Immortal Glory: The 25 Building Blocks That Will Exalt A Nation

In relation to the other ancient powers, Greece was less than a third world country. Where the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians lived in splendor and plenty, the Greek suffered amidst wretchedness and famine. Where the civilized ate cake and drank wine, the Greek was lucky to scrounge stunted grain and brackish water. Where other lands had Pyramids and Hanging Gardens, Greece had not even a hovel. If Greece were placed on a scale against any of these other powers, Greece would be catapulted up into the air. How did Greece against all odds rise to empire despite the whole wealthy world against them? Is it possible that other nations, states, and persons could  replicate the process? How? Perhaps we could venture to answer this question by using our understanding of Grecian history as a guide.

All the ancient sources agree that primeval greece was barbarous unto contempt; in fact Greece could have defined the meaning of barbarism itself. The 1828 Webster's Dictionary, however, defines "Barbarism" as "3. Rudeness of manners; savagism; incivility; ferociousness; a savage state of society."  (http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Bbarbarism) 

What did a barbarous Greece look like? Not pretty. There were no vineyards, houses, or fields; thus, there were few people, doomed to live in misery. There were however, lots of clubs and spears for these were the implements the people used to rob and murder each other. When anyone got anything of value, bandits were not far behind. When owning a week's worth of food will get you killed, it's better to just eat for today and pray for tomorrow. Attica (the future home of Athens) was especially poor and undesirable. While other lands abounded in natural resources, Attica was sparse and barren. Because none cared to rob and slaughter such poor men in a desolate land, Attica's population boomed. Eventually Attica could no longer support her population, and some were sent to populate Ionia. Then it was that civilization started and once brother stopped killing brother, families grew rich and happy together. Men were then able to keep the fruits of their labour without fear from their neighbor's greedy sword and became an industrious people: they built houses, formed pottery, plowed fallow lands, fished, and traded. At first their wealth remained local, but soon Phoenician traders became attracted to the growing markets in greece and it was from these traders that Greece learned her letters among many other arts. Once the Greek was able to read and write, they were able to compile their oral traditions into papyrus scrolls in order to preserve their thoughts, ideas, conquests, failures, arts, and religion. Because of this, the works of Homer were preserved and we know something of the earliest exploits of the Greeks: The Trojan War.

Prior to the Trojan war, the Greeks were not considered one people, but lived in very small communities. But with the passing of time, the political atmosphere was ripe for a unified effort, which took shape in the abduction of a Grecian woman by the name of Helen. The Greeks then banded together for the first recorded time and destroyed Troy. Years latter, Persia claimed a right to invade Greece, for they considered any attack on Asia and Troy to be an offense to them. Herodotus, the ancient historian, then gives account of the Persian War.

Prior to the Persian war, the Greeks had returned to their homeland and once more separated into their separate tribes and cities; but the Persian war was again to unite Greece to a public cause. Not all the Greeks joined the cause of Greece however, for the Persians were at that time the supper power of the world, having conquered Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and a good part of western India. Greece was among the very few places in the civilized world left unconquered, causing many Grecian states to submit willingly to Persian rule. But some states were not to be conquered, for their Patriotism was fierce. Can you  guess which to cities resisted Persian invasion? Athens and Sparta. Athens supplied a navel defense against the Persians and Sparta Prepared a land force against the same. The battle of Marathon was Athen's war against the Persians and the battle of Thermopylae was the Spartan's. Both won great renown and their people, forged in adversity became powerful and Robust. Thus Sparta and Athens became the primary states in Greece and all lesser states became subject to them.

with the passing of the Persian invasions, Greece entered a new stage of turmoil, for Athens and Sparta were both entering imperial governments, and Greece they supposed, was not big enough for the two of them and the Peloponnesian War was ignited. Sparta won the conflict, but didn't stay on top for long. Wikipedia recounts the aftermath of this Grecian strife as: "Both Athens and Sparta were later overshadowed by Thebes and eventually Macedon, with the latter uniting the Greek world in the League of Corinth (also known as the Hellenic League or Greek League) under the guidance of Phillip II, who was elected leader of the first unified Greek state in history." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece#History)

Thus Greece became a unified body and grew in power and prestige. Phillip II, unified the Greeks, but his son Alexander The Great would lead Greece to become the new supper power. He launched an invasion of the Persian Empire backed by the combined might of all the Greeks, spreading a Greek empire to the ends of the earth. Greeks filled the known world with their culture. As a result, the Western World found her identity. Empires won quickly and by conquest, do not last long. When Alexander died, his empire followed him to his grave. All the same though, Greece became a force to be reckoned with and changed the corse of history permanently.

Greece went from the epitome of poor to the masters of the universe, but how? Through philanthropy?Did any nation raise Greece like a mother raises a child? No, at best Greece had a few trading partners in the Phoenicians, but the Phoenicians didn't go to Greece because they were generous, but because Greece had something to offer them. Moreover, Greece was invaded multiple times! yet she somehow came out on top! How does a bunch of waring tribes become a super power? Here is a list of building blocks from the Greek's example on how to become a super power:

1. Individuals stopped plundering each other. 
2. Man did not fear relentless slaughter
3. Population boomed
4. Man did not fear being plundered
5. industry boomed 
6. Man became rich
7. Trade boomed
8. Technology boomed 
9. Education became available
10. Some men became more powerful than others
11. Power centralized
12. The waring and plundering cities stopped robing each other
13. Cities united for a common cause
14. The anatomy of power was refined 
15. Population, industry, trade, wealth, technology, and education were revolutionized
16. Prosperity invited inner tumult and external invasion (Persian Invasions)
17. The people are refined and higher morals established 
18. Population, industry, trade, wealth, technology, and education are revolutionized
19. Power struggles
20. The anatomy of power is further refined 
21. Justice prevails over injustice
22. The cities and states become unified under one government
23. Population, industry, trade, wealth, technology, and education are revolutionized
24. Influence exponentially expands 
25. A super power is formed

Each instruction is built on top of the first. A population is not built from plunder and murder! A population, on the contrary, is built upon safety and a surplus of food (wealth). If once the blocks of civilization start to tower high, and a block on the bottom is removed, then the tower will fall. If a super power becomes tyrannical, blocks are removed and the power reduced. This was how Greece went from chump to champ.

While Greece did win a place in history, she did stumble a few times. If a nation is built off of not killing each other,  destroying Troy is not a constructive (nor humane) path to victory. In a similar manner, conquering the world and subjecting other peoples dose not open the door to salvation. Furthermore, overly centralized governments typically spell ruin for any nation who supports them. As is clear, Greece had shortcomings, but she still able to construct, and out of those 25 building blocks was able to erect a monument that will stand as long as man can read.

I often imagine that I can use the past to become a powerful seer, and am able to divine the future based on my knowledge. In doing this I wonder what the fates of nations will be. Perhaps the current superpowers will topple because they removed a vital block. Perhaps there are nations currently small and weak, whom will someday be grand super powers because of their diligence in placing block upon block. I don't believe I imagine in vein, for the signs are clear: If America dares remove her foundation, she will fall. If the barbaric nations build block upon block, they will inherit the world.

Sources:
http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.html
http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.html
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.html
http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html
http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Bbarbarism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece#History

You, Thieves, and Hot Dogs: A Fable

Imagine that you are taking a stroll through the park when you are suddenly assailed by thieves, but before you are pilfered, the leader engages you in conversation in the most cavalier fashion: "I thank you generously for your contributions today, as you see, we are poor men, who would otherwise perish if it twern't for your kind soul."

And with that, he and his thugs proceed to brain you with a baseball bat and borrow your wallet. Afterwards the leader examines the contents of your wallet, he takes forty percent, and leaves the rest saying: "For milk and groceries. You are welcome. Come back in two weeks."

You walk away dazed, praying that the stolen money might actually do some good for the "poor" men, and not just enable them to live riotously. As you walk, you begin to recover some of your senses, including your sense of smell. Your clever nose quickly detects a park vendor selling hot dogs.  You realize that the beating has made you terribly hungry. You walk up to the cart decked in sausage links, and ask the man politely at what price his bratwursts are. You pay, and walk away happier than you arrived.

As you walk cradling your meal in your hands, you see a crowed surrounding a shouting man standing on a soap box. Normally, you might rather continue homeward, but a piping hot brat waits for no man, so you settle down on a park bench to eat and listen. The speaker shouted thus: "Everyone listen to me! A great evil has taken over our park!"

"Good!" you think to yourself while savoring the perfectly toasted bun. "Those park pirates are going to get it now!" Between the sweet relish and sweet revenge, you barely even feel the bump on your head anymore.

The speaker exclaims, "It is the evil of money grubbing hot dog vendors! They are strangling the poor with their twisted meats! They don't pay fair wages! They are deliberately poisoning us with processed meats! They have a monopoly on in-park food! You are tricked into buying their products through clever marketing schemes! They won't just give away hot dogs to disabled kids and single mothers! The hot dogs are greasy and the sellers are greedy! Hot dogs are built on minority privilege and class rule! Hot dogs stifle creativity! Vendors cut down rare trees in the Amazon to build their carts and hire seven-year-olds to work the meat grinders! Hot dog profits have rigged the 'Parks and Recreation' elections! Hot dog vendors only care about themselves and their own dirty self-interest; they don't care if hot dogs make you happy!"

The speaker finally took a breath and continued in a more rabble rousing manner: "What we need to do is to overthrow the cart! Let's seize the evil vendor's ill-gotten gains! Let's use that money to give to the poor desolates that sadly walk this park and whom will otherwise perish if it twern't for your kind souls!"

With that last remark your blood is boiling, for you knew that slogan all to well. All the speaker said may or may not have been true, but you knew this: that the vendor did you a service, and you paid him a service in return; but the stinking highway men, who claimed to be poor, clubbed you and stole a service from you without giving anything in return. You traded with the vendor using your freewill and were happier after you made the exchange. The poor thieves pounced on you like jungle cats and left you like a dying antelope.

Knowing all this you shout objection to this absurd plan only to be beaten again and stolen from, this time by the mob. Broken and bruised you make your sad way home, hoping that the vendor might be somehow spared the wrath of the vulgar mob. But, alas, the next morning as you walked through the park on your way to work, the vendor was gone and the cart lay on it's side. Empty.

Never again were delicious sausages sold in the park, and the mob, speaker, and the thieves ate all the hot dogs in a matter of hours. You resolved to avoid the park from then on, for all who walked through the park starved, were beaten, and stolen from until the park was made infamous and none wandered there. The poor thieves, bereft of victims, died from starvation or rolled out in search for fresh parks and fresh vendors across town.

The park was as desolate as the vendors cart: Empty.

Inequalities Occasioned By The Policies Of Education

Perhaps the reader, under the influence of their own excellent education recognizes the curious and archaic syntax of the title as belonging to a culture and time not their own; they may even go so far as to attribute it's phrasing to it's rightful author, Adam Smith, who penned the celebrated Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith, despite the common misconception, actually addressed inequality in his book, and gave several reasoned solution to eliminating poverty. He claimed that while some jobs do deserve better profits or wages, the reasons why some jobs are paid inproportionately better than others is due to bad policy making:

"…the policies of Europe, by not leaving things at perfect liberty, occasions other inequalities of much greater importance.

It does this in the following ways. First, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them; secondly, by increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be; and, thirdly, by obstructing the free circulation of labor and stock, both from employment to employment and from place to place." (Smith, 1776) In short, Smith attributed inequality to an artificial surplus or shortage of competition; and later he continued to say that this problem is created by governmental policies and conspiring men.

I would venture to add additional insight to the matter of inequality by introducing educational policy into the argument. If man was at perfect liberty to peruse his own education and to appoint his own teachers and to design his own curriculum, there would be no inequalities to speak of (excepting those inequalities inherit in nature) but were it for the policies that surround the public education. Our current institution for the education of youth and young adults, namely, high schools and collages, train all their students to know and be able to do the same things as the rest. Thus when a student enters the marketplace intending to sell his services and knowledge, he finds a clone of himself filling his job. Moreover, the schools create a surplus of professionals in one field while leaving other fields desolate, whereas if the student where at liberty to create his own education, he would find the training he needed to go into fields where his services would be in more demand. We do to some extent see this in computer and technology fields which have been demanding more manpower and receiving it, but all the same we have too many young people directed to other fields in which their is already hearty and established competition.

If man were free, justice and equality would be the result. If students were at liberty to build their own education, then everyone would enter the field that would be both to their liking and their wallet's liking without the propaganda and pressure of teachers and faulty policies persuading or coercing students into fields that the student will make no living in.

Sources:

Smith, A., & Cannan, E. (1937). Inequalities of Wages and Profit. In An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (Canaan ed.). New York: The Modern library.

4 Pillars of Economic and National Growth

As we witness the turbulence of the world, we begin to realize that a nation's first decline is not one where a volcano belches fire over the capital or where an invading army tramples over the border, but where whatever used to prop up the nation has suddenly been removed causing a nation to decline and fall like a three-day-old balloon; yes, I refer to the powers and mechanics of a nation's economic engine.  While, obviously, an economy is driven by many factors, here are 4 mighty pillars that if tampered with or removed will irrevocably remove a nation's foundation and force it down the abyss:

Firstly:

The morality of a people is essential to a nation's success, for, when a people start to act perversely they will degenerate into baser forms of life and will take their nation back with them. Typically, a people's morality is defined by a harsh environment which demands a strict moral code and punishes the malefactor with frostbite, sunstroke, and starvation. As you can imagine, natural selection allows only those to live who can keep the natural law. As a nation progresses however, this strict physical law becomes insufficient to keep a people moral for the same reason a full granary makes laziness easier than an empty one; when the food supply is depleted however, nature will have her revenge. It is possible to be immoral while the physical law is held off, but in this there is nor progress or growth; only the consumption of the earlier fruits of morality. "He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls." Proverbs 25:28

Secondly:

Justice is a keystone element one step beyond the physical law, dealing not only among separate individuals, but communities. Where the first law of morality, or the physical law, may prosper one who steals the bread of another, the laws of justice will will punish him, for thieves are not tolerated in just society. Justice demands that everyone render's to their neighbor his just due. When this keystone element is respected, then one man becomes many, and the hunter-gatherer may enter into the farming stage because people are able to cooperate with each other. Nature cannot execute justice, and therefore man tries to do it himself with various degrees of success. When man serves justice well, then a nation prospers. When man abuses justice, then justice devolves from the courtroom to the street, to the knife, and finally to the original first keystone. "Thus saith the Lord; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place." Jeremiah 22:3

Thirdly:

Fellowship is the blessing of justice: when man strives to be just among his superiors, peers, and inferiors, they are no longer on different planes than himself, but all become his equals and his friends; class warfare is essentially the rotten fruit of poor justice. When a people become truly united, the economic results are phenomenal. When a man treats another not only with justice, but friendship, then a people grow strong and wealthy as they unite together. This fellowship is not unlike a professional sports team who win championships when they are united and melded together but lose home games when all the players feel alone and isolated. When everyone in a society realizes that they are trying to win the same game and are on the same team, the economy and nation prosper.  "Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbor." Proverbs 19:4

Fourthly: 

Perhaps one of the most concrete features of a strong nation and economy is a georgic work ethic, without which there would never exist prosperous ports and markets in a nation to amply supply it with a happy surplus of goods and services. Without a hefty work ethic, one may scrape by on a subsistence level, but never will a nation ever achieve the heights of industry and commerce without a hearty people exercising a vigorous, georgic work ethic. The word "Georgic" is used in a title that Virgil pend wherein Virgil praises the art and craft of the farmer along with his work ethic. A farmer instilled with the work ethic Virgil speaks of, does not lay idle away his time while his fields lie fallow but takes the plow to them. A nation who is industrious and works hard when combined with the earlier factor absolutely will progress in power and economic might. "Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase." Proverbs 13:11

A nation, grand or modest, is the sum of it's supporting pillars: If these pillars are built of the finest marble by the finest artist-architects, then a nation is splendid to behold, whereas, if these pillars are made shoddy particle board and left to crumble into disrepair, then the souls that live upon them will plummet with them. Truly, nations and economies are the results of people maintaining these pillars  well.

Unorthodox Causes For The American Revolution

Perhaps the most common thing said of the American Revolution is that it was started over a dinky tax, that was justly imposed seeing as it went to pay for colonial protection; which of course, paints the early American as blood thirsty and flaming, irrational patriots. We compare the taxes imposed now to then and declare that the taxes that the the colonists were forced to bare were but a light burden compared to the bloated government the modern American is forced to support. Although the lesson should be that we need to reduce taxation, we somehow come away with the impression that we are refined, good, and obedient but that the former generations were corse, seditious, and rebellious to the last measure. Our understanding of the American Revolution, however seems to stop with the History Channel explanation, which is primitive at best. Our forefathers were not so vile as to rebel against their English heritage and their king, whom they supposed to be appointed by divine sanction. They did not jump the gun with the American Revolution, for it was not a palsied tax, that they rebelled against alone, but many other abuses, much more grave. 

One of these offenses worthy of rebellion were the early British Colonial trade regulations, which given time and heavy handed enforcement would completely scuttle the American economy, and transform the Colonies into something less than British satellites and something more than British principalities. The Navigation Act of 1651 was one of  the first real laws to threaten the American Colonist, Requiring all crews of ships to be at least 1/2 English in nationality and that most goods be carried on English or Colonial ships, which by itself is not to terrible to bare unless one realizes the consequences of such an act of mercantile protectionism, one of which is the bulk of unnecessary costs that such a law is bound to pile up by eliminating Dutch, French, or Spanish workers, sailers, and ships. Thus a major sector of the American economy, foreign shipping, was reduced from a legal enterprise to the business of smugglers. 

Nothing got any better when in 1660, the British Parliament refined the Navigation Act to require ALL Colonial trade to be conducted on English Ships with 3/4 English crews and English masters. The Staple Act, instead of hampering exports as the Navigation Act did, was written to manipulate every colonial import, requiring that all trade goods to be imported from across the known world be first shipped to England before America, which as you can imagine, is a gross injustice, and the expenses of such a law would have been catastrophic. Imagine that if your business ordered Brazilian sugar, you would have to send a ship to South America, then to Europe, then back turning what would have been perhaps a 15 week journey there and back, into somewhere around 35 weeks, which is a little less than 9 months, given the wind speeds. The prices to do this, would be inhibitive. 

1673 saw new developments in the regulation and enforcement of the previous acts when the Plantation Duty Act was passed, not only placing a tax on sugar and tobacco, but also establishing an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the British Crown, which as we know from direct experience is a bur in one's sock at best. Furthermore and like today, this law was overly complex and inspired confusion, miscommunication, and accidental breaking of the law in Colonial merchant and English alike. The Plantation Duty Act was yet another legislative measure that still further reduced the colonies from satellites to principalities. The 1996 Navigation Act was how Britain really began to force the matter, creating admiralty courts designed to enforce the earlier regulations and allowed English customs officers to invade the hulls of ships in search for contraband and smuggled goods, which practically mirrors many of the institutions we have today.

Then, the British decided it prudent to further engage in their crony capitalism by protecting their inferior textile industry from colonial competitors by instituting the 1699 Woolens Act, declaring that the colonies were prohibited from selling and exporting woolen cloth away from the colonies to Britain or otherwise, crippling another American industry. In 1732, the Hat Act eliminated the export of American hats. The Molasses Act, a year after the Hat Act, heavily taxed all molasses that was not imported from the British West Indies, in order to favor the West Indian trade. Because of American evasion of these acts, further measures were taken to actually collect the taxes imposed by the Molasses Act by implementing stricter enforcement. At this point, Britain's economic policy of mercantilism combined with their various wars including the French and Indian, has spoiled the Empire and incurred a hefty national debt, of which parliament was hopping to find some repayment by taxing the colonies' sugar and molasses.

The American Colonies, being free according to natural law, began to seriously question the intentions of parliament, as they well should for if allowed to continue the British parliament was en route to establishing a world empire of which America would have been reduced from a British brother and equal, to a British bondsman and provincial. The fact that America's fate was being decided without American approval attests to this fact seeing that America had no representation within British politics. A slave has no say over his destiny, and thus has no vote nor political power of any kind. It was against this fate that America decided it must dissolve the political bands with England and start an independent government which would allow America to regrow her former economy by reducing taxes and enable America to trade with any foreign powers. America could then work in her interests instead of England's ambitions.

When people start to spout out the grade school conditioned response that Americans fought a war because of taxation without representation" I begin to feel that our forefathers were like dumb little kids who fought with their parents to stay up an hour later than their bedtime. It's like saying that a nation, after being protected, bit the hand that protected them. Then I remember that "No taxation without representation" is just a stupid slogan that does not reflect the actual facts of the matter and that the grade school explanation is abridged and faulty. The orthodox explanation for American independence is false. America rebelled not against a king, but against a legislature. America was not homicidal patriots, but they were shrewd business men and knew how to follow the money trail, finding that America would end up like a Roman province, doomed to the mercantilism of the capital which was interested only in subsisting at the expense of her provinces. America fought a war because she had to, not because she wanted to;  it was either to fight and remain free, or become a principality of Britain. 

Grecian Golden Age and The Libertas Creed 2

It wasn't till greece began to be literate that their civilization truly became great. With the invention of reading, writing, and math Greece was able to enter it's golden age. The earliest know literature out of Greece is of course, the works of Homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey. From thence do we get a glimpse of what attributed to a Grecian golden age. The contributing factors, as we may glean from the pages of these antiquated books were that the Grecian people united, justice became more refined, morals were more firmly established, the people became more righteous. Justice for example, was the cause of the whole Trojan war fiasco in the first place, for, Paris son of Priam, abducted Helen from her homeland, and despite all legal means to get her back, Paris would not comply. The Morality of the Greek also became more abundant at the dawn of the West. While it is obvious that only the very best fighters would survive a ernest and violent war, what is not recognized is that morality also played a huge roll in the immortalized Trojan War. While natural selection picked off the weak and foolish amount the ranks, it also picked off the immoral. Patroclus is killed because of the pride of Achilles, as well as Achilles himself. Ajax is killed also for his pride when he mocked Poseidon. Agamemnon was murdered by his adulterous wife. And many other lesser Achaean heroes are killed by some moral deficiency. Odysseus was one of the few survivors and he is famed for his exceptionally steadfast morality. After the war was over, and the warriors returned to their homes, they all acted in greater righteousness than when they set out. 

From that most ancient time, Western history gets it's origin. As a result of the trojan war, and as a result of Homer, and whatever culture that went into ancient appreciation of Homer, we get later authors, philosophers, warriors, and playwrights as a heritage of that primeval war and that primeval storyteller. From 500 to 300 BC, Greece was basking in it's Golden Age. This Age of plenty and culture was largely the heritage of the Trojan war and Homer; but that was not all. 

The paramount factor to sparking and feeding the Grecian Golden age were the people at large, and great persons. The people at large began to value nobel virtues, moral values, and civilization. This general attitude among the people gave rise to the great men of the times, who of which can be found At Wikipedia linked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_Greeks

Therefore, what launched Greek's Golden Age was manny fold including: proper government,  justice, morality, Righteous people, An elevated culture, freedom of trade, promotion of arts and sciences by the general people, among so many others that it would be tedious to list them all, but you get the general idea. It cannot be stressed enough how a golden age is brought about and by whom. One man couldn't of done it alone; neither one class of people or race, creed, philosophy, or religion. For Greece to be come the cradle of Western civilization, it took all the people from many different backgrounds to define it as "Golden." 

The Libertas Creed is dedicated to anything that brings about and maintains such an age. While many disparage America and the world for declining and falling, The Libertas Creed refuses to take this view, preferring to, by it's efforts maintain whatever Golden Age heritage is left, and perhaps revive it; or, if this fails, to provide some basis for a golden age to come. There is a time when everyman must decide where he stands and what price he must pay. Will he flop into the dirt, degenerate and bestial; Or  will he stand like a man akin to God?




If you found this post illuminating, you may also like these other Libertas Creed posts:

Freedom to Increase

Hector: A Pillar of Strength

Humanism is Shortsighted I

Grecian Golden Age and The Libertas Creed 1

When upon cracking the ancient spines of the surviving Greek works, there is a general golden thread throughout all of them that hints at what it takes to launch a golden age for a civilization. In The History Of The Peloponnesian War, there is related a time before Greece ever be came great, or powerful, or influential; but where Greece was perhaps among the lowest of barbaric countries:

"For instance, it is evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient times no settled population; on the contrary, migrations were of frequent occurrence, the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior numbers. Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital, never planting their land (for they could not tell when an invader might not come and take it all away, and when he did come they had no walls to stop him), thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as another, they cared little for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large cities nor attained to any other form of greatness. The richest soils were always most subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants. And here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful victims of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming naturalized, swelled the already large population of the city to such a height that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and they had to send out colonies to Ionia." 

Hence all Western Civilization arose out of a land so poor, that it was unattractive to thieves and tyrants, but once people were left to enjoy their liberty and the fruits of there own labor, their population boomed so immensely that their influence began to colonize more fruitful lands nearby. The history continues to share another factor that attributed to the barbarism of the times: 

"There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan war there is no indication of any common action in Hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary, before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation. It appears therefore that the several Hellenic communities, comprising not only those who first acquired the name, city by city, as they came to understand each other, but also those who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people, were before the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the absence of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective action." 

Thus was Greece not one state, but thousands of small tribes, which condition practically describes barbarism. It wasn't till these tribes were united into the larger powers called Athens or Sparta, that civilization started it's long assent to the top. It is important however to note that while a central authority is useful, a corrupt and overly powerful central authority is the best equipped to takedown the civilization it was originally established to promote. (While centralizing authority was a pedestal for civilization to build upon in the beginning, centralizing authority was also responsible for Greece's post golden age by initiating stupid wars, welfare, and fiat money.)

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