[lit-ideas] Saving Western Civilization?
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:53:41 -0800
From the preface of The Spartans, The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient
Greece by Paul Cartledge, 2004:
"Who were the ancient Spartans, and why should we care? The events of 11
September 2001 jolted many of us into rethinking what was distinctive and
distinctively admirable - or at least defensible - about Western
civilization, values and culture. Some of us were provoked into wondering
aloud whether any definition of that civilization and its cultural values
would justify our dying for them, or even maybe killing for them. Those of
us who are historians or ancient Greece wondered this with especial
intensity, since the world of ancient Greece is one of the principal tap
roots of Western civilization. As J. S. Mill put it, the battle of
Marathon, fought in 459 BC between the Athenians, with the support from the
Plataeans and the invading Persians, was much more important than the Battle
of Hastings, even as an event in English history.
"So too, arguably, as we shall see, was the battle of Thermopylae of ten
years later. This was a defeat for the small, Spartan-led Greek force at
the hands of the overwhelmingly larger force of Persian and other invaders,
yet it gave hope of better times to come, and its cultural significance is
inestimable. Indeed, some would say that Thermopylae was Sparta's finest
hour.
"Thus, one not insignificant reason why we today should care who the ancient
Spartans were, is that they played a key role - some might say the key role
- in defending Greece and so preserving from foreign and alien conquest a
form of culture or civilization that constitutes one of the chief roots of
our own Western civilization."
Lawrence
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