But alas, the death of one free-thinker did not suffice to bring the citizens of Athens back to the simple life of their ancestors. They continued to make money and enjoy themselves, and to hire soldiers to do their fighting. Their dramatists developed the so-called “social comedy”--that is, pictures of the fashions and follies of the leisure class, without any propaganda. It is an invariable rule that the absence of propaganda in the art of a people means that this people is in process of intellectual and moral decay. So now a strong man came down out of the north and took charge of Greece, and Greek literature moved into the Alexandrine period. The center of this new culture was the city of Alexandria, in Egypt. The poets now took pride in their technical skill, and wrote delicate and charming portrayals of the delights of love. A horde of learned scholars busied themselves with criticism and interpretation of the works of the past, and composed long epic poems dealing with grammar and rhetoric and similar subjects. This too was “propaganda”; but you note that it was propaganda of a secondary and imitative sort, it was not produced by men who were doing great deeds, and creating new forms of life. Alexandria was a cosmopolitan center, ruled by a despot, the home of some wealthy and cultured gentlemen, who supported painters and sculptors and poets and musicians and actors to while away their boredom, and to serve as their press-agents and trumpeters. But the art of classical Greece was the work of free men, citizens of a state ruled by a larger proportion of its inhabitants than had ever before held authority in civilized times. That meant throughout the community the joy and thrill of intellectual adventure, it meant a great leap of achievement for the whole group. Such invariably is the origin of art which we now regard as “classical”--and which we use to hold the minds of new generations in chain to tradition and conformity! CHAPTER XXI ATHENS AND LOS ANGELES There has been peace in the cave for a while, because Mrs. Ogi has been interested in learning about the Greeks. “I perceive,” she says, “that there are superstitions in the arts, just as in religion.” “Exactly,” says Ogi; “and they serve the same purpose. They begin as honest ignorance, and are then taken up and used as a source of income and a shield to privilege.” Says Mrs. Ogi, “It strikes me the Greeks lived in a country very much like Southern California.” “Quite so. The climate is the same; and the rocky hills and fertile valleys, and people living the outdoor life, and giving their time to sports. The one-piece bathing-suits that have come into fashion in our ‘beauty parades’ are about the same thing as the Greek maidens running naked in the games. And if you want to parallel the darker side of Greek sensuousness--” “There is Hollywood,” says Mrs. Ogi. “There is all smart society, as much luxury and wantonness as your thesis requires.”