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 Iliad, 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 the
men 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 Athens 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 Arginusae
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
describes 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 describe 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 his
main value
a calm life free of pain more than pleasure.
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.
Caesar returned
to Rome, won in Africa,
where Cato
committed suicide, and won 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 four 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.
Social ethics developed in family life long before civilization.
Groups of people enlarged for greater cooperation
and protection
in settling conflicts.
Families helped resolve personal conflicts,
as parents settle squabbles between children.
Family feuds could
be lessened by the clan,
which could also be called on for help
against outside aggressors.
Tribes organized clans together and
could be united
under a powerful chief.
As population grew in
regions by agricultural settlements,
eventually towns and cities
formed.
The concept of leadership by a chief led to kingships,
but many cities were governed by councils
representing the tribes.
As far as I can tell, every culture
has some concept of justice
or right.
Larger societies found that laws could be defined and
applied,
if not equally to everyone,
at least according to accepted
principles.
As these larger societies organized to defend themselves
against others or take advantage of others, the problem of
massive
violence in war became
the major nemesis of civilization.
Every
major civilization has been dogged by this hostility,
and efforts
to develop awareness and effective institutions
to solve this
problem still even in our time have far to go.
Civilization developed size and power in the Near East,
but
the almost continual violence of warfare in societies
ruled by
kings promoted too much injustice and suffering
to be stable and
offer many people a good life.
The oppression of war was extended
by the slaves captured,
and economic injustices also resulted
in the poor
being enslaved for debt.
Governments did attempt to
achieve justice with laws,
and advances were made in many fields
of human endeavor.
Occasional religious figures like Akhenaten,
Moses, David,
Solomon, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Zarathushtra,
and many others less known to history
inspired people with their
wisdom, but their teachings were
ignored by most amid the massive
violence of war
and the social injustices prevalent in the ancient
Near East.
Greeks in admiration of their Homeric heroes were quite
competitive
and aggressive.
Yet at the same time as Confucius,
Lao-zi, Mahavira,
Buddha,
Zarathushtra,
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.