Athens Greece Quotes

The water far below was black in the shadow of the ship. A plank creaked. She froze. No noisy jump. It would have to be a dive. Head down into darkness. She’d never dived at night.

Do you know the song Violet Crowned Athens?” he asked. Yellow hair like hers was rare among the Greeks. Though some people say that Helen of Troy . . .

We’re not here to argue with you about the wisdom of our alliance that has kept the Persians at bay for forty years. An argument requires a measure of equality between those in the dispute and Samos is not the equal of Athens.

Running out the anchor line, the pirates babbled to one another, and in the tangle of their barbaric language, Aspasia listened for one word—Athens. It lit up the darkness in her mind, like the single glint her eyes fixed on above the distant gray-green hills.

Aspasia had herself fallen into very good fortune. So good that at the age of twenty years, she’d probably used up the whole life’s portion of good luck that Tyche had allotted her. To make good fortune last—for herself and the child in her womb—would be up to her.

On the strength of these successes, Alcibiades at last returned to Athens in 408. The Athenian people had short memories:

Aristotle’s residence in Athens became untenable—he had, after all, been Alexander’s tutor—and he fled into exile, saying, with a reference to Socrates’ trial, that he was doing so “lest Athens sin twice against philosophy.

better not bring up a lion inside your city, But if you must, then humour all his moods.

Periclean Greeks employed the term idiotis, without any connotation of stupidity or subnormality, to mean simply 'a person indifferent to public affairs.' Obviously, there is something wanting in the apolitical personality. But we have also come to suspect the idiocy of politicization—of the professional pol and power broker. The two idiocies make a perfect match, with the apathy of the first permitting the depredations of the second.

Let's stop kidding ourselves that Greek debt is the Euro's key problem. With Greece gone, who's next ?

All the great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than once; that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness and the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly. In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask: ‘What is truth?’ So in that drama which decided the whole fate of antiquity, one of the central figures is fixed in what seems the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost another name for responsibility. Yet he stands for ever as a sort of rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. Even the practical had become the impracticable. Standing between the pillars of his own judgement-seat, a Roman had washed his hands of the world.

1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.... This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger’s undisclosed reason for the ‘tilt’ was the supposed but never materialised ‘brokerage’ offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.... Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was ‘a basket case’ before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere. 2. Chile.... Kissinger had direct personal knowledge of the CIA’s plan to kidnap and murder General René Schneider, the head of the Chilean Armed Forces ... who refused to countenance military intervention in politics. In his hatred for the Allende Government, Kissinger even outdid Richard Helms ... who warned him that a coup in such a stable democracy would be hard to procure. The murder of Schneider nonetheless went ahead, at Kissinger’s urging and with American financing, just between Allende’s election and his confirmation.... This was one of the relatively few times that Mr Kissinger (his success in getting people to call him ‘Doctor’ is greater than that of most PhDs) involved himself in the assassination of a single named individual rather than the slaughter of anonymous thousands. His jocular remark on this occasion—‘I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible’—suggests he may have been having the best of times.... 3. Cyprus.... Kissinger approved of the preparations by Greek Cypriot fascists for the murder of President Makarios, and sanctioned the coup which tried to extend the rule of the Athens junta (a favoured client of his) to the island. When despite great waste of life this coup failed in its objective, which was also Kissinger’s, of enforced partition, Kissinger promiscuously switched sides to support an even bloodier intervention by Turkey. Thomas Boyatt ... went to Kissinger in advance of the anti-Makarios putsch and warned him that it could lead to a civil war. ‘Spare me the civics lecture,’ replied Kissinger, who as you can readily see had an aphorism for all occasions. 4. Kurdistan. Having endorsed the covert policy of supporting a Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq between 1974 and 1975, with ‘deniable’ assistance also provided by Israel and the Shah of Iran, Kissinger made it plain to his subordinates that the Kurds were not to be allowed to win, but were to be employed for their nuisance value alone. They were not to be told that this was the case, but soon found out when the Shah and Saddam Hussein composed their differences, and American aid to Kurdistan was cut off. Hardened CIA hands went to Kissinger ... for an aid programme for the many thousands of Kurdish refugees who were thus abruptly created.... The apercu of the day was: ‘foreign policy should not he confused with missionary work.’ Saddam Hussein heartily concurred. 5. East Timor. The day after Kissinger left Djakarta in 1975, the Armed Forces of Indonesia employed American weapons to invade and subjugate the independent former Portuguese colony of East Timor. Isaacson gives a figure of 100,000 deaths resulting from the occupation, or one-seventh of the population, and there are good judges who put this estimate on the low side. Kissinger was furious when news of his own collusion was leaked, because as well as breaking international law the Indonesians were also violating an agreement with the United States.... Monroe Leigh ... pointed out this awkward latter fact. Kissinger snapped: ‘The Israelis when they go into Lebanon—when was the last time we protested that?’ A good question, even if it did not and does not lie especially well in his mouth. It goes on and on and on until one cannot eat enough to vomit enough.

I left them to it, the pointing of fingers on maps, the tracing of mountain villages, the tracks and contours on maps of larger scale, and basked for the one evening allowed to me in the casual, happy atmosphere of the taverna where we dined. I enjoyed poking my finger in a pan and choosing my own piece of lamb. I liked the chatter and the laughter from neighbouring tables. The gay intensity of talk - none of which I could understand, naturally - reminded me of left-bank Paris. A man from one table would suddenly rise to his feet and stroll over to another, discussion would follow, argument at heat perhaps swiftly dissolving into laughter. This, I thought to myself, has been happening through the centuries under this same sky, in the warm air with a bite to it, the sap drink pungent as the sap running through the veins of these Greeks, witty and cynical as Aristophanes himself, in the shadow, unmoved, inviolate, of Athene's Parthenon. ("The Chamois")

Men are not born equal in themselves, so I think it beneath a man to postulate that they are. If I thought myself as good as Sokrates I should be a fool; and if, not really believing it, I asked you to make me happy by assuring me of it, you would rightly despise me. So why should I insult my fellow-citizens by treating them as fools and cowards? A man who thinks himself as good as everyone else will be at no pains to grow better. On the other hand, I might think myself as good as Sokrates, and even persuade other fools to agree with me; but under a democracy, Sokrates is there in the Agora to prove me wrong. I want a city where I can find my equals and respect my betters, whoever they are; and where no one can tell me to swallow a lie because it is expedient, or some other man's will.

There was between 1821 and 1913 a prolonged and atrocious holocaust which we have chosen to forget, and from which we have learned absolutely nothing. In 1821, between 26 March and Easter Sunday, in the name of liberty, the southern Greek Christians tortured and massacred 15,000 Greek Muslim civilians, looted their possessions, and burned their dwellings. The Greek hero Kolokotronis boasted without qualm that so many were the corpses that his horse’s hooves never had to touch the ground between the town gates of Athens and the citadel. In the Peloponnese, many thousands of Muslims, mainly women and children, were rounded up and butchered. Thousands of shrines and mosques were destroyed, so that even now there are only one or two left in the whole of Greece.

Imagine you are a member of a tour visiting Greece. The group goes to the Parthenon. It is a bore. Few people even bother to look — it looked better in the brochure. So people take half a look, mostly take pictures, remark on serious erosion by acid rain. You are puzzled. Why should one of the glories and fonts of Western civilization, viewed under pleasant conditions — good weather, good hotel room, good food, good guide — be a bore? Now imagine under what set of circumstances a viewing of the Parthenon would not be a bore. For example, you are a NATO colonel defending Greece against a Soviet assault. You are in a bunker in downtown Athens, binoculars propped up on sandbags. It is dawn. A medium-range missile attack is under way. Half a million Greeks are dead. Two missiles bracket the Parthenon. The next will surely be a hit. Between columns of smoke, a ray of golden light catches the portico. Are you bored? Can you see the Parthenon? Explain.

I want to see the Parthenon by moonlight.' I had my way. They floodlight it now, to great advantage I am told, but it was not so then, and since it was late in the year there were few tourists. My companions were all intelligent men, including my own husband, and they had the sense to stay mute. I suppose, being a woman, I confuse beauty with sentiment, but, as I looked on the Parthenon for the first time in my life, I found myself crying. It had never happened to me before. Your sunset weepers I despise. It was not full moon, or anywhere near it. The half circle put me in mind of the labrys, the Cretan double axe, and the pillars were the most ghostly in consequence. What a shock for the modern aesthete, I thought when my crying was done, if he could see the ruddy glow of colour, the painted eyes, the garish lips, the orange-reds and blues that were there once, and Athene herself a giantess on her pedestal touched by the rising sun. Even in those distant times the exigencies of a state religion had brought their own traffic, the buying and selling of doves, of trinkets: to find himself, a man had to go to the woods, to the hills. "Come on," said Stephen. "It's beautiful and stark, if you like, but so is St. Pancras station at 4 A.M. It depends on your association of ideas." We crammed into Burns's small car, and went back to our hotel. ("The Chamois")

Beliefs about suicide varied considerably in ancient Greece. The Stoics and Epicureans believed strongly in the individual’s right to choose the means and time of his death. Others were less accepting of the idea. In Thebes and Athens, suicide was not against the law, but those who killed themselves were denied funeral rites and the hand that had been used for the act was severed from the arm. Aristotle regarded suicide as an act of cowardice, as well as an act against the state; so, too, did Pythagoras.

...(W)hat is remarkable about the Greeks--even pre-philosophically--is that despite the salience of religious rituals in their lives, when it came to the question of what it is that makes an individual human life worth living they didn't look to the immortals but rather approached the question in mortal terms. Their approaching the question of human mattering in human terms is the singularity that creates the conditions for philosophy in ancient Greece, most especially as these conditions were realized in the city-state of Athens.

Almost everything of importance to tourists is within a few blocks of the Acropolis, in the Plaka, Monastiraki, Syntagma, and Psyrri neighborhoods.

Acropolis Loop” pedestrian walkway bordering the base of the Acropolis.

Out past the pimple of Lycabettus Hill the concrete apartment blocks in shades of beige, grey and white glinted in the morning sunlight, as if shards of broken glass had been strewn in among them.

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE OF THE HERO, ODYSSEUS CHAPTER I. About Troy and the Journey of Paris to Greece II. The Flight of Helen III. The Greeks Sail for Troy IV. The Fall of Troy

In Athens, you’ll save money buying the Acropolis combo-ticket, which covers a number of ancient sites (buy at a less-crowded site to save time). City transit passes (for multiple rides or all-day usage) decrease your cost per ride.

To THE TEACHER WHOSE INTEGRITY AND PEDAGOGICAL SPIRIT HAVE CREATED A SCHOOL WHEREIN THE IDEAL MAY PROVE ITSELF THE PRACTICAL AND THOSE ENTHUSIASTIC PUPILS WHO LOVE THE LOYALTY AND BRAVERY OF ODYSSEUS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more venomous than the joke Epicurus permitted himself against Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. That means literally—and this is the foreground meaning—“flatterers of Dionysius,” in other words, tyrant’s baggage and lickspittles; but in addition to this he also wants to say, “they are all actors, there is nothing genuine about them” (for Dionysokolax was a popular name for an actor).8 And the latter is really the malice that Epicurus aimed at Plato: he was peeved by the grandiose manner, the mise en scène9 at which Plato and his disciples were so expert—at which Epicurus was not an expert—he, that old schoolmaster from Samos, who sat, hidden away, in his little garden at Athens and wrote three hundred books—who knows? perhaps from rage and ambition against Plato? It took a hundred years until Greece found out who this garden god, Epicurus, had been.—Did they find out?— 8

Paul knew what he was talking about when he called Christians “earthen vessels.” We’re baked clay. We’re privy pots. The advance of the gospel will never occur on account of us. This helps explain why God chose none of the early preachers among the apostles because of his superior intellect, position, or prominence. As I wrote in my book Twelve Ordinary Men, these twelve were so ordinary it defies all human logic: not one teacher, not one priest, not one rabbi, not one scribe, not one Pharisee, not one Sadducee, not even a synagogue ruler—nobody from the elite. Half of them or so were fishermen, and the rest were common laborers. One, Simon the Zealot, was a terrorist, a member of a group who went around with daggers in their cloaks, trying to stab Romans. Then there was Judas, the loser of all losers. What was the Lord doing? He picked people with absolutely no influence. None of the great intellects from Egypt, Greece, Rome, or Israel was among the apostles. During the New Testament time, the greatest scholars were very likely in Egypt. The most distinguished philosophers were in Athens. The powerful were in Rome. The biblical scholars were in Jerusalem. God disdained all of them and picked clay pots instead.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ODYSSEUS AS A YOUTH AT HOME WITH HIS MOTHER THE SILVER-FOOTED THETIS RISING FROM THE WAVES ODYSSEUS AND MENELAOS PERSUADING AGAMEMNON TO SACRIFICE IPHIGENEIA ALPHEUS AND ARETHUSA THE SWINEHERD TELLING HIS STORY TO ODYSSEUS ODYSSEUS FEIGNS MADNESS

Uber operates as UberTaxi in Athens. (You book your ride through the app, but a taxi picks you up.) Uber is generally cheaper than hailing a cab (often even half the cost, except for rides to and from the airport where there’s no savings). Note there is a €3 minimum charge.

Sprachs, und entsandte den speer; ihn richtete Pallas Athene Grad am aug in die nas; und die schimmernden zähne durchdrang sie; Auch die zung and der wurzel entschnitt das gewaltie erz ihm, Daß die stürmende Spitze am unteren Kinne hinausfuhr. (Ilias; fünfter Gesang V. 290-293)

The top sights—the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, Acropolis Museum, and National Archaeological Museum—deserve about two hours apiece. Two days total is plenty of time for the casual tourist to see the city’s main attractions and have a little time left over for exploring (or to add more museums).

Lots of people have been afraid of the vanity of things! I´ve overcome it. Lots reflect hard; I have no need to reflect. I don´t rejoice over the good and don´t despair over the bad. If I hear that the Greeks have taken Constantinople, it´s just the same to me as if the Turks were taking Athens.

What the Acropolis in Athens looked like, including the Parthenon of the gods, is best told today at the British Museum in London, which houses the marble statuary removed by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to Constantinople in 1801-05, and sold at a knockdown price (only 23 million dollars in our money) to the British Museum a couple of decades later. Although Elgin had or bought the permission of the Turkish sultan then ruling Greece, some contemporaries, including the poet and pro-Greek activist Lord Byron, already denounced the Elgin Marbles as 'pillage.' So the Greek government has claimed since the 1970s, but the British won't return them.

The causes which ruined the Republic of Athens illustrate the connection of ethics with politics rather than the vices inherent to democracy. A State which has only 30,000 full citizens in a population of 500,000, and is governed, practically, by about 3000 people at a public meeting, is scarcely democratic. The short triumph of Athenian liberty, and its quick decline, belong to an age which possessed no fixed standard of right and wrong. An unparalleled activity of intellect was shaking the credit of the gods, and the gods were the givers of the law. It was a very short step from the suspicion of Protagoras, that there were no gods, to the assertion of Critias that there is no sanction for laws. If nothing was certain in theology, there was no certainty in ethics and no moral obligation. The will of man, not the will of God, was the rule of life, and every man and body of men had the right to do what they had the means of doing. Tyranny was no wrong, and it was hypocrisy to deny oneself the enjoyment it affords. The doctrine of the Sophists gave no limits to power and no security to freedom; it inspired that cry of the Athenians, that they must not be hindered from doing what they pleased, and the speeches of men like Athenagoras and Euphemus, that the democracy may punish men who have done no wrong, and that nothing that is profitable is amiss. And Socrates perished by the reaction which they provoked.

Some thirty-six years after the death of Leonidas, King Agesilaus of Sparta, as Plutarch recounts, showed that the essential Spartan spirit, which distinguished her citizens from all others in Greece, still had not changed. At that time there was a war between a coalition led by Athens against Sparta and her allies. The latter had been complaining to Agesilaus that it was they who provided the bulk of the army. Agesilaus, accordingly, called a council meeting at which all the Spartan allies sat down on one side and the Spartans on the other. The king then told a herald to proclaim that all the potters among the allies and the Spartans should stand up. After this the herald called on the blacksmiths, the masons, and the carpenters to do likewise; and so he went on through all the crafts and trades. By the end of the herald’s recital almost every single man among the allies had risen to his feet. But not a Spartan had moved. The laws of Lycurgus still obtained. The king laughed and turned to his allies, remarking: ‘You see, my friends, how many more soldiers we send out than you do.’ The whole Spartan attitude is contained in those words.

Many tourists visit Athens without ever venturing beyond the Plaka (Old Town) and the ancient zone. With limited time, this is not a bad plan, as greater Athens offers few sights (other than the excellent National Archaeological Museum). But for a more authentic taste of the city, check out the trendy Psyrri district—right next door to the Plaka—with its dilapidated-chic hipster dining and nightlife scene.

In ancient Greece, Plutarch wrote of a wooden ship that Theseus sailed from Crete to Athens. To preserve the ship, as its old planks decayed, Athenians would replace them with new wood. Eventually all the planks had been replaced. It looked like the same ship, but none of its parts was the same. Was it still the same ship? Later, philosophers added a wrinkle: if you collected all the original planks and fashioned them into a ship, would that be the same ship?

The world of the ancient Greeks was one of turmoil and war, intrigue and treachery. There was no Greek nation; the divided land was ruled by scores of city states which fought continually for domination. For centuries the great cities of Athens and Sparta battled across land and sea for the right to become the leaders of Greece. Thebes, Corinth, Orchomenus, Plataea – all changed sides time and again and Victory flew between the warring factions, always the harlot, moving on, sweet with a promise she would not keep.

In The Acharnians of 425 B.C., for example, the protagonist arranges a separate peace treaty with the Spartans for himself and his family while humiliating a character who portrays one of Athens’s prominent military commanders of the time. In other words, the triumphant hero in this play was a traitor who got away with betraying Athens. The play won first prize in competition for comedies that year, a fact that underlines the strength of the freedom of public speech in Classical Age Athens and suggests just how much many citizens yearned to end the war and return to “normal” life.

The editor further extols the advantages arising from the study of Homer, it making the youthful students acquainted with the earliest periods of Greek history, the manners and customs of the people, and he ends by quoting from Herbart: "Boys must first get acquainted with the noisy market-place of Ithaca and then be led to the Athens of Miltiades and Themistokles." With equal truth the American can say that the child whose patriotism is kindled by the Homeric fire will the more gladly respond to the ideals set forth in the history of a Columbus or a Washington. MARY E. BURT. PART

In the world of togas, sandals, the Parthenon, temples, and little white homes perched on hillsides overlooking the sea, discipleship permeated Greek life-from aristocrats to peasants, from philosophers to tradesmen. In the first century, the apostle Paul stood on Mars Hill and said, "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.... I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you" (Acts 17:22-23). Paul's speech demonstrates that the Greek philosophers were confused about God. But they were also astute in passing on their confusion as they lived out discipleship and even created some of its language and technique. The Greek masters' use of mathetes, or disciple: As explored in chapter 1, mathetes is translated "disciple." We can find the concept of disciple-a person following a master-among the great masters of Greece. Plato, Socrates, and Herodotus all used disciple to mean "learner" or "one who is a diligent student." These and other Greek philosophers generally understood that the disciple's life involved apprenticeship, a relationship of submission, and a life of demanding

At the present moment, here he was in Greece, and one of the dreams of his life was realized. Forty years ago he had caught the fever of Hellenism, and all his life he had felt that could he but visit that land, he would not have lived in vain. But Athens had been dusty, Delphi wet, Thermopylae flat, and he had listened with amazement and cynicism to the rapturous exclamations of his companions. Greece was like England: it was a man who was growing old, and it made no difference whether that man looked at the Thames or the Eurotas. It was his last hope of contradicting that logic of experience, and it was failing.

The moment American bankers stop lending dollars to Argentina, the country is unable to refinance its mountain of dollar debt. Again, Greece is similar. Even though it has the same currency as Germany, the euro, the chronic Greek trade deficit with Germany translates into a constant flow of loaned euros from Germany to Greece so that the Greeks can keep buying more and more German goods. The slightest interruption in the flow of new loans from the surplus country to the deficit country causes the whole house of cards to collapse. This is when the IMF steps in. Its personnel fly into Buenos Aires or Athens, take black limousines to the finance minister’s office and state their terms: we shall lend you the missing dollars or euros on condition that you impoverish your people and sell the family silver to our mates, the oligarchs of this country and the world. Or words to that effect. That’s when TV screens fill with images of angry, and often hungry, demonstrators in Buenos Aires or Athens. Time and again history has shown that the periodic economic recessions that result from trade imbalances poison the deficit country’s democracy, incite contempt for its people in the surplus country, which then prompts xenophobia in the deficit country. Simply put, sustained trade deficits – and surpluses, their mirror image – never end well.

FROM GREECE TO ROME TO TODAY Stoicism was a school of philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early third century BC. Its name is derived from the Greek stoa, meaning porch, because that’s where Zeno first taught his students. The philosophy asserts that virtue (meaning, chiefly, the four cardinal virtues of self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom) is happiness, and it is our perceptions of things—rather than the things themselves—that cause most of our trouble. Stoicism teaches that we can’t control or rely on anything outside what Epictetus called our “reasoned choice”—our ability to use our reason to choose how we categorize, respond, and reorient ourselves to external events.

ODYSSEUS AS A YOUTH AT HOME WITH HIS MOTHER ODYSSEUS THE HERO OF ITHACA ADAPTED FROM THE THIRD BOOK OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF ATHENS, GREECE BY MARY E. BURT Author of "Literary Landmarks," "Stories from Plato," "Story of the German Iliad," "The Child-Life Reading Study"; Editor of "Little Nature Studies"; Teacher in the John A. Browning School, New York City AND ZENAÏDE A. RAGOZIN Author of "The Story of Chaldea," "The Story of Assyria," "The Story of Media, Babylon, and Persia," "The Story of Vedic India"; Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, of the American Oriental Society, of the Société Ethnologique of Paris, etc. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

was possessed of clear judgement and great discernment. She committed her European experiences to paper in 1942 under the title Athene Palace, the name then of today’s Bucharest Hilton, where she lived and worked for seven months. For years Rumania had had its own violent fascist movement, the Iron Guard. From 1938 the country was ruled by strict anti-Semitic legislation. At the same time, King Carol II was trying to make himself Rumania’s dictator, as Miklós Horthy had done in Hungary in 1920 and Ioannis Metaxas in Greece in 1936. Since spring 1940, Bucharest had been run by a coalition of fascists and generals led by Marshal Ion Antonescu. In September, Germany more or less took over the country, which was crucially important for the Reich’s energy supplies.

The relations of philosophy and theater are not commonly treated topics. When we think of theater we tend to light on two great periods, namely, Elizabethan England and ancient Athens. The latter we associate with philosophy, of course, but it is a very one-sided perception to think of the Greeks as philosophers. We should really think of them as a people of art – ein Reich der Kunst as Hölderlin calls Greece, and Hegel speaks of greek religion as a Kunstreligion, religion in the form of art. We do not think of Elizabethan England as a high period of philosophical reflection, and yet anyone who thinks Shakespeare’s work is not saturated with philosophical significance surely has a very narrow sense of what it means to be philosophical. His dramas are, so to say, philosophy in performatives.

INTRODUCTION It has long been the opinion of many of the more progressive teachers of the United States that, next to Herakles, Odysseus is the hero closest to child-life, and that the stories from the "Odyssey" are the most suitable for reading-lessons. These conclusions have been reached through independent experiments not related to educational work in foreign countries. While sojourning in Athens I had the pleasure of visiting the best schools, both public and private, and found the reading especially spirited. I examined the books in use and found the regular reading-books to consist of the classic tales of the country, the stories of Herakles, Theseus, Perseus, and so forth, in the reader succeeding the primer, and the stories of Odysseus, or Ulysses, as we commonly call him, following as a third book, answering to our second or third reader.

PART III THE TRIUMPH OF ODYSSEUS CHAPTER XXIX. Athena Advises Telemachos XXX. Telemachos Astonishes the Wooers XXXI. Penelope's Web XXXII. The Journey of Telemachos XXXIII. Telemachos in Pylos XXXIV. Telemachos in Sparta XXXV. Menelaos Relates His Adventures XXXVI. The Conspiracy of the Suitors XXXVII. Telemachos Returns to Ithaca XXXVIII. Telemachos and the Swineherd XXXIX. Telemachos Recognizes Odysseus XL. Telemachos Returns to the Palace XLI. Odysseus is Recognized by His Dog XLII. Odysseus Comes, a Beggar, to His Own House XLIII. Conversation of Odysseus and Penelope XLIV. Eurycleia Recognizes Odysseus XLV. Penelope's Dream XLVI. Athena Encourages Odysseus XLVII. The Last Banquet of the Suitors XLVIII. Odysseus Bends the Bow XLIX. Death of the Suitors L. Eurycleia Announces the Return of Odysseus to Penelope LI. Odysseus Visits His Father Vocabulary and Notes

They had just docked in Greece and the passengers learned they would be quarantined and not be allowed to go ashore... "It was the bitterest disappointment we had yet experienced. To lie a whole day in sight of the Acropolis, and yet be obliged to go away without visiting Athens! Disappointment was hardly a strong enough word to describe the circumstances....At eleven o'clock at night, when most of the ship's company were abed, four of us stole softly ashore in a small boat, a clouded moon favoring the enterprise...Once ashore and seeing no road, we took a tall hill to the left of the distant Acropolis for a mark, and steered straight for it over all obstructions...The full moon was riding high in the cloudless heavens now. We sauntered carelessly and unthinkingly to the edge of the lofty battlements of the citadel, and looked down---- a vision! And such a vision! Athens by moonlight!

Love, he said, is not a god, for a god cannot want anything; but one of those great spirits who are messengers between gods and men. He does not visit fools, who are content with their low condition, but those who aware of their own need and desire, by embracing the beautiful and good, to beget goodness and beauty; for creation is man’s immortality and brings him nearest to the gods. All creatures, he said, cherish the children of their flesh; yet the noblest progeny of love are wisdom and glorious deeds, for mortal children die, but these live forever; and these are begotten not of the body but the soul. Mortal passion sinks us in mortal pleasure, so that the wings of the soul grow weak; and such lovers may rise to the good indeed, but not to the very best. But the winged soul rises from love to love, from the beautiful that is born and dies, to beauty is only a moving shadow flung upon a wall.

The Greeks were the first people in the world to play, and they played on a great scale. All over Greece there were games, all sorts of games; athletic contests of every description: races—horse-, boat-, foot-, torch-races; contests in music, where one side out-sung the other; in dancing—on greased skins sometimes to display a nice skill of foot and balance of body; games where men leaped in and out of flying chariots; games so many one grows weary with the list of them. They are embodied in the statues familiar to all, the disc thrower, the charioteer, the wrestling boys, the dancing flute players. The great games—there were four that came at stated seasons—were so important, when one was held, a truce of God was proclaimed so that all Greece might come in safety without fear. There “glorious-limbed youth”—the phrase is Pindar’s, the athlete’s poet—strove for an honor so coveted as hardly anything else in Greece. An Olympic victor—triumphing generals would give place to him. His crown of wild olives was set beside the prize of the tragedian. Splendor attended him, processions, sacrifices, banquets, songs the greatest poets were glad to write. Thucydides, the brief, the severe, the historian of that bitter time, the fall of Athens, pauses, when one of his personages has conquered in the games, to give the fact full place of honor. If we had no other knowledge of what the Greeks were like, if nothing were left of Greek art and literature, the fact that they were in love with play and played magnificently would be proof enough of how they lived and how they looked at life. Wretched people, toiling people, do not play. Nothing like the Greek games is conceivable in Egypt or Mesopotamia. The life of the Egyptian lies spread out in the mural paintings down to the minutest detail. If fun and sport had played any real part they would be there in some form for us to see. But the Egyptian did not play. “Solon, Solon, you Greeks are all children,” said the Egyptian priest to the great Athenian.

PART II THE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS TO HIS OWN COUNTRY CHAPTER V. Odysseus on the Island of Calypso VI. Odysseus Constructs a Raft and Leaves the Island VII. Odysseus is Saved on the Island of Scheria VIII. Nausicaä is Sent to the River by Athena IX. Odysseus Arrives at the Palace of Alkinoös X. Odysseus in the Halls of Alkinoös XI. The Banquet in Honor of Odysseus XII. Odysseus Relates His Adventures XIII. The Lotus-Eaters and the Cyclops XIV. The Cave of the Cyclops XV. The Blinding of the Cyclops XVI. Odysseus and His Companions Leave the Land of the Cyclops XVII. The Adventures of Odysseus on the Island of Æolus XVIII. Odysseus at the Home of Circè XIX. Circè Instructs Odysseus Concerning His Descent to Hades XX. The Adventures of Odysseus in Hades XXI. Odysseus Converses with His Mother and Agamemnon XXII. Conversation with Achilles and Other Heroes XXIII. The Return of Odysseus to the Island of Circè XXIV. Odysseus Meets the Sirens, Skylla, and Charybdis XXV. Odysseus on the Island of Hēlios XXVI. The Departure of Odysseus from the Island of Scheria XXVII. Odysseus Arrives at Ithaca XXVIII. Odysseus Seeks the Swineherd

The introduction to the original book as I found it in Greece contains many interesting points, since it shows that educators in foreign countries, notably in Germany, had come to the same conclusion with our best American teachers. The editor of the little Greek reading-book says: "In editing this work we have made use not only of Homer's 'Odyssey,' but also of that excellent reader which is used in the public schools of Germany, Willman's 'Lesebuch aus Homer.' We have divided the little volume into three parts, the first of which gives a short resumé of the war against Troy and the destruction of that city, the second the wanderings of Odysseus till his arrival in Ithaca, the third his arrival and the killing of the wooers. We have no apology to make in presenting this book to the public as a school-book, since many people superior to us have shown the need of such books in school-work. The new public schools, as is well known, have a mission of the highest importance. They do not aim, as formerly, at absolute knowledge pounded into the heads of children in a mechanical way. Their aim is the mental and ethical development of the pupils. Reading and writing lead but half way to this goal. With all nations the readers used in the public schools are a collection of the noblest thoughts of their authors." The Greek editor had never read the inane rat and cat stories of American school "readers" when he wrote that.

A philosophy called "moral philosophy," and "what are we to do?" And "what is a good life?" Is a representative topic of ethics. It is also considered as a sub-division of axiology because it is one of the people who deal with "value" among the various sections of philosophy. The term "Ethics" derives from the term "ἠθικά", which is derived from the Greek term "ἦθος", which means manners, [1] which refers to "the habits of the community" It reveals the connection point with political philosophy. 펜토바르비탈 청산가리 판매하고있습니다 단지 이런제품은 동물 안락사로만 판매하고있습니다 카톡【AKR331】텔레【RDH705】라인【SPR331】위커【SPR705】 Ethics has been one of the central themes of philosophy since ancient Greece, and paradoxically, this debate has begun in earnest since sophisticated sociologists who are suspicious of the morality of the time have been prominent. Although the attitude of each individual is different, the sophisticated sophists who have so far remained largely "relative to morality", "morality is something that social underprivals have made for their own benefit," "rather than moral virtue, "It is said that it poses a challenge to the normal moral authority as follows. Socrates was the representative person who wanted to defend the objectivity of morality against this trend in Athens, and his disciple Plato recorded various aspects of his ethics and political philosophy while recording the teacher in his writings . Aristotle presented the ethical theory with a teleological framework of "the purpose of ethics is to obtain happiness" through writings such as "Nikomarcos ethics", which had a great influence on later generations. Roughly speaking, it is the ethical life that Aristotle says to live happily intellectually contemplated, even if it is judged appropriately by good habits and follows the rules of society.

He continues: "Happily the Greek nation, more than any other, abounds in literary masterpieces. Nearly all of the Greek writings contain an abundance of practical wisdom and virtue. Their worth is so great that even the most advanced European nations do not hesitate to introduce them into their schools. The Germans do this, although their habits and customs are so different from ours. They especially admire Homer's works. These books, above all others, afford pleasure to the young, and the reason for it is clearly set forth by the eminent educator Herbart: "'The little boy is grieved when told that he is little. Nor does he enjoy the stories of little children. This is because his imagination reaches out and beyond his environments. I find the stories from Homer to be more suitable reading for young children than the mass of juvenile books, because they contain grand truths.' "Therefore these stories are held in as high esteem by the German children as by the Greek. In no other works do children find the grand and noble traits in human life so faithfully and charmingly depicted as in Homer. Here all the domestic, civic, and religious virtues of the people are marvellously brought to light and the national feeling is exalted. The Homeric poetry, and especially the 'Odyssey,' is adapted to very young children, not only because it satisfies so well the needs which lead to mental development, but also for another reason. As with the people of olden times bravery was considered the greatest virtue, so with boys of this age and all ages. No other ethical idea has such predominance as that of prowess. Strength of body and a firm will characterize those whom boys choose as their leaders. Hence the pleasure they derive from the accounts of celebrated heroes of yore whose bravery, courage, and prudence they admire.

[MINERVA appears.] MIN. Whither, whither sendest thou this troop to follow [the fugitives,] king Thoas? List to the words of me, Minerva. Cease pursuing, and stirring on the onset of your host. For by the destined oracles of Loxias Orestes came hither, fleeing the wrath of the Erinnyes, and in order to conduct his sister's person to Argos, and to bear the sacred image into my land, by way of respite from his present troubles. Thus are our words for thee, but as to him, Orestes, whom you wish to slay, having caught him in a tempest at sea, Neptune has already, for my sake, rendered the surface of the sea waveless, piloting him along in the ship. But do thou, Orestes, learning my commands, (for thou hearest the voice of a Goddess, although not present,) go, taking the image and thy sister. And when thou art come to heaven-built Athens, there is a certain sacred district in the farthest bounds of Atthis, near the Carystian rock, which my people call Alœ—here, having built a temple, do thou enshrine the image named after the Tauric land and thy toils, which thou hast labored through, wandering over Greece, under the goad of the Erinnyes. But mortals hereafter shall celebrate her as the Tauric Goddess Diana. And do thou ordain this law, that, when the people celebrate a feast in grateful commemoration of thy release from slaughter, [188] let them apply the sword to the neck of a man, and let blood flow on account of the holy Goddess, that she may have honor. But, O Iphigenia, thou must needs be guardian of the temple of this Goddess at the hallowed ascent of Brauron; [189] where also thou shalt be buried at thy death, and they shall offer to you the honor of rich woven vestments, which women, dying in childbed, may leave in their houses. But I command thee to let these Grecian women depart from the land on account of their disinterested disposition, [190] I, having saved thee also on a former occasion, by determining the equal votes in the Field of Mars, Orestes, and that, according to the same law, he should conquer, whoever receive equal suffrages. But, O son of Agamemnon, do thou remove thy sister from this land, nor be thou angered, Thoas.

I made a long speech in bad French in which I admitted that I was no critic, that I was always passionate and prejudiced, that I had no reverence for anything except what I liked. I told them that I was an ignoramus, which they tried to deny vigorously. I saidl would rather tell them stories. I began—about a bum who had tried to hit me up for a dime one evening as I was walking towards the Brooklyn Bridge. I explained how I had said No to the man automatically and then, after I had walked a few yards it suddenly came to me that a man had asked me for something and I ran back and spoke to him. But instead of giving him a dime or a quarter, which I could easily have done, I told him that I was broke, that I had wanted to let him know that, that was all. And the man had said to me—"do you mean that, buddy? Why, if that's the way it is, I'll be glad to give you a dime myself." And I let him give it to me, and I thanked him warmly, and walked off. They thought it a very interesting story. So that's how it was in America? Strange country ... anything could happen there. "Yes," I said, "a very strange country," and I thought to myself that it was wonderful not to be there any more and God willing I'd never return to it. "And what is it about Greece that makes you like it so much?" asked someone. I smiled. "The light and the poverty," I said. "You're a romantic," said the man. "Yes," I said, "I'm crazy enough to believe that the happiest man on earth is the man with the fewest needs. And I also believe that if you have light, such as you have here, all ugliness is obliterated. Since I've come to your country I know that light is holy: Greece is a holy land to me." "But have you seen how poor the people are, how wretchedly they live?" "I've seen worse wretchedness in America," I said. "Poverty alone doesn't make people wretched." "You can say that because you have sufficient …." "I can say it because I've been poor all my life," I retorted. "I'm poor now," I added. "I have just'enough to get back to Athens. When I get to Athens I'll have to think how to get more. It isn't money that sustains me—it's the faith I have in myself, in my own powers. In spirit I am a millionaire—maybe that's the best thing about America, that you believe you'll rise again." "Yes, yes," said Tsoutsou, clapping his hands, "that's the wonderful thing about America: you don't know what defeat is." He filled the glasses again and rose to make a toast "To America!" he said, "long may it live!" "To Henry Miller!" said another, "because he believes in himself.

The Parthenon was 228 feet long by 101 broad, and 64 feet high; the porticoes at each end had a double row of eight columns; the sculptures in the pediments were in full relief, representing in the eastern the Birth of Athene, and in the western the Struggle between that goddess and Poseidon, whilst those on the metopes, some of which are supposed to be from the hand of Alcamenes, the contemporary and rival of Phidias, rendered scenes from battles between the Gods and Giants, the Greeks and the Amazons, and the Centaurs and Lapithæ. Of somewhat later date than the Parthenon and resembling it in general style, though it is very considerably smaller, is the Theseum or Temple of Theseus on the plain on the north-west of the Acropolis, and at Bassæ in Arcadia is a Doric building, dedicated to Apollo Epicurius and designed by Ictinus, that has the peculiarity of facing north and south instead of, as was usual, east and west. Scarcely less beautiful than the Parthenon itself is the grand triple portico known as the Propylæa that gives access to it on the western side. It was designed about 430 by Mnesicles, and in it the Doric and Ionic styles are admirably combined, whilst in the Erectheum, sacred to the memory of Erechtheus, a hero of Attica, the Ionic order is seen at its best, so delicate is the carving of the capitals of its columns. It has moreover the rare and distinctive feature of what is known as a caryatid porch, that is to say, one in which the entablature is upheld by caryatides or statues representing female figures. Other good examples of the Ionic style are the small Temple of Niké Apteros, or the Wingless Victory, situated not far from the Propylæa and the Parthenon of Athens, the more important Temple of Apollo at Branchidæ near Miletus, originally of most imposing dimensions, and that of Artemis at Ephesus, of which however only a few fragments remain in situ. Of the sacred buildings of Greece in which the Corinthian order was employed there exist, with the exception of the Temple of Jupiter at Athens already referred to, but a few scattered remains, such as the columns from Epidaurus now in the Athens Museum, that formed part of a circlet of Corinthian pillars within a Doric colonnade. In the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, designed by Scopas in 394, however, the transition from the Ionic to the Corinthian style is very clearly illustrated, and in the circular Monument of Lysicrates, erected in 334 B.C. to commemorate the triumph of that hero's troop in the choric dances in honour of Dionysos, and the Tower of the Winds, both at Athens, the Corinthian style is seen at its best. In addition to the temples described above, some remains of tombs, notably that of the huge Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in memory of King Mausolus, who died in 353 B.C., and several theatres, including that of Dionysos at Athens, with a well-preserved one of larger size at Epidaurus, bear witness to the general prevalence of Doric features in funereal monuments and secular buildings, but of the palaces and humbler dwelling-houses in the three Greek styles, of which there must have been many fine examples, no trace remains. There is however no doubt that the Corinthian style was very constantly employed after the power of the great republics had been broken, and the Oriental taste for lavish decoration replaced the love for austere simplicity of the virile people of Greece and its dependencies. CHAPTER III

Don't you remember what your grandfather used to say? That thing about pots and people?" "That pots were like people," Alex replied flatly, thinking back to his grandfather carrying a tray of wet freshly thrown clay pots across the studio in ancient Athens. "He said you couldn't tell how well they'd turn out until they'd been fired in the kiln." "Well then?" "Well then, what?" muttered Alex. "Some pots shatter in the heat, Aries. I should know. I was the one who had to sweep them up every evening. Sometimes it's better not to go near the fire." "Well, that's the spirit I must say!" huffed Aries. "Thank you very much!

The talks collapsed when Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, objected to a draft statement according to which Athens would drop its fierce opposition to prolonging its bailout. The draft, obtained by the Financial Times, said Greece would agree to a six-month “technical extension”. “This would bridge the time for Greece authorities and the eurogroup to work on a follow-up arrangement,” reads the statement.

In 132 Hadrian, now in his late fifties, decided to leave Greece, the country he had placed at the centre of his empire, and turn for home. He had accomplished all that he had ever planned on the greatest stage set the world had ever seen. The council of the Panhellion had been inaugurated with games and religious ceremonies. Athens, basking in the generosity of an emperor who loved her, had never looked more splendid. Alabaster, gilding, bronzes and hundreds of marble columns and statues decorated the restored city, and festivals had been arranged in perpetuity. Great games – more to the Roman taste, of a kind rare in Greece – had been held, where 1,000 exotic animals from all over the empire were slaughtered. The celebrations went on for weeks on end. The cult of Antinous had been established in all the major centres of Greece and Asia minor. The dream of a Roman empire united by Hellenic nostalgia had reached its zenith.

Greece is a particular worry for regulators as Athens says deferred tax assets represent 30-40 per cent of the core tier one capital in the country’s main banks.

Run with Endurance Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus. HEBREWS 12:1-2 NLT Running was the first and, for many years, the only event of the ancient Olympic games. So it is no wonder that the New Testament writers use the metaphor to describe the Christian life. The first races were two-hundred-yard sprints. These gradually increased in length as the Olympic games continued to develop. The modern marathon commemorates the legendary run made by a Greek soldier named Pheidippides, who ran from the battlefield outside Marathon, Greece, to Athens to proclaim a single word: victory! Then he collapsed and died. The Christian race lasts a lifetime, with Christ Jesus as our goal, the prize that awaits us at the finish line in heaven. It can’t be run all-out as a sprint or no one would last the course. Though there was one race in the ancient games where the runners wore full armor, most of the time the ancient runners ran naked, stripping away anything that would slow them down. Obviously the writer of Hebrews was familiar with the ancient sport of running when he advised believers to run with endurance the race God set before them. Father; as we run the race You set before us this year, let us run with endurance, not allowing anything to distract us from the goal of Christ-likeness.

Just below him Mars Hill looked like a shiny, rose-tinted walnut, and the words from the book of Acts that Paul the apostle had spoken there ran through his mind. 'I see that in every way you Athenians are very religious. For as I walked through your city and looked at the places where you worship, I found an altar on which is written, ‘To an Unknown God.’ That which you worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I now proclaim to you.

South of Larissa the landscape began to change. Jude watched an irrigation machine like a giant stick insect creeping over a field, and a tractor racing across another, raking up a dust cloud behind in a brown jet stream.

the purpose of all these rules and regulations was to end what Plato saw as the worst aspect of normal Greek politics: the bitter class conflict and clashes among competing factions. In the average Greek city, rich and poor were literally out for each other’s blood, as historian Michael Rostovtzeff has pointed out in his description of what politics was like in one city-state, the home of the philosopher Thales: At Miletus the people were at first victorious and murdered the wives and children of the aristocrats: then the aristocrats prevailed and burned their opponents alive, lighting up the open spaces of the city with live torches.16 In his stepfather’s household, he had seen the typical Athenian politician who sought to exploit rather than end these ancient antagonisms. The mission of Plato’s Philosopher Ruler was to end this kind of madness. On his mother’s side he had an ancestor who could serve as his model statesman. This was the legendary legislator Solon, whose laws ended the civil strife that had divided Athens in the sixth century BCE. Solon’s reforms, which embodied “his preference for an ordered life, with its careful gradations giving its class its proper place,” earned him pride of place among the Seven Wise Men of Greece. They

In his stepfather’s household, he had seen the typical Athenian politician who sought to exploit rather than end these ancient antagonisms. The mission of Plato’s Philosopher Ruler was to end this kind of madness. On his mother’s side he had an ancestor who could serve as his model statesman. This was the legendary legislator Solon, whose laws ended the civil strife that had divided Athens in the sixth century BCE. Solon’s reforms, which embodied “his preference for an ordered life, with its careful gradations giving its class its proper place,” earned him pride of place among the Seven Wise Men of Greece. They also made Solon the real-life paradigm for Plato’s Philosopher Rulers in the Republic, where “those we call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy come into the same hands.

In his stepfather’s household, he had seen the typical Athenian politician who sought to exploit rather than end these ancient antagonisms. The mission of Plato’s Philosopher Ruler was to end this kind of madness. On his mother’s side he had an ancestor who could serve as his model statesman. This was the legendary legislator Solon, whose laws ended the civil strife that had divided Athens in the sixth century BCE. Solon’s reforms, which embodied “his preference for an ordered life, with its careful gradations giving its class its proper place,” earned him pride of place among the Seven Wise Men of Greece. They also made Solon the real-life paradigm for Plato’s Philosopher Rulers in the Republic, where “those we call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy come into the same hands.”17 A truly utopian hope, we might say—but amazingly, Plato got the chance to try it himself in 367 BCE, when he was nearly sixty. Twenty years earlier during his trip to Italy, he had visited Syracuse, Sicily’s largest city-state, and made fast friends with the brother of its ruler, a man named Dion. Two decades later Dion invited him to return as political adviser to Syracuse’s new ruler, Dion’s nephew Dionysius II.

Fyssas’s murder was a turning point for the broad anti-fascist left in Greece. The Golden Dawn had always met dedicated resistance to its violent attacks on migrants, leftists, critics, and journalists, but the fatal stabbing of a left-wing rapper in public was kerosene to the anti-fascist fire that had long burned in many Greeks’ hearts.

During a general assembly later that night, an activist led an Afghan refugee family into the squat’s reception area. They were fatigued and searching for a place to stay. Their bags were weatherworn, their clothes disheveled, and their faces drained. From Afghanistan, the father, mother, and their two daughters made the journey by land and sea, crossing mountains, rivers, borders, and fields. With the help of a translator, Marcos explained the politics of Notara. The family said they understood and wanted to stay until they could find their own accommodation. Macros flipped open a notebook and replied, ‘Let’s see if we can find an open room for you.

It was told{468} that she besought her father to give her only nine-year-olds as companions. This was the age at which girls left their mothers and entered the service of Artemis: in earlier times all girls did this, but later only certain chosen ones. They remained in the goddess’s service until they were nubile. At Athens the little handmaidens of Artemis were called arktoi, “she-bears”. Artemis herself must at one time have been supposed to be a bear—or, in more ancient times, when the fauna of Greece was more southern, a lioness.

All in all, ethnic and religious and color prejudice existed in the ancient world. Constructions of races—White Europe, Black Africa, for instance—did not, and therefore racist ideas did not. But crucially, the foundations of race and racist ideas were laid. And so were the foundations for egalitarianism, antiracism, and antislavery laid in Greco-Roman antiquity. “The deity gave liberty to all men, and nature created no one a slave,” wrote Alkidamas, Aristotle’s rival in Athens. When Herodotus, the foremost historian of ancient Greece, traveled up the Nile River, he found the Nubians “the most handsome of peoples.” Lactantius, an adviser to Constantine I, the first Christian Roman emperor, announced early in the fourth century: “God who creates and inspires men wished them all to be fair, that is, equal.” St. Augustine, an African church father in the fourth and fifth centuries, maintained that “whoever is born anywhere as a human being, that is, as a rational mortal creature, however strange he may appear to our senses in bodily form or colour or motion or utterance, or in any faculty, part or quality of his nature whatsoever, let no true believer have any doubt that such an individual is descended from the one man who was first created.” However, these antislavery and egalitarian champions did not accompany Aristotle and St. Paul into the modern era, into the new Harvard curriculum, or into the New England mind seeking to justify slavery and the racial hierarchy it produced.

Jude leant on the hotel balcony railing looking down over the rooftops of central Athens. Below him was a dense plantation of TV aerials, and a building with air-con units slung on the side like finger holds up a climbing wall.

Giannis Antetokounmpo was born in Athens, Greece on December 6, 1994, to Charles and Veronica Antetokounmpo, who migrated from Nigeria all the way to Greece. Charles was a former soccer player while Veronica was a high-jumper. However, both Charles and Veronica were illegal immigrants to Greece. As such, Giannis and two of his other brothers, who were also born in Greece, had no citizenship and were neither Nigerian nor Greek.

Travel Bucket List 1. Have a torrid affair with a foreigner. Country: TBD. 2. Stay for a night in Le Grotte della Civita. Matera, Italy. 3. Go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Queensland, Australia. 4. Watch a burlesque show. Paris, France. 5. Toss a coin and make an epic wish at the Trevi Fountain. Rome, Italy. 6. Get a selfie with a guard at Buckingham Palace. London, England. 7. Go horseback riding in the mountains. Banff, Alberta, Canada. 8. Spend a day in the Grand Bazaar. Istanbul, Turkey. 9. Kiss the Blarney Stone. Cork, Ireland. 10. Tour vineyards on a bicycle. Bordeaux, France. 11. Sleep on a beach. Phuket, Thailand. 12. Take a picture of a Laundromat. Country: All. 13. Stare into Medusa’s eyes in the Basilica Cistern. Istanbul, Turkey. 14. Do NOT get eaten by a lion. The Serengeti, Tanzania. 15. Take a train through the Canadian Rockies. British Columbia, Canada. 16. Dress like a Bond Girl and play a round of poker at a casino. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 17. Make a wish on a floating lantern. Thailand. 18. Cuddle a koala at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Queensland, Australia. 19. Float through the grottos. Capri, Italy. 20. Pose with a stranger in front of the Eiffel Tower. Paris, France. 21. Buy Alex a bracelet. Country: All. 22. Pick sprigs of lavender from a lavender field. Provence, France. 23. Have afternoon tea in the real Downton Abbey. Newberry, England. 24. Spend a day on a nude beach. Athens, Greece. 25. Go to the opera. Prague, Czech Republic. 26. Skinny dip in the Rhine River. Cologne, Germany. 27. Take a selfie with sheep. Cotswolds, England. 28. Take a selfie in the Bone Church. Sedlec, Czech Republic. 29. Have a pint of beer in Dublin’s oldest bar. Dublin, Ireland. 30. Take a picture from the tallest building. Country: All. 31. Climb Mount Fuji. Japan. 32. Listen to an Irish storyteller. Ireland. 33. Hike through the Bohemian Paradise. Czech Republic. 34. Take a selfie with the snow monkeys. Yamanouchi, Japan. 35. Find the penis. Pompeii, Italy. 36. Walk through the war tunnels. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. 37. Sail around Ha long Bay on a junk boat. Vietnam. 38. Stay overnight in a trulli. Alberobello, Italy. 39. Take a Tai Chi lesson at Hoan Kiem Lake. Hanoi, Vietnam. 40. Zip line over Eagle Canyon. Thunderbay, Ontario, Canada.

To what shall I compare my literary pursuits in India? Suppose Greek literature to be known in modern Greece only, and there to be in the hands of priests and philosophers; and suppose them to be still worshippers of Jupiter and Apollo; suppose Greece to have been conquered successively by Goths, Huns, Vandals, Tartars, and lastly by the English; then suppose a court of judicature to be established by the British parliament, at Athens, and an inquisitive Englishman to be one of the judges; suppose him to learn Greek there, which none of his countrymen knew, and to read Homer, Pindar, Plato, which no other Europeans had even heard of. Such am I in this country: substituting Sanscrit for Greek, the Brahmans, for the priests of Jupiter, and Vālmic, Vyāsa, Cālīdāsa, for Homer, Plato, Pindar. William Jones

Aristotle, means "the best purpose." In 384 BC he was born in Stagira, Greece on the Peninsula of Chalcidice in central Macedonia, located on the northern coast of the Aegean Sea. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age and moved to Athens as a teenager, where he continued his education at Plato’s Academy. After completing his education, Aristotle married Pythias, who bore him a daughter that they also named Pythias. In 343 BC, Philip II employed Aristotle to become the tutor to his son Alexander, who later became a great general. By 335 BC, Aristotle returned to Athens and established his own school, known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died. Following her death Aristotle wrote most of his work, of which only remnants have survived. His most important treatises included Poetry, Politics, Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics and the meaning of a soul. Aristotle spent his life studying and teaching almost every subject possible at the time and added a great deal, to most of them. His resulting works became the encyclopedia of Greek knowledge. Near the end of his life, Alexander and Aristotle unfortunately became enemies resulting from Alexander's relationship with the Persians. The details of Aristotle’s life are sketchy at best, and the biographies that Aristotle wrote remain speculative. Although Aristotle contributed to the knowledge of the day, historians can only totally agree on very few things.

The historian Cassiodorus believed that the selective destruction of Alaric, as regards the Greek monuments, was of good effect. Alaric had some taste and was awed by really great art. The Greeks were only human, and all their work could not have been excellent. But almost all their ancient work that survived the ravages of Alaric was of unsurpassed excellence. There is abominable and worthless ancient Greek art in Asia Minor, in Constantinople, in Thebes, in Eritrea, in the Cyclades and other islands. There is little or none of this worthless ancient art surviving in the path of the Gothic Greek adventure; not in Athens, or Megara or Corinth or Argos. Sparta does not figure in the account at all; it never had art. It is said that Alaric destroyed half of the art of Greece. It may have been the worst half. He was a critic of unusual effectiveness.

A typical local eats over 60 pounds of cheese a year (mostly feta)—the highest per capita cheese consumption in the world.

That pattern can be defined in a number of ways, but most fundamentally it is a conflict between those forces that Freud called the superego and the id. The superego – the self’s “harsh master,” Freud called it – is the angel guarding the door to Eden with a flaming sword; its archetypal religious expression is Christianity, that most social of all religions, which asks each individual to consider all others before himself. The id – the primordial raw power of instinct itself – is the force that sends us around to the back of Eden, looking for another entrance; its archetypal religious expression is Dionysianism, the cult of deliriant drugs that burst into Athens from somewhere in the East during Greece’s prehistoric period, approximately between 1000-900 BC. The German philosopher Nietzsche said that history is coming, in our time, to take the form of a final conflict between Christ and Dionysus, and that certainly seems to be the case in America today. The Reverend Billy Graham, the classic “pale Christian,” sits as an adviser to Presidents, while Dr. Timothy Leary, the Dionysian spirit of dope and ecstasy is sentenced to 40 years and flees into exile, only to be recaptured.

Athens is probably what you think of when you envision ancient Greece. The Parthenon, Socrates and Plato, most of the well-known works of Greek poetry and plays—all are the legacy of the city-state of Athens. Occupied off and on for the better part of five thousand years, Athens was a world of its own. But when educated Europeans rediscovered Greek political philosophy in the eighteenth century (as we’ll discuss later) they began to see classical Athens as a peaceful utopia. In reality, however, it was neither peaceful nor particularly utopian.

Throughout the length and breadth of the world, the smart ones sharpen their minds in the schools and universities. In Greece, they sharpen them on the suckers. The more suckers there are around, the more smart ones there are.

Here in Greece, I am now surrounded by ancient memories in slabs of stone, cold and lifeless and enduring, but where I grew up, my memories could have been warm as a toast, fluffy as freshly baked muffins, and as homey as the smell of bread wafting from the ovens.

Healing from trauma is also facilitated by rhythmic action shared with others, such as music, song and dance. In ancient Athens, Athena was celebrated with choral dance and song, and similar practices can still be witnessed today in traditional women’s circle dances of Greece and the Balkans. Through my lifetime of researching these dances in situ, I have come to believe these dances provide essential comfort and healing support for women who must live under patriarchal oppression. The dance circle itself is like Athena’s temple, the polis, the round enclosure within which the women are safe. To protect the city is to protect the city’s women, and this was Athena’s special domain: she was the guardian of the sacred space, the temple, the walled city or polis within which the women are kept secure.

It will for ever remain one of the greatest triumphs of Athenian democracy that it treated slaves humanely, and that in spite of the inhuman propaganda of philosophers like Plato himself and Aristotle it came, as he witnesses, very close to abolishing slavery.

He imagined himself at the lectern discussing the ancient Greeks to his American students: “The First Persian War, in which Miltiades defeats Darius at Marathon in 490 BC, leads to the Second Persian War, in which the Athenian navy commanded by Themistocles destroys the Persian navy under Xerxes at Salamis in 480 BC. Ten years of war gives the Greeks fifty years of peace, a golden age. The Athenians secure peace on the Hellespont through the Delian League, a mutual-security pact in which the other Greek city-states pay Athens a tribute to protect them against future Persian aggression. Sound familiar?” Lin Bao would then imagine himself looking out at his class, at their blank expressions, in which the past held no relevance, in which there was only the future and that future would always be American. Then, in his imagined class, Lin Bao would tell his students of their past but also of their future. He would explain how America’s golden age was born out of the First and Second World Wars, just as Greece had found its greatest era of prosperity in the aftermath of the two Persian Wars. Like the Athenians with the Delian League, Lin Bao would explain how the Americans consolidated power with mutual-security pacts such as NATO, in which they would make the largest contributions in exchange for military primacy over the western world—much as the Athenians had gained military primacy of the then-known world through the Delian League. Lin Bao would always wait for the question he knew was coming, in which one of his students would ask why it all ended. What external threat overwhelmed the Delian League? What invader accomplished what the Persian fleet could not at Salamis? And Lin Bao would tell his students that no invader had come, no foreign horde had sabotaged the golden age forged by Miltiades, Themistocles, and Greece’s other forefathers. “Then how?” they would ask. “If the Persians couldn’t do it, who did?” And so, he would say, “The end came—as it always does—from within.

We don’t have time to go through the history, which is a revealing one. But in brief, the pattern goes way back to the earliest recorded history. So go back to classical Greece and ask who had to drink the hemlock and commit suicide. It was the guy who was corrupting the youth of Athens by asking too many questions, Socrates. Roughly at the same time, if you look at the biblical record, there were people who are called prophets, a misleading translation of an obscure Hebrew word. They were what we might call dissidents. They were criticizing the evil acts of the kings, giving geopolitical analysis, warning of what was going to happen as a result of these terrible policies, calling for mercy for widows and orphans, clearly wild men in the wings. They were not welcomed. They were treated harshly—imprisoned, driven into the desert, condemned as haters of Israel, in this case, the prophet Elijah. That’s the origin of the phrase “Jewish self-hatred” used today to condemn Jewish critics of Israeli policy by prominent Israeli political figures like Abba Eban and, commonly, by defenders of these policies here. Centuries later, the prophets were honored. But not at the time. At the time, the people who were honored were the flatterers at the Court, those who were later called false prophets. The experts in legitimation. And so it goes right through history. An interesting story.

By September of 1687, the Venetians had invaded Greece and taken Athens, something that greatly alarmed the Ottoman

September of 1687, the Venetians had invaded Greece and taken Athens, something that greatly alarmed the Ottoman

The cats of Athens, like the citizens, are very intelligent. Just after the war I used to eat almost every night in an open-air taverna in the Plaka. One end of the garden was separated by a high wall from an outdoor cinema, and at the same moment every night, a huge black and white tom-cat stalked over the tiles to sit with his back towards us on this wall, intent and immobile except for the slow rhythmic sway of his hanging tail. After exactly five minutes he would saunter away again over the roofs. The waiter’s verdict on this procedure was obviously correct: “He comes for the Mickey Mouse every night,” he explained. “You could set your watch by him.

As Aristotle implied, throughout their history the ancient Greeks never constituted a nation in the modern sense because their various independent states never united politically. In fact, they often fought wars with one another. On the other hand, Greeks saw themselves as sharing a cultural identity because they spoke dialects of the same language, had similar customs, worshipped the same gods (with local variations in cults), and came together at international religious festivals, such as the celebration of the mysteries of the goddess Demeter at Athens or the athletic games at Olympia in the Peloponnese. Ancient Greece was thus a set of shared ideas and practices rather than a sharply demarcated territorial or national entity. How this sense of Greek cultural identity came to be and how it was maintained over the centuries are difficult questions that must be kept constantly in mind. That its mountainous topography contributed to the political fragmentation of Greece seems clear.

which was about twenty-five miles from the city of Athens.

A successful venture into Athens and the rest of Greece required a traitorous gatekeeper

but subsequently, Athens, which was represented by a brilliant politician and war strategist named Themistocles,

Artaxerxes II quickly came to regret it. He was now worried that he had sharpened Athens’ claws at Persia’s expense.

I was just thinking about Byron,’ said Jude. ‘He went to Greece, you know, Athens, during his gap years. A young man doing the grand tour; loved ancient Greece and all it stood for; put it all down in a poetic travelogue, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage … yeah. There’s a bit about Albania in it too.’ Jude covered his mouth and coughed lightly. ‘“Morn dawns and with it stern Albania’s hills … birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear … and gathering storms around, convulse the closing year.

We dare not be original; our American Pine must be cut to the trim pattern of the English Yew, though the Pine bleed at every clip. This poet tunes his lyre at the harp of Goethe, Milton, Pope, or Tennyson. His songs might better be sung on the Rhine than the Kennebec. They are not American in form or feeling; they have not the breath of our air; the smell of our ground is not in them. Hence our poet seems cold and poor. He loves the old mythology; talks about Pluto—the Greek devil,—— the Fates and Furies—witches of old time in Greece,—-but would blush to use our mythology, or breathe the name in verse of our Devil, or our own Witches, lest he should be thought to believe what he wrote. The mother and sisters, who with many a pinch and pain sent the hopeful boyto college, must turn over the Classical Dictionary before they can find out what the youth would be at in his rhymes. Our Poet is not deep enough to see that Aphrodite came from the ordinary waters, that Homer only hitched into rhythm and furnished the accomplishment of verse to street talk, nursery tales, and old men’s gossip, in the Ionian towns; he thinks what is common is unclean. So he sings of Corinth and Athens, which he never saw, but has not a word to say of Boston, and Fall River, and Baltimore, and New York, which are just as meet for song. He raves of Thermopylae and Marathon, with never a word for Lexington and Bunkerhill, for Cowpens, and Lundy’s Lane, and Bemis’s Heights. He loves to tell of the Ilyssus, of “ smooth sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,” yet sings not of the Petapsco, the Susquehannah, the Aroostook, and the Willimantick. He prates of the narcissus, and the daisy, never of American dandelions andbue-eyed grass; he dwells on the lark and the nightingale, but has not a thought for the brown thrasher and the bobolink, who every morning in June rain down such showers of melody on his affected head. What a lesson Burns teaches us addressing his “rough bur thistle,” his daisy, “wee crimson tippit thing,” and finding marvellous poetry in the mouse whose nest his plough turned over! Nay, how beautifully has even our sweet Poet sung of our own Green river, our waterfowl,of the blue and fringed gentian, the glory of autumnal days.

Greece was falling apart. The streets of Athens were crawling with cats and dogs that people had abandoned because they could no longer afford pet food. But our hosts were jubilant. Their family didn’t seem like a burden; it seemed like a party. The idea bloomed in my head that being ruled by something other than my own wishes and wanderlust might be a pleasure, a release.

The “key” to the city of Athens given by Hippias was his counsel on how best to penetrate the city.