Freedom

Abstract

Freedom is a word which stirs deep feelings in mankind. Our civilisation has two main origins, the one which stems from ancient Greece, and the other from our Judaeo-Christian tradition. If we look at the concept of freedom in Hellenic culture, we naturally think of Athens, the leader of the Greek confederacy against the power of Persia. Thucydides, the historian, put some famous words into the mouth of Pericles:

We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth for us is not mere material for vainglory, but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome. Our citizens attend both to public and to private duties…. We are alone among mankind in doing men benefits, not on calculations of self-interest, but in the fearless confidence of freedom. In a word I claim our city as a whole is an education to Greece.¹