materialist:

Spengler’s term for the scientific, cause and effect historian, employing scientific logic; who will assert social, political, sexual facts are causes for religious, intellectual and artistic effects.

 

ideological:

Spengler’s term for the romantic-historic approach, with a focus on cults, mysteries, customs while ignoring the standard life of the age they study.

 

Mysteries:

religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates; main characterization of this religion is the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice, which were not revealed to outsiders;  most famous of the mysteries were the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were of considerable antiquity and predated the Greek Dark Ages.

 

Strophe and the line:

a poetic term referring to the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. In its Greek setting strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind of stanza framed only for the music, with the strophe chanted by a Greek chorus as it moved from right to left across the scene.  The term has been extended to also mean a structural division of a poem containing stanzas of varying line length.

 

Delphic oracle:

the High Priestess (or the Pythia) of the Temple of Apollo, Delphi was established 8th century BC; emerged pre-eminent by the end of 7th century BC, a position she maintained until the 4th century AD; the most prestigious & authoritative oracle & most powerful woman of the classical world; best documented religious institution of the Classical Greeks.  She credited her prophecies to the spirit of Apollo.

 

Florence: * see Endnote 47

Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance, one of the wealthiest cities of that era,considered the birthplace of the Renaissance.

 

Weimar: *see Endnote 48

a reference to Weimar Classicism, a German literary and cultural movement, from 1772-1805, whose practitioners established a new humanism, from the synthesis of ideas from Romanticism, Classicism, and the Age of Enlightenment. 

 

Western Classicism:

in the arts, refers to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which are to be emulated; seeking to follow ancient Greek or Roman principles and style in art and literature, associated with harmony, restraint, and adherence to recognized standards of form &craftsmanship, especially from the Renaissance to the 18th century.

 

Civilized:

Spengler’s reference to the period of autumn and winter in his historical morphology, when youthful Cultures becomes older Civilizations, when the provinces are supplanted by the urban centers.

 

economic-megalopolitan:

Spengler’s reference to the giant urban centers that appear in a late civilization period of a high culture; here all major decision, advances, arts and politics are played out; examples being Berlin and New York.

 

Grote:

(1794 -1871) George Grote, English political radical and classical historian; best known for his major work, the voluminous History of Greece.  His works are rooted in the liberal values of English Utilitarianism and in a cultural movement that saw Greece gradually replace Rome as the ancient exemplar for European culture.

 

Culture man:

a man originating in the Spring and Summer of a high culture’s morphology, a state of growth, development and potential -becoming.

 

Civilization man:

a man originating in the Autumn and Winter of a high culture’s morphology; a state of apogee, maturity and fulfillment - become.