Twelve Greeks and Romans Who Changed the World

267 Pages·2004·4.814 MB·English

by  Carl J. Richard

Twelve Greeks and
Romans Who Changed
the World
Carl J. Richard
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
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ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
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Copyright © 2003 by Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Richard, Carl J.
Twelve Greeks and Romans who changed the world / Carl J. Richard,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-7425-2790-5 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-7425-2791-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Greece—Biography. 2. Rome—Biography. I. Title: 12 Greeks and Romans who
changed the world. II. Title.
DE7 .R53 2003
920.038—dc21 2002015707
Printed in the United States of America
©™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
For Amos E. Simpson, who has inspired so many
students with a love of history.
Gladly would he learn and gladly teach.
—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 Homer: Founder of Western Literature 7
2 Thales: Founder of Western Science 17
3 Themistocles: Defender of Greek Civilization 29
4 Pericles: Democratic Reformer 59
5 Plato: Founder of Western Philosophy 95
6 Alexander the Great: Disseminator of Greek Culture 115
7 Scipio Africanus: Defender of the Roman Republic 131
8 Julius Caesar: Destroyer of the Roman Republic 159
9 Cicero: Statesman, Philosopher, and Republican Martyr 179
10 Augustus: Founder of the Roman Empire 191
11 Paul of Tarsus: Christian Evangelist 215
12 Augustine: Christian Theologian 233
Brief Bibliographical Suggestions for General Readers 247
Photo Credits 251
Vll
viii Contents
Index of Translations for Large Quotations
253
Index
255
About the Author
259
Preface
This book is not a monograph, a specialized work intended solely for
academics and focused on the technical points of ancient history, but
a broader work with two goals: to contribute to the restoration of a sensi-
ble, balanced view of Western civilization, and to assert the importance of
Greco-Roman culture as the foundation of that civilization. Based on the
notion that history can be fun without being frivolous, this work contains
both serious analysis and, in imitation of the classical historians them-
selves, anecdotes intended to illustrate the personal qualities of the
Greeks and Romans who contributed most to Western civilization.
This work focuses so intently on the contributions of the twelve Greeks
and Romans—on how they changed the world—that it cannot truthfully
be called a collection of biographies. In the case of some of these individ-
uals (Homer and Thales, for instance), so little is known of their lives that
real biographies are impossible. But even in the other cases, I have left out
biographical details that have little relevance to the individuals' most in-
fluential achievements. In place of these details, I have devoted much
space to the historical context in which these twelve individuals lived, in-
formation I consider more useful to the task at hand, especially for those
readers who are not specialists in classical history.
The fact that all twelve of the Greeks and Romans highlighted in this
book are male is not an example of chauvinism, but a consequence of the
regrettable fact that the Greeks and Romans, like nearly all other ancient
peoples, rarely granted women direct political power. One does not have
to endorse all aspects of Greco-Roman culture to appreciate its contribu-
tion to Western civilization. Nevertheless, the reader will find even within
Preface
the pages of this work several examples of powerful women, such as
Artemisia, Aspasia, Olympias, and, of course, Cleopatra.
I have tried to balance political and military leaders with artists and in-
tellectuals. One of the long-term consequences of classical historiography
was the equation of history with politics and war, an equation not suc-
cessfully challenged until the 1960s. But in recent years, the old myth that
history was nothing but battles has been replaced with the equally unfor-
tunate tendency to disregard battles entirely, whether based on a distaste
for war or on the false assumption that military success is entirely a func-
tion of economic power. Military leadership is certainly worth studying
because it has played a crucial role in determining which civilizations
have triumphed, just as political leadership is worth studying because it
has established social conditions that have been either conducive or
detrimental to artistic and intellectual achievement.
I would like to express my gratitude to Professors Thomas McGinn of
Vanderbilt University, Amos E. Simpson of the University of Louisiana,
Lafayette, and David Tandy of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, all of
whom sacrificed precious time from their busy schedules to read an earlier
version of this work and to offer valuable advice on its improvement. Ad-
ditionally, I would like to thank Vaughan Baker, my department head, for
her highly constructive suggestions concerning the format of this work.
Furthermore, I would like to thank my editor, Mary Carpenter, for her con-
tinual encouragement and sage advice. But, above all, I would like to thank
my precious wife, Debbie, my best friend, for her unceasing prayers and
support. When Aristotle was asked, "What is a friend?" he replied, "One
soul dwelling in two bodies."
Introduction
The British poet Percy Shelley once wrote, "We are all Greeks." All of
the languages of the modern West, including English, contain numer-
ous Greek words. The Greeks deduced the core of modern scientific and
mathematical knowledge and developed the very method that has al-
lowed modern scientists to surpass them. They established the Western
forms of drama, poetry, prose, art, and architecture. By articulating all of
the principal metaphysical and ethical problems and proposing a daz-
zling variety of solutions, their philosophers set the terms for all subse-
quent philosophical discourse. They invented research-based historical
writing. They formulated the theories of popular sovereignty, natural law,
and mixed government that undergird modern democratic government.
The Greeks, writes the historian H. D. F. Kitto, taught the world what the
human mind was made for. It is the combination of the Greek emphasis
on reason and the Judaic emphasis on ethical monotheism that has given
the Western mind its distinctive shape.
Like the Hebrews, the Greeks distinguished themselves from other peo-
ples. While the Hebrews divided the people of the world into Jews and
Gentiles, the Greeks separated them into Greeks and "barbarians." The
Greek word "barbaros" was not necessarily a pejorative term. On the con-
trary, the Greeks admired many aspects of the Egyptian and Persian civi-
lizations and recognized their own intellectual debt to the Near East. In
differentiating themselves from others, the Greeks simply noted an im-
portant fact: no one else thought as they did.
Yet, if one could ask an ancient Greek what distinguished him from the
barbarian, he would not place the astonishing triumphs of the Greek
1
Introduction
mind first. Rather, he would say, "The barbarians are slaves; we Hellenes
are free men/' By this, he would mean that, whatever his system of gov-
ernment (and the Greeks adopted many different systems), he was free
from arbitrary rule. The concept of popular sovereignty, the idea that the
people must consent to the form of government, whether monarchy, aris-
tocracy, or democracy, was a powerful force in ancient Greece. Even mon-
archs based their rule not on divine right (as in the Near East), but on the
argument that the people consented to that form of government. State af-
fairs were considered public affairs, not the private concern of a despot.
Above all, law governed the Greeks. The poet Pindar wrote: "Law is the
king of all, both of the mortals and of the immortals." Even the gods were
considered subject to law. Citizens were treated as members of a common
society, not as helpless subjects. Arbitrary government offended the
Greeks, and most barbarian societies possessed arbitrary government.
Barbarian kings did not rule according to law, but according to their own
wills. The Greeks did not prostrate themselves before their kings, consid-
ering this practice an affront to human dignity.
Although the Romans were generally not as innovative as the Greeks,
it is arguable that their contribution to Western civilization was as great,
if not greater. In addition to the Romans7 distinct contributions to admin-
istration, engineering, and law, they also brought Greek theories down to
earth, modified them, and transmitted them throughout the Western
world. Without Roman conquest, Greek ideas would probably not have
gained a hearing in most of the West. Furthermore, without the Roman
sense of social responsibility to temper the individualism of Hellenistic
Greece, classical culture may not have survived. (The record of the Hel-
lenistic kingdoms was not a hopeful one.) Like many marriages, the mar-
riage between Greek and Roman culture was, in some ways, a union of
opposites. Their offspring. Western civilization, possessed a balance that
aided its survival. Whichever parent the child favors more remains, as al-
ways with such questions, a matter of eternal dispute.
But today, at the very point in history when Western civilization has
reached the apex of its influence in the world, it has become fashionable
within the academic community to blame it for all that is wrong with the
modern age. In a sense, this is nothing new: the criticism of one's own cul-
ture is a hallmark of the Western tradition, going back at least as far as
Socrates. Ironically, this means that no one is more Western than the West-
ern academics who criticize Western civilization. Furthermore, there are
legitimate reasons to criticize the Western world. Westerners have some-
times been racist and imperialist. But so have non-Westerners, a fact over-
looked by some academics, who romanticize non-Western cultures. The
same academics tend to minimize or ignore the important artistic, philo-
sophical, scientific, and political contributions Western civilization has
made to the world.