Touring Greece, the Foundation of Western Civilization and Cradle of Democracy

“Five hundred years before Christ in a little town on the far western border of the settled and civilized world, a strange new power was at work,” begins Edith Hamilton in her classic “The Greek Way.”

That power was Reason, embodied by the ancient Athenians who gave us the idea that the rule of law was better than rule by an individual. They also gave us democracy, the idea that the people should not be merely the subjects of autocrats and despots but self-determining participants in their own government. In a brief 200 years, the Athenians made huge contributions to architecture, philosophy, and the foundations of government.

“Athens had entered upon her brief and magnificent flowering of genius which so molded the world of mind and of spirit that our mind and spirit today are different... What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpassed and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world."

More quotes from The Greek Way. I was reading this book while I visited Greece. It “captures the spirit and achievements of Greece in the fifth century B.C.”

It was thrilling to climb the Acropolis (Acro is Greek for highest point; polis is Greek for city), though my son Matthew overheard one woman complain, “We paid so much for this cruise you’d think they could provide elevators to the top.”

Lucia at the Parthenon.

More aggregated content below: Excerpts from NOVA on Optical Tricks of the Parthenon. Links to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” 1,2, and 3. A Day in the Life of An Ancient Greek Oracle. Links to Photo Essays, and the PBS series "The Greeks -- Crucible of Civilization."

Links to How the Greeks Colonized the Mediterranean; an Ancient Greek History Quiz; The Greek Vs. Persian Battle in 480 BC That Transformed Early European History; and a preview of the 2023 movie, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” It includes time travel and an ancient Greek mathematician.