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Ancients vs Moderns: The Unanswered Questions of Death |
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written
by shivali / 10.24.2005 |
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| melancholy of the antique world |
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When considering our lives beyond death, most modern people turn to religion. Modern religions seem to offer adequate answers to the age old question of what happens to us after death. In Hinduism, we become a part of God; in Christianity, we go to Heaven. Regardless of our religious beliefs, modern people have a variety of possible answers to questions that surround death and the afterlife. But the ancients and their religious beliefs fail to outline man’s journey after death. Hence, a quest for immortality- to live on after death- was of particular importance to the ancients. Their gods did not bring them to heaven; they did not have another life on earth to look forward to. Instead, as Flaubert describes, “‘the black hole’ was infinity itself.” Beyond the skies lay no heaven. The ancients had one life in which to achieve a greatness that would grant them immortality. The power that we ascribe to the Gods to define our lives after death, the ancients ascribe to themselves. The Roman Forum is a display of the various answers that men have had like temples and monuments. They are physical reminders that mark their existence. Their life after death is not connected with good deeds on earth and a persistent morality; instead it is their power, might, and success as an individual man which is on trial. To earn their immortality and a place after death, the Emperors erected monuments commemorating their lives and achievements. The melancholy then becomes the weight of the constant and persistent effort required during a lifetime to undo their mortality. The effort was greater for the ancients when being a good person and effort enough was not enough. The Forum is a tribute to the few men whose life was a “success” and whose memory endured the weathering of time. All others are forgotten for “their dreams loom and vanish against a background of immutable ebony.”
The melancholy deepens when one realizes that even of those who have achieved immortality, only ruins remain. Within the Forum are only remnants of Roman triumph- stories of brothers fighting one another for glory, Emperors building monuments for remembrance, and temples to appease all powerful Gods. The Forum contains hidden stories of a disappeared greatness. But what truly remains? Only broken rubble, cracked pillars, and scattered marble blocks. The modern viewers cannot appreciate or comprehend the beauty or glory. When lifetimes of toil and elaborate descriptions seem desperately inadequate, we begin to understand the melancholy of the antique world.
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