Prewriting

Everything the soul endeavours or endures under the guidance of wisdom ends in happiness.

-- Socrates, Meno

The early Ancient Greeks built their lives around their mythology, and while the gods were very real throughout antiquity, their cosmology gradually lost its central position in Greek life. Around 600 BCE, a thinker arose who worked to describe the world without reference to mythology. He built upon the Geometric Age’s knowledge more rigorous theories of geometry and cosmology, and for this reason Thales of Miletus is said to be the father of Western philosophy. Many attribute his use of hypotheses and general principles as the beginning of the scientific revolution. The rise of Greek civilization is inextricably tied to this rise in rationalism as well as to the rediscovery of writing. But what became of hubris? As the tendency to seek explanation through principles rather than myth grew, rationalism brought the empire to its Classical period, a time full of invention in the qualities that characterize the height of ancient Greece: politics, art, architecture, literature, and philosophy. The caution against hubris provided by mythology gradually lost its privileged societal force, and the drive towards areté, the courage to face adversity, rose in its place as the central philosophy of virtue.

The natural complement to hubris, areté promotes those qualities that overcome it, and like hubris, areté is famously difficult to translate. Socrates, as he believed it was ordained by the Oracle, asked people what it meant and searched for its truth, but his questions brought him to a troubling end. The trial and execution of Socrates reveals something significant about the society being built: virtue does not come first. Our failure to heed Socrates is a sanguine testament to the hubris endemic to Western society. Though the Roman Empire drew great strength from Greece, it too pushed areté to the side, and the resultant triumph brought an even more fantastic demise.

Take care, give back, and strive no longer to make yourself like the gods in mind.

— Homer, The Iliad

The Iliad and the Odyssey are thought to be the two oldest Greek myths, each a collection of oral traditions brought together as a complete tale by Homer at the end of the Greek Dark Ages. The original source of each tale is unknown, but some have theorized that their composition was a result of the Orientalizing period, a time of increased trade with the Near East, both in goods and ideas.

Like other Homeric works and Greek mythologies, the Iliad and the Odyssey take hubris as the driving force behind their tales. Essentially “excessive pride,” hubris causes people to make poor choices, and as result of their atë they lose what is most meaningful to them. The origin of the concept must be before written Greek history, for it appeared as central in its first work, and at this point the origin seems unknowable. It must have existed during the Greek Dark Ages and may have originated in the Minoan or Mycenaean Empire or with the Akkadians in the Near East.

It’s tempting to imagine that the concept was carefully crafted in order to describe and discourage the destructive behavior that destroyed the extant empires of the Bronze Age. This is certainly consistent with the term’s use in Roman criminality. It’s also possible that the early Greeks encountered the Akkadian tale the Epic of Gilgamesh and stories like it in their dealings with the Semitic East and applied its form to their own mythologies. While the source of hubris is unknowable, its prevalence in Homeric works and the concurrent rise of Greek civilization speaks to its central role in the formation of Greek, Roman, and Western civilization.

And Caesar’s spirit, raging for revenge,  With Atë’ by his side come hot from Hell,  Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice  Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.

-- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

The rise and fall of the Roman Empire has long fascinated historians and artists, and for good reason. An empire rich in culture and invention, philosophy and science, appeared, became incredibly powerful, and crumbled from within, slowly, over hundreds of years until it finally succumbed to its enemies. Something very significant happened, but it was so subtle, so ubiquitous, that it evaded our notice at the time and our understanding ever since. Western civilization, orphaned child of Rome, stands in a dubious position as long as the gradual decline of its predecessor remains a mystery. This is especially significant now as the apex of this Enlightenment may well be passing us by as all we have worked for falls to forces beyond our understanding.

The historiography of antiquity, product of the understandings of its time after all, doesn’t contain the information we need to find out what happened. Diplomatic, economic, and political history all grant an insightful view into Ancient Greece and Rome, but without a social history, our view into the nature of our past is obscured beyond understanding. Thus, to explore the relationship of the Roman empire with modern Western civilization, we must make leaps beyond provable fact. To probe the omnipresence of the past, we will explore in the following pieces an alternative historiographic interpretation.

Greek Mythology and the Origins of Hubris

Rationalism and Areté

The Hubris of Rome

Christianity and the Dark Ages

The Enlightenment

Ancient Rome and the Modern Imperialist Monoculture

The Hubris of Nationalism

The Achilles’ Heel of Democracy

But lo! Each walks in the steps of a man who preaches love, tolerance, and understanding. Each venerates an agent of good, of non-killing. How can you fight? How can you kill?