¹ Consider the following anticipation of equality as the basis of aristocracy in Plato's Menexenus. It is from a report by Socrates of a funeral oration composed by Aspasia, who was also the reputed author of the celebrated funeral oration by Pericles, in Thucydides' history. “It is necessary then to demonstrate that the polity wherein our forefathers were nurtured was a noble one. … One man calls it ‘democracy’ … but it is in very truth an ‘aristocracy.’… And while the most part of civic affairs are in the control of the populace they hand over the posts of government … to those who from time to time are deemed to be the best men … the one principle of selection is this: the man who is deemed wise and good rules and governs. And the cause of this our polity lies in our equality of birth.”

² Strauss, Leo, The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1964), 1Google Scholar.

³ E.g., Scott's novels, Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Wagner's operas.

⁴ See Bambach, Charles, Heidegger's Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks (Ithaca: Cornell, 2003)Google Scholar. See especially, “Athens or Jerusalem?” (51–57).

⁵ One of the complaints of Booker T. Washington against former slaves was their passion for learning Greek and Latin, while ignoring the menial tasks that brought money… . It is clear, however, that the slaves identified freedom with the classical culture most highly respected in the only world they knew, the world of their masters.