Greek Intellectuals Research Articles

"Dikaiosune". An Essay in Greek Intellectual History. (In Tribute to George Grube, the Distinguished Author of "Plato's Thought")

ALTHOUGH THE DOCTRINE of the four cardinal virtues cannot be documented in a formal sense earlier than Plato's Republic in the first quarter of the fourth century B.C., it is commonly assumed to have been supported by a tradition which went back perhaps two centuries into the archaic period.' The priority of dikaiosune in the Platonic canon needs no demonstration. Its proposed definition constitutes the formal hypothesis of the treatise and though the first book in the manner of the other early dialogues on virtue ends aporetically, the treatise as a whole devotes itself to completing the definition with meticulous exactitude.2 The effect of the eloquent argument offered in Plato's written masterpiece has been to rivet on the minds of scholars and laymen alike the presumption that the English terms justice and righteousness represent what had always been a general idea available to the Greeks throughout their earlier cultural history, a concept lying at the back of their minds and taken for granted. If one asks, Is this presumption based on fact?, the answer will depend on how fact is defined. Is it a datum supplied by the intuitions of moral philosophy, which has always been prone to assume for its own purposes that the notion of the moral law as idea or ideal informs our common humanity and must exist as a realized concept in the minds of all men who share such a culture as the Greeks possessed? Or is it

The Macedonian Background

Macedonia was the springboard of the movement which led to the conquest of the Persian Empire. Though Philip and Alexander ostensibly embarked on war with Persia as Leaders (Hegemones) of the Greeks, and though the Greek cities did make their military and naval contribution—not to mention the comfort and support furnished by certain Greek publicists, intellectuals, and politicians—nevertheless the essential power which had harnessed Greece and now was to harness Persia came from Macedonia and the Macedonians, officially unmentioned, and in many Greek circles unmentionable.