It was, according to Isocrates, the fruit of the activity of Athens that Hellas had ceased to be a geographical expression and had become the definition of an intellectual standpoint. In that very true sense Greek history cannot close. It falls into chapters which are ever to be continued as soon as man begins to think again. Whosoever from the beginning of his action already contemplates its final end and adapts his means thereto in earnest simplicity, whosoever knows that pride and vain ostentation will assuredly bring its own punishment, of whatever land or age he may be, he is a Greek. In that sense we cannot close Greek history. Greece, as Juvenal said in a very hackneyed phrase, vanquished the Roman, her barbarian conqueror, and the Roman took up the mission of extending Hellenism over the West. The history of Roman civilisation only begins in the second century, when Rome was first brought into contact with Greece. Elsewhere I hope we shall see how Greek culture permeated everything at Rome after that, supplied her with art and literature, taught her philosophy, overlaid and almost destroyed her native religion, and even wrote her history. Losing Hellas, Europe sank into ages of darkness: recovering her, the European nations began to think again. Shakespeare we trace through the Latins to Menander, Milton through Vergil to Homer and Theocritus, Bacon to Aristotle, Sir Thomas More to Plato, and so with the others. So that every one who reads books or enjoys art in Europe to-day is indirectly borrowing from Greece.
Society Journal
The Glory That Was Greece — Part 183
2026-11-14 03:15:47 · Cedar Herald Index
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