On a voyage that lasted about 12 years, he ventured well beyond the borders of the Greek-speaking lands. He went south and studied geometry, geography, astronomy, and religion in Egypt. He went west to spend time with the Pythagoreans in southern Italy, learning about their otherworldly mixture of mathematics and mysticism, absorbing from them esoteric sources of thaumazein , or ontological wonder.
Plato, already primed by Socrates not to take Athenian exceptionalism for granted, was on a path toward metaphysical speculations and ethical and political reflections beyond any entertained by his mentor. To be an Athenian, ran a core credo of the polis, was to partake in its aura of moral superiority.
Socrates dedicated his life to challenging a confidence that he felt had become overweening. Athens was undeniably extraordinary, and the patriotic self-assurance and democratic energy that fueled its vast achievements did stand out. It was part of a normative explosion under way in many centers of civilization—wherever a class of people enjoyed enough of a respite from the daily grind of life to ponder the point of it all.
That was the essential question at the heart of ambitious inquiries into human purpose and meaning. Every major religious framework that still operates, the philosopher Karl Jaspers pointed out, can be traced back to a specific period: from to b. From Greece emerged Western secular philosophy, which brought reasoned argument to bear on the human predicament and the reflections it inspired. Those reflections, no less urgent now than they were then, can be roughly summed up this way:.
We know, each one of us, or at least we fear, that the same will happen to us. The oceans of time will cover us over, like waves closing over the head of a sailor, leaving not a ripple, to use an image that inspired abject terror in the seafaring Greeks. Really, why do any of us even bother to show up for our own existence as if we have a choice , for all the difference we ultimately make?
Driven to pursue our lives with single-minded passion, we are nevertheless, as the Greek poet Pindar put it in the fifth century b. Such an endeavor demands a great deal of individual striving, because what counts is nothing less than outstanding accomplishments. The deeper, and humbler, sources of the ethos dated back even further, to a time of anomie and illiteracy—the Greek Dark Ages, scholars used to call the period that followed the mysterious destruction of the great palace kingdoms of the Bronze Age around b.
The wondrous ruins left behind—the massive bridges and beehive tombs, the towering edifices inscribed with indecipherable lettering—spoke of daunting feats of engineering. Clearly there had been a previous age when mortals had realized possibilities all but unthinkable to lesser specimens. Those people had mingled so closely with immortals as to assume an altogether new, heroic category of being, celebrated in tales sung by ordinary Greeks.
The reverence is embedded in The Iliad , which extols Achilles as the greatest of all the legendary Greek heroes—the man who, given the choice, opted for a brief but exceptional life over a long and undistinguished one. If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies.
Living so that others will remember you is your solace in the face of the erasure you know awaits. What is most startling about their existential response is its clear-eyed rejection of transcendence.
The cosmos is indifferent, and only human terms apply: Perform exceptional deeds so as to earn the praise of others whose existence is as brief as your own. But an ethos of the extraordinary poses a practical problem.
Most people are, by definition, perfectly ordinary, the ancient Greeks included. The Athenians invented democracy, a new type of government where every citizen could vote on important issues, such as whether or not to declare war. All public officials and even generals commanding the army were elected or chosen through a lottery. However, women, slaves, and Greeks not born to Athenian parents were excluded from voting. The streets were noisy, narrow, and dirty.
The houses of the wealthy were indistinguishable from those of the poor, and both were equally shoddy—constructed of wood and sun-dried clay, and so flimsy that robbers gained entry by simply digging. How did a small, dirty, crowded city, surrounded by enemies and swathed in olive oil, manage to change the world?
This question has stumped historians and archaeologists for centuries, but the answer may lie in what we already know about life in Athens back in the day. The ancient Athenians enjoyed a deeply intimate relationship with their city. Civic life was not optional, and the Athenians had a word for those who refused to participate in public affairs: idiotes.
There was no such thing as an aloof, apathetic Athenian. All of ancient Athens displayed a combination of the linear and the bent, the orderly and the chaotic. The Parthenon, perhaps the most famous structure of the ancient world, looks like the epitome of linear thinking, rational thought frozen in stone, but this is an illusion: The building has not a single straight line.
Each column bends slightly this way or that. In retrospect, many aspects of Athenian life—including the layout and character of the city itself—were conducive to creative thinking. The ancient Greeks did everything outdoors. A house was less a home than a dormitory, a place where most people spent fewer than 30 waking minutes each day.
The rest of the time was spent in the marketplace, or working out at the gymnasium or the wrestling grounds, or perhaps strolling along the rolling hills that surround the city. The Greeks viewed body and mind as two inseparable parts of a whole: A fit mind not attached to a fit body rendered both incomplete. Master shipbuilders and sailors, they journeyed to Egypt, Mesopotamia, and beyond, bringing back the alphabet from the Phoenicians, medicine and sculpture from the Egyptians, mathematics from the Babylonians, literature from the Sumerians.
Athens represents millennia of architectural styles. The marathon event was created for the modern Olympic Games held in Athens. Athens was the first European Capital of Culture. Until recently, there was no museum of contemporary art in Athens. Give us feedback. Read Next View. Kyria Boutique House. Athenian Residences. The Fancy Philosopher Apartment. Sunkissed Rooftop Apartments.
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