On thinking about periods of leaps in knowledge and culture, I went back to the first one we know a lot about: Ancient Greece... wanting to know more of the circumstances surrounding the origins - not so much the achievements but from the point of view of the two big historians of the time. Herodotus and Thuoydides. The surprising factor is the prevalent violence and upheavals surrounding the establishment of what we know today as a lofty lucidity of thought. Internal pressures were subject to the changing personalities of the ruling classes. In the Roman historian, Plutarch’s “Nine Greek Lives” - used by Shakespeare via the Renaissance - one sees some intense stresses caused between culture and violence/power.

Pericles, who built the Parthenon, provides an excellent insight into the power of two men collaborating for a quite short period on what was to become a cultural symbol for thousands of years probably without any thought as to its long-term value. Sculptors of the highest quality were available to fulfil the plan so that implies intense study of craft over a long period. A complex development.

The Pericles quotation on women is a rare glimpse of their trying to make their voices heard - people must have asked him to say something in public by way of reproof ; while in private he was probably hearing from them directly. He represented interests of the male dominance and doubtless external threats made that essential.

The slave-system, a product of battle became a support, of the development of culture and leisure. That must have meant the better class of slave tried to enter the sculpture workshops (closed to women of course) : whose power was deeply felt as restless and forever ambiguous. Had I been alive then I would have not been given the education to think these thoughts so I have to look at history with that always in mind.

The Roman conquest of Greece meant they introduced an immediate brain-drain to try to bring their own culture up to the Greek level which they saw as superior - bringing to Italy teachers and artists who no doubt were treated well and some would have gained influence ; but being a militaristic society from the start, creative elites remained dependent on the Greek model. The evidence of Roman sculpture which was largely left to the imported talent, shows two things: the people who commissioned the work did not exact the highest aesthetic of Greece and/or those doing it were not able or not willing as indentured twice over : once to an exacting craft which required social shrewdness and submission - and twice to serve a less able group than the original Greek patrons. The consistency with which they reflect a remote and dour touch implies that is the relationship.