51. The Athenian Golden Age

With the dragon defeated

Athens was left to grow and prosper.

It turned into a great and shining polis.

A flame of democracy to light the rest of the world

With Athena smiling down

In her golden temple.

Many other poets

Came to the land of Athena

Singing her praises.

Greece grew rich in trade

They grew rich in freedom

They grew rich in culture

They grew rich in thought

Aeschylus begot Sophocles

Who begot Euripides

Who begot Aristophanes.

People came to Athens to speak their minds

Discussing their world and all things in it.

Socrates who drank the hemlock

Begot Plato who wrote the Republic

Plato begot Aristotle who taught the man who punished of Persia.

History gave Herodotus his muse.

Pericles, the statesman,

The great orator

Came to Athens

Standing among his people for forty years

Speaking like a lion.

Preaching Pan-Hellenism

Showing off his Apennine son to the west

Inviting others to come help raise him.

Bringing peace for thirty years.

He reformed his government

Molding it like a lump of clay.

Leading the infant

To new political maturity.

He helped Athena’s imperial grasp to spread out into the Aegean.

Becoming a pillar in the temple of democracy.

Pericles was exalted by the people.

Elected many times.

He became the embodiment of the Athenian Golden Age

As Delean gold was moved to his “high city”

Stored in Athena’s house

He heard the rumblings of war to the south.

When he died

Peace died with him.

50. The Dragon's Defeat

“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,

That here, obeying their commands we lie.” (Epitaph attributed to Simonides)

Leonidas,

The great warrior king

Came to his people’s rescue.

Having the cunning of Odysseus.

Having the courage of Theseus.

Bringing seven thousand men

To draw swords and protect the fatherland.

A secret guarded path

To the gates of Thermopylae

Revealed by a traitor

To the dragon’s “immortals”.

Ares’ men and allies fought bravely on that day.

Killing many immortal men

To protect Thermopylae.

While the fight was fierce,

Leonidas brave,

He didn’t last.

The dragon ate the city by the bay.

Then it was off to Athens

Where he let fire fall onto the goddess’s flowing gown.

Refugees in Salamis

Who saw their goddess in trouble

Sent ships to save her.

The dragon learned of his great mistake

Then quickly called for retreat.

Greece rejoiced

At their victory

But didn’t soon forget.

Another will come to slay that mighty beast.

45. Sparta

To the South in the lands of the Peloponnese

There was a mighty race of men.

The Spartans

They were brave

Marching in military formation.

Living a utilitarian lifestyle

In barracks.

The state owned the Spartan man

From birth until death.

Any children not suitable

Were abandoned.

This was where Ares lived

They fed off of blood

Drinking of the spoils of constant war against helots

Eating the gentle cow.

Were toughened by conflict and civil strife.

They made slaves of the locals

Messenians twice rebelled.

They were subdued both times.

Colonizing as needed.

While Athens was founded on the intelligence of the gray eyed one

Sparta was founded on the dreaded god of war.

When a Spartan was young

He was a ball of flesh

The handlers of the herd

Whipped him and trained him

Until he hardened into stone.

The barracks was home.

Men were warriors first

Husbands second.

Even the women were hardened and powerful.

They buried their children proudly

When they died for Sparta

For that was why they were born.

Men were there to fight and die noble deaths

As they turn back the foemen’s sharp edged battle lines.

Sparta was double edged for Greece.

Inspiring fear

Inspiring imagination.

Admired in peace.

Dreaded in war.

They became powerful.

Many looked upon them

As a great ideal

Of patriotism

To uphold.

44. Archaic Greece and the Rise of Athens

Cities grew.

People prospered.

The polis consolidated

Government became more complex.

Aristocracies of the new revival

Became Oligarchies.

Writing held history and ancient knowledge.

Homer begot Hesiod.

Hesiod begot other poets.

Sappho sang of weddings

Writing hymns to the gods for luck in love

As she walked her island paths.

Others sang to regular people

About regular people.

Trails on pottery

Showed the mighty deeds of warriors from a long dead time.

Hoplite armies rumbled throughout the land

In packed phalanx formation

Like shining human tanks.

Records were kept and used

Some for the good of people

Others for their own good.

Tyrants came

Bringing thinkers, artists and architects

They also brought curses

Raising armies to seize control

Cylon brought conspiracy and betrayal.

He begot the divine snake, Draco

Who wrote his laws in blood.

“I thought it was necessary,”

He said as he shrugged.

Then things changed when he died.

Civil war broke out.

Solon, the sun king came down

Repealing the snake’s evil bloody declarations.

He stilled the mighty war god

With his shield of justice and compromise.

“I can’t satisfy everyone,” he said,

“But I’ll do my best and I will not sell my arete in anyway.”

His strong arete

Proved his strength as a man.

Solon led Athens to democracy

As tyrants slipped into history

With the age of heroes.