Chapter Summary
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of ancient Greece in the history of the West. Much of that which is "modern" has its roots in the ancient Greeks-their democracy, philosophy, science, and literature all seem to be much more "modern" than they are ancient. But such a judgment says more about contemporary observers than it does about the ancient Greeks. What is often forgotten is that ancient Greece developed under significant Near Eastern influence from the days of the Mycenaeans through the tumultuous aftermath of Alexander's empire. The appearance of the Greeks serves nonetheless as a turning point in the development of Western civilizations. From the Greeks, modern societies have inherited the values of human dignity, rational thought, participatory government, and the creative powers of the human mind.
An excellent insight into early Greece can be provided by Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. It was Homer who portrayed the values of Greek civilization in their starkest form, and thanks to Homer that one can identify their fixation upon the cultivation of virtue. A citizen who cultivated virtue would result in the development of a virtuous city-state, which in many ways was a Greek or Hellenic ideal. Although the path to virtue was difficult, it was the Greeks who made the quest for virtue a uniquely human quest.
Although the Hellenic world was little more than a collection of semi-independent city-states, two of these poleis have always deserved special attention. On the Peloponnesus, the Spartans created a society led by a dual monarchy organized for war. The Athenians, who inhabited the Attic peninsula, created a democratic form of government based on the direct participation of all citizens. Both poleis became powerful, and by the end of the fifth century, tensions between them resulted in a "cold war," which became "hot" during the Peloponnesian War. In the wake of that war, Athens was destroyed and Sparta became the hegemonic force in the Hellenic world.
In spite of the fact that the fifth century began and ended with war, this century, the Classical or Hellenic Age, has always been considered something of a golden age as well. In the wake of Persian defeat, Pericles rebuilt the city of Athens. At the same time, Greek dramatists like Sophocles and Euripides developed the literary form known as tragedy. Herodotus and Thucydides wrote their histories and the Sophists could be found on the streets of the agora "selling" their wisdom. Then there was Socrates-who, in 399 B.C.E., was sentenced to death for challenging anyone to defend his beliefs. He drank the fatal dose of hemlock, but not before urging subsequent generations of people to question everything, for "the unexamined life is not worth living."
Profound as the Greek achievement certainly was, we cannot forget that slavery and the subjection of women were common in the Hellenic world. Greece remained a militant and intolerant society. Just the same, the Greeks were the first to develop the concept of eleutheria (freedom), and they certainly elevated the primacy of human intellect. The Greeks made a lasting impact on Western civilizations; it can be argued that none was more important than the concept of paideiathe concept of becoming a total person, something Socrates understood when he asked us, above all, to "know thyself."