It's Volume II of "The Story of Civilization". Yes. I read history books for fun. It's not an assignment, unless you consider by goal of understanding history better before I die an assignment by myself! I love these books! I was only a few more pages to the end, so I've delayed dinner to finish it and then write this. I sighed, nearly in tears, at the end. It's lines like this that make me love these books.
"Civilization does not die, it migrates; it changes its habitat and its dress, but it lives on. The decay of one civilization, as of one individual, makes room for the growth of another; life shed the old skin, and surprises death with fresh youth."
Ancient Greece! Who knew we have so much in common with a civilization so far away in time? It's amazing. History brings me closer to the world and makes me feel more connected to everyone in it.
I'm not going to recap all of Ancient Greece. I'd be hear for days! But here are few bits that made me smile.
Speaking of Homeric Greeks. "Wealth is computed realistically in goods, especially cattle, rather than in piece of metal or paper that may lose or alter their value at any moment through a change in the economic theology of men." Economic Theology. How do you like that? That's exactly what it is. I really think economics relies way too much on theory, trust, and whims, to be called a science. It IS a theology.
And another from that time, "The individual members of the family change with time, but the family is the lasting unit, surviving perhaps for centuries, and forging in the turbulent crucible of the home the order and character without which all government is in vain." Is this something we will find to be true again?
Here's a good one. "To him, (Socrates) as well as to Protagoras and Euripides, praisers of the past like Aristophanes attributed the irreligion of the age, the disrespect of the young for the old, the loosened morals of the educated classes, and the disorderly individualism that was consuming Athenian life." So it's not a new thing?
And, "He (Aristophanes) agreed with Socrates that the sovereignty of the people had become the sovereignty of politicians; but he was convinced that the skepticism of Socrates, Anaxagoras, and the Sophists had helped to loosen those moral bonds which had once made for social order and personal integrity."
I can't really sit here and write out all the parts that I highlighted, noted, or giggled at. There is something on almost every page! But this is my take away. So many times I've heard people (mostly intellectual authority) say that ancient history is irrelevant in these modern times, but the more I read, the more I completely disagree. Humanity will always be the same. The technology may change, but the underlying thing through all of time is our humanity. It is what binds us all and is something we can always use.
