Earthly life ought to be harmoniously ordered and unified following the example of the Cosmos, including a human individual who is a microcosm, a part of the whole. Society should encourage the development of the capacity of mind to love and know the ideal order, especially when the training of heroes is concerned. Socrates asks in “The Republic” – “And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the traditional sort? – and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul. True. Shall we begin education with music, and go on to gymnastic afterwards? By all means”. Besides, Plato writes that “musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar”. And yet, adding that “the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is foolish”, he excludes harmonies expressive of sorrow (Lydian), softness and indolence (Ionian) from the educational process and advises to use Dorian and Phrygian harmonies since they stimulate courage and temperance.

Aristotle is a follower of Plato and he is also quite critical of Plato. For instance, Plato believes that Art should imitate transcendent Forms, hence Art that imitates Particulars is twice removed from Reality. As far as Aristotle is concerned, Art is not an imitation of Forms but a representation of life and characters with their emotions and actions. And a good tragedy must be such as to produce Catharsis “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions” (“Poetics”).

Being more “down to earth”, Aristotle suggests that we do not have to think of transcendent Forms but of imminent forms since forms are the forms of Particular things. And any Particular is a composite of form and manner (Hylomorphism), it has an inherent Potential that can be Actualized. Natural potential is in everything and what an artist does is not to create but to Discover natural potentials in the physical elements of this world. That is to say, a sculptor does not create sculptures – he Discovers the possibilities of wood or stone (in this sense, Michelangelo in his “David” managed to actualize the potential of the block of marble abandoned by his predecessor), whereas a musician Discovers potential in the physical sounds. “For from the potentially existing the actually existing is always produced by an actually existing thing, e.g. man from man, musician by musician; there is always a first mover, and the mover already exists actually”, – says Aristotle in “Metaphysics”.

Moreover, Plato writes dialogs, tells stories, while Aristotle is more like an objective scientist analyzing and systematizing facts. As we have mentioned before, Plato thought that certain knowledge is innate. Aristotle, on the contrary, says that thinking processes correlate with the nature of reality and mind contributes to knowledge since it brings a capacity to organize, to structure nature and get the unchanging truth of it. For example, in “Metaphysics” he says that “the white is musical and the latter is white, only because both are accidental to man. But Socrates is musical, not in this sense, that both terms are accidental to something else. Since then some predicates are accidental in this and some in that sense, those which are accidental in the latter sense, in which white is accidental to Socrates, cannot form an infinite series in the upward direction; e.g. Socrates the white has not yet another accident; for no unity can be got out of such a sum. Nor again will ‘white’ have another term accidental to it, e.g. ‘musical’. For this is no more accidental to that than that is to this; and at the same time we have drawn the distinction that while some predicates are accidental in this sense, others are so in the sense in which ‘musical’ is accidental to Socrates; and the accident is an accident of an accident not in cases of the latter kind, but only in cases of the other kind, so that not all terms will be accidental”.

To sum it up, we have mentioned several conceptions introduced by Ancient Philosophers. And yet, the question – “Whether or not this Quest for Certainty is ever going to be satisfied?” – remains open.

The Greco-Roman civilization extended from the glorious Age of Pericles when Greek Culture reached its height, witnessed the expansion of Greek settlements under Alexander the Great, saw the Rise of Roman Power and the grandeur of the Roman Empire and concluded with its decline and fall in 476.

Greek and Roman traditions are completely different, suffice it to mention the Venus of Tauris and Roman Portrait Sculpture executed in realistic manner. The Greeks with their city-states, meetings at Agora, philosophical discussions at the Platonic Academy and Classical Orders have been considered as an example for many generations. The Romans adopted their ideas (for instance, they used to gather at the Forum located at the intersection of the two main roads – Cardo and Decumanus), and yet, they were more interested in technical developments and built a lot of roads and aqueducts bringing water into cities and towns (Devil’s Bridge at Tarragona). Eug`ene Viollet-le-Duc in his “Lectures on Architecture” says that “The genius of the Roman people differs materially from that of the Greeks. The Roman is essentially an administrator and a politician; he is the founder of the Modern Civilization: but is he, like the Greek, an Artist? Certainly not”. The Romans erected temples on artificial hills made of concrete, whereas the Greeks were fond of Nature and tried to find special places for their structures (the Temple of Segesta in Sicily). Moreover, columns were no longer used as constructive elements and became purely decorative (The Colosseum). “Greek architecture may be best compared to a man strip of his clothes, the external parts of whose body are but the consequence of his organic structure, of his wants, of the framework of his bones, and the functions of his muscles. The man is so much the more beautiful as all the parts of his body are in harmony with their purpose, and, with nothing superfluous, they yet suffice for their functions. Roman architecture, on the other hand, may be compared to a man clothed: there is the man, and there is the dress; the dress may be good or bad, rich or poor in material, well or ill cut, but it forms no part of the body”.

The Greeks and the Romans were not satisfied with white color, on the contrary they used to paint their sculpture and architecture so as to accentuate their Beauty. Viollet-le-Duc writes that “So necessary was this application of color to the exterior of the buildings in a country where the atmosphere is of marvelous transparency, that if we view the Temple of Theseus at Athens (for instance) in full sunshine, now that it has lost its paintings, we shall find it impossible to distinguish the lights of the columns from those shed of the walls of the cellar; – these lights on different planes mingle together and appear as if thrown upon one single surface”.

Life and thought in those days were bound up with the Arts and the Greeks were very well-rounded people. The great Philosophers were men of action who serve Athens at battlefields as well as in public places and Theaters since one of the main responsibilities of a citizen was to foster the Arts. Art in Greece became a generating force by which the Athenians identified themselves with their fellow-citizens and with the entire rhythm of life around them. And through Art human experience has been raised to its highest level. Not only did they use Music in their system of Public Education, but they also incorporated it in their incredible Dramas and Tragedies (let us mention, for example, “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles – one of the most successful playwrights of the time). Aristotle in his “Poetics” says that “Be that as it may, Tragedy – as also Comedy – was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs, which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped”. “Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type, not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the Ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in some defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain”.