Alas! I pain for my modern motherland of today.
But I remember the glorious days of the Golden Age of Greece, and I rejoice.
I rejoice, in the ancient people’s state and the birth of democracy.
I rejoice in our philosopher-saints and their bold calls for truth: the disclosure of our ignorance, chained in caves where shadows are mistaken to be the real image, as Plato taught.
Ah, dear Plato, Father of Reason, with the insight of a true Sage, who said, “The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies … they are the trees and the plants and the seeds…”.
Like Plato, noble Socrates too, Avatar of the age, boldly declared the truth of reality, that virtue consisted in knowledge and to do right was the only road to happiness. Socrates, refusing to go back on his word, courageously drank the hemlock and passed away with the dignity and calmness becoming his past life.
Aesop, the sacred Father of Fables, stated, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
The wonderful Pythagoras, Father of Logic and Mathematics, spoke bravely for our fellow brethren, saying, “As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”
Diogenes, Greek philosopher, who like Plato and Pythagoras, lived as a conscientious vegetarian, announced, “We might as well eat the flesh of men as the flesh of other animals.”
Herodotus, Greek Historian, explained, “Why cause suffering to these inferior and innocent orders of being and why take the life that only the gods could give; and why eat flesh, yet dripping with innocent blood? Do not the oracles condemn it? Do they not advise lentils, and grains and fruits that ripen in the sun?”
Plutarch, Greek biographer, stated, “But, for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born to enjoy.”
Porphyry, the great Greek Neoplatonist – student and biographer of Plotinus and Pythagoras, declared, “But to deliver animals to be slaughtered and cooked, and thus be filled with murder, not for the sake of nutriment and satisfying the wants of nature, but making pleasure and gluttony, the end of such conduct is transcendently iniquitous and dire!”
Hesiod, Greek poet, lyrically wrote,
“Unlike the former, men of monstrous size,
On the crude flesh of beasts, they feed alone,
Savage their nature, and their hearts of stone.”
Clement of Alexandria, Greek Christian theologian and writer, insightfully trumpeted that, “Sacrifices were invented by men as a pretext for eating flesh”.
And, many Great Souls, too many to mention, who lived honourable lives, who lived to manifest virtue, and like warriors who aimed to gain entry into Elysium, earned renown and the paradise of a good reputation to last for millennia.
The euphoria of our Hellenic antiquity is sculpted in stone, bronze and iron,
And I fondly remember my ancestors,
I remember their legacy,
I remember my heritage,
I remember my roots.