Hesiod:

Apollonian poet, Greek active between 750- 650 BC (concurrent with Homer), first written poet in the Western tradition regarding himself as an individual persona with an active role in subject; Greek authors credit him with establishing religious customs; he is a major source for Greek mythology, farming, early economic thought, astronomy & time-keeping.

 

Sophocles:

Apollonian philosopher, Greek, 497-406 BC

and see Chapter I, pages 9, 14, Chapter IX, page 321

 

Plato:

Apollonian philosopher, Greek 427-347 BC

and see Chapter I, pages 9, Chapter III, page 111 Chapter V, page 174 Chapter IX, pages 304, 311

 

stoa: * see EndNote<A>

Greek architecture; a portico, usually a detached portico of considerable length, that is used as a promenade or meeting place.  

 

Francis of Assisi:

Faustian (1181-1226), Italian Catholic friar, deacon, philosopher, mystic & preacher; highly venerated religious figures in Christianity; founder of the men's Order of Friars Minor & women's Order of Saint Clare.

 

Abelard:

Faustian (1079-1142), French scholastic philosopher, theologian & logician; famous for his love & affair with, Héloïse d'Argenteuil; considered one of the keenest thinkers & boldest theologian of the 12th century

 

Ibsen:

Faustian, (1828-1906) playwright of the Faustian Winter

and see Chapter I, pages 20, 24, 45

 

Nietzsche:

Faustian, (1844-1900) philosopher of the Faustian Winter

and see Chapter I, page 11, 24, Chapter VI, page 191, Chapter VII, pages 241, 245, 252 Chapter VIII page 282 Chapter 9 page 308, 315, 335, and above pages 342, 346

 

Jesus:

Magian, of the Pseudomorphosis, a Jew 4 BC-33AD, preacher & religious leader, a central figure in Christianity, believe to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah (the Christ) prophesied in the Old Testament.

 

Marcion of Sinope:

Magian, of the Pseudomorphosis, a Greek 85-160 AD, leader in early Christianity, he rejected the deity described in the Hebrew Scriptures instead affirming the Father of Christ as the true God; he was denounced by the Church Fathers & broke from the proto-orthodox church; he published the earliest surviving collection of the New Testament books.

 

Mani:

Magian, 216-274 AD, Iranian prophet & founder of Manichaeism, born in Seleucia-Ctesiphon in Babylonia, then part of the Parthian Empire; 6 of his major works were written in Syriac, the 7th (dedicated to the Sasanian emperor Shapur I) in Middle Persian; died in Gundeshapur (intellectual centre of the Sassanid Empire, home of the Academy of Gundishapur, founded by Sassanid king Shapur I; the city had a teaching hospital, a library)

 

Philo:

Magian, of the Pseudomorphosis, a Jew 20 BC-50 AD, philosopher from Alexandria

and see Chapter VII page 248

 

Plotinus:

Magian, of the Pseudomorphosis, Greek, speaking philosopher of the Roman Empire; 204-270 AD born in Egypt, studied in Alexandria, settled in Rome

and see Chapter II, pages 56, 72, 81, Chapter III page 111 Chapter VII page 248

 

Epictetus:

Apollonian, 50-135 AD, Greek Stoic philosopher; born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (Turkey), lived in Rome until banished, then settled in Nicopolis NW Greece; taught philosophy as a way of life not just theory, all external events are beyond control; we should accept them calmly & dispassionately; individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine & control through rigorous self-discipline; his teachings were written down & published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion.

 

Augustine:

Magian, of the Pseudomorphosis, early Christian theologian & philosopher 354-430 AD; bishop of Hippo Regius, N Africa; writings influenced the development of Western Christianity & philosophy.

and see Chapter I page 19, Chapter IV, page 124

 

Proclus:

Magian, of the Pseudomorphosis, Greek Neo-Platonist, 412-485 AD;last major classical philosophers at end of classical development of philosophy, influenced Western medieval philosophy (Greek and Latin); established one of the most elaborate & fully developed systems of Neo-Platonism.

 

ethical Socialism:

see above page 342

 

“the moral pathos of the third dimension”:

Spengler is saying in a rather obtuse & unwieldy manner, that ethical socialism is long range sympathy, compassion

 

pathos:

the quality or power in a life experience (or in art) of evoking pity or sympathy, kindly sorrow or compassion

 

third dimension:

a geometric setting in which 3 values (parameters) are needed to determine the position of a point; in physics & mathematics, a sequence of n numbers can be understood as a location in n-dimensional space; when n = 3, the set of all such locations is called three-dimensional Euclidean space.  Spengler means “space”

Egyptian culture (socialistic):

see Chapter I page 12, 13

 

seated Buddha statue: * see EndNote<B>

image of the Buddha, seated on a dais dressed in a simple monk’s robe, sitting in the lotus position, hands were lying flat in his lap, meditating; as a result of his enlightenment Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha (the enlightened one) & acquired marks that identifed him as such; these became formalized by sculptors over several centuries; they include the wisdom bump or protuberance on the head, the Buddha’s hair is gathered in a top knot (reflecting the fashion of his age & similar to the way ascetics gather their hair); another mark is the urna, a tuft of hair between the eyebrows ; his earlobes are extended in reference to the heavy jewellery he wore previously as a prince.

 

Zeno of Citium:

334- 262 BC, Greek Hellenistic thinker, a Stoic of Cyprus probably from Phoenician descent, founder of the Stoic school which he taught in Athens from 300 BC.  Based on the moral ideas of the Cynics, it emphasized goodness & peace of mind gained from living a life of Virtue in accordance with Nature.  It became the dominant philosophy from the Hellenistic to the Roman era

 

Ataraxia: 

Greek, impassive calmness, not perturbed; a state of mind recommended by the Stoics; used by Pyrrho & later Epicurus, meaning a lucid state of robust equanimity, characterized by freedom from distress & worry.

 

Katharsis:

English catharsis, the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.

 

κάθαρσις:

Greek, cleansing form guilt or defilement, purification

 

Nirvana (Buddhist):

realization of non-self & emptiness, marking the end of rebirth by stilling the fires that keep the process of rebirth going; literally "blowing out" or "quenching", earliest term to describe the soteriological goal in Buddhism: release from the cycle of rebirth.  The Buddha himself realized 2 types of nirvana, one at enlightenment, the other at his death.

 

Vedic times:

1500-500 BCE, period in the late Bronze Age & early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedas were composed in N. India; the Vedas are liturgical texts, the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, they contain details of life during this period & constitute the primary sources for understanding this age.

 

Socrates:

Apollonian 470-399 BC, Greek philosopher from Athens, the teacher of Plato, credited as a founder of Western philosophy.  He was notorious for asking questions but not answering, claiming to lack wisdom concerning the subjects about which he questioned others.  Although he claimed he knew nothing, he had strong beliefs about the divine & is described (by Xenophon) as a teleologist holding that god arranges everything for the best.

and see Chapter I page 14

 

Epicurus:

Apollonian, 341-270 BC, Greek philosopher, founded Epicurean school of philosophy

see Chapter I, page 45, Chapter VI page 203

 

Diogenes:

Apollonian, 412-323 BC, Greek, one of the first Cynics

and see Chapter VI page 203,Chapter IX, page 313

 

Ganges:

shorthand for the Indian Culture/Civilisation

 

Western megalopolis:

Spengler term for the giant metropolitan areas of the Faustian civilization, which in 1918 were London, NY City, Paris, Berlin, the giant cities of the Faustian winter

 

Frederick William I of Prussia:

1688-1740, King in Prussia & Elector of Brandenburg (1713-40); frugal & austere, an absolute monarch, he ruled with great energy and skill.  A devout Calvinist he was a wise manager of the national treasury, sold most of his father's horses, jewels & furniture.  He did not treat the national treasury as a personal source of revenue & in 1740 Prussia had a sound exchequer and a full treasury.  He improved Prussia economically.  He established schools & hospitals.  He encouraged farming, reclaimed marshes, stored grain in good times selling it in bad.  He reformed the civil service, defining their exact duties.  He re-populated East Prussia; in 1732, he invited the Salzburg Protestants to settle in East Prussia, which had suffered from the plague in 1709.  He reformed the Prussian army's training, tactics and conscription program (mandatory military service was replaced by an annual tax).  He increased the infantry's rate of fire through the introduction of the iron ramrod.

 

polity of the Nile:

Spengler’s shorthand for the Egyptian Culture/Civilization

 

Periclean Athens:

Spengler’s shorthand for the Apollonian Culture/Civilization