With sticks for swords, we re-enacted the Athenians’ battle for the island of Salamis, and their humiliating defeat by the Megarians. After that, I explained, the lords of Athens created an information blackout, forbidding any Athenian from mentioning Salamis – they didn’t want to be embarrassed anymore.
“What, so everyone pretended like nothing was wrong?” my daughter said indignantly. “When everyone knew otherwise?” Yes, I said – just like today.
“Couldn’t they complain to the rulers if they didn’t like the laws?” she said. No, I told her. They had taken a step toward democracy a generation before, I told her, when a man named Draco created their first set of laws – but they were the original draconian laws, where the penalty for everything was death. That news delighted my daughter, and soon we acted out a new scene of our impromptu play: Mr. Average Athenian litters on the street, meets Draco.
“Hey! That’s against the law!” she said as Draco. Oh, shoot, I said as the Athenian – can I pay a fine?
“No!” she said, as Draco. “The penalty is DEATH.”
That’s ridiculous! I said. “Complaining about it is DEATH,” she said.
Who hired you, buddy? I asked. “Asking who hired me is DEATH.”
As much fun as this was, the gravity of it began to sink in – Solon was ready to die. “What did he do?” my daughter asked.
He sat down and wrote an epic poem about the defeat at Salamis, I explained. He put on his hat, walked to the market, stood on a pedestal in front of everyone, and recited the entire story of the defeat. He might have even sung it, or rapped it.
“What happened to him?”
He persuaded a lot of Athenians that they should take back the island, I explained, and they pressured the rulers, who gave in — and Solon came up with a cunning plan to win this time. It was …
“Yes?” she asked.
I paused, not sure how to proceed. Well, I told her, you remember that part in Bugs Bunny where he dresses up like a woman, and his antagonist drops everything to come over and flirt with Bugs?
“Right?” she asked.
Well, I said, the Athenians did that.
There was a quiet pause. “You’re joking,” she said.
No, really, I said – according to Plutarch, they had their youngest, beardless soldiers dress up as girls and flirt with the Megarians, and then the other Athenians leaped out with swords and yelled, “A-HA!”
After talking about the zaniness of these strategies for a while, I explained that Solon’s reputation continued to spread; he became so famous for his wisdom that when the city was about to erupt in civil war, the people and the leaders turned to him. He was the one person everyone trusted.
What did he do once he came to power? I asked. Did he make himself king?
“No!” said my daughter emphatically, “He said everyone had to vote, create juries, and so on, and made everyone swear an oath to follow the rules of a democracy; no one could change them except him for ten years. Then, after everyone had sworn, Solon said, ‘Good! Now I’m going on vacation – for ten years!’”
Once many students read stories like this, from Roman scholars to Victorian schoolboys to American pioneers; these days I have to introduce them to my daughter through home-schooling. Reading the Ancient Greeks presents no great chore, though, as many of their stories are as melodramatic as any soap opera, and with the occasional screwball turn into pure comedy.
Reading these installments of their true-life melodrama, I wonder why we stopped teaching the classics. These stories link us culturally to the hundreds of generations who read them before, so that when everyone from Roman scholars to Victorian schoolboys to American pioneers quote Pericles or Thucydides, we understand the reference.
These stories take the things we would see in any small town or neighbourhood today — elections, libraries, theatre – and tell us how they began, on rocky outcroppings 26 centuries ago. It cures us of the notion that we are special or superior to our forebears; rather, it helps us know the people on whose shoulders we stand.
No comments:
Post a Comment