In his introduction to, "The Rise of the Greek Epic,"(21) Gilbert Murray emphasizes the idea of service to the community as more deeply rooted in the Greeks than in us.

The question they asked about each writer was, "Does he help to make better men ?" or "Does he make life a better thing ?" Their aim was to be useful, to be helpful, to make better men in the cities, to correct life, "to make gentle the life of the world." In this brief phrase were summed up the aspirations of the Athenians, likewise illuminated in that remarkable saying of Prodicus (fifth century B.C.), "That which benefits human life is God." The Greek view of man was the very antithesis of that which St.Paul enforced upon the Christian world.

One idea pervades thought from Homer to Lucian-like an aroma--pride in the body as a whole.

In the strong conviction that "our soul in its rose mesh" is quite as much helped by flesh as flesh by the soul the Greek sang his song--"For pleasant is this flesh." Just so far as we appreciate the value of the fair mind in the fair body, so far do we apprehend ideals expressed by the Greek in every department of life.

The beautiful soul harmonizing with the beautiful body was as much the glorious ideal of Plato as it was the end of the education of Aristotle.