Author Description

Plenty has been written about Athens being the cradle of justice and democracy, about the embellishment of Athens, the magnificent temples, public buildings, sculptures, exquisite pottery (painted cups and vases), and above all the drama, literature, rhetoric, and philosophy that flourished in classical Greece. In his Funeral oration, Pericles says: "I wish rather to set forth the spirit in which we faced them [battles], and the constitution and manners with which we rose to greatness." What Pericles means is the character of the Greeks. The philosopher Heraclitus said, "Character is destiny." Like Pericles implied in his Oration, destiny, or fate, is shaped by the strength of inner forces rather than outside events. So, conjugal devotion, honor, love, and fidelity prevailed--that is, character! This book dispenses with footnotes, indexes, or scholarly language. It is written for the soul-searching, self-taught, and self-made individualists.