Prologue   Hellas / Greece had the good fortune of becoming the lighthouse of the world. For several centuries it gave birth to science and civilization of unprecedented beauty, reason, justice and virtue. This good fortune came into being in the works of epic poets Homer and Hesiod; the tragic poets Aischylos,  Sophocles, and Euripides; the comic poet Aristophanes; philosophers / scientists who probed the heavens to such detail, that one of them, Demokritos in the fifth century BCE, discovered the Atomic Theory and another, Aristarchos of Samos, in the third century BCE, proposed the Heliocentric Theory of the universe. Still yet another astronomer, Hipparchos, set the foundations of mathematical astronomy in the second century BCE in Rhodes. He also left his fingertips all over the Antikythera Mechanism, an immaculate geared bronze computer of genius, the progenitor of our computers.   Add to this extraordinary galaxy of intelligence and foresight, Aristotle, tutor of Alexander the

The curse of the gods   In book 10 of the  Odyssey , Homer tells the story of Odysseus coming to the floating island of Aiolia, home of Aiolos, god of the winds. Listening to the courageous  but unsuccessful efforts of Odysseus to return home to Ithaca, Aiolos says to Odysseus to relax. He would guide him to reach his desired destination.   Aiolos feasted and took care of Odysseus and his sailors for close to a month. When he saw the men had recovered, he gave Odysseus a gift that only a god could give: an ox-skin bag holding all the winds, save the westerly for blowing his ship straight to Ithaca. Aiolos warned Odysseus not to open the wind bag.   Odysseus thanked Aiolos and left full of hope for returning, finally, home. On his turn, he warned his companions not to touch the bag from Aiolos.   Sailing went smoothly for nine days and nights. Odysseus guided the ship, so eager he was to arrive to his beloved wife Penelope and his kingdom home of Ithaca. During the tenth day he could se

Freedom or death   The Greek word  eleutheria  means freedom from external or internal tyrants. Life is meaningless without freedom. The battle cry of the Greeks fighting the Persians in early fifth century BCE or the Turks in the 1820s was freedom or death. The Greek national anthem is a Hymn to Freedom by the Greek national poet Dionysios Solomos. He traced freedom to the “sacred bones” of ancient Greeks.    This commitment to freedom emerged from bitter experience with tyranny and the invention of democracy.    Democracy and freedom   Athens pioneered in both its defense of political independence and in its adoption in the sixth century BCE of government by the people and for the people, namely direct democracy. All citizens served in the juries and became magistrates by lot. Athenians learned to rule and be ruled.    The government of  demos , the people, enacted laws  which protected the citizens as a whole, including each citizen, to do things and express themselves as they saw f