H. The illogical, metaphysical, violence and beliefs in miracles

Sometimes the stumbling blocs people of Ancient Greece had to face, they seem to reappear in our age. Once life gets out of hands, no laws apply, or only those contrary to the nature of man. Odd things come then to power as if a force is unleashed unsimilar to storms and thunders, but much more unruly and destructive than what nature can ever be. War means just that, especially if fuelled by a bitterness of not having truly lived, never mind been able in normal, indeed 'logical times' to fulfil the measures set already before one's own times by other men. Naturally that strife has a beginning at much simpler levels. But the uneasiness that underlines its existence comes about, because in the history of man there seems to be no certainty as to its ending: a contradiction to the Homeric songs. Thus it comes as no surprise that following saying can be heard in Athens at the end of the twentieth century:

'People tend to recognize only what is a failure when they sense that things are going

wrong, but they feel that they cannot do anything against it. It all happens too fast for

them. Moreover, they see how others are driven as if made mad, and hence they try to

stay free from that, not realizing that this will not help either because once these forces

overtake the whole life, then there is no escape for anyone, for no individual. Either all

or no one will stand then a chance. As if trying to reason with that, they know

immediately that it is useless, for not all things are logical, and not all the time do things

develop in a way as we would want them to be. Instead they admit even about

themselves that especially jealousy or resentment mixes easily with vengeance, or even

the need to slash out, if need to be to kill, in order to defend yourself. For no one else

cares anything about what rights you have. You have to look out for yourself, and see to

it what you can get. There is no society out there, but only a jungle in which everyone

takes what he or she can get without consideration of the others. Finally, there are on

top of society so many well situated people, yet so corrupt that it is only disgusting

to think about what our life has turned out to be. Always excuses, excuses, but nothing

gets done, and the only thing everyone knows is how to hold out the hand to receive

another payment. There seems really no life in decency with a real human touch

possible anymore, or maybe it was just a dream, but never a really liveable one or a

never lived reality.'

This is a typical philosophical, or rather 'average' saying by the countless people who make up as many measures by which to live by, as they discard them if they don't work, that is fail to help them succeed in life. Hence such a saying appears to be said with a conviction of realism. However, in trying to face facts, the 'saying' conveys, but without being conscious of it, also a very deeply rooted resentment. For while protesting against how things are developing, it demonstrates perhaps unwillingly that one has no longer or never learned to apply 'the measures for things to come'. Such measures are needed when trying to make realistic appraisals of what it takes to live freely under a just system of laws. They underline the efforts it takes when trying to adopt a rational attitude towards life, itself a measure to what extend one considers oneself to be a rational human being capable of thoughts and wishes, but also of organizing the mind in such a way as to accomplish things one has set out to do. Instead the 'saying' is usually concluded with the bitter observation: 'but those willing to be without scruples, they succeed more readily than others, especially if in addition to their willingness to be mean, they have some extra cunningness and courage which gives them a relative advantage over all the others!' Implied is that all disadvantages are the result of having stayed decent, honest, not pretending to be someone else, while the others seem to get away with everything, and still manage to do even better than oneself while not the least bothered by pretending to be someone else than what they really are. Dostoevsky has shown that human drama begins with such reasoning based on a wrong comparison between what it takes apparently to succeed in life. Such observations confuse questions of character pertaining to 'politics' with the uncertainty about which human values are to be upheld.

Generally speaking, people are all too ready to admit that hardships suffered in the name of upholding one's own identity do not matter so much as what would be the case if remaining without any claim to such a successful identity. Karl Jaspers would say, that leads to a willingness to mask one's own identity with those things society has recognized already as signs of being successful. It reflects, therefore, the power of recognition, the pageant God of modern society. Worse, the imagination gallops across the fields of dreams in the case that things do not turn out to be as hoped for. Anxiety spreads like a wild fire in such a case, that is before nightmares become reality. It all adds up to what can be claimed thereafter, that is once the terrible time has been put behind and an account needs to be drawn up as to what has been gained in the meantime despite such hardships and sufferings. It seems each nation, country or city has its own balance sheet of pain filled with humiliation countered by deliberate, equally literally delivered stories of success. Unfortunately in the end, it is lied about by means of especially legends how that success was achieved, or how one got to be where one is at the moment. The masks of success are hardened even further, when not caring about the means, but only about the outcome.

The moment interest in processes ceases to exist, then it terminates any possible learning process by which valuable lessons could be derived from history, and prevents effectively the demasking of the lies, including legends about a glorious past. Odysseus is not only a hero, he sacrifices his friends to get past dangers. Homer said it already simpler: what is the use to gain so much wealth by means of conquest and travel for more than twenty years, when in the end there is no one else around to enjoy the spoils of war? Ancient dreams and modern legends can be equally misleading if not interpreted correctly. Spyros Mercouris would add perhaps to this the thought: 'but this is exactly something the Ancient Greek Dramas tried to resolve in their own way of thinking, and having only a specific terminology at their disposal, they acknowledge nevertheless that in such cases only tragedy triumphs'. Indeed, that is both their strength and weakness, as it reflects perhaps human nature in the fullest sense by touching upon this tragic dimension.

In Ancient Greece, claims relate not only to honour to be bestowed by the Polis upon the claimant as the opposite of being the accused, but also to factual ones of power enhancing the wealth and strength of the Polis. The latter ones are based on real things: more ships of the enemy routed, treasurers taken from their cities, territories subjugated to own rules, establishment of safe passages through the seas to secure food supplies of grain, and other women, children and men as slaves if not killed, subjugated or driven away. Pericles, when wishing to build the Acropolis, claimed for Athens the treasure of the Confederacy kept till then on the island of Delos, "for had not Athenian ships swept the seas clear of pirates and were not the Athenians the acknowledged leaders of the alliance?" (Robert Payne, Ancient Greece, p. 251). Already that illegal seizure, although de factotum a sign of Athens' power at that time could be the seed of fear all others developed with regards to Athens, and an early sign as to what was to lead eventually to that tragic self-destruction called the Peloponnesian war.

It never incurred to many then, as it may be overlooked even still today, that all these claims to things and fame are worthless, if it means hiding in the light of glory really brutalities and other darker sides of man. This is the other reality in need to be confronted when speaking about facts of life in Ancient Greece. Even though that reality was counterbalanced by the one not led by hatred nor by conquest, but by efforts to seek and to listen to the true voices of the community of man, this darker side has its own tragical dimensions.

By all signs of great achievements, if Ancient Greece had failed in one thing, then by not declaring war, that is strife amongst men, to be its prime enemy. They were as unprepared as all other civilizations before and thereafter once war came upon them like an eagle swooping down from the sky to grip a child or Gaia, the earth opening up suddenly to swallow men and horses, the whole lot of them. By all maturity and wisdom of thought, they overlooked that war was 'the' threat to the very foundations of their way of life. Prompted perhaps by the rivalry with Sparta, or else themselves easily victims of letting fate rather than 'human reason' decide, there was a build-in tendency not to assume self-responsibility, but to postpone major decisions until the outcome on the battlefields had been settled. There seemed no other way to know in an equally convincing manner the course of history. Furthermore, there was no other so effective method available when it came to establish one's name in the Polis, than by winning a decisive battle. War was seen then as a means to assert power, and to gain fame by demonstrating courage. Since Ancient Greece the means to gain success through war have been perverted even more.

Of course, the reverse was possible as well, for always one's reputation was at stake; one slip or mistake, and everything turned out differently than planned. Most of the great men of Ancient Greece spend almost as much time in exile as at the zenith of their powers. They did not profess to know why this was so, for they had accepted the laws of the community, its mechanism of punishment. They did not question, but upheld it themselves. Socrates is here no exception. All gave their recognition to the vindictive spirit of the Polis by which it was sought to uphold the law, or rather interpretation thereof. Repeatedly it is mentioned by Robert Payne, that there was regret thereafter, that is after the man had been executed, forced to kill himself or else send into exile. This remorse had, however, no lasting impact upon how men sought counsel prior to making decisions in the assembly. Unfortunately those being accused as going against the interest of the Polis became victims of intrigues, or of certain groups of the Polis paid to give only one kind of judgement. The corruptive influence of money and power upon the opinions of men was even greater, if there existed a natural resentment already in the Polis against the accused prior to his standing trial. Again Socrates is a perfect example. He had already much resentment against him prior to standing trial due to his ability to poke holes into the knowledge of others, but also because of a certain incidence caused by youths connected with his philosophical circle and leading to the general belief about him of having no respect for the deity of the city. He could not escape such vindictiveness, even if he wanted to. Aristophanes had given him such a negative caricature, that he could not leave a different, less threatening mark upon the others' minds.

Stigmatization of others was neither then nor is it now an unusual method for side-lining, or even worse for eliminating certain people, if need to be. Usually such victimizations intensified in Ancient Greece when the Polis was suffering looses at the battle fields. Perhaps it was an outcry of helplessness, or an answer to the need to demonstrate that at least within the Polis things were still under control, but it took on an 'irrational turn' with a tragic outcome. Again the stranger was a prime target, but not only, for things could turn against the very own people, including friends and family relatives.

Other, worse things were to come, and further fateful events followed suit once left unchallenged. It was as if man was about to establish on the darker side a mechanistic system of punishment, or allowed for the hidden rule of fateful events. Once life becomes distorted because of the nature of these kinds of sequences, another pattern establishes itself. Homer would say, only when Achilles fell to the ground mortally wounded, did he smell for the first time the grass, but too late he realized that he had spend his entire life at war, but never taking the time to enjoy the small things. In time, this negative urgency to do the wrong things took over power with an ever stronger grip on the Polis.

In the illogical world, 'hubris' becomes a myth by which it can be said that men were glad to die, that is if they knew they had defended their city. But did they ever really know whether they had defended the city, or could they have done so by other means without having so many men, women and children killed and without risking being called a traitor? Not very often was asked the question, but how to reverse the usual trend towards war, or how can it be ruled out that one man kills another all in the name of bravery? Only weeping women seemed to care that their beloved did not return.

Yet driven not by desire for love, but by despair, many or all seem to have no other choice, but to accept the fate flung upon them. Worse than death was really feared to be branded by the community of man as being a traitor - no life seemed conceivable thereafter. It left little choice. The coercive principles had the workings of a logic of their own. They were and are very powerful ones indeed.

Historians, writers and even poets describe man as someone wishing not to be seen as the one whose courage had left him at the most decisive hour, that is when it counted most to stand your man and defend all others inside of the city. There has always been this plight that man faces predicaments, even 'necessities' as they were called later by nineteenth century logical imperatives until men could no more, but face up to the facts to what absurdity this had led to, namely First and Second World War. But how to resolve that problem of the illogical, those coercive principles making man go against his better judgements and his behaviour into something 'irrational', that is no longer comprehensible by the measures of others.

In history, the need to find even for this darker side of life some human measures has become to be known as the task to find the 'square of the circle'. Interestingly enough, the polis of Athens was exactly that; dumbfounded by its own power and glory, but also weakened by what became to be known as the Peloppenesian war, it became an object of jealousy, and of fear that this city would have too much power. Unfortunately Athens failed to secure outside its own borders a positive consensus for its existence. Already in earlier times, there were indications of bitter strives going on, and strong intentions to take the conflict to battlefields a more serious undertaking than the wish to argue things out, that is to let the voices speak up. It was an indication of things to come, that is when deeds, or the footsteps counted again more than human voices filling a place with life.

Once Solon had left the scene after having brought the 'rule of the law' to Athens, then the fishermen, the shepherds, the peasants and the landowners started again to go at each other throats. As groups of interest, they represented the sea side shores, the hills and the plains in confrontation with the city having been created around the Acropolis, and later with an extension to Piraeus, connected to a port. Somehow it appeared as if these four distinct physical entities were not connecting at all, and that there were deeper problems to be resolved before being sure that the 'community of man' could function as well as the universe.

The illogical:

To the Greek mind, the illogical was far removed from the 'Logos': the lawfulness of the universe which man could understand through intelligible terms. Maybe that it is why in being so rational themselves, they had difficulties in coping with the irrational, including those claims of miracles even though many believed madly in them as if children struck in awe by what they knew already, and yet could not believed it when it actually took place in front of their eyes as predicted.

That definition of the illogical covers not as of yet the irrational side of man, or what became later known in Western Civilization to be the 'l'ennui' (George Steiner), the so-called bad or wickedness. Yet there is a special problem here; like in the Middle Ages, the people of the Polis resorted to stoning especially women and children to death in order to punish their husband and father, if labelled a traitor when in fact he was doing the only thing possible to salvage the entire population from certain death. This was the case with Themistocles: his wife and children were stoned to death by other women once they had heard he had given the order to abandon the city and leave it undefended to the Persians.

It seems as if repentive reasoning had not entered the Greek mind, or if so, then too late to be of any value for they did not learn out of history, and indeed all the Greek plays written during that remarkable upbeat of mankind underline but one thought: what if tragedy triumphs? It was a question that Shakespeare was to reformulate in Hamlet, and whatever was left to say about the difference between Barbarism and being cultivated, that is civilized when claims as to the latter turned out not to be true. A huge shock went through the world once it was realized what the Germans with all their idealistic zeals and admiration for Ancient Greece showed themselves to be capable of doing once unchecked in their total powers over others. Then tragedy resumes its flight with black wings, forever misleading signs for victories are turned into fates, and life no longer filled with sounds of laughter:

punitive slaves of their souls left to rot on window sills,

for no light could breath into them again some life, some hope.....

Punitive stones are thrown like sentences

filled with hatred

crossing the mind as if beams meant to shatter

light, and come

in-between promises and upkeep of words,

for belong, belong

to that crowd of mystery, robbing for namesake

mankind of any decency:

strip bare the soul and humiliate what appears

to be so proud,

since tyranny needs what it takes to make all weak -

by shoving stones,

axes grinding away - men rot here, they carry stones,

slaving away, night and day.

In Ancient Greece, the tragic slaying of people took on horrendous dimensions, but it was not an organized crime that the twentieth century brought to war through the perfection of technology. It meant that during those times the legality of illegality, was not institutionalized as of yet, or if attempted, immediately challenged. Solon did so the moment Peisistratus wanted to have body-guards, and although the later succeeded in establishing himself as tyrant in Athens, he too had to go into exile once that challenge was stronger than that of an already aged man. The hiring of special bodyguards to seize power is unfortunately a repeated night-mare which George Orwell depicts so well in 'Animal Farm', 'where the pigs fed the dogs with special milk until they become their body-guards to suppress all other animals, erasing thereby the slogan of all animals are equal and should not stand on two feet in imitation of man, but remain on their four'.

What these examples imply, is that they may be a realistic projection into the future, since dictatorships re-occur if there is a lack of political courage. It makes any challenge of those wishing to creep into power, then seize it once strong enough, by nature into a haphazard risk for any community based on 'freedom', in particular if without righteous men and women willing to stand up for their beliefs in man. It is no easy task to bring about just rule, and not less difficult to protect that freedom. All the more the height of Ancient Greece in terms of human civilization can be explained through the fact, that it was full of such gifted and rare human beings interested in the human being, and even today their wisdom's leave traces of resistance against the ordinary. They lived and practised the wish not to succumb to mere interests of power, in order to mask the real self, that is to use the glamours of power to hide the loss of innocence. For to the Ancient Greeks all false forms of justifications and rationalizations were most hideous. If they could not stand something, then ugliness as a way of destroying beauty and of distorting the intelligible language of the Polis as conveyed by free man. This is how they managed to withstand the Persians, and why it is said of Pericles, that he was a tyrant, but one for the sake of democracy.

Since early times, a confusion of terms about honesty has led to a kind of not knowing which is worse: the enemy from outside, or from within. Only those dedicated to freedom with a true heart manage to find solutions. The end of an illogical tunnel means really something that Jula Gavala would stress:

'love for all people', with no one being excluded, while all creative,

spirited people are addressed, as they should for they can contribute

a great deal to the community, its reflective capacities independent

of what any power wishes people to do and to say. This is how our

freedom, and identity as free people continues to live on.

This love has a chance if not replaced by resentment of others gaining more than what one believes to have obtained in and through this life in the community with other men and women, our friends and the strangers along with the children and elderly people included. The richness of the universe is reflected in the richness of belonging to all people, as in the metaphysical bent of the Greek mind towards believing in man.

The metaphysical

Perhaps the best way to characterize prevailing metaphysical attitudes in Ancient Greece is that they express a 'rational belief in man'. They made these attitudes especially through their theatrical plays become a natural part of man's ability to undo his own fate in the face of death. His passing away was made to appear as if he would become a god, and it could only be described in a mysterious way. It is here that poetry goes beyond itself, and becomes a vision. Again Robert Payne would point out this was the case with Sophocles' play about Antigone, in particular when in the last scene with Oedipus in Colonus the passing away of Oedipus is described(p. 283):

No one knows by what death Oedipus perished -

Only Theseus knows. Only we know

There was no blaze of fire from Heaven,

No sea-wave rose. He vanished;

And whether there came a messenger from the gods,

Or whether he entered gently the dark world

Of Hades, this too remains unknown.

Not with lamentations die he die,

No grief nor agony attended him in his going.

Most marvellous was his dying.

Sophocles

Important for any understanding of how the Ancient Greeks dealt with the 'irrational' is that they bestowed upon followers of the laws of the Polis the 'dignity of man'. Not victimized nor betrayed, but believed in. He had not to prove himself to become a metaphysical entity, but they declared him 'to be divine'. Capable of both good and evil, yes, but exalted with a wonderful nature which takes him almost beyond belief, and leaves him to be reckoned with as a marvellous creature. The Ancient Greeks had brought down from the sun the wonder for the earth, and bestowed that wonder upon man himself. It was their greatest gift to mankind.

Violence

If anything is a gift, then the knowledge of how to face death and still believe in man. This freed the Greek mind to deal with something worse than that, namely terror or 'horrors almost too great to be borne':

"The terror is not of the earth only; it is metaphysical terror, a sudden

flash of lightning colouring the whole universe. What is at stake is

far more than the life of a king: the greatest and nobility of all men

are being questioned..."

Robert Payne, Ancient Greece, p. 278

They felt this terror striking at precisely the greatness of man, his intelligence and 'heroic nature', as if meant to question his reputation and pride as man. That is why the Ancient Greeks, once they had overcome death in a mysterious way, felt it not to be worthwhile to speak about violence in life. It was this terror that they were most afraid of, and they acknowledged to what things a man could be capable of doing, if wounded in his pride: 'rational belief in man' conveyed upon him by an ever present past.

Here the main danger of violence erupting anytime, was acknowledged as a natural outcome once that terror had struck, and man would bent back to leap, outraged at this injustice. What was not seen, was that this convulsive fear transformed into a mad or even 'holy' anger once man had looked into the eyes of that terror, that this outburst of anger is formed by allying power with the really unreconciable force in life, namely death itself, and if used by power, then this alliance with an uncompromising nature meant usually two things: to die or else be killed, but nothing in-between would be possible. At that moment the 'gate of fate' would close and man would feel trapped: he could not leave the Polis the way he had entered it, not even to go to death with his head upright, that is to Hades with a calmness of mind that his reputation as man had not been tarnished. In the light of such unholy terror, nothing could be done so much as raising the voice of plea or despair, knowing everything was in vain to safe dignity in life. He could just fling himself into that unclear situation like Empedocles casting himself into the Etna, for nothing counted anymore but the supreme gesture, namely to take one's own life as the only freedom left. Indeed, everything else seems to be forgotten in such crucial moments of decisions when the sword comes down and just violence speaks, but with the blinding mask of terror.

Robert Payne warns repeatedly not to be misled by the 'mask of calmness' for behind it, there would lurk violence and nightmares could spring out of that strange silence. He underlines his thoughts by referring to Pindar's ode for Hiero, the dictator of Syracuse and founder of a colony on the slopes of the Etna Vulcan who had erupted 475:

The unbeloved of Zeus

Shudder when they hear

The voices of the Muses: whether on earth

Or in the unresting sea.

God's enemy sprawls in the hell-pit.

Typhon, the hundred-headed, lies

Crushed beneath the sky's pillars,

He who was once nursed in the many-named cave in Cilicia,

Though now the sea-dikes of Kyme are set over him:

All Sicily lies heavy on his shaggy breast.

The snows of Etna yearlong

Suckle the biting frost.

Then will the pure fountains, the unapproachable fires,

Erupt from the secret caves within; and in the light of day

The rivers are tossed from the mountain in floods of smoke

ablaze with light,

And when the night falls the ruddy flame in its toils

Hurls the rocks headlong into the deep sea far below.

This monstrous thing flings high the terrible fountains of fire,

A presage of terrors to come, a wonder to behold,

And wondrous too to men who hear its music.

So he lies bound beneath the dark-leafed heights

Of Etna, lying on a jagged bed of stone

Which tears his outstretched limbs to ribbons.

O Zeus, give us thy grace.....

Of great interest is that Robert Payne interprets this violence as part of Pindar's tendency to remain rooted in the past, hence "it seems never to have occurred to him that the poet must change with the times" (op.cit. p.149). As if a forbearing message for things to come if even poetry fails to keep up with changes, and hence looses its true function, namely to be visionary when anticipating the future.

In the twentieth century, the Irish poet Brendan Kennelly would state in his essay 'Poetry and Violence', that the moment a poet would avoid the question of violence, he would transform poetry into symbolic, that is not realistic language. After that people would get lost, or become strangers to one another.

There is the acute danger for men to become strangers even within the protective walls and cultural borders of the Polis. The example which may be taken from the new version of Euripides' play 'The Trojan Women' written by a twentieth century Irish poet Brendan Kennelly lets in his adapted version Poseidon speak out first about how men, after having gone to war, become strangers, and how cities, once filled by returning warriors who have killed others, are transformed into everyone becoming strangers, even to themselves:

Look at that city - a ruin!

A dream of freedom in smithereens!

Limp and weary soldiers, dazed with victory,

wait for a wind to take them home

to wives and children left so long ago

they must be strangers now.

There's no stranger quite so strange

as the stranger waiting at home,

no stranger like the stranger in the bed.

Home? Home is often where strangers go to behave

as if they knew each other.

After war, strangers go home.

Certainly the worst situation is when man has become through his deeds a stranger to such an extend that he no longer recognizes even himself. He is lost in the Polis if all mirrors, the silent eyes of all witnesses, can give him no longer any account as to where he came from, who he is and where he shall go to. Having no orientation is like lacking to notice the absence of freedom. Something inside has made him into a driftwood, and depending upon winds, currents but also circumstances, he may or may not be cast ashore somewhere of a land he no longer knows, and must fear because of wild animals, a hostile nature and no means of survival. There is no one to speak to - a most terrible fate, and forever shall be known as loneliness.

Thus the darker sides of life begin to overcast the sky. A time begins without that light which could give the heart some courage, and orientation on how to live as a free person. The loss of that freedom was dreaded, and would be equated to such powerful truths such as 'unforgiving Gods would slay man', while the bareness of the land would bear no fruits, but there was an even greater crime, namely to give in to enemy and hence to betray the city. As Themicles experienced himself, the moment the people heard of his command to abandon Athens, they sought he had betrayed Athens and filled with madness, they went to his house in order to stone his wife and children to death. Later on they would repent as they remorsed after Socrates had died, but then it was too late, for the dead would come and fetch the ones still alive to their silent graves as well. That kind of tragedy was too much for all, and slowly, one by one they succumbed to a kind of victimization of life which leaves only one escape route, namely into the irrational and superstition.

As a matter of fact, life meant remaining really poor even after many attempts at conquest and adventures to gain some wealth. At the very heart of Ancient Greek thought is this permanent failure even though those close to power masked themselves with all kinds of richness. There was, however, no guarantee for justice itself as long as the rule depended upon fate. There had to be found first access to reason, the philosophy of governing pending upon sound knowledge, and upon individuals who care to speak up, even though they would face certain punishment: exile or death, if not to the liking of the Polis. Consultation depended here as always on especially the oracles of Delphi known through the priestess.

Beliefs in miracles / the language of omens

If the oracle was the highest form of consultation, then the approach to decisions was made through a language allowing man to read, or rather interpret omens, whether good or bad. Over the years, the Athenians did not hesitate to consult a second time if they were not pleased by the first recommendation. Already Homer tells us how Odysseus upon returning home in Ithaca, prayed to Zeus to give a sign:

"'O Father Zeus, if over land and water,

after adversity, you willed to bring me home,

let someone in the waking house give me good augury,

and a sign be shown, too, in the outer world.'

He prayed thus, and the mind of Zeus in heaven

heard him. He thundered out of bright Olympos

down from above the cloudlands in reply -

a rousing peal of Odysseus. Then a token

came to him from a woman grinding flour

in the court nearby.......

'Ah, Father Zeus

almighty over gods and men!

Great bamg pf thunder that was, surely

out of the starry sky, and not a cloud in sight.

It is your nod to someone......'"

Homer, Odyssey, Book XX, Lines 110-130

All this underlines the existence of a consciousness believing in the fact, that sudden appearances of signs mean something, and that any refutation of human knowledge, that is the lack of taking proper measure, makes 'fate', magical dispositions, circumstances of life etc. explainable. The Ancient Greeks did it in an almost natural way. They based their beliefs not on assumptions, but on the observation that certain things were connected, and would especially re-appear at times when a huge dilemma or a great decision was to be faced by mankind. Alexander the Great experienced similar signs of omens during his conquest: a swallow which would come into his tent, and which he regarded as a messenger from the gods, or else when a river swelled over its bank and threw up a copper plate inscribed with ancient characters as an indication that soon the Greeks would overthrow the Persians. Robert Payne gives a good description of an atmosphere thickened by "the voices of the gods chattering away in a language only understood by soothsayers and necromancers" (p. 424):

"The Athenians of the classical age were as superstitious as peasants.

Necromancers and sorcerers abounded, soothsayers sang in the streets.

witches promised to draw down the moon for a fee, and omens were

regarded with wide-eyed credulity, so that if a drop of rain fell on the

Assembly it was thought to be sign of the displeasure of Zeus, and if a

mouse gnawed through a bag or if a cock crowed late in the evening,

disasters were portended. And when they went to war, the seers always

accompanied them, to make the proper sacrifices before a battle and to

examine the entrails where some message of the gods was mysteriously

written. There is scarcely a page of Xenophon's Anabasis in which he is not

offering sacrifices to learn the will of the gods."

- Robert Payne, Ancient Greece, p. 259

Developments of any kind bring with them enormous changes, and act upon man at times like huge pressures caused by bad weather brewing prior to the release of the forces. Thudycides made the observations whenever war was pending, the horizons were painted red and sturms unleashed, toppled trees as if nature was giving an advanced sign for things to come. So enormous was then the pressure, that the mind too was agonized. From the Sirens calling men to them, if only to let them crash against the reefs, to the chorus bemoaning the fate that had befallen the house of the king, this agony of living too close to fate and hence in immediate danger of perishing searched for some ventilation, some route of escape. Many sought it inside of the Polis with splendid rites in honour of the Gods. They were done more often out of reasons of safety percautions, that is in the wish not to anger the Gods. There many kinds of rites involved when making those sacrifices, and different forms of remorse practised if one had forgotten some important acknowledgement of the deity watching over the Polis. Others tried to flee this world, by going into exile almost voluntarily, maybe because the agony of not being able to measure up to the expectations of gods and men was too much for some. It led to various new voyages in search for other solutions not offered directly by the Polis, and yet everyone realized at that time, the classical age of Ancient Greece, that finally there is no escape from the dilemmas man has to face when attempting to open up the community of man to the world. They did it with far flung hopes, and convictions that man could stay, live here and now, within the scopes of the Polis.

But as the case for Parmenides where nature is only to be experienced when the life in the city is forgotten, apparently unreconciable choices confront the freedom to make decisions, or more appropriately what kind of measures apply truly to man under such circumstances. Man's agony begins here. It is not only the fact that but one thing can be chosen, which intensifies that agony. There is also a need for knowledge to find a way out of that darkness. The Greeks knew in reality that both practical and theoretical knowledge belong together and complement each other. Insofar as they make up like the day and the night the world in which man lives in, they remembered by way of sacrifices the coming of the Gods, and indirectly that of the stranger bringing new knowledge. Later the German philosopher Ernst Bloch would say, 'the Greeks discovered the light, and then the Arabs saved, and changed it' prior to Aristotles' writings coming to Central and Northern Europe only many centuries later, leading to rediscover what Ancient Greece has to give to the world.

Thus the ancient Greeks opted for the light, but they did so in the consciousness that any failure would mean the consequence of having to live in darkness: Hades as it was called. Yet they had the courage to attempt this alternative once they opted for the kind of reason which would allow them to combine both kinds of knowledge. It meant discovering above all, that no man is complete although he has a notion of the complete or of perfect knowledge, for he may succeed in some parts, but not in all. Indeed, he may be a good philosopher, but not a very good poet as the case with Socrates. Hence to attain a voice in the Polis meant to relate to all parts while not claiming to be good in all. To be guided by wisdom while free to decide or to choose which part man ought to cultivate more, as a sign of his or her strengths, this then depended upon the ability to listen to the 'voice of reason'.

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