## Highlights ### id253459969 Athenian power came from subjugation > Of course the Athenians are going to say that their empire and democracy made them into a shining beacon of equality, opportunity and human achievement; it was essential to present themselves as such to deflect accusations that they were enslaving the rest of the Greek world. Their ability to patronise artists and develop all forms of art and literature, after all, was paid for by their subject allies. The Athenians were the first to levy tribute on other Greeks, and any state that tried to break away from this obligation was ruthlessly punished. For all its supposed brilliance, Imperial Athens was, according to Thucydides, hated by all; the Spartans had an easy time justifying the Peloponnesian War as a crusade to "liberate the Greeks". - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/r2urd2/athens_a_small_city_of_250k_gave_rise_to_a?__readwiseLocation=0%2F2%2F0%2F4%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A41%2C0%2F2%2F0%2F4%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A788#:~:text=Of%20course%20the%20Athenians%20are%2Ccrusade%20to%20%22liberate%20the%20Greeks%22.) ### id253460203 the Greeks are the benchmark by which we judge brilliance > And once we realise that the picture of Athens as the "School of Greece" (again, Perikles) is a product of their relative abundance of wealth as well as their self-serving propaganda, we can also start to reassess the merits of those supposed paragons of brilliance. The problem here is not so much that Athens didn't produce geniuses, as it is the fact that we still define "geniuses" by the Athenian standard. When we assume that intellectual greatness comes in the form of Great Statesmen and Great Philosophers, we are perpetuating a notion *born out of what Athens was like at this time.* The influence of ancient Greece on our understanding of intellectual achievement is such that we still don't have any other paradigm to define or measure it. In a sense, when we say that a particular person or group is brilliant, we are still saying little more than that they are *like the ancient Greeks.* And unsurprisingly no one is as much like the ancient Greeks as the ancient Greeks themselves. But what did those Greeks really achieve, that they still provide the benchmark against which we compare others (and even ourselves)? - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/r2urd2/athens_a_small_city_of_250k_gave_rise_to_a?__readwiseLocation=0%2F3%2F0%2F4%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C4%2F3%2F0%2F4%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A229#:~:text=And%20once%20we%20realise%20that%2Ccompare%20others%20(and%20even%20ourselves)%3F) ### id253460403 Socrates and Pericles were not that impactful > Meanwhile the figures that have been idealised as perfect geniuses for thousands of years - figures like Perikles or Sokrates - are often only tenuously associated with concrete ideas. What good did it do anyone that Perikles was in charge of Athens for a few decades in the fifth century, when we struggle to identify a single reform he enacted? What good did it do anyone that Sokrates hung around Athenian public spaces asking questions, given that it is now impossible for us to tell whether he ever had any ideas of his own? At best, such figures were part of the environment that allowed others to develop their own ideas, but even the merit of those ideas can be questioned. Aristophanes' mockery of Sokrates and others like him as parasites and charlatans tells us a great deal about how much ordinary people cared or were affected by the supposedly great discoveries of Athenian philosophers. How many lives did these men actually affect while they were alive? - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/r2urd2/athens_a_small_city_of_250k_gave_rise_to_a?__readwiseLocation=0%2F5%2F0%2F4%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C0%2F5%2F0%2F4%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A969#:~:text=Meanwhile%20the%20figures%20that%20have%2Caffect%20while%20they%20were%20alive%3F) ### id253460707 The intellectual stature of Athens is propaganda > Instead, we should be aware that when we think of Athens as a society of geniuses we are simply repeating the narrow, self-serving, uncritical propagandistic picture they liked to broadcast. At the very least we are forgetting to ask whether Plato and Thucydides can be thought of as representative ancient Greeks, when they represented only the absolute upper crust of society - the richest of the male citizens. We should remember that whatever went on in their circles would leave the vast majority of their contemporaries totally unaffected, if not outright invoking the wrath of the common people for the frivolousness and practical irrelevance of their interests. What juice were they drinking? Apart from the ever-bitter juices of Empire and privilege, they drank from the cups of the narrowest elite priding itself in the novelty of its latest cleverness, within a highly interconnected intellectual world, which, yes, did briefly produce some quite exceptional minds. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/r2urd2/athens_a_small_city_of_250k_gave_rise_to_a?__readwiseLocation=0%2F6%2F0%2F4%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C0%2F6%2F0%2F4%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F5%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A976#:~:text=Instead%2C%20we%20should%20be%20aware%2Cproduce%20some%20quite%20exceptional%20minds.)