The Iliad And The Fire Next Time

The greatest works of Humanity are works that explain the environment that is perceived by humanity. Since the beginning of writing, books have been used as a way to preserve the common thinking of people who lived during this time. Authors continued this tradition as stories became passed on through oral and written tradition. Books like the Iliad and The Fire Next Time gives it’s viewers a glimpse into what type of setting the books were created in. The greatest works of civilizations are not just fantastic stories, they preserve the environment the authors wrote in for future generation.

The book the Iliad by Homer was an epic poem that described about an ancient war between the city-states of Greece and the city-state of Troy. Throughout

The setting of the Golden was during the Roman Empire, specifically during the Pax Romana a period of time of peace within the Roman Empire. Still during this time religious tensions grew to its greatest as new groups like Christians began to threaten the stability of the rule of the Emperor. During the Roman Empire the Emperor was considered to be a god, and whenever the Romans conquered a new area they would try to introduce the Emperor into the local religion. Usually the religion would be acceptive of the introduction of another religious deity, but for monotheists like Jews and Christians it was untenable to introduce another deity. This caused a problem of questionable loyalty for the Romans. Eventually as groups like the Christians grew in popularity the Roman Empire began to institute a series of decrees that forced Christians to reject their faith or die. This new type of religious intolerance became so prevalent that it began to show up in books like The Golden Ass. Within the story of The Golden Ass there is a mentioning of one person being a Christian. The character is criticized with Lucius saying, “She also professed perfect scorn for the immortals and all true religions in favor of a fantastic and blasphemous cult of an ‘Only God’” (Apuleius; pg. 204). This character is forced to be in hiding because of her faith and she is described in falsities that were

The workers, in Marx’s opinion, had been taken advantage of by companies who wanted to profit off their labor through small wages and long hours. Marx sought to create a world that, though industrialized, would not have to put up with the greediness of factory owners who were willing to exploit the workers and their labor. In Marx’s utopia the worker received the fruit of their labor, and in concert with his fellow workers he was able to not only survive but progress along with his fellow comrades. This was a society that was free from the vices of greed and gluttony and instead focused only on working with others to achieve a common goal. The Communist Manifesto was a reactionary work that was done to show the workers that the environment they are in could be changed through