Veteran AF: The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton Book 24 of 2022

Saturday, August 6, 2022

The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton Book 24 of 2022

Edith Hamilton wrote a series of books on Greece and Rome. This is the third I have read. The first two: The Roman Way and The Greek Way are about the culture of these two empires at their height and their influence through the last two millennia.

This book could a "WTF Happened?" to the the great culture of Greece. How did it fall so far so fast never to rise again? The book answers the question by explaining 4th Century BC Greece in sharp contrast to the glories of the century before.

The book begins by explaining the freedom that came into being in Athens in the 5th Century, something unique in the world up to that time. Then she explains how Athens fell, the death of Socrates coming at about the same time as the defeat of Athens by Sparta.

Then there is a chapter or part of a chapter on Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander, Demosthenes, the stoics and finally Plutarch--a lovely homage to Plutarch's very famous Lives.

Hamilton is witty, brilliant, and loves the ancient world. I recommend her books to anyone who cares about the culture of Greece and Rome.

On freedom:

Responsibility was the price every man must pay for freedom. It was to be had on no other terms.

Fundamental to everything the [ancient] Greeks achieved was their conviction that good for humanity was possible only if men were free, body, mind, and spirit, and if each man limited his own freedom. A good state or work of art or piece of thinking was possible only through the self-mastery of the free individual, self-government.

Freedom was born in Greece because there men limited their own freedom.... The limits to action established by law were a mere nothing compared to the limits established by a man's free choice.

On God:

Through Plato, Aristotle came to believe in God; but Plato never attempted to prove His reality. Aristotle had to do so. Plato contemplated Him; Aristotle produced arguments to demonstrate Him. Plato never defined Him; but Aristotle thought God through logically, and concluded with entire satisfaction to himself that He was the Unmoved Mover.

First 23 books of 2022:

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut