Last week I finished reading Plato’s Republic. The week before, Rhetorics by Aristotle. Not so long ago, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. A complete ancient greek reading spree, which I most certainly most regret (they have me backordered on Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic 😢).

Honestly, what were these guys on when they wrote all this.

If I had to choose a phrase to represent my average impression, without doubt I would choose “wow… what? wow…”

Every single one of those books blasted me with as much knowledge as it did with reflection. I don’t discard I was weirdly smiling throughout most of the chapters.

Let’s see if I can make you share, even if it’s only a little bit, of the my suprise. A group of men (women as well, don’t cancel me) decided more than 2000 years ago something had to be done about knowledge. There simpl was not enough in accepting, they started questioning. Why this? Why that? Next thing we know, they have built the base for humanities current understanding of the world.

Concepts developed in their essays make up for many disciplines of study nowadays. It is indeed impossible to think of Law & Poltics without considering the works of Plato and Aristotle, Pythagoras and Aristotle are staple in elementary math and even democracy, the keystone to the organization of most civilized societies, had its origins in ancient Greece.

Let’s go over a few of them.

On politics and thought

Take Plato’s Republic, for example. In ten different books, Socrates and some friends debate on the perfect city (the Kallopolis). Ask any politics student about book number 8, and I can guarantee that, if they are decent students, they will know about it. Contemporary political theory without the contributions of greek authors is incomplete.

On The Republic, I was particularly impressed by plato’s cave and the construction of the Kallopolis within oneself.

Plato’s cave is a popular alegory (a quick google search will teach you more than I ever can), but it gets you thinking of our definition of reality. The limitation of what’s real to what we can percieve as so is great topic for reflection for anyone with a bit of extra time in their hands.

Plato also mentions that the best location for the perfect city is on someone’s soul. Phylosophical crazyness or not, it triggered some crazy shit in my head. Recently I read the Dalai Lama’s autobiography, which probably made my “meditation” switch go on (when I learn something new, I usually link it to anything for a time after), but I certainly recommend reflecting on the building of a perfect entity within oneself following the Plato style: deconstruct anything to first principles and build from there. Better explained, think about what is the next basic step to become who you want to be (very basic). From their, start building the perfect city inside you (now that sounds weired)

On science

On science, greeks did not lag behind either. If you’re lucky enough to get your hands on a copy of Isaac Asimovs’ The Universe (or any other book that explains the cosmos) you’ll notice that the greeks are the clear winners if the historical space race. It was them that first theorized about the shape of the earth of the universe. It was also them who first attempted to measure distances of the cosmos (with relative success). It was also them that discovered the same planets (from planetes, wanderer).

On measuring distances, the truth is their calculations were quite off (usually underestimated the size of things, but who can blame them). However, some estimations were scaringly close. Hipparchus of Nicaea (first person to draw parallels and meridians, btw) calculated that distance to the moon was 30 times the Earth’s diameter, or around 384 000 kilometers. The true average distance? A little bit over 400 km more. Less than a 1% error. No further questions.

It is a bit comical that greek geographers defended a spherical shaped earth from as early as the sixth century a.D. It appears that nowadays some people lag more than 2500 years in knowledge and somehow we are not concerned.

And I could go on and on and on… Pythagoras and his famous theorem, Aristotles crying eureka when understanding buoyancy or Euclid laying the foundation for geometry.

On gymnastics

Greeks were not stay at home nerds. No, no, not these greeks. Few societies have placed as much importance in the health of the body. Most great thinkers build the “perfect man” on a combination of both physical and mental excellence. It took a while for Rousseau to restart the trende to combina physical and cognitive training for eduation. Once again, one step ahead of time.

We are talking about the people that came up with the Olympics, which were most certainly not taken lightly. The olympic time was a period in which ongoing wars were consciously stopped to allow athletes to compete. Confronted nations put their differences apart un order to participate in sports. To that level was physical excellence important.

It is clear now physical activity is essential for ones wellbeing, but for a long time it was not that clear. Greeks, however, never doubted its importance.

Conclusion

More than 2000 years ago, a group of men decided to dedicate their lives to advance humanity in the road of understanding, and most of us live ignorant to their sacrifice. Never has their been such an involvement in the development of knowledge, and what’s more, never has a step as big been taken towards understanding than in Ancient Greece.

This post is a call for reflection. I have summarised very few of their achievements, yet I has to cut most of what I had written short, even with leaving art out of the question. Many would recommend you to further research on their achievements, but I would only recommend doing so if you don’t mind jumping straight into a rabbit hole.

I’ve always been told to look at what the intelligent people around me are doing. They were reading, ’the greeks’ and I followed (reluctantly at first, I must admit). However, on top of the content, what most impacted me were the greeks themselves. What were they thinking when they decided to take such a complicate quest to understand? What made them believe it was worth it? Why work on leaving something behind? All questions to which I’m slowly trying to find answers.

Knowledge is not only powerful, but also beautiful. Knowledge tells a story. A very interesting story. And for some reason, it is worth it to have your name written in it.

If it’s nor right, don’t do it; if its’ not true, don’t say it ~ Marcus Aurelius