The Black Vault

The collapse of Greek democracy 2,400 years ago occurred in circumstances so similar to our own it could be read as a dark and often ignored lesson from the past, a new study suggests.

In a new history of the 4th century BC, Cambridge University Classicist Dr. Michael Scott reveals how the implosion of Ancient Athens occurred amid a crippling economic downturn, while politicians committed financial misdemeanours, sent its army to fight unpopular foreign wars and struggled to cope with a surge in immigration.

http://www.physorg.com/news173955504.htm[

If you don't learn from History it's bound to repeat itself.

The Greeks predicted how democracy would thrive and how it would fall. Back then the philosophers warnings were ignored and their kingdom fell.

Greek Philosophy should be required reading for every politician of influence.

Required readings in schools.............in America at least

MonarchSmile wrote:Required readings in schools.............in America at least

College yes but not high school.......I didn't read Plato, Socrates, Homer etc until I went to University.

I've often compared 21st century America to the last days of the Roman Empire. Unpopular wars, financial irresponsibility, politicians who see themselves as above the masses, mass unrest, foreign policy resulting in dire consequences, games and sport being used as a palliative... it all seems so eerily familiar, doesn't it? Athens is just another example. My fear though, is who is going to be our Visigoth, our Persia?

Socrates never wrote anything; but his dialogues have survived the ages in the discourses of Plato. The only problem with Plato's discourses, and no doubt why they are not taught in public schools, is the contancy of homosexual cannotations throughout the majority of his works, often depicting discussions which insinuate that it was almost second nature for upper class Greek men to lay with each other, or with younger boys. Plato is for college students and above.

However, ancient Greek society flourished even after the massive bloodshed of the Peloponnesian War, when the Spartans burned Athens to the ground. Many of the best and brightest philosophers were exiled for a time, but soon were back in Athens reestablishing themselves amid a returned democracy. It is this period after the great war that Socrates' written discourses are said to have taken place.