XXIII
GREEK THOUGHT AND LITERATURE[1]
§ 1. The Athens of Pericles. § 2. Socrates. § 3. What was the Quality of the Common Athenians? § 4. Greek Tragedy and Comedy. § 5. Plato and the Academy. § 6. Aristotle and the Lyceum. § 7. Philosophy becomes Unworldly. § 8. The Quality and Limitations of Greek Thought.
§ 1
GREEK history for the next forty years after Platæa and Mycale is a story of comparative peace and tranquillity. There were wars, but they were not intense wars. For a little while in Athens, for a section of the prosperous, there was leisure and opportunity. And by a combination of accidents and through the character of a small group of people, this leisure and opportunity produced the most remarkable and memorable results. A beautiful literature was produced; the plastic arts flourished, and the foundations of modern science were laid. Then, after an interlude of fifty odd years, the long-smouldering hostility between Athens and Sparta broke out into a fierce and exhausting war, which sapped at last the vitality of this creative movement.
This war is known in history as the Peloponnesian War; it went on for nearly thirty years, and wasted all the power of Greece. At first Athens was in the ascendant, then Sparta. Then arose Thebes, a city not fifty miles from Athens, to overshadow Sparta. Once more Athens flared into importance as the head of a confederation. The story must be told at considerable length or not told at all. It is a story of narrow rivalries and inexplicable hatreds
- ↑ See in relation to this chapter, Zimmern's Greek Commonwealth. A very handy book for the student in this section is Abbott's Skeleton Outline of Greek History.
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