Chapter 16, The Way of the Greeks Summary and Analysis

The poets, dramatists, religionists and philosophers of the fifth century were shaping the mind of a people, the ethos of a society. They called the Athenians to be reflective, inquisitive, and persistent seekers of truth and embodiments of "the good." In the twenty-first century, we might call it "character." Character is, in fact, a Greek word. But its meaning in the fifth century was slightly different from the meaning ascribed to the English word today.

"To us a man's character is that which is peculiarly his own; it distinguishes each one from the rest. The Greeks, on the contrary, thought what was important in a man were precisely the qualities he shared with all mankind." The Greeks saw everything as part of the larger whole. This is an essential characteristic of...