In no small part due to Victor Davis Hanson's prolific writing, I'm very regularly impressed by the Ancient Greek's sophistication whenever I have occasion to stumble upon their work.   The seed of so much that is Western in philosophy, art, architecture, science, and politics found its genesis in a tiny speck of arid, rugged land and in a population of no more than a few hundred thousand - a number that would perhaps be a county today.  Athens alone, in it's hey day under Periclean rule had just shy of 100,000 residents - a very modest suburban town.

But find me a suburban town mayor - particularly out here in the SF Bay Area - wrapped up in zoning permits, noise control measures, and "growth management" who nevertheless grasps at such universals as this:

What was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits of which it sprang? 

Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy... advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.

The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life ... But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens.  Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured whether they are actually on the statue book or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.

...If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality.

- Pericles, Funeral oration for the fallen in the Peloponnesian War, 431 BC

Was culture or choice of governance the fountain of freedom?  How timeless a question and how articulately described by Pericles almost 2500 years ago!  The Jeffersonians take full heed of Pericles' contention that it was Greek culture that permitted democratic freedom rather than the other way around.   Fareed Zakaria, the NeoCons, and liberals are divided by this fault line today as we approach the question of democracy in the Middle East.    Libertarians readily recognize Pericle's admonition that "ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens."

And how can any post-9/11 American not feel a chill as Pericles notes that "the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality?"