Epic Destinies Final Themes

Homer’s Iliad

heroic honor and glory, fate vs choice, rage and its cost, and mortality

Euripides Medea

Passion vs reason, betrayal and justice, gender and power, and outsider status (foreigner/minroity)

Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics

eduamonia (human flourshing), virtue as habit, the golden mean, reasons and community

Virgil’s Aeneid

Pietas (duty), fate and empire, sacrifice, war’s cost

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

change and instability, power and desire, art and storytelling, ambiguity

Marcus Aurelius Meditations

stoic self control, impermanence, cosmis order, duty to humanity

Roman art

Power and authority, order and realism, public virtue, continuity with tradition

1 Corinthians

resurrection, love (agape), weakness as strength, and community