Greek Tetralogy

Author: Liu Chen Guang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Grote once argued that many of the intellectual legacies of the modern world have their roots in ancient Greece, and thus we have a responsibility to evaluate these legacies through "evidence analysis." Once we accept Grote's perspective, we can better recognize what aspects of Greek history are more worth studying: How did the Greeks emerge from the north and connect with the great empires of the second millennium BCE? How did they establish their city-states? How did they navigate the crises of the dawn of the Iron Age? How did the civilizations known to Homer and Hesiod form? How did the Greek mind create new politics, art, poetry, and philosophy in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE? These are the aspects we should study more closely; we should also understand how the Greeks gave their concepts universal validity and Hellenized both the West and the East, as well as what exactly happened in this collision. If there truly is a Greek history in this sense, then Athens is undoubtedly its center. However, if our gaze can extend beyond the boundaries of the classical Greek world, we should equally improve our knowledge of southern Italy, for it was there that Greek and Roman civilizations merged and became inseparable; we should also understand Syria, for it was there that Christianity was born; we should understand Egypt, for it was there that Christianity merged with Greek philosophy. Ultimately, we should understand what Greece contributed to the birth of the New Rome, i.e., Constantinople, and how it left an indelible mark on the Islamic civilizations from Baghdad to Toledo.
Researching Greek history in this sense faces numerous difficulties, and these difficulties are very unique. As is well known, the works of Plato and Aristotle cannot help us understand Greek history appropriately and completely; data on economic and social history are even more scarce, and to date, no serious scholar of ancient Greek economic or social history has emerged. Marx did not present a conventional account of slavery in the ancient world; his generalizations in this regard are often based on the experience of the 19th-century American South, which is regrettable; while sociological methods are flexible and varied, they lack soul, and their strengths and weaknesses are well known. Gernet once predicted in 1872 that historical evidence would become increasingly distorted due to partisan interests; but few would have imagined that historical evidence could also be distorted without purpose, simply due to a lack of common sense—this is important. The result is that research on the Greek world is increasingly detached from Greek politics, and in the study of Greek philosophy, art, and culture, we can barely find the shadows of political events or institutions, even with a magnifying glass; in our time, almost no one, like Burckhardt, studies Greek culture and art before first studying Greek politics. This book gathers the meager strength of four young people and attempts to contribute to changing this trend. It is said that Schiller once planned to write an epic about Frederick the Great, but we have no such intention and agree with Schiller that he abandoned this plan early on; like Schiller, we do not believe that history is "poetry in chains" or "prophecy in chains," and thus we have no intention of liberating history. No one can claim to resurrect ancient Greece, and Greek history centered on politics is often only revisited during times of political crisis, such as late 17th-century England, late 18th-century America and France, or the Prussian and Weimar eras. This book bears none of that shadow of crisis; instead, its entire driving force lies in the love of "freedom." Without discovering and returning to the "principle" of Greek history, we cannot speak of ancient Greece without shame; this "principle," as Grote said, is this: Greek history is crucial for the formation of a free spirit, and such a free spirit will demonstrate a religiously firm belief in the examination of evidence. Therefore, the authors of this book never argue over figures like Cleon; on this point, the authors merely point out the following fact: Grote equated the freedom of 5th-century Athens with absolute freedom, which is a complete error, for he overlooked the significant differences between the "freedom of the ancients" and the "freedom of the moderns" that Constant had already pointed out many years earlier. Grote was an important member of the radical British philosophical school of the 19th century, which was often associated with issues of population and taxation, the balance of happiness and suffering, and self-interest, and was seen as lacking elegance and noble taste; yet it was precisely this school that produced the renowned John Stuart Mill, who perfectly summarized the significance of Greek history for the modern world: "The Battle of Marathon, even as an event in British history, is far more significant than the Battle of Hastings. If the outcome of that battle had been different, the Britons and Saxons might still be wandering in the forests today." I believe these words also capture the entire motivation and purpose of this book, as well as how fate so carefully arranged the paths of the four young authors that they met and knew each other so unexpectedly, allowing them to together guess the riddle of the Sphinx and his smile.