Traditional notions of honor were abandoned, and, instead, “it was settled that present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honorable and useful.” Lawlessness took hold. “Fear of gods or law of man there was not to restrain them,” Thucydides wrote. Why worship gods, many asked, when “they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing”? And why obey laws when “no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his offenses”?
