Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 148 as they explore Isocrates’ educational program, Herculaneum scrolls, and resources to master the Latin language.
Introduction: Summer Breaks and Radioactive Melancholy
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 148 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting directly from the subterranean depths of Vomitorium South, your hosts, Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle, return to the microphones for another delectable discussion of Greco-Roman civilization.
The episode opens with Jeff celebrating a brief, two-day window of freedom. Having just submitted his grades for the semester, he plans to squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of the brief pause before the summer term begins, even if that simply means collapsing in the fetal position on his front lawn to enjoy the sunshine. Dave, however, admits to feeling a bit of the blues. When asked about his favorite melon, Dave deadpans that he prefers the “melancholic”.
Hoping to cheer him up Jeff recounts a story from his high school science class. He and his friends discovered the key to a locker where the teacher stored dangerous, combustible materials. Hearing a rumor that the teacher had acquired radioactive material, Jeff broke into the locker late at night. When his friends inevitably bailed on the heist, Jeff found himself standing alone with the hazardous elements, prompting him to sing: “Here I glow again on my own”. Groans ensue, realizing that a massive, elaborate narrative has been engineered solely to deliver a Whitesnake pun.
The Herculaneum Scrolls and Junior Walker
Before diving into the primary academic text, the hosts discuss a fascinating piece of recent archaeological news. Utilizing advanced spectrographic analysis and AI technology, researchers are now able to digitally unroll and read the carbonized papyrus scrolls recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum. Unrolling these fragile texts physically causes them to crumble into ash, but the new technology bypasses this destruction.
Jeff reads an excerpt detailing a massive discovery: one of these charred scrolls contains precise information regarding the burial place of Plato. According to Constanza Milani, director of Italy’s Institute of Heritage Science, the scroll indicates Plato was buried in a private area near a sacred shrine to the Muses within the garden of the Academy.
While Jeff tempers expectations by noting the exact location within the modern archaeological park remains a mystery, the hosts share their love for visiting historical graves. Jeff mentions a recent trip to a cemetery in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he visited the graves of the Post and Kellogg brothers, Sojourner Truth, and Junior Walker, the famous saxophonist who played on Foreigner’s hit song “Urgent”.
The Rivalry: Plato vs. Isocrates
The core academic focus of Episode 148 resumes the podcast’s journey through Henri-Irénée Marrou’s A History of Education in Antiquity, specifically turning to Chapter VII: Isocrates.
Isocrates, born in 436 BC, was an almost exact contemporary of Plato. He lived through the plague, the devastating Peloponnesian War, the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, and a state of civil war, eventually dying at the extraordinary age of 98 in 338 BC. While Plato cast a massive philosophical shadow, Marrou argues that Isocrates is the true father of the classical educational tradition.
To illustrate the intense competition between the two educational titans, Jeff reads a quote from George Grote’s 1881 text, Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates. Grote notes that during the latter half of Plato’s life, the Academy and Isocrates’ school were the most celebrated institutions in Athens. The rivalry grew vehement when Aristotle, then an ambitious twenty-five-year-old student of Plato, opened a rival rhetoric school to directly oppose Isocrates. In retaliation, Isocrates’ pupils launched their own attacks, publishing an acrimonious work against Aristotle and Plato, while Theopompus also criticized the Academy. The hosts liken this bitter, public feuding to modern East Coast versus West Coast rap battles.
Prior to this deep dive, Dave tested the capabilities of modern AI, asking Google’s Gemini to write a limerick about Isocrates. The resulting poem was abysmal, forcing rhymes like “land” with “planned,” assuring the hosts that artificial intelligence is not yet ready to take over the creative arts.
The Million-Dollar Tuition
While Isocrates is often associated with Socrates due to Plato’s Phaedrus, his true teachers were the Sophists, specifically Prodicus and Gorgias. Isocrates operated as a professional educator and a logographer—a court orator for hire who wrote speeches for citizens to deliver during trials.
He later opened his own highly successful school. He charged an exorbitant tuition of 1,000 drachmas. Jeff calculates that if a single drachma equaled a day’s wage for an average Athenian, 1,000 drachmas equated to roughly three years’ salary. In modern American terms, this would represent a staggering $150,000 tuition bill. This steep price tag made Isocrates incredibly wealthy. Marrou notes that a lawsuit over an “exchange of goods” in 356 BC proves Isocrates was legally recognized as one of the 1,200 richest citizens in Athens, placing him in the elite demographic required to fund the Athenian navy. With over one hundred pupils rushing from regions as far away as Sicily and the Euxine to attend his lessons, Isocrates enjoyed massive financial success with virtually zero administrative overhead—a stark contrast to the bloated administrative budgets and climbing walls of modern universities.
Pan-Hellenism and the Kingdom of Speech
Isocrates’ educational ideal was firmly rooted in a profound sense of Greek unity and humanism. Unlike those who believed identity was tied to blood, Isocrates argued that “the people we call Greeks are those who have the same culture as ours, not the same blood”. The hosts note this pan-Hellenic sentiment remarkably anticipates the American ideal, where citizenship is based on shared principles and culture rather than strict ethnic heritage.
While Plato retreated into a heroic, utopian solitude, Isocrates sought to form an intellectual elite capable of governing the actual city hic et nunc (here and now). For Isocrates, the pinnacle of human achievement was oratory. Speech (logos) is what separates men from animals and serves as the foundation for justice and civilization. Dave compares this ancient sentiment to Tom Wolfe’s book The Kingdom of Speech, which argues that the sophistication of human language is the defining “Rubicon the beasts dare not cross”.
To train these future statesmen, Isocrates pioneered the study of literature as performance. He instrumentalized the works of Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, and Herodotus, turning oratory into its own distinct literary genre. Furthermore, Isocrates actively demoted Plato’s beloved dialectics and philosophy. He viewed endless metaphysical debates as a secondary subject suitable only for the young, warning that lingering too long in abstract philosophy would cause a student’s wits to run dry.
The Influence of the High School Teacher
Marrou concludes that the enduring legacy of classical education—through the Second Sophistic, the Carolingian Renaissance, and the Italian Renaissance—belongs primarily to Isocrates. Reading his works, Marrou notes that Isocrates resembles the classic, beloved high school professor who profoundly shapes a student’s life.
This prompts the hosts to reflect on their own foundational teachers. Jeff immediately cites Dr. Ken Bratt as a massive influence. Dave recalls his high school chemistry and physics teacher, Byron Davey. Rather than coddling him, Davey took an adversarial, confrontational approach to push Dave intellectually. When Davey caught Dave reading endless, mindless Star Trek novels in class, he boldly told him the books were stupid and pointed him toward the works of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell instead, sparking a lifelong love of serious literature.
Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance
Before delivering the parting shot, the hosts extend their gratitude to the sponsors keeping the bunker operational.
- Hackett Publishing: For over 53 years, Hackett has provided high-quality, affordable translations, including Stanley Lombardo’s masterful Iliad and Odyssey. Dave warns listeners to avoid their fictional competitor, “Racket Publishing,” whose slogan is “We make profits so you can’t,” and “Stack It Publishing,” a company exclusively selling books about the game Jenga. Build your library at hackettpublishing.com and use the code AN2024 to receive a 20% discount and free shipping on your entire order.
- Ratio Coffee: After suffering through a mediocre cup of coffee from a plastic “Marsupod” machine at work, Jeff longs for his beautiful Ratio 8 brewer at home. The hosts are also excited for the upcoming release of the Ratio 4, an affordable, sleek half-batch machine. Visit ratiocoffee.com and enter the promo code ANCOF1 for a 15% discount on your order.
- Latin Per Diem & The Moss Method: For listeners inspired to master the Latin language and ancient Greek, Dave offers tailored educational solutions. Visit mossmethod.com to go from neophyte to erudite in Greek, or explore latinperdiem.com/llpsi to tackle Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
To close out Episode 148, the hosts are interrupted by loud banging on the bunker doors. They realize it is the Alliance for Defending Powdered Fruit Drink (ADPFD)—representatives from Kool-Aid and Sunny D seeking revenge for the podcast’s relentless attacks on “brackish tang”.
Beating a hasty retreat, Dave delivers a quick Gustatory Parting Shot courtesy of Elizabeth Berry.
Regarding produce, Berry offers this strange observation:
“Shipping is a terrible thing to do to vegetables. They probably get jet lagged just like people.”
Jeff leans into the absurdity, joking that the green peppers and onions he cooked the other night looked distinctly fatigued. Dave notes he read in a magazine that jet lag is cured by shining light on the back of one’s knees, creating a hilarious mental image of vegetables holding tiny flashlights to their legs in the kitchen.A special thanks goes out to Mishka the sound engineer for her rapid turnaround times, and to musicians Ken Tamplin and Scott Van Zen for the fantastic bumper music. Check out the “Lurch with Merch” section on the website, beware of radioactive lockers, and keep taking in the classics. Valete!
