Book Review
Sailing the Wine Dark Sea By THOMAS CAHILL
Reviewed by PEGGY BARNETT
Thomas Cahill is writing a series of history books which he calls the "Hinges of History." Popular volumes have been How the Irish Saved Civilization; The Gift of the Jews, and Desire of the Everlasting Hills. Sailing the Wine Dark Sea is the fourth volume.

The subtitle of Sailing the Wine Dark Sea is "Why the Greeks Matter." I'm not sure that anyone would question why they matter, but it is interesting to read the history and the ways in which that civilization has influenced our own.

There may be a bit more of The Illiad and The Odyssey than you want to read, but Cahill uses quotations from these epics and other Greek poetry and prose to explain the culture and beliefs of the ancient Greeks.

"So much of our current military approach -- and often even our vocabulary -- can be traced back to the transformations that were taking place on the Greek battlefields of Homer's time in the late eighth and early seventh centuries" BC. Further, "Thinking the unthinkable, posing the impossible, considering all options" is "very Greek in spirit."

Cahill's chapter headings include "How to Feel, How to Party, How to Rule, How to Think." In each he focuses on leaders, political and literary. In discussing the development of freedom of discussion, he points out that the Greek alphabet, which progressed beyond earlier forms of writing, enabled the Greeks to develop literacy and literature, as well as philosophy and other attributes that we associate with their society.

Although Greece has been a land of music and dance, they realized that "all things have their moment and are gone." The underlying question for the Greek philosophers was "What is the nature of reality?," which remains to this day a fundamental question.

Pythagoras did more than discover the Pythagorean theory. He had a wide following who practiced extreme vegetarianism and believed in the equivalent of reincarnation. Interestingly, Pythagoras was almost an exact contemporary of the Buddha.

The influence of Greek Culture on sculpture, architecture, and religion is widely acknowledged. "There was nothing the ancient Greeks did not poke their noses into. Whatever we experience in our day, we see that the Greeks have been there before us, and we meet them on their way back."

The Wine Dark Sea is available at the Mary Willis Library.

Reader Comments

No comments have been posted. Be the first!

Other Stories With Comments:
Article	Comments
The Office Cat	1
Family escapes death in semi hit-and-run	1
Feed a family of four for $10 a week	1