Dour, anxious Hesiod writes about the daily round of farming and the effects if the seasons on rural life but also speaks in his Works and Days about… - Thomas Cahill

The worldview that underlay the New Testament was so different from that of the Greeks and the Romans as to be almost its opposite. It was a worldview that stressed not excellence of public achievement but the adventure of a personal journey with God... by imitating God's justice and mercy.

When Donald Rumsfeld, a practical imperialist if ever there was one, took over the Pentagon, he commissioned a study of how ancient empires maintained their hegemony. Might he more profitably study how they lost all they had gained?

Whatever we experience in our day, whatever we hope to learn, whatever we most desire, whatever we set out to find, we see that the Greeks have been there before us, and we meet them on their way back.