 Blackstone audiobooks presents The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton The introduction is preceded by a quotation from Longfellow, whose distant footsteps echo through the corridors of time. Introduction 4th century Athens is completely overshadowed by Athens of the 5th century, so much so that it is little considered. Any brief history of Greece will, more likely than not, end with Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. There will be references, perhaps, to Demosthenes and Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great, all too important to be omitted, but no account of the time they lived in will be thought necessary. Real interest in Greece ceases with Sparta's victory over Athens. Plato and Aristotle live in a timeless world of philosophy without any local habitation, and are hardly thought of as Greeks, but as intellectual forces. And yet their century, the 4th century, has a special claim on our attention apart from the great men it produced, for it is the prelude to the end of Greece, not only of her glory but of her life historically. Greek genius did not come to an end, but it took a new direction in new places. Science and mathematics went on to triumphs in Greek colonies, and in foreign cities crowded with the Greeks Alexander had set travelling away from home, but none came back to Greece and to Athens. Not one really great name relieves the blankness. The 4th century is the introduction to a world tragedy, the disappearance of creative power in Greece. With its close there is an end of the art and philosophy which have made a few centuries in Athens more precious to the West than many ages in many countries. The years which ushered in this loss to the world, never to be replaced, have a unique importance. During the century that follows, Athens drops out of history. Two famous schools are founded, the Stoics and the Epicureans, but they are the last flaming up of Greek genius in Greece, until Plutarch appears more than 300 years later when the ancient world was passing away. Plutarch was such a voluminous writer, and so much of what he wrote has come down to us, that in addition to the wealth of historical information his lives give us, he can construct a personal history of him and his circle as of no other Greek. If only we could do that for Plato and Aristotle, about whom we know almost nothing personal. And yet it is true that Plutarch, so essentially Greek as he is, can help us to understand the heterogeneous collection of 4th century Athens' great men. We all know Greeks better through him, Plato as well as Menander. With him the Greek spirit has a brief renaissance, which ends with the two greatest Stoics, Epi... Sample complete. Ready to continue?