DESPITE the endemic political corruption and mismanagement that has made Greece the sickest person in the euro zone, those of us who ever tried to learn ancient Greek in school have an inbuilt regard for that country.
All those placards of protest in Greek script remind us that here are the descendants of those who started the Olympic games. They gave us thinkers and philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, historians like Herodotus and scientists like Archimedes. This was a civilisation that was the foundation of the modern Western culture.
One of the textbooks used to teach ancient Greek was The Peloponnesian War by the author and historian Thucydides. It was written 400 years before the birth of Christ and is widely accepted as one of the very first objective works of history. My knowledge of this famous chronicle goes back a long way. It began in the Christian Brothers secondary school in Thurles, Co Tipperary many years ago.
Some of us found ancient Greek a difficult language to grapple with.
Perhaps we didn’t try hard enough. After the Intermediate Certificate, the equivalent of today’s Junior Cert, we had a choice between Greek or geography as a subject for the Leaving Certificate. I and many others chose geography.
In those days of limited facilities, both classes had to share a room.
It was a large room on the top floor of the building. However, without any kind of partition it was difficult to avoid overhearing what was being taught in the other class. While sitting at the back of the geography class I could hear the deep, sonorous voice of Mr Cahill, the Greek teacher, reading out a text and then translating it into English.
From what I could overhear, this was an account of a brutal struggle for dominance between Athens and Sparta. The Athenians were besieging the rich and powerful city of Syracuse in Sicily when the Spartans arrived on the scene. These fierce opponents were battling it out on sea and on land.
It sounded a fascinating narrative. I asked a fellow in the Greek class about it. He showed me his textbook. In it were drawings of men with helmets, shields and body armour, holding spears and swords.
“When them lads went into battle they were holy terrors,” he explained. “They milled all round them.”
Here I was, glad to be out of the Greek class, yet now with my ears directed towards it to try to get the gist of this relentless combat.
For much of the time I could only pick up fragments. This made it even more captivating. It was like straining to catch from afar snatches of an intriguing melody.
Yet I also had to listen to what Mr Maher, the geography teacher was saying. In the end I had to concentrate on continents, climates, mountains, populations and put the Peleponnesian War to the back of my mind.
However, my interest had been aroused. Some years later I was browsing through a bookshop in Mumbai when I came upon the Penguin Classics edition of Thucydides’ great work. I bought it.
It is a long but compelling book. It requires attentive reading.
I was able to read it under ideal conditions. I was the second radio officer on a deck-passenger ship sailing back and forth across the Indian ocean from Mumbai to the East African ports of Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. I had to do a night radio watch for six hours, when there was very little work to do.
Every night, sitting in the radio room, I read about 30 or 40 pages, slowly. It was a thoroughly absorbing account. Then I reached a part that was vaguely familiar. In ferocious fighting, the Spartan’s forced the Athenians to abandon the siege of Syracuse. With their ships badly battered, the Athenians made a desperate attempt to escape by land. It ended in massacre and surrender.
Somewhere in my inner ear I could hear the deep, measured voice of Mr Cahill pronouncing the names of the rival commanders. Nicias, the cautious Athenian general. Glyppus his bolder Spartan opponent.
And when Thucydides described the plight of the Athenian captives, herded into the stone quarries and held there under terrible conditions, I remembered first hearing something about this tragic event in that classroom in Thurles.
I finished the book over a three-week period. That’s many years ago now. Mr Cahill has long since passed on. The old CBS building in Thurles was levelled years ago. The ship on which I sailed went eventually to the breaker’s yard. The shipping company to which it belonged went out of existence way back. But Thucydides’ great account of strategies and tactics, of bravery and cowardice, of intrigue and treachery, of decency and cruelty, is still being read today.
Perhaps the folk memories of their redoubtable ancestors will inspire the Greeks of today to confront their current difficulties with resolve and endurance. I hope so.