. Kemble.^[4] Ralph Bakshi's 1975 film Coonskin is a satire of the Disney film that adapts the Uncle Remus stories to a contemporary Harlem setting. The Adventures of Brer Rabbit is a 2006 direct-to video production which has hip-hop influences.^[5]

Loudon Wainwright III wrote and recorded the song "Black Uncle Remus" in 1972. Frank Zappa also recorded a song called "Uncle Remus" which appears on the album Apostrophe (') (1974). The Zappa song was also recorded by band mate George Duke on his album "The Aura Will Prevail".

The Uncle Remus tales are also the basis for the 1984 Van Dyke Parks album Jump.

The Boondocks, a comic strip and animated show, adopted the likeness of Uncle Remus in creating the character Uncle Ruckus.^{[citation needed]}

Don Williams refers to "Uncle Remus" putting him to bed in the song Good Ole Boys Like Me.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Uncle Remus

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Uncle Remus

• Full text of books by Uncle Remus from Project Gutenberg
• Theodore Roosevelt autobiography on Brer Rabbit and his Uncle
• Short biography of Joel Chandler Harris with photograph {article by the Eatonton Literary Festival, Eatonon, Georgia)
• Official Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton, GA

v t e Uncle Remus Characters Br'er Rabbit Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear Tar baby Films Song of the South Coonskin The Adventures of Brer Rabbit Related Joel Chandler Harris Splash Mountain Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Book