Greek civilization: the lost utopia

Is the Greek civilization in the middle of an interrupted state of evolution bound to carry on, or were they definitely devastated by the Romans supremacy more than two thousand years ago ?

It's a fact: Greece is the cradle of the civilized world, most predominantly of what is known as the 'western world'. Everything we are inside and outside ourselves, from our conception of freedom and the self, to the format of the state institutions that organize our social lives, or to the way we appreciate beauty and differentiate between right and wrong ... everything we owe it to our ancient Greek comrades.

Now take a glance to Greece today.

Where have those enlightened "lovers of wisdom" such as Socrates, Plato or Aristotle gone ? Where are those worshipped kings, battle strategists and popular leaders such as Agamemnon, Menelaus or Pericles ? Where are the artists such as Phidias, the famous Parthenon sculpture, today ? Have you ever wondered what has happened to them; where has all that ancient magnificence which we all talk and read about gone ?

To the day, there seems no ash remaining from that big "humanist" conflagration that worshipped intelligence and rationality. It seems as if the Macedonians first (338 BC) and then the Romans (146 BC) erased the Greeks from the map, which we certainly know they didn't: the Roman Empire took many different pieces of a great puzzle called "the Greek culture", rearranged it, and then spread those ideals to the world. Latins prevailed, but the Greek culture caused a real outbreak that spanned along lands and seas.

And what about mythology ? Mythology, the core of our interest, doesn't stand aside. There's nothing been more inventive, imaginative and at the same time historical as Classical Mythology writings. Unfortunately, we no longer find the artistic brilliance of a Hesiod, a Homer, a Sophocles or an Euripides; not in Greece, not anywhere in the whole world. Every tale we are told nowadays has something of a story previously generated in the Hellenistic world, but no longer contemporary outstanding artists.

What has happened ? I have no answer. The roots seem to be rotten; it is still a mystery that no evidence to the day foresees a nice ending. I wonder whether they will wake up one day from their lethargy and enlighten this whole world once again.