It is always a mistake to think of the Greeks as superior human beings uniquely endowed with enlightened wisdom and rational benevolence. We would find much in ancient Greece alien and distasteful to us. Women could play no real part in affairs outside the home, slavery was endemic, punishments were harsh, and life could be brutal. Dionysus and Ares were their gods quite as much as Apollo and Athena. Pan, Priapus, and Poseidon too. What makes the Greeks so appealing to us is that they seemed to be so subtly, insightfully, and animatedly aware of these different sides to their natures. “Know
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