Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Plutarch and the Greece of His Age
ungrudgingly given. Instead of directing their en
ergies into channels of activity and trying by honest
work to better their worldly condition it was talk,
talk with the Greeks, and talk without end.
There is no stronger evidence of their fondness for
discussion and for listening to the spoken word than
Greek literature itself. The historians are in the
habit of stating the case
of opposing parties by ha
rangues which they put into the mouth of a repre
sentative of each. Greek poetry consists in a great
measure of dialogue. Philosophy was chiefly de
veloped by means of oral discussion. Comedy, even
after it was no longer represented on the stage, still
appears as dialogue and not in the usual form of the
satire. Among its richest legacies to posterity
is its
oratory, and in it we have the spoken word in its
most effective form; but it still represents words
rather than deeds, and belongs for the most part to
the declining age of Greece. A solitary thinker like
Kant was wholly foreign to Greek ideas. So per
sistently has this trait remained a characteristic of
the Hellenes that many of their best friends deplore
their fondness for petty politics; their sleepless anx
iety to assist in the management of the government
instead of turning their attention to bettering their
material condition by a steady devotion to private
business. Many of the rich and welMo-do Greeks
live outside the kingdom of Greece where their lin
gual activity is circumscribed and they are compelled
by circumstances to turn their energies into more
its