Life in Ancient Greece

Michael Lahanas

Know yourself (gnothi seauton) [since] ... an unexamined life is not worth living, Socrates in Plato's Apology.

Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due to mediaevalism. Oscar Wilde

Fashion

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Socrates: The fact is, as we said at the beginning of our discussion, that the aspiring speaker needs no knowledge of the truth about what is right or good... In courts of justice no attention is paid whatever to the truth about such topics; all that matters is plausibility... There are even some occasions when both prosecution and defense should positively suppress the facts in favor of probability, if the facts are improbable. Never mind the truth -- pursue probability through thick and thin in every kind of speech; the whole secret of the art of speaking lies in consistent adherence to this principle.
Phaedrus: That is what those who claim to be professional teachers of rhetoric actually say, Socrates. Plato, Phaedrus, 272

Athenian Lawcourts , Athenian Law : Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies , Bibliography on Ancient Greek Law

Athenian Cookery and the Symposium

Diet of Ancient Greece

Ancient Greek Humour, Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

Relatives and friends of a person who died