The backdrop was perfect: the Acropolis at sunset, bathed in golden light.
asserted
backdrop → bath → light
And the goal was ambitious: to rekindle confidence in Western traditions and institutions as we confront authoritarian regimes in China and Russia, Islamic theocracies in the Middle East, and Islamist movements increasingly challenging those traditions within Europe itself.
asserted
we → rekindle → Europe
Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a great speech.
asserted
Rubio → give → speech
But one paragraph fell short, at least for me.
asserted
paragraph → fall → me
“Here, in Athens, we found the first full realization of all the essential traits that would come to define the West,” Rubio claimed.
asserted
Rubio → find → West
An insatiable curiosity about the world and the principles by which it operates, a hunger to know the mysteries of nature and grasp the secrets of the cosmos.
asserted
it → operate → cosmos
They were the characteristic of a people — expressed in their traditions, their stories, their imagination; in the qualities they demanded of their citizens; in the things they lived and fought and died for.
asserted
they → express → things
After abandoning his wife and child to pursue spiritual enlightenment, he taught his later followers not to accept a belief simply because it came from tradition, scripture, or a respected teacher.
asserted
it → abandon → tradition
Instead, they were to examine ethical questions using their own independent judgment.
asserted
they → examine → judgment
Fierce individuality was hardly confined to the West.
asserted
individuality → confine → West
As for relentless ambition, does anyone think Genghis Khan lacked it?
asserted
Khan → think → it
After uniting the Mongol tribes, he launched conquests across northern China and Central Asia.
asserted
he → unite → China
His successors extended those conquests still further.
asserted
successors → extend → conquests
Alexander the Great may have conquered the Persian Empire, but he hardly had a monopoly on ambition.
uncertain
he → conquer → ambition
Then there is Ibn al Haytham, the 11th-century Muslim scholar whose investigations transformed the understanding of light and vision.
asserted
investigations → be → light
His work embodied precisely the curiosity about “the world and the principles by which it operates” that Rubio celebrates.
asserted
Rubio → embody → that
The desire to uncover nature’s secrets is a human impulse, evident wherever people tinker with their surroundings and ask how things work.
asserted
things → uncover → surroundings
And the uniqueness did start in Greece.
asserted
uniqueness → start → Greece
But Rubio never identifies it.
asserted
Rubio → identify → it
In 595 B.C., a statesman named Solon was put in charge of the Athenian army during a war with the rival city-state of Megara.
asserted
statesman → name → Megara
After defeating the Megarians, Solon was named archon of Athens, and he swiftly enacted wide-ranging reforms that changed the course of history.
asserted
that → defeat → history
On the political front, Solon expanded membership in the citizen assembly, known as the Ekklesia, to all but the poorest citizens.
asserted
Solon → expand → citizens
The Ekklesia had the power to declare war, select military leaders, pass general legislation, and hold public officials accountable at public trials.
asserted
officials → have → trials
Under Solon’s new rules, the small farmers who equipped themselves as hoplites for war could now be part of this ruling body regardless of family ancestry.
uncertain
who → equip → ancestry
Solon further weakened the aristocracy by ending the practice of debt slavery and canceling all mortgages.
asserted
Solon → weaken → mortgages
This allowed many small farmers to avoid losing their land to wealthy families.
asserted
farmers → allow → families
But the most important of Solon’s reforms had to do with marriage.
asserted
important → have → marriage
Previously, wealthy aristocrats could keep as many concubines as they wanted and adopt the offspring from those women as they pleased.
uncertain
they → keep → women
Solon did not make sex outside of marriage illegal, but he did attach real penalties to fathering children with women other than a citizen’s wife.
asserted
he → make → wife
Under Solon’s law, only legitimate children produced within marriage could become citizens, thus preventing wealthy men from adopting their own illegitimate children from their concubines.
“By attaching legal disabilities to bastardy, Solon’s laws effectively discouraged aristocrats and the wealthy from producing excessively large families,” University of Southern California classics professor Susan Lape writes.
uncertain
Lape → produce → California
“In so doing, the legislation foreclosed a source of elite power.
asserted
legislation → do → power
It was no longer possible to convert material resources or economic power into reproductive power and hence into political power.”
asserted
It → convert → power
More importantly, Solon’s reforms created a new spirit of equality among all citizens that paved the way for democracy.
asserted
that → create → democracy
“By attaching privileges to legitimacy and disabilities to bastards, Solon’s laws put every citizen on the same reproductive footing.
asserted
laws → attach → footing
Every man, no matter how wealthy or how poor, could only father legitimate children with one woman, his legitimate wife,” Lape writes.
uncertain
Lape → father → woman
“For this reason, the norms of family membership can be correlated to an egalitarian ethos for citizen men.
asserted
norms → correlate → men
Before Solon’s laws, people in Athens didn’t think of themselves as belonging to a political entity; they thought of themselves as being part of a lineage or family dynasty.
asserted
they → think → lineage
By strengthening the conjugal family and creating a clear line between citizens and noncitizens, Solon furthered the emergence of a new Athenian political identity that transcended family ties.
asserted
that → strengthen → ties
The Greeks, and the Romans after them, did not practice monogamy as we understand it today.
asserted
we → practice → it
Women were expected to be virgins before marriage and were forbidden from having sex with anyone who wasn’t their husband, but the story was very different for men.
asserted
story → expect → men
…and 16 more, not listed.
The Aporia
