History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [38]
At another time he feels himself a great sinner, undergoing expiation for his impiety:
There is an oracle of Necessity, an ancient ordinance of the gods, eternal and sealed fast by broad oaths, that whenever one of the daemons, whose portion is length of days, has sinfully polluted his hands with blood, or followed strife and forsworn himself, he must wander thrice ten thousand years from the abodes of the blessed, being born throughout the time in all manners of mortal forms, changing one toilsome path of life for another. For the mighty Air drives him into the Sea, and the Sea spews him forth upon the dry Earth; Earth tosses him into the beams of the blazing Sun, and he flings him back to the eddies of Air. One takes him from the other, and all reject him. One of these I now am, an exile and a wanderer from the gods, for that I put my trust in an insensate strife.
What his sin had been, we do not know; perhaps nothing that we should think very grievous. For he says:
'Ah, woe is me that the pitiless day of death did not destroy me ere ever I wrought evil deeds of devouring with my lips!…
'Abstain wholly from laurel leaves…
'Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans!'
So perhaps he had done nothing worse than munching laurel leaves or guzzling beans.
The most famous passage in Plato, in which he compares this world to a cave, in which we see only shadows of the realities in the bright world above, is anticipated by Empedocles; its origin is in the teaching of the Orphics.
There are some—presumably those who abstain from sin through many incarnations—who at last achieve immortal bliss in the company of the gods:
But at the last, they1 appear among mortal men as prophets, song-writers, physicians, and princes; and thence they rise up as gods exalted in honour, sharing the hearth of the other gods and the same table, free from human woes, safe from destiny, and incapable of hurt.
In all this, it would seem, there is very little that was not already contained in the teaching of Orphism and Pythagoreanism.
The originality of Empedocles, outside science, consists in the doctrine of the four elements, and in the use of the two principles of Love and Strife to explain change.
He rejected monism, and regarded the course of nature as regulated by chance and necessity rather than by purpose. In these respects his philosophy was more scientific than those of Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle. In other respects, it is true, he acquiesced in current superstitions; but in this he was no worse than many more recent men of science.
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7
ATHENS IN RELATION TO CULTURE
The greatness of Athens begins at the time of the two Persian wars (490 B.C. and 480–79 B.C.). Before that time Ionia and Magna Graecia (the Greek cities of south Italy and Sicily) produced the great men. The victory of Athens against the Persian king Darius at Marathon (490), and of the combined Greek fleets against his son and successor Xerxes (480) under Athenian leadership, gave Athens great prestige. The Ionians in the islands and on part of the mainland of Asia Minor had rebelled against Persia, and their liberation was effected by Athens after the Persians had been driven from the mainland of Greece. In this operation the Spartans, who cared only about their own territory, took no part. Thus Athens became the predominant partner in an alliance against Persia. By the constitution of the alliance, any constituent State was bound to contribute either a specified number of ships, or the cost of them. Most chose the latter, and thus Athens acquired naval supremacy over the other allies, and gradually transformed the alliance into an Athenian Empire. Athens became rich, and