by Sanderson Beck
Preliterate Minoan civilization on Crete seemed respectful
to
women
and probably suffered less violence than most until they
had to
contend with the warlike Mycenaeans.
Greek culture glamorized
warrior heroes
in their myths and the epic poems of Homer.
The
brutality of the Trojan War was depicted heroically in the
liad,
and the adventures of Odysseus culminated in his bloody
revenge
against the suitors of his
loyal wife Penelope in the Odyssey.
Hesiod's poetic version of the gods' origins was extremely
violent,
though he urged hard
work and virtue in his Works and Days.
Hades' rape of Persephone symbolized for the Greeks the
death and rebirth of seeds in agriculture, which suggested
life after
death in the Eleusinian mysteries.
Even the god Hermes had to
learn not to steal when he was
touched by the culture of music,
and the promiscuous
behavior of Aphrodite and other gods and goddesses
was only curtailed with difficulty.
After the dark iron age, tyrants began to spring up in Greek
city states as aristocratic oligarchs struggled for power.
Poets commented on war, drinking, and love,
while early sages attempted
to make peace and establish justice
by means of written laws.
In the Peloponnesian peninsula invaded by the Dorians,
the Lacedaemonians
subjugated the Messenians as Helot serfs.
Lycurgus gave Sparta militaristic laws that disciplined the male
citizens for politics
and war.
Athens took over Attica and with annually elected leaders
favored democratic politics.
Dracon instituted a severe law code,
which was moderated
and reformed in 594 BC by the wise Solon,
who made
popular the Greek axiom of "nothing excessive."
However, Peisistratus and his family managed to control
Athenian
politics until his son Hippias was expelled in 510 BC.
Cleisthenes
re-organized Athenians into ten tribes
and widened participation
to include foreigners and ex-slaves.
Much folkloric wisdom was put into animal fables by Aesop.
Philosophy began with speculation on the nature of the
universe by the astrologer Thales of Miletus,
who promoted the Delphi advice
to know yourself.
Anaximander noted that everyone pays a penalty
of
retribution to others for any injustice.
Pythagoras of Samos
started a spiritual community in Crotona
in southern Italy based
on initiation into esoteric doctrines such
as immortality and
reincarnation of the soul, the three parts
of the psyche as mind,
emotions, and appetites, their virtues
of wisdom, courage, and
temperance,
and to which were added justice and friendship.
Pythagorean
practices included vegetarianism,
self-examination, music, and
mathematics.
However, the Pythagoreans were resented for being
aristocratic, and the community was attacked and destroyed,
though
the influence of its philosophy continued,
especially through
Socrates and Plato.
Xenophanes criticized anthropomorphic religious
beliefs,
and Heraclitus of Ephesus taught a dry wisdom of change,
character, and the importance of reason and laws.
Greek cities of Ionia and the eastern islands of the Aegean
broke away from the domination of the Persian empire
in 500 BC,
and with Athenian help they burned Sardis
in Lydia before their
revolt was put down.
Persian emperor Darius sent forces
to conquer
European Greeks, but they were defeated
by the Athenians at Marathon
in 490 BC.
Ten years later an enormous Persian army led by Xerxes
invaded Greece and burned Athens, but a coalition of
Athenians and Spartans once again was victorious
by sea at Salamis and on
land at Plataea.
Greeks had defended their independence
from Persian
imperialist aggression.
Athens was quickly rebuilt and took leadership of the Delian
league to protect Greek cities, collecting tribute from their
allies until an Athenian empire threatened its rival Sparta.
The
democratic reforms of Pericles were accompanied by
an ambitious
building program and sponsorship of the arts.
Conflicts between
Corinth and its colony of Corcyra pulled
Athenian naval supremacy
into a defensive alliance,
and soon another Corinthian colony
at Potidaea
revolted from the Athenian empire.
This and Athens' boycott of Megara caused the beginning
of
the Peloponnesian War that would go on for 27 years
between Sparta
and Athens.
Spartans invaded Attica, and Athenians crowding into
the
city suffered a devastating plague that also killed Pericles.
An aggressive Athenian policy advocated by Cleon killed
themen
in the cities of Mytilene and Scione
and enslaved the women and
children,
while the Spartan general Brasidas could claim he was
only fighting against Athenian imperialism,
and Hermocrates of
Syracuse
wisely kept Sicily out of the war.
In 421 BC the Athenian
general Nicias
made peace with Sparta,
but the influence of the
bold Alcibiades led Athen
to launch an ambitious invasion of
Syracuse in 415 BC.
Accused of impiety, Alcibiades went over to
the Spartans
for a while and then negotiated with the Persians;
he returned to fight for Athens, won some victories,
but was soon
dismissed.
Eventually Persian aid helped the Spartan general
Lysander defeat the Athenian alliance and starve
Athens itself into surrender
in 404 BC.
Sparta took over the Athenian empire and began forcing cities
to adopt oligarchic governments supported by
Lacedaemonian garrisons
led by a harmost.
In Athens the Thirty led by Critias acted tyrannically,
executing
without trials about 1500 citizens before they were
thrown out.
For eighty more years Athenians governed themselves
with a slave-supported democracy.
Yet battles between various
Greek cities were frequent.
Elis had to surrender to the Spartan
confederacy.
Ten thousand Greek mercenaries tried to help young
Cyrus
take over the Persian empire; but after they failed and
their
generals were murdered, they had to return on their own.
Agesilaus became a Spartan king
and invaded Asia Minor in 396
BC.
The Athenian admiral Conon, supported by the Persians,
defeated
Spartan mercenaries at Cnidus, expelled Spartan
harmosts from
Asia Minor,
and helped Athens rebuild its walls.
Greeks agreed
to the treaty of Antalcidas in 386 BC
even though it acknowledged
Persian sovereignty
over Greeks in Asia Minor.
Spartans marched
against Mantinea and were criticized
for taking over the citadel
of Thebes for a time.
Pelopidas led the liberation of Thebes,
and by
371 BC the Boeotian league had gained enough
power to defeat
the Spartans at Leuctra.
More Greek cities expelled Spartan harmosts, and Arcadians
joined together and built the city of Megalopolis.
Boeotians led
by Epaminondas invaded and raided
Lacedaemonian territory.
Athens
tried to help defend Sparta, which was
now fighting many of its
old allies.
The power of Thebes waned after Epaminondas was killed
at Mantinea in 362 BC, and the military adventures
of Agesilaus finally ended with his death in Africa.
Syracuse was taken over
by the tyrant Dionysius in 405 BC,
and his bloody rule in Sicily
lasted 38 years
as numerous battles were fought with Carthaginians
and others.
Greeks could learn vicariously about ethical issues by seeing
them dramatically presented by actors in the theatre.
Aeschylus revealed the folly of imperialist war by showing
the consequences
on the Persian court in The Persians.
The dilemma of whether
to offer hospitality to women,
who would be forced into marriages,
when it could mean
war was portrayed in The Suppliant Maidens.
The Seven Against Thebes explored the terror of civil strife.
The cosmic drama of the suffering caused by invention
and the struggle between power and wisdom
was played out in Prometheus
Bound.
In the only surviving trilogy, the Oresteia,
Aeschylus
demonstrated how the chain of murder and revenge
could
eventually be broken by a
nonviolent judicial system, such as
that of Athens.
Sophocles portrayed the madness of foreign war and the
folly
of military glory in the dark play Ajax.
A woman challenged
the power of the state with her religious
conscience in Antigone,
as the arrogant pride of Creon
was brought down by her tragic
death and his son's.
In Oedipus the Tyrant Sophocles commented
on the current
plague during the Peloponnesian War by showing
the tragedy
of an ambitious political leader who used murder and
marriage
to gain power, indicating the need for greater self-knowledge
and showing how ignorant violence can pollute a city.
In The
Women of Trachis, a tragedy of lust and jealousy,
the heroic
Heracles and his wife Deianeira were portrayed
as pitiful victims
of these human flaws.
Perhaps caught up in war fever himself,
Sophocles seemed
to make murderous revenge heroic in his Electra
as Orestes killed his mother
and her husband Aegistheus without
guilt.
Philoctetes, a complicated play about the intrigues
and
bitterness of war, ended happily after a resurrected Heracles
persuaded the hero to participate in the war, once again
indicating
the conservative patriotism of the elderly Sophocles.
In the posthumous Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles
dramatized the last hours
of Oedipus amid Theban
conflicts and Athenian rescue before his
mystical death.
The plays of Euripides explored the psyches of powerful
women tested in extremely adverse situations from the cruel
Medea and
Phaedra, the suffering Trojan women such as
Hecuba and Andromache
to the adventures of
Helen and the Bacchae and the noble sacrifices
of Alcestis and Iphigenia.
Several of his plays, such as Alcestis,
Helen,
Iphigenia in Tauris, and Ion had romantic
endings.
Although early in the Peloponnesian War
The Children
of Heracles, Andromache, and
The Suppliant Women
seemed to support the war effort,
many others like Rhesus,
Hecuba, The Trojan Women,
The Phoenician Women,
Orestes,
and Iphigenia in Aulis exposed the horrors
of war.
The tragedies of Euripides showed how human folly
could produce some terrible situations that could only
be resolved by
the intervention of a god or goddess.
The hilarious comedies of Aristophanes left little doubt of
his
opposition to the Peloponnesian War.
The Acharnians
pleaded for a peace treaty,
and The Knights satirized Cleon
and his slavish
generals Nicias and Demosthenes.
In The Clouds
philosophers were satirized for their atheism
and sophists for
using wrong logic; but using Socrates to
represent them apparently
gave Athenians
many mistaken ideas about him.
The Wasps
made fun of Athenians' economic dependence
on the courts and politics.
In Peace Aristophanes contrasted the violence of war
to
the joys of peace in heaven and on earth.
A peaceful utopia was
called for again in the
Cloud-cuckoo-land of The Birds.
The bawdiest anti-war play, Lysistrata, showed women
using a sexual strike to seduce the men into making peace.
Euripides
and tragedy writers were satirized in
The Thesmophoriazusae
and The Frogs.
A communist utopia was ridiculed in The
Ecclesiazusae,
and Plutus debated the advantages
and
disadvantages of wealth and poverty.
Fragments by Empedocles indicate a mystical poet believing
the soul reincarnates until it realizes its divinity.
Empedocles
described the universe as shifting between
love and strife, and
he asked people to avoid bloodshed.
The atomist Democritus also
taught justice
and finding tranquillity in the soul.
Socrates was born at Athens in 469 BC, worked as a
stone-mason
on the Acropolis, fought in the Peloponnesian War,
but spent most
of his time discussing philosophical issues with
friends for no
fee.
He was guided by a divine spirit,
which only warned him what
not to do.
Socrates refused to cooperate with the illegalities
that condemned
the Athenian generals at Arginusa
and the judicial
murder of Leon by the Thirty.
In 399 BC Socrates was prosecuted
for corrupting the youth
and for violating the state religion
by teaching new gods;
he refused to escape from prison
and was
the first philosopher to be executed.
Although he wrote nothing
himself, much is known about
his ideas and how he taught because
of the extensive dialogs
written by his students Xenophon and
Plato.
Xenophon wanted to defend Socrates from the calumnies
that
led to his execution and continued after his death.
So he published
a version of the speech Socrates
gave in his defense at the trial.
The Delphic oracle had told his friend Chaerephon that
no one was wiser than Socrates.
Rather than corrupt the youth, Socrates
had done much to
improve them by education and urging them to
be virtuous.
Xenophon explained that Socrates was not responsible
for
the evil actions of Alcibiades and Critias
the infamous leader
of the Thirty.
Xenophon also recorded numerous conversations
of
Socrates counseling his friends, showing his sense
of humor and
humane wisdom in practical ways
specifically aimed at the needs of various individuals.
Socrates practiced and taught self-control,
and he
explained the advantages of virtue and self-knowledge.
The pragmatic Xenophon even has him giving
an extended discourse
on estate management.
Xenophon also wrote of his own adventure fighting as a
mercenary
in Persia and a history of Greece
from 411 to 362 BC.
His works
on Socrates, the emperor Cyrus, Agesilaus, and
Hiero were the
earliest biographies, though some would argue
they were more encomiums
than factual lives,
especially the Cyropaedia, one of the
first historical novels.
A short work on economics made some positive
suggestions,
although he did not question the injustice of slavery.
Plato's dialogs with Socrates emphasized his interest in
philosophical
issues and the dialectical process of discussion.
The first Alcibiades
is an outstanding dialog on
self-knowledge, showing Socrates'
attempt to educate
the ambitious young man.
Charmides attempted
to define the virtue of
moderation without success.
In Protagoras
Socrates discussed virtue and whether it can
be taught with the
most famous sophist, and in Euthydemus
he demonstrated
an exhortation to virtue,
while Plato
ridiculed the tricky arguments
of professional sophists.
When asked to advise about fighting
in armor in Laches,
Socrates turned the discussion to defining
courage.
Friendship was discussed in Lysis, and Menexenus
gave an example of a patriotic speech.
Socrates tried to define
beauty in a discussion
with the sophist Hippias.
Plato's Meno showed Socrates exploring whether virtue
can
be taught and demonstrating his method of getting the soul
to recognize what it already knows by his artful questioning.
In the dialog named after the most famous rhetorician
of the time,
Gorgias, Socrates considered rhetoric not a science
but a flattery
or pandering perversion of justice, as sophistry is
of legislation,
cooking is of nutrition,
and cosmetics and fashion are of gymnastics.
Socrates argued for the importance of justice and declared
that
he would rather suffer injustice than commit it,
though he preferred
neither.
Phaedrus gave another example of rhetoric
on the
theme of the lover.
Socrates contended that sometimes madness
can be inspired
by the gods, as in love.
Plato presented a myth
of how the soul must control the
dark side of its animal nature
in order to re-ascend to heaven.
In the Symposium Plato
had several prominent men praise
Eros, the god of love.
Socrates
described love as an intermediary
between the gods and humans.
Plato described the trial, imprisonment,
and execution of Socrates
in four dialogs.
On the way to court Socrates discussed piety
with Euthyphro,
who was prosecuting his father for
killing a slave
caught for murder.
In the trial Socrates described his mission
to seek wisdom
inspired by the Delphic oracle's pronouncement
that he was wisest.
When Crito offered to help him escape from
prison,
Socrates argued that it was more just for him to stay
there
than to disobey the state when
he could have chosen exile
earlier.
Plato's Phaedo described the last day of Socrates'
life
when he discussed death and the immortality of the soul.
He concluded that if the soul is immortal, then great care
must
be taken, because there is no escape from evil
except through
ultimate justice.
In The Republic Plato seemed to reject a simple and
healthy
society recommended by Socrates
for a luxurious one requiring
a military class.
Although Socrates eloquently showed that justice
is better
than injustice, the class society they designed based
on a
strong military and deceptive myths
leaves much to be desired.
Plato did advocate equal education for women,
as he included that
in his Laws too.
Analogies and myths described the good
and the philosopher's
difficulties in an ignorant society.
Political
science was inaugurated in an insightful analysis
of how aristocracy
degenerates into
timocracy, plutocracy, democracy, and tyranny.
As with the concept of karma, justice was explained
by a series
of reincarnations.
Plato himself tried to advise Dionysius II
and Dion in Sicily
without much success, but he founded the Academy
in Athens for the study of philosophy,
probably the first great
institution of higher education.
Medical ethics was pioneered by the oath
and writings of Hippocrates.
He did much to make healing more scientific and wisely used
extensive
observation of patients and their environment,
diet and drugs,
fresh air, and rest or exercise as needed.
Above all, Hippocrates
taught that
the physician should do no harm.
Isocrates wrote speeches for the lawcourts and
became the foremost
teacher of rhetoric
and a proponent of liberal education.
His Panegyricus praised the culture of Athens and Greece.
He
urged Athens to give military aid to Thebes.
Isocrates believed
in being prepared for war
while avoiding unjust aggression.
He
spoke for virtue and self-control and often
mentioned the golden
rule of treating others
as one wishes to be treated.
Isocrates pleaded for the Greeks to stop fighting with each
other, as he encouraged them to launch
a crusade against the Persian
empire.
His oration On the Peace to the Athenian assembly
in 355 BC
was a masterful critique of Greek foreign policy.
He
showed how the injustice of Athenian imperialism brought
great
suffering and then how Spartan hegemony failed too.
War was expensive
and reaped hatreds and trouble;
his unpopular speech was needed
to cure their ills.
Athenian naval imperialism had undermined
their
democracy and brought their defeat.
He brilliantly pointed
out that states, even more than individuals,
need to be virtuous,
because they have no escape from the
consequences of injustice
in death.
Reflecting on these disasters, they must refrain from
all wars
and abhor despotic rule and imperial power.
Isocrates
favored the peace with Philip in 346 BC,
and he again urged a
united Greece
to liberate the Asian colonies of Greeks.
Aristotle studied in Plato's Academy for twenty years and then
tutored young Alexander in Macedonia before founding his
own school
at the Lyceum in Athens.
His extensive writings were probably
from his lectures.
Aristotle organized and analyzed human knowledge
so
comprehensively that his ideas would remain influential
for
many centuries in disciplines he founded as
logic, metaphysics,
physics, biology, poetics,
rhetoric, politics, and ethics.
He
discussed the art of persuasion, rhetoric, in terms of
character,
emotion, and argument and showed the differences
of political
speeches aimed at beneficial legislation,
forensic speeches in
the lawcourts concerned with individual
cases of justice, and
public exhibitions that praise or censure.
Aristotle critiqued the ethical ideas of Socrates and Plato
and suggested his theory of the moderate mean
between lack and
excess.
He found that virtue was a choice based on habit (ethos)
which depended on practice.
He analyzed justice and the traditional
virtues
but also added intellectual virtue.
He considered friendship
based on equality very important.
Aristotle's Politics revealed his prejudices against slaves
(non-Greeks) and women.
He further analyzed the various forms of government and their
aberrations his teacher Plato had begun, while criticizing
Plato's
communistic ideas in regard to women, children,
and property as
contrary to human nature and unworkable.
He justified the class
system and slavery as inherited from
ancient Egypt and Crete.
He upheld traditional roles for men and women although
he favored
education of women.
For Aristotle education made a good life possible;
thus a teacher is even more important than a parent.
Antisthenes was the most ascetic of Socrates' followers,
and
his student Diogenes continued the
mocking criticism of Plato.
Diogenes, famous for searching for an honest person,
lived simply
and freely in public until he was sold
as a slave and became a
tutor.
He also scorned Demosthenes and Alexander,
while considering
himself a universal citizen (cosmopolitan).
In Sicily Dionysius II succeeded his father and resisted
the efforts of Plato to make him a philosopher king.
With the help
of some students of Plato, Dion overthrew
the tyrant but would
not allow democracy either.
After much turmoil a Corinthian general
named Timoleon
helped the Sicilians overthrow the oligarchs,
fend
off the Carthaginians, and become democratic.
The Macedonian king Philip II rose to power through military
conquest and exploitation of gold mines.
He fought with Athens
in various places, particularly for
control of the grain trade
from the Bosphorus.
After the Phocians took the Delphi treasure
and used it for warmaking,
Philip's Macedonians punished them
in the Sacred War.
Macedonia's conquest of northern Greece continued
as Olynthus was defeated and enslaved.
Athens made a controversial
peace with Philip in 346 BC
that would be debated by Demosthenes and Aeschines
as to which Athenians had been bribed by Philip.
Demosthenes continued his warnings against Macedonian
aggression
in his famous Philippic orations.
In 338 BC the Macedonian army
defeated allies
led by Chares and then captured Thebes.
Athens,
after failing to stop Philip by its support of Thebes,
submitted
to his lenient terms.
Two years later Philip was assassinated;
his young son Alexander III became king of Macedonia
and quickly
secured his Greek empire in the north
and with a devastating defeat
of revolting Thebes.
Alexander also succeeded his father as general of a
Greek confederation
with supreme power
for an invasion of Asia.
With a veteran army
of about 40,000 the bold Alexander
was able to conquer the immense
Persian empire
including Egypt in less than a decade.
His invasion
of India had to turn back
when his soldiers refused to go any
farther.
Alexander attempted to merge Greek and Persian cultures
by training Persians for his army and supporting marriages
of
his men to Persian women
by educating their children.
A Spartan
revolt against Macedonian rule was crushed.
Alexander was about
to leave on another military expedition
of conquest when he was
probably poisoned
in Babylon in 323 BC.
After Alexander died, Athens revolted from
Macedonian rule and was defeated.
The generals succeeding Alexander battled over
their
portions of the divided empire for about forty years.
Eventually
after much bloodshed the dynasties of the
Ptolemies in Egypt,
the Seleucids in Mesopotamia,
and the Antigonids in Macedonia
were established.
The ambitious Agathocles became king in Syracuse
and even attacked Carthage.
The Ptolemies ruled continuing Egyptian
religion
while promoting Hellenic culture by supporting the
Alexandrian library and the Bucolic poets.
Apollonius found a home in Rhodes,
where his violent epic
on Jason and the Argonauts was appreciated.
The Seleucid empire was too large to be ruled effectively
for
long and gradually broke into various kingdoms.
The ambitious
Antiochus III overreached
and was defeated by the Romans.
Antiochus
IV Epiphanes offended the religion of the Jews
and set off a revolt
that led to an independent Judean
kingdom until numerous conflicts
resulted in
Herod ruling there under the Roman empire.
The combination
of Hellenic culture with Jewish religion
and scholarship produced
more wisdom and fine literature.
Frequent wars occurred among the Greeks fighting for
independence
against domination by Macedonian kings
and among each other with
the Aetolian and Achaean leagues.
Rome began to intervene more
actively after the
second Punic War ended about 200 BC;
they defeated
King Perseus of Macedonia in 168 BC
and finally crushed the Achaean
league
and destroyed Corinth in 146 BC.
Greek philosophy continued
to flourish
as Xenocrates headed the Academy,
and Aristotle's Lyceum was taken over by Theophrastus.
His student Menander wrote elegant
new comedies
with urbane humanity.
Influenced by his experience
in India,
Pyrrho founded the Skeptical school.
Epicurus taught
an intellectual form of hedonism in the
Garden at Athens that
emphasized a calm life free of pain
more than pleasure, his main
value.
Zeno also made philosophy more personal in his Stoicism
that concentrated on virtue as the supreme good.
Stoics also sought
peace of mind but, unlike the Epicureans,
were not averse to engaging
in politics
as a natural process of society.
Early Roman history began with legends of
Etruscan and Roman
kings.
Numa Pompilius was credited with developing religious
institutions
like the fetial priests, who were responsible for
seeing that
any wars were just and formally declared.
The last arrogant Tarquin
caused the expulsion of kings
in 509 BC and was replaced by a republican government
of patrician senators and two annually elected
consuls.
However, the people soon organized to insist on electing
tribunes as a check on patrician power.
The citizen Roman army
fought numerous wars with
neighbors and incorporated conquered
tribes into alliances.
With their Latin allies Rome gradually
expanded its power
over the entire Italian peninsula.
Rome's Twelve
Tables of law were based
on the study of Greek institutions.
Roman
forces successfully fought off invasion by Gauls
and defeated
a Greek army led by Pyrrhus of Epirus.
Rome came into conflict with Carthage over Sicily,
and having
built a strong navy,
was able to win the first Punic War,
making
Sicily one province and Sardinia and Corsica another.
The hatred
and conquests of Hannibal in Spain
caused another war.
Hannibal
with his mercenary army crossed the Alps
and for fifteen years
won battles and occupied Italy.
After the Scipio brothers were
killed in Spain,
young Publius Scipio replaced them, won there,
and eventually helped the Romans defeat Carthage in Africa,
as
Hannibal returned, lost, and accepted his terms in 201 BC.
Macedonia's Philip V had sided with Hannibal and was
defeated
by a Roman army four years later.
At the Isthmian and Nemean games
Roman officers
announced the liberation of Greece,
and two years
later Rome withdrew its garrisons.
They returned a few years later
to defeat the invading
Seleucid king Antiochus III.
The Romans
and their allies defeated the Seleucids again,
driving them out
of Asia Minor
and forcing them to pay tribute in 188 BC.
A Bacchic
cult was suppressed,
as many of the revelers were killed.
Marcus
Cato was elected censor and attempted to restrain
the morals of
Romans according to his Stoic ideals.
The comedies of Plautus and Terence made fun of the
shenanigans of slaves, lust of the
young, hunger of parasites,
vainglory of soldiers, and avarice
of the old in Roman society.
The major Roman victory over the Macedonian army led by
King
Perseus was fought at Pydna in 168 BC.
The Roman senate decided
the Greeks should be free,
though Macedonia had to pay tribute.
A third Punic War ended with the complete destruction of
Carthage
in 146 BC, while a Greek revolt was also put down
when Corinth
was devastated the same year.
Seven years later astrologers
and
Jews were expelled from Rome.
Spanish revolts were defeated when
Numantia
was destroyed in 133 BC.
These wars not only expanded
the Roman republic from the
Atlantic Ocean to Asia Minor but also
greatly increased the
number of slaves, and a major rebellion
led by captive Asian
workers lasted three years in Sicily.
Tribunes
Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus attempted to bring
about land distribution
and other reforms;
but Tiberius Gracchus was murdered by Roman
senators
in 133 BC, and his eloquent brother Gaius
was killed
in a riot twelve years later.
After becoming wealthy by tax collection, Marius
with Sulla's
help ended the war against Jugurtha in Africa.
Marius replaced
Rome's citizen militia with a
professional army by hiring proletarians.
To meet the crisis of invading Gauls,
he was re-elected consul
five years in a row.
Conflicts over rights of the Latin allies
led to a Social War in Italy.
Sulla in 88 BC marched his army
on Rome;
Marius fled, and the tribune Sulpicius was killed.
The
same year an Athenian bid for independence
was starved into surrender
with a siege by Sulla's army.
While Sulla was fighting Pontic
king Mithridates in Asia,
Cinna as consul for three years
autocratically
tried to reform Rome.
However, when Sulla returned with his army,
many were killed in battles and from a list of his enemies.
As
dictator, Sulla revived conservative institutions
like the senate
and then retired and died.
When the consul Lepidus sided too much with reformers,
his
forces were defeated in battle
by Sulla's veterans led by Pompey.
A slave rebellion in Italy led by Spartacus was
eventually crushed
by Crassus.
The army of Lucullus won victories in Asia,
and Pompey's
forces defeated the revolt in Spain
after Sertorius was killed.
Pompey was then given military authority to eliminate pirates
and settle conflicts in Asia.
In 63 BC Cicero as consul was primarily
responsible for
destroying the conspiracy of Catiline.
Cato and
the senate resisted the growing power of Pompey
and Julius Caesar,
but these two
became stronger by joining with Crassus.
After serving
as consul, Caesar was appointed governor
of Gaul for five years
which was renewed for another five,
allowing his army to conquer
all of Gaul and briefly invade
Germany and Britain, killing one
million
and enslaving another million.
Poets like Lucretius, Catullus,
and Virgil criticized the wars
caused by ambitious men as they
pleaded for justice.
Caesar refused to give up his army and face charges
Cato threatened,
and so a civil war broke out
between his army and those loyal
to Pompey.
Caesar became dictator and consul, won in Spain,
defeated
Pompey at Pharsalus, and had a child by Cleopatra,
whom he made
queen of Egypt.
Julius Caesar returned to Rome, won in Africa,
where
Cato committed suicide, and in Spain again.
Dictator for life,
Caesar was about to be made king
before leaving for more military
conquests
when he was assassinated by senators
led by Brutus and
Cassius,
whom he had forgiven for supporting Pompey.
The senate
granted amnesty to the assassins but waffled
while Antony struggled
with Caesar's heir Octavian
for power in Italy, and Brutus and
Cassius
went to Greece and Asia to raise armies.
Cicero finally
opposed Antony's ambitions and violent
methods in a series of
orations, but Antony formed a
triumvirate with Octavian and Lepidus;
Cicero and many others were proscribed and murdered.
The defeat of forces led by Cassius and Brutus at Philippi
by the armies of Antony and Octavian doomed
the last hope of the
republic.
Antony ruled in the east, Octavian in the west,
and
Lepidus in Africa.
When Antony came under the spell of Cleopatra
and began
giving away kingdoms to her children, the senate supported
Octavian, whose naval victory at Actium was followed
by the suicide
of Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt.
The young Octavian had consolidated
power
into his own hands by 30 BC.
In the last few years of his life when his political influence
had waned under the militarism of Pompey and Julius Caesar,
Cicero wrote several books on oratory and philosophy.
With the exception
of Lucretius' poetic version of the
philosophy of Epicurus, these
were the main Latin
philosophical works of this era to be passed
on to the future.
Considered by many the greatest orator ever,
Cicero's work repeated much of Aristotle's ideas on rhetoric
but
with a depth drawn from much practical experience.
Cicero considered
it the most important art
and essential in a republic.
His works
on government and law recapitulated much
he found in Plato, though
he commented on Roman
history and favored institutions similar
to Roman ones.
Cicero's ethical works also summarized the main schools of
Greek philosophy, namely the Stoics, Epicureans, Academics,
and
Peripatetics, as his intention was to make Greek
philosophy available
to readers of Latin.
This did provide a service to humanity, as
for centuries
his work was read by many in western civilization
who depended on Latin instead of Greek.
Cicero passed on the cardinal
Greek virtues of
wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice
along
with the value of friendship.
His book On Duties synthesized
much wisdom on the integrity
of justice and honesty and was influential
for a long time.
His eloquent republican zeal was to inspire the
American
and French revolutions
after centuries dominated by monarchies.
Greeks in admiration of their Homeric heroes were
quite competitive
and aggressive.
Yet at the same time as Confucius, Lao-zi, Mahavira,
Buddha,
Zarathustra, and second Isaiah were teaching,
Pythagoras
had an esoteric school practicing spiritual principles.
Socrates
developed philosophical ideas with his stimulating
dialectic to
such a high level of intellectual sophistication
that his student
Plato and Plato's student Aristotle
could formulate philosophies
as comprehensive
as any ever produced.
I have found that the similarities
between Greek and Chinese
concepts of virtue without any known
cultural influence
is a powerful argument that these ideas
are
universal to humanity.
Corresponding to the Chinese Period of
Warring States
was a violent era in Greece beginning with the
invasions
of the Persians and ending with Rome's conquest.
Athenian
efforts to defend against Persian aggression with
the Delian confederacy
led to imperialistic encroachments
that stimulated the Peloponnesian
War.
The solution of Isocrates to unite Greece for
an invasion
of Persia, though successfully carried out
by Alexander's Macedonian
army, still spread the contagion
of military methods even as far
as India.
The Hellenistic world divided by Alexander's successors
was
one of frequent wars and the domination of Macedonian
kings until
republican Rome used its military might
and moral imperative to
attempt to liberate Greece.
Yet Greek philosophy, drama, and literature
educated many, including the Romans.
Attempting to handle a large
empire by militaristic methods
that demanded tribute (taxes) to
pay
for itself naturally brought revolts.
Yet Rome was so powerful
in these that it was the internal
conflicts between the privileges
of aristocrats and the
desperation of the debtors and slaves that
brought civil strife.
As powerful military leaders gained greater
glory and power,
they came into conflict with each other.
While
senators like Cicero and Cato pleaded for republican
principles
of justice, the ambitions of Pompey
and Julius Caesar brought
about a civil war.
Rome's long republican tradition of hating
kings almost
seemed to be overcome when Caesar became dictator
for life, but resentment of this led to his assassination
and
another civil war between the conspirators and
Caesar's legal and political heirs, Octavian and Antony.
When these two united
to defeat Cassius and Brutus,
the republic was dead.
Yet the conflict
between the two ambitious men
produced one more civil war that
defeated Antony
and his paramour Cleopatra, enabling Octavian
to become the first emperor of Rome.
The Romans had the wisdom
of Greek philosophy
popularized in Latin by Cicero, but they had
lost their
representative government to a single powerful leader.
There would be a Roman peace (Pax Romana),
but freedom would be subject to arbitrary Roman laws,
taxes, and their soldiers.
The world had been blessed by the ethical wisdom
of several excellent
teachers; yet folly still abounded
in every civilization.
Soon
from the religious tradition of the Jews
would come an obscure
teacher,
whose inspired ethics would astonish the world.
How long will it be until human beings learn
how to treat each
other well?
This ancient history shows that the folly of exploitation
and violence has its consequences.
So many times did cities and
states fight each other
because of previous incursions.
Other
times they went to the aid of states that had aided them
in the
past, even when several generations
had passed in between.
Alexander's
conquest of the Persian empire
was not accomplished until about
150 years
after the Persian invasions of Greece.
Yet to me Alexander
was not a "great" hero but one of the
greatest criminals
ever, because he caused
so much needless death and destruction.
When will the teachings of the sages and philosophers,
who remind
us of the golden rule, be practiced more universally?
The golden
rule suggests that we treat one another
as we would wish to be
treated, but too often politicians
and military leaders fight
violations with more violence.
Even children know that two wrongs
do not make a right.
Nations and other social entities are affected
by the karma
of cause and effect, just as individuals are,
perhaps
even more so, since individuals seem to escape
the consequences
of wrong in death.
I hope that this work has enabled readers to
learn
from the wisdom of our universal heritage
how not to be
victims of folly.