by Will Durant
BY WILL DURANT
The Story of Philosophy
Transition
The Pleasure of Philosophy
Adventures in Genius
BY WILL AND ARIEL DURANT
THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION
1. Our Oriental Heritage
2. The Life of Greece
3. Caesar and Christ
4. The Age of Faith
5. The Renaissance
6. The Reformation
7. The Age of Reason Begins
8. The Age of Louis XIV
9. The Age of Voltaire
10. Rousseau and Revolution
11. The Age of Napoleon
The Lessons of History
Interpretation of Life
A Dual Autobiography
Copyright 1939 by Will Durant
Copyright renewed © 1966 by Will Durant
All rights reserved
including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form
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TO MY FRIEND
MAX SCHOTT
Preface
MY purpose is to record and contemplate the origin, growth, maturity, and decline of Greek civilization from the oldest remains of Crete and Troy to the conquest of Greece by Rome. I wish to see and feel this complex culture not only in the subtle and impersonal rhythm of its rise and fall, but in the rich variety of its vital elements: its ways of drawing a living from the land, and of organizing industry and trade; its experiments with monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, dictatorship, and revolution; its manners and morals, its religious practices and beliefs; its education of children, and its regulation of the sexes and the family; its homes and temples, markets and theaters and athletic fields; its poetry and drama, its painting, sculpture, architecture, and music; its sciences and inventions, its superstitions and philosophies. I wish to see and feel these elements not in their theoretical and scholastic isolation, but in their living interplay as the simultaneous movements of one great cultural organism, with a hundred organs and a hundred million cells, but with one body and one soul.
Excepting machinery, there is hardly anything secular in our culture that does not come from Greece. Schools, gymnasiums, arithmetic, geometry, history, rhetoric, physics, biology, anatomy, hygiene, therapy, cosmetics, poetry, music, tragedy, comedy, philosophy, theology, agnosticism, skepticism, stoicism, epicureanism, ethics, politics, idealism, philanthropy, cynicism, tyranny, plutocracy, democracy: these are all Greek words for cultural forms seldom originated, but in many cases first matured for good or evil by the abounding energy of the Greeks. All the problems that disturb us today—the cutting down of forests and the erosion of the soil; the emancipation of woman and the limitation of the family; the conservatism of the established, and the experimentalism of the unplaced, in morals, music, and government; the corruptions of politics and the perversions of conduct; the conflict of religion and science, and the weakening of the supernatural supports of morality; the war of the classes, the nations, and the continents; the revolutions of the poor against the economically powerful rich, and of the rich against the politically powerful poor; the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, between individualism and communism, between the East and the West—all these agitated, as if for our instruction, the brilliant and turbulent life of ancient Hellas. There is nothing in Greek civilization that does not illuminate our own.
We shall try to see the life of Greece both in the mutual interplay of its cultural elements, and in the immense five-act drama of its rise and fall. We shall begin with Crete and its lately resurrected civilization, because apparently from Crete, as well as from Asia, came that prehistoric culture of Mycenae and Tiryns which slowly transformed the immigrating Achaeans and the invading Dorians into civilized Greeks; and we shall study for a moment the virile world of warriors and lovers, pirates and troubadours, that has come down to us on the rushing river of Homer’s verse. We shall watch the rise of Sparta and Athens under Lycurgus and Solon, and shall trace the colonizing spread of the fertile Greeks through all the isles of the Aegean, the coasts of Western Asia and the Black Sea, of Africa and Italy, Sicily, France, and Spain. We shall see democracy fighting for its life at Marathon, stimulated by its victory, organizing itself under Pericles, and flowering into the richest culture in history; we shall linger with pleasure over the spectacle of the human mind liberating itself from superstition, creating new sciences, rationalizing medicine, secularizing history, and reaching unprecedented peaks in poetry and drama, philosophy, oratory, history, and art; and we shall record with melancholy the suicidal end of the Golden Age in the Peloponnesian War. We shall contemplate the gallant effort of disordered Athens to recover from the blow of her defeat; even her decline will be illustrious with the genius of Plato and Aristotle, Apelles and Praxiteles, Philip and Demosthenes, Diogenes and Alexander. Then, in the wake of Alexander’s generals, we shall see Greek civilization, too powerful for its little peninsula, bursting its narrow bounds, and overflowing again into Asia, Africa, and Italy; teaching the cult of the body and the intellect to the mystical Orient, reviving the glories of Egypt in Ptolemaic Alexandria, and enriching Rhodes with trade and art; developing geometry with Euclid at Alexandria and Archimedes at Syracuse; formulating in Zeno and Epicurus the most lasting philosophies in history; carving the Aphrodite of Melos, the Laocoön, the Victory of Samothrace, and the Altar of Pergamum; striving and failing to organize its politics into honesty, unity, and peace; sinking ever deeper into the chaos of civil and class war; exhausted in soil and loins and spirit; surrendering to the autocracy, quietism, and mysticism of the Orient; and at last almost welcoming those conquering Romans through whom dying Greece would bequeath to Europe her sciences, her philosophies, her letters, and her arts as the living cultural basis of our modern world.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Mr. Wallace Brockway for his scholarly help at every stage of this work; to Miss Mary Kaufman, Miss Ethel Durant, and Mr. Louis Durant for aid in classifying the material; to Miss Regina Sands for her expert preparation of the manuscript; and to my wife for her patient encouragement and quiet inspiration.
I am deeply indebted to Sir Gilbert Murray and to his publishers, the Oxford University Press, for permission to quote from his translations of Greek drama. These translations have enriched English literature.
I am-also indebted to the Oxford University Press for permission to quote from its excellent Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation.
W. D.
Notes
ON THE USE OF THIS BOOK
1. This book, while forming the second part of the author’s Story of Civilization, has been written as an independent unit, complete in itself. The next volume will probably appear in 1943 under the title of Caesar and Christ—a history of Roman civilization and of early Christianity.
2. To bring the book into smaller compass, reduced type (like this) has been used for technical or recondite material. Indented passages in reduced type are quotations.
3. The raised numbers in the text refer to the Notes at the end of the volume. Hiatuses in the numbering of the notes are due to last minute curtailments.
4. The chronological table given at the beginning of each period is designed
to free the text as far as possible from minor dates and royal trivialities. All dates are B.C. unless otherwise stated or evident.
5. The maps at the beginning and the end of the book show nearly all the places referred to in the text. The glossary defines all unfamiliar foreign words used, except when these are explained where they occur. The starred titles in the bibliography may serve as a guide to further reading. The index pronounces ancient names, and gives dates of birth and death where known.
6. Greek words have been transliterated into our alphabet according to the rules formulated by the Journal of Hellenic Studies; certain inconsistencies in these rules must be forgiven as concessions to custom; e.g., Hieron, but Plato (n); Hippodameia, but Alexandr(e)ia.
7. In pronouncing Greek words not established in English usage, a should be sounded as in father, e as in neigh, i as in machine, o as in bone, u as June, y like French u or German ü, ai and ei like ai in aisle, ou as in route, c as in car, ch as in chorus, g as in go, z like dz in adze.
Table of Contents
BOOK I: AEGEAN PRELUDE: 3500–1000 B.C.
Chronological Table
Chapter I. CRETE
I. The Mediterranean
II. The Rediscovery of Crete
III. The Reconstruction of a Civilization
1. Men and Women
2. Society
3. Religion
4. Culture
IV. The Fall of Cnossus
Chapter II. BEFORE AGAMEMNON
I. Schliemann
II. In the Palaces of the Kings
III. Mycenaean Civilization
IV. Troy
Chapter III. THE HEROIC AGE
I. The Achaeans
II. The Heroic Legends
III. Homeric Civilization
1. Labor
2. Morals
3. The Sexes
4. The Arts
5. The State
IV. The Siege of Troy
V. The Home-Coming
VI. The Dorian Conquest
BOOK II: THE RISE OF GREECE: 1000–480 B.C.
Chronological Table
Chapter IV. SPARTA
I. The Environment of Greece
II. Argos
III. Laconia
1. The Expansion of Sparta
2. Sparta’s Golden Age
3. Lycurgus
4. The Lacedaemonian Constitution
5. The Spartan Code
6. An Estimate of Sparta
IV. Forgotten States
V. Corinth
VI. Megara
VII. Aegina and Epidaurus
Chapter V. ATHENS
I. Hesiod’s Boeotia
II. Delphi
III. The Lesser States
IV. Attica
1. The Background of Athens
2. Athens under the Oligarchs
3. The Solonian Revolution
4. The Dictatorship of Peisistratus
5. The Establishment of Democracy
Chapter VI. THE GREAT MIGRATION
I. Causes and Ways
II. The Ionian Cyclades
III. The Dorian Overflow
IV. The Ionian Dodecapolis
1. Miletus and the Birth of Greek Philosophy
2. Polycrates of Samos
3. Heracleitus of Ephesus
4. Anacreon of Teos
5. Chios, Smyrna, Phocaea
V. Sappho of Lesbos
VI. The Northern Empire
Chapter VII. THE GREEKS IN THE WEST
I. The Sybarites
II. Pythagoras of Crotona
III. Xenophanes of Elea
IV. From Italy to Spain
V. Sicily
VI. The Greeks in Africa
Chapter VIII. THE GODS OF GREECE
I. The Sources of Polytheism
II. An Inventory of the Gods
1. The Lesser Deities
2. The Olympians
III. Mysteries
IV. Worship
V. Superstitions
VI. Oracles
VII. Festivals
VIII. Religion and Morals
Chapter IX. THE COMMON CULTURE OF EARLY GREECE
I. Individualism of the State
II. Letters
III. Literature
IV. Games
V. Arts
1. Vases
2. Sculpture
3. Architecture
4. Music and the Dance
5. The Beginnings of the Drama
VI. Retrospect
Chapter X. THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM
I. Marathon
II. Aristides and Themistocles
III. Xerxes
IV. Salamis
BOOK III: THE GOLDEN AGE: 480–399 B.C.
Chronological Table
Chapter XI. PERICLES AND THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENT
I. The Rise of Athens
II. Pericles
III. Athenian Democracy
1. Deliberation
2. Law
3. Justice
4. Administration
Chapter XII. WORK AND WEALTH IN ATHENS
I. Land and Food
II. Industry
III. Trade and Finance
IV. Freemen and Slaves
V. The War of the Classes
Chapter XIII. THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF THE ATHENIANS
I. Childhood
II. Education
III. Externals
IV. Morals
V. Character
VI. Premarital Relations
VII. Greek Friendship
VIII. Love and Marriage
IX. Woman
X. The Home
XI. Old Age
Chapter XIV. THE ART OF PERICLEAN GREECE
I. The Ornamentation of Life
II. The Rise of Painting
III. The Masters of Sculpture
1. Methods
2. Schools
3. Pheidias
IV. The Builders
1. The Progress of Architecture
2. The Reconstruction of Athens
3. The Parthenon
Chapter XV. THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
I. The Mathematicians
II. Anaxagoras
III. Hippocrates
Chapter XVI. THE CONFLICT OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
I. The Idealists
II. The Materialists
III. Empedocles
IV. The Sophists
V. Socrates
1. The Mask of Silenus
2. Portrait of a Gadfly
3. The Philosophy of Socrates
Chapter XVII. THE LITERATURE OF THE GOLDEN AGE
I. Pindar
II. The Dionysian Theater
III. Aeschylus
IV. Sophocles
V. Euripides
1. The Plays
2. The Dramatist
3. The Philosopher
4. The Exile
VI. Aristophanes
1. Aristophanes and the War
2. Aristophanes and the Radicals
3. The Artist and the Thinker
VII. The Historians
Chapter XVIII. THE SUICIDE OF GREECE
I. The Greek World in the Age of Pericles
II. How the Great War Began
III. From the Plague to the Peace
IV. Alcibiades
V. The Sicilian Adventure
VI. The Triumph of Sparta
VII. The Death of Socrates
BOOK IV THE DECLINE AND FALL OF GREEK FREEDOM 399–322 B.C.
Chronological Table
Chapter XIX. PHILIP
I. The Spartan Empire
II. Epaminondas
III. The Second Athenian Empire
IV. The Rise of Syracuse
V. The Advance of Macedonia
VI. Demosthenes
Chapter XX. LETTERS AND ARTS IN THE FOURTH CENTURY
I. The Orators
II. Isocrates
III. Xenophon
&nbs
p; IV. Apelles
V. Praxiteles
VI. Scopas and Lysippus
Chapter XXI. THE ZENITH OF PHILOSOPHY
I. The Scientists
II. The Socratic Schools
1. Aristippus
2. Diogents
III. Plato
1. The Teacher
2. The Artist
3. The Metaphysician
4. The Moralist
5. The Utopian
6. The Lawmaker
IV. Aristotle
1. Wander-Years
2. The Scientist
3. The Philosopher
4. The Statesman
Chapter XXII. ALEXANDER
I. The Soul of a Conqueror
II. The Paths of Glory
III. The Death of a God
IV. The End of an Age
BOOK V: THE HELLENISTIC DISPERSION: 322–146 B.C.
Chronological Table
Chapter XXIII. GREECE AND MACEDON
I. The Struggle for Power
II. The Struggle for Wealth
III. The Morals of Decay
IV. Revolution in Sparta
V. The Ascendancy of Rhodes
Chapter XXIV. HELLENISM AND THE ORIENT
I. The Seleucid Empire
II. Seleucid Civilization
III. Pergamum
IV. Hellenism and the Jews
Chapter XXV. EGYPT AND THE WEST
I. The Kings’ Register
II. Socialism under the Ptolemies
III. Alexandria
IV. Revolt
V. Sunset in Sicily
Chapter XXVI. BOOKS
I. Libraries and Scholars
II. The Books of the Jews
III. Menander
IV. Theocritus
V. Polybius
Chapter XXVII. THE ART OF THE DISPERSION
I. A Miscellany
II. Painting
III. Sculpture
IV. Commentary
Chapter XXVIII. THE CLIMAX OF GREEK SCIENCE
I. Euclid and Apollonius
II. Archimedes
III. Aristarchus, Hipparchus, Eratosthenes
IV. Theophrastus, Herophilus, Erasistratus
Chapter XXIX. THE SURRENDER OF PHILOSOPHY
I. The Skeptical Attack
II. The Epicurean Escape
III. The Stoic Compromise
IV. The Return to Religion
Chapter XXX. THE COMING OF ROME
I. Pyrrhus
II. Rome the Liberator
III. Rome the Conqueror
EPILOGUE: OUR GREEK HERITAGE