Thmas Cahills bk Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greaks matter is truly a rllicking jurney thrugh time and culture. Cahill fllws the taprt f Western Civilizatin frm tday thrugh the Enlightenment t ancient Greece. The tree is cmprised f branches n hw t make war, what is valuable in literature, the arts, philsphy and religin. It was the Greeks, thrugh Enlightenment thinkers, wh prvided the seeds f American demcratic ideals. Cahills irreverent prse, hpefully shcking t sme, reads like a sphmric rebellin against his Jesuit mentrs. Sex plays a majr rle in nearly every aspect f Greek sciety and Cahill delves int it with gust.
Even here, the Greeks seem t have shwn mre restraint than Cahill. Cahill is always a challenging and invigrating read. He hlds yur attentin thrugh dazzling prse and icnclastic cncepts. By dividing the bk cnceptually instead f simply chrnlgically, yu are given time t pause and reflect n his ideas. Fr a man relating histry, Cahill prjects unrelaistic mdern values t ancient times. He deems the Greeks “classicist, racist and sexist”. Yet these mdern terms wuld puzzle any Greek f the perid.
He extls their intellectual accmplishments withut inquiring hw the leisure time t pursue these hbbies was achieved. Slavery was the labur-saving device f the day. N ne then challenged its existence, why des Cahill d s nw? Slavery and divisin f resurces bred a scial hierarchy allwing the arts t flurish and demcracy t evlve. nly anarchy and pure cmmunism can d therwise – neither lead t arts r stable rule. T call the Greeks “sexist” while admiring their presentatin f the human frm, whether male r female, seems a bit thin. Given his presentatin f gddesses, muses, and Sapph herself, his stance is almst false.
The Essay on Greek and Roman Art
Art has changed a great deal since it began many centuries ago. Centuries, however, are not necessary to notice the small changes that are evident even between cultures of similar times. Such is the case with the Greeks and Romans. Both cultures had exquisite pieces of art, but they were very different from each other. The amazing thing about art is that no matter how many differences exist, ...
Cahills title is interesting in view f hw little attentin he gives the Greek empire. Their frays arund the Mediterranean are but sketchily nted. Greek settlement n Sicily is mentined, but little else. There is allusin f cultural imprts frm Egypt, but these might have been btained frm Egyptians r Levant peples bringing them in as much as the Greeks seeking innvatin frm utside. The fcus here is Athens, almst t the pint f exclusin f the remainder f Greece. Spartas militarism is tuched n in cntrast t the mre demcratic and urbane Athens. Hw Greek was Macednia?, Cahill enquires, then dismisses the questin. Yet, it was Macednias Alexander, as Cahill himself ntes, wh extended the “Greek Ideal” further afield than the Athenians culd envisin.
If the reader can recgnise that this bk can nly represent a small step tward understanding ancient scieties, particularly that f the Greeks, then this bk may be cnsidered a gd start. Althugh sprinkled with ntes, cyly marked with Greek letters instead f numbers r asterisks, this is hardly a schlarly effrt. The use and definitin f Greek wrds that migrated int ther Eurpean languages is useful, but tedius t transcribe. Its nt clear why the Greek alphabet is included, but the Prnuncing Glssary is truly nly a recapitulatin f the “cast f characters” fr which the Index culd suffice. The Ntes and Surces are a gd reading list, fcussing n recent wrks where pssible. There is n discussin f cntending ideas amng schlars studying the perid here r in the text.
A cllectin f phts enhances and expands n sme f the text, and the ne map is useful if yu dnt have an atlas. The authr des nt put a particular stress n Greek culture fr the peple f this culture did many useful things fr the future develpment f ur civilizatin. The Greeks invented everything frm Western warfare t mystical prayer, frm lgic t statecraft. Many f their achievements, particularly in art and philsphy, are widely celebrated; ther imprtant innvatins and accmplishments, hwever, are unknwn r underappreciated. In Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Thmas Cahill explres the legacy, gd and bad, f the ancient Greeks. Frm the rigins f Greek culture in the migratins f armed Ind-Eurpean tribes int Attica and the Pelpnnesian peninsula, t the frmatin f the city-states, t the birth f Western literature, petry, drama, philsphy, art, and architecture, Cahill makes the distant past relevant t the present.
The Essay on Impact of Greek Mythology on Western Culture
Greek mythology ‘s impact on modern societies cannot be understated. Modern language, industry, arts and culture all demonstrate the impact of Greek mythology in today ‘s world. For example, most people who have no formal knowledge of Greek mythology still know that Hercules was a strongman and that Venus (the Roman version of the Greek Aphrodite) is the goddess of love. The Impact of ...
Greek sciety is ne f the tw primeval influences n the Western wrld: While Jews gave us ur value system, the Greeks set the fundatin and framewrk fr ur intellectual lives. They are respnsible fr ur vcabulary, ur lgic, and ur entire system f categrizatin. They prvided the intellectual tls we bring t bear n prblems in philsphy, mathematics, medicine, physics, and the ther sciences. Their mdes f thinking, cnsidered in classical times t be the pinnacle f human achievement, are largely respnsible fr the shape that the Christian religin tk. But, as Cahill pints ut, the Greeks left a less appealing bequest as well. They created Western militarism and, in making the warrir the ultimate ideal, perpetrated the assumptin that nly males culd be entrusted with the duties f citizenship. The cnsequences f their exclusin f wmen frm the plitical sphere and the scial segregatin f the sexes cntinue t reverberate tday.
Full f surprising, ften cntrversial, insights, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea is a remarkable intellectual adventurecnducted by the mst cmpaninable guide imaginable. Cahills knwledge f his surces is s intimate that he has made his wn fresh translatins f the Greek lyric pets fr this vlume..