Great Books #7: The Anti-Homer

Jiang Xueqin· Host0:00

We've read The Iliad and The Odyssey, so Homer becomes the basis for Greek civilization, meaning that all educated Greeks, they memorize The Iliad and The Odyssey. They don't, people don't read, read and write now at, at, at this point. They speak and they listen in front of um, an audience. And so Homer becomes basically the infrastructure of their mental worldview, and um, this leads to the greatest civilization in human history. But eventually, the Romans will conquer the Greeks. The Romans will conquer the entire Mediterranean, and they will, uh, create the Roman Empire. The Romans are nothing like the Greeks. The Greeks are very open, uh, very curious. They believe in the idea of arete. Sorry. Um, arete and eudaimonia. Arete means excellence, to be the best at what you can. Eudaimonia means flourishing. You can only achieve human happiness if you achieve your