POV Documents:
Source: Epic of
"Gilgamesh ... =
built a
wall around his city to make it safe against attack. Its pinnacles shone li=
ke
brass. Its outer surface was armored with stone cladding [facing], every br=
ick
had been hardened in the fire. The people of Uruk
groaned beneath the burden of the building of the wall, for Gilgamesh drove
them on without pity. ... The drums that summoned the people to work were
sounded without pause, so that the son had no time to spend with his father=
, nor
the lover with his lady."
POV: Author’s point of view is that Gilgamesh believed a city
wall to be the most important thing for his people’s safety; Gilgamesh
did not care that the people building and fortifying the wall had little or=
no
rest.
Source: Annalist of Nieder=
-
Altaich, Great German pilgrimage to
“While they were s=
taying
for a few days in Latakia, they began to meet e=
ach
day many people returning from Jersualem. The returning parties told of the =
deaths
of an uncounted number of their companions. They also shouted about and
displayed their own recent and still bloody wounds. They bore witness
publically that no one could pass along that route because the whole land w=
as
occupied by a most ferocious tribe of Arabs who thirsted for human blood. T=
he
question before the pilgrims was what to do and where to turn. First of all,
they agreed quickly in council to deny their own wishes and to put all hope=
in
the Lord. They knew that living or dying, they belonged to the Lord and so,
with all their wits about them, they set out through the pagan territory to=
ward
the holy city.”
POV: Neider-Altaich, who wrote of a jou=
rney
of Christians to
Source: Pericles, Athenian politician, excerpt =
from Funeral
Oration, 400 BCE
Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of=
a
minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling
private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of
putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, wh=
at
counts is not membership in a particular class, but the actual ability which
the man possesses. No one … is kept in political obscurity beca=
use
of poverty. Here each individual is interested not only in his own
affairs but in the affairs of the state as well.
POV: Pericles, the great leader of
Source: Aristotle, Greek philosopher, student of
Plato, 300 BCE
The activity of the mind is not only the highest … but also the most
continuous: we are able to study continuously more easily than to perform a=
ny
kind of action. It follows that the activity of our intelligence
constitutes the complete happiness of man. In other words, a life gui=
ded
by intelligence is the best and most pleasant for man, inasmuch as
intelligence, above all else, is man. Consequently, this kind of life=
is
the happiest.
POV: Aristotle’s point of view is that humans, in order to be
happy require education and mental activity.