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Sailing the Wine Dark Sea
According to Cahill, the Greeks' invention of the alphabet (or refinement of the Phoenician alphabet) into a potent intellectual tool was the beginning and the heart of their cultural expansion. Perhaps, in our own time, the arrival of computer technology and the web carries a similar promise, if only we can tease as much innovation from the web as the Greeks did from the alphabet.
But it is hard to consign the Greeks' invention of democracy (a Greek word meaning "rule of the people") to second place, even to so fine a contender as the alphabet itself. For the Greek city-state of Athens truly did refine direct democracy and their achievement can be seen as the bedrock and foundation of Western Europe's later development of democracy, and especially of the American experiment in indirect and representational democracy.
Yet of equally revolutionary significance is the Greek invention of total warfare, with highly organized militaries made up of hoplite soldiers and shrewd, calculating generals. This Greek way of warfare has been the foundation of the Western way of war ever since, right down to and including our current American military dominance of the planet. Cahill cites extensively from the brilliant and influential military historian Victor Davis Hanson and his book "The Autumn of War" to the effect that the western way of total warfare has dominated the planet ever since; and it appears that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Chaney are well versed in Mr. Hanson's theories, not to mention Greek hubris.
The lessons for the USA in its war on terrorism alone are compelling, if not down right chilling. Central to the cultural echoes provided is a speech from Pericles, ruler of Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, a mighty struggle that lasted for 30 years, beginning with Athens at the height of its imperial, cultural and financial powers, and ending with Athens defeated and subjected to domination by Sparta and her allies, never again to regain the zenith of her glory and might.
At an annual ceremony honoring and burying the bones of her young war dead after the first year of the 30 years war, Pericles orated about the Greek forefathers, and he sounds a lot like a contemporary American politician:
"...generation after generation in unchanging and unbroken succession, they have, by their hard work and courage, handed down to us a free country... "
This comes from what is by far the longest of the many quotes Cahill intersperses in his book, and it sounds ever so much like George W. Bush. I admire the way the author intersperses these quotes without ever boring the reader. The quotes from such luminaries as Homer, Socrates, Plato and others are absolutely integral to the book and greatly enhance its character. If Pericles' speech above reminds us of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, so it must also remind us somewhat of our current President's oratory about the War on Terror.
The book is organized around chapters that bring together material in an organic way, not an academic way; with titles like: "The Warrior: How to Fight", "The Wanderer: How to Feel", "The Poet: How to Party", "The Politician and the Playwright: How to Rule", "The Philosopher: How to Think", "The Artist: How to See", and "The Way They Went: Greco-Roman World meets Judeo-Christian".
All in all, this is a quick read, a delightful and thought provoking exercise, and a worthwhile adventure. I highly recommend it. Be forewarned though, you may find yourself wanting to go on and read the other volumes in the series, including "How the Irish Saved Civilization", "The Gifts of the Jews", "The Desire of the Everlasting Hills" (about early Christianity), and the three forthcoming volumes, the next of which is promised to be about how the Romans became Italians. By the time all three future volumes are published, this promises to be a very accessible investigation into the making of the modern world and the impact of its cultural innovations on the sensibilities of the West.
I suspect that Slashdotters of all persuasions will enjoy reading this book; you can read more on related topics on my weblog and web site at http://www.awaretek.com/weblog/
You can purchase Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Mattered from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
How the Irish Saved Civilization
Well, duh. Guinness.
I mean, what's the point of living in a "Civilization" (If you can call it that) without Guinness?
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Did anybody else think feta and/or goats and recoil?
"Hubris" is the word, though, you'd so right about that.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I thought Patrick O'Brian had finally gotten his due slashdotting.
link
>But cogitate you will, as Cahill gives enough food for thought as post modern man is likely to be able to bear." Read on for the rest of Ursus Maximus' review.
I understand that man might not be able to "bear" very much, but what of the Ursine among us? Won't somebody think of the bears?!!
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
As an aside, the greeks were the first to articulate and intellectualize homosexuality, as they argued that true love was between two men, a love which is not bound by hormonal urges. You can see the societal adoption of this very same philosophy with gay marriages being approved, and the subsequent tightening of church control over the current "democratic" administration.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
someone once said that the classic Greeks were all about wars and homos... strangely enough, as with most of this kind of wisdom, is quite accurate... now seriously, donna tartt's quasi-quotations aside, i will have still to find passages of such violence and intensity as those found in the Illiad, the descripcions of the dry sun dried plain in front of the city, the way the deaths are described... IMNSHO, I believe their main contribution to our culture is their literature. Western Literature starts with the Illiad and the Oddyssey, and its influence is still felt by us when reading TS Eliot, Cervantes, Pynchon, Goethe, Chaucer... Okay.. well, I will cut it short, cause if I start talking about Lucian of Samotrace, the Alexandrian poets, etc.. etc...
... y Dios vio que Linux era bueno... Genesis 99.666
That off my chest, I will make one observation that was made to me by a serious classicist, someone who has written and commented extensively on Aristophanes: It is almost impossible for a modern person to understand the Greek world-view. We would have to turn off so many things that we know, so many received ideas that are part of our culture, that the effort would be impossible. Forget not only cars, planes and televisions, forget the Americas, the Southern Hemisphere, biology,chemistry, the size of the universe, astronomy, physics, most of mathematics, and almost all of history. Forget, in fact, the existence of other cultures. Then try and imagine what it would be like to be a philosopher.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
As an example he spend 3 chapters talking about St. Augustin of Hippo juxtaposed to St. Patrick. What came out of it could be summarized in a few paragraphs.
St. Patrick became the first missionary following St. Paul and had little formal education.
Well educated St. Augustin stayed at home in Hippo and conjured up the City of God based on Allaric's sacking of Rome in 410.
Help fight continental drift.
In Alabama, what's the difference?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Yeah, right. It may be worth mentioning that the Greek version of democracy differs somewhat from ours. In Athens, only free men were allowed to vote. Women and slaves were not. Hence, democracy in the Greek sense is more of an oligocracy. However, their system of adult full citizens voting on decisions did pave the way for the Western type of democracy that came out of the French revolution. One may wonder to what extent our modern democracies really are democracies. Oh, and part of the homosexual thing was due to the fact that most women (except for prostitutes, or haetares as they were known) were not considered fit and proper intellectual partners for a nice night out for a man. I'm not sure where the other part came from but it was first and foremost an "intellectual" thing.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
[quote from Pericles]
it sounds ever so much like George W. Bush.
I'm not sure you can include Pericles and GWB in the same thought. Pericles was an orator and, well...
you get the picture.
The last time oil prices fell after being relatively high, GW Bush had just entered the oil business. Perhaps it's time to send him back to the oil fields.
For what it's worth, I remember some years ago attending a paper conference for undergraduate papers in history. One person gave a paper on this author, specifically How the Irish Saved Civilization. The gist of the paper, and the discussion afterwards (which included professors), was that this author is more about selling books than writing good history.
The criticism went as follows. Pick an affluent ethnic group in a major book market, and pander to them, writing about how great they are. For example, think of all the Irish in the area of Boston and New York (major book markets), pick up your pen, and start writing. After that success, try the Jews.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I actually haven't read any of his books (and for the record, I've nothing against either the Irish or the Jews!), I just remembered this criticism of the author and wanted to know from those who feel themselves capable of commenting whether this criticism holds water or not.
Any comments?
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
The larger the group, the better. "How the Arabs Saved Civilization" would be an easy one to write due to the advances of the middle-ages Islamic empire, but the sales would be low due to the small size of the Arab-American group compared to the groups named above.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
When you look at the famous philosophers and mathematicians, you can see that there is a good case to be made that the Greeks invented nerds.. You have a point, though. This is hardly news (being thousands of years old).... except to you.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
a well rounded glimpse into the way the ancient Greeks lived, saw the world, and in fact into the whole of Greek experience.
...
If you, like me, enjoy this kind of thing, see also
Plutarch: biographies of Theseus, Pericles, Alexander, etc. Very warm, personable studies.
Herodotus: "Inquiries". (Usually titled, incorrectly, "The Persian War".) Great fun to read -- lots of cool stories mixed with tall tales.
Mary Renault: "The Mask of Apollo" and other novels. Renault is one of the best historical novelists ever. Both entertaining and informative.
-kgj
-kgj
...are the parallels, even in societies that in many ways can look very alien. (Sparta under the Lycurgan regime abolished the family as a social unit, for example.) Certainly the parallels with today's "War on Terror" hysteria are striking:
(From Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War III 82, written in the 5th century BC. Sound familiar?)
Back just before the first Gulf War - Desert Storm, not Iran/Iraq - the BBC did a special called (IIRC) The War that Never Ends, a set of dramatized talking-heads excepts from the period, drawing these parallels very simply but incredibly effectively. One of the best things I've ever seen on TV, and probably something that only the BBC could ever do.
I wouldn't agree with the viewer in calling Greek warfare "total", however. Yes, they were the first to use shock, but that's another matter. Military participation was generally limited to the wealthier citizens (== voters.... hello, Heinlein), and war aims were generally limited, stopping far short of conquest or delenda-est-Carthago extremes. In many ways, Greek armies were like local sporting teams; war was a test/demonstration of courage and civic-mindedness. When professional combat trainers appeared in Greece, many folk at the time commented that yes, these techniques would make you invulnerable in battle, but what was the point? It wasn't what the activity was about. Rather like Greek theatre, I suppose - the Chorus was the focus of a play, not the individual actors.
</ramble>If you want a slimmer and less all-encompassing read on the prominence of Greek seafaring, I heartily commend to you The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek by scholar Barry Cunliffe. If you're not from Marseille or a classics student, you might never of heard of Pytheas, an inhabitant of that same city (at that time a greek colony called Massalia) who not only ventured to the Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules, but charted the French Atlantic coast, the British isles, and explored as far north as Iceland and the Arctic Circle and as far east - maybe - as Denmark.
Unfortunately, his book, On the Ocean, burned at Alexandria and survives only in quoted fragments, so we have to guess from these fragments - which blessedly include his longitudinal readings - the specifics of his journey. Using a thorough knowledge of Greek seafaring and Mediterranean naval culture, as well as a good handle on archaeology, Cunliffe takes you along Pytheas's hypothetical route, introducing you to the ancient peoples of France, the British Isles, Norway, and Denmark (no one in Iceland yet, sorry).
It's a pretty compelling story, one that's not usually told, and Cunliffe makes it eminently readable and enjoyable. And if you're like me, it'll make you want to go read the "On the Ocean" fragments in the original Greek, in the hopes of gleaning another hidden secret of this amazing exploration.
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Heavy handed, poorly argued, ill-informed, amateur. It was the cheap authority of cocktail party talk run amok.
I've forgotten much, but one thing that stuck out in my head was his argument against the notion that Homer wrote down an oral poem rather than penning the epics himself. Cahill basically quotes segments of the poem, declares them too complex for mere oral traditions, and says anyone who doesn't agree with him has "a tin ear".
His other arguments followed the same general line:
I wanted to like the book when I picked it up, but quickly formed the impression that Cahill is a boorish simpleton, straining himself in self-congratulation for his dubious insights. I won't be reading his other works.
Kill, Tux, kill!
I lived in Greece for a year, specifically Chania on the island of Crete. The story I heard from the locals about retsina is that it was invented during the time Greece was ruled by the Turks. The Turks, being notorius drunkards (according to my Greek friends.) would confiscate any alcohol the Greeks produced. One patriotic Greek vintner started sealing all his wine casks and skins with pine pitch, to make it taste awful and spite the Turks. Turns out they wouldn't touch the stuff, so the Greeks started drinking it, being the only thing available to them. They eventually learned to love it, or at least claim that they do out of national pride.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton