Status Updates From The Life of Greece (The Sto...

"The realization of self-government was something new in the world; life without kings had not yet been dared by any great society. Out of this proud sense of independence, individual and collective, came a powerful stimulus to every enterprise of the Greeks; it was their liberty that inspired them to incredible accomplishments in arts and letters, in science and philosophy" (233).

Religion and patriotism were bound together in a thousand impressive rites; the god most revered in public ceremony represented the apotheosis of the city; every law, every meeting of the assembly, every major enterprise of government, was surrounded by religious ceremony. In these ways Greek religion was used as a defense by the community and the race against the natural egoism of the individual man.

"Religion failed to unify Greece but athletics - periodically - succeeded. Men went to Olympia, Delhi, Corinth, and Nemea not so much to honor the gods - for these could be honored anywhere - as to witness the heroic contests of chosen athletes...Here under the rubric of athletics we find the real religion of the Greeks - the worship of health, beauty, and strength" (211).

"All the world knows that this political atomism brought to Hellas many a tragedy of fraternal strife. Because Ionia was unable to unite for defense it fell subject to Persia; because Greece, despite confederacies and leagues, was unable to stand together, the freedom which it idolized was in the end destroyed. And yet Greece would have been impossible without the city-state" (204).