Society is composed of interrelating phenomena, and there is a fascination in seeing how they fit together; perhaps that aim is
sufficient justification for this chapter. But social history may also be seen as the background against which man creates his art, his
literature, and his systems of thought; it is essential to understanding them, and yet it does not explain them. What is unique about
the classical Greek world is its cultural achievements. If we may pause to ask how these came to be, I would suggest that there was,
at least in the case of Athens, a crucial conflict between a traditional society and the complexities of its public and private life, which
can be traced in the social, economic and cultural developments of the classical age; these complexities liberated the individual from
the constraints of tradition without causing him to lose his social identity. The conflict is potentially present in the Greek city-state,
and actualized in the case of Athens: Athens is the paradigm of the latent forces of the polis.
TOC