The Approach To Delphi From The East, through the foothills of Mount Parnassus. Land communications in
Greece were not easy, and often circuitous: one reason for preferring coastwise traffic by water where possible.
These lower slopes may have been better wooded in antiquity, but limited farming has always been possible
between the rocky outcrops, and there are good upland pastures.
The ancients believed in the power and significance of great individuals. The daemonic Alcibiades, the
imperturbable and ironic Socrates, the vehement Alexander: these stand beside such Romans as the all-
conquering Caesar, the gallant but profligate Mark Antony, the demented aesthete Nero. The will to power
incarnated in great individuals, the qualities of resolution, magnanimity, pride: the ancients saw events very
much in such terms. Such qualities as pride and magnanimity are essentially un-Christian. In the Middle Ages
and still more in the Renaissance such pagan virtues, which Christian Europe had in reality by no means
renounced, could be glorified in the persons and stories of the ancient world. The Trojan War and the Quest for
the Golden Fleece, for instance, were good pretexts for the glorification of purely pagan chivalry and passion.
Important human qualities which Christianity seemed to leave out, or which it rejected, could be depicted with
sympathy in Achilles or Caesar, Helen or Cleopatra; in the rational suicide of Seneca or the passionate suicide of
Dido.
The incompatibility of some pagan virtues with Christianity draws attention to an important aspect of the scope
of this book. Jews and Christians are in principle not included-the Envoi looks forward to Christian Europe. The