Greeks have virtues that are an essential part of life.

Virtues are a social code that is

expected of people to behave morally. Without these, Greece and the modern western
world of today would not be influenced by these traits, and heroes and other public
figures of today would hold completely dierent values. The essential virtues that the
Greeks value are courage, justice and piety, because they encourage people to act on
behalf of the state.

Courage is a virtue because without it none of the figures of ancient Greece would
overcome their fears to fight for the state. In Antigone, courage is represented when
Antigone is determined to bury her brother. Antigone shows courage and in the text
she says to Ismene,

I am not afraid of the danger; if it means death,/It will not be the worst of deaths---
death/without honor,(Sophocles, Antigone, 193).

Antigone is trying to convince her unmotivated sister to help bury their brother.
Antigone states that at no cost will she allow her brother to die a dishonorable death.
She is willing to risk anything to ensure the proper burial of her brother. Antigone shows
courage here by being willing to sacrifice her life to stand up for her honor. Just as
Antigone shows courage with her family, Pericles represents courage to his troops.

When all of her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by
courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men were enabled
to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to
deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious
contribution that they could oer, (Thucydides, 71).

Pericles is rallying his troops after their first battle. To do this he expresses that their
fallen comrades showed great courage and if they too show great courage glory will
follow them. If men do not show courage it will lead to their hamartia; victory will be
inconceivable. Men who are courageous in battle have dreams that are fulfilled beyond
content. With courage men serve their state and show the greatest sense of dignity
and virtue. In Xenophon's assessment of spartan society, he shows the consequences
associated with a deficiency of courage,

When disgrace of this kind is imposed on cowards I am certainly not surprised that
death is preferred to life of such dishonour and ignominy,(Xenophon, 18).

Xenophon clearly suggests that men that have failed to show courage much rather
would die than live the unpleasant life of a coward. Courage is what defines great
people, enabling them to become leaders.

The foundation of all Greek city-states is justice and without it the barrier between
simple mob rules and society would be broken. Injustice in Greece is impermissible,
and those associated with it are treated as outcasts. To provide an example of how
injustice is viewed, Socrates says to the jurymen that justice is not a thing you can just
give away, instead it is something that must be carefully given in the right order.

The just thing is to inform and convince. A juryman doesn't sit for the purpose of
giving out justice as a favour, but to decide where justice lies; and he's sworn an oath
that he won't dispense favours as he sees fit, but will make his decision according to
the laws. (Plato, 35c)

Socrates is telling the jurymen to not simply give justice away, but to ration it to those
who deserve it. Although Socrates is facing the sentence of death, that could not scare
him into the comfort of pleading for injustice to save himself. Socrates cares about
justice because he cares about his state; the state needs justice. Aristotle also finds
justice valuable to the state. In defining the state, he says that a citizen needs to
uphold the administration of justice to be valuable.

But the citizen whom we are seeking to define is a citizen in the strictest sense,
against whom no such exception can be taken, and his special characteristic is that he
shares in the administration of justice, and in oces. He who has the power to take
part in the deliberative or judicial administration of any state is said by us to be a
citizens of that state; and, speaking generally, a state is a body of citizens sucing for
the purposes of life,(Aristotle, Book III).

Without citizens sustaining the judicial system of a state, there would be no state.
Plainly, citizens that do not contribute are not valued in a state system. If there are no
citizens to uphold the judicial system, a state would simply falter. As Antigone says,

That final justice

That rules the world below makes no such laws.

Your edict, King, was strong,

But all your strength is weakness itself against

The immortal unrecorded laws of God. (Sophocles, Antigone, 208)

Justice rules the world, it decides those who are deserving and those who are not.
Justice is more powerful than laws, as it is the only enduring thing other than the Gods.
To have the power of justice is the same as having the power of a God. When justice is
held by the wrongdoer it will be justified itself, and return to the hands of the righteous.
The virtue of justice presents itself inevitable.

To be Pious is expected among all lifeforms. The relationship between God and men is
always that of a God-fearing relationship. Human knowledge cannot extend to the
mass of God. Men themselves will be respected if they respect the Gods. One is held
accountable to do so as a virtue. To enable a state you have to respect the will of the
Gods; without piety a state would not function. Socrates, on his death trial, says
himself that our knowledge is little compared to a God's,

But the truth most likely is, Athenians, that its the god whos really wise, and that in
this utterance of the oracle hes simply saying that human wisdom is worth very little,
or nothing at all,(Plato, 23a).

Although Socrates is accused of being an atheist, he strongly shows that he is not, and
is in fact pious to the Gods. He is accused by the state which means that the state
values piety itself. Socrates, because of his infinite wisdom and respectable manner, is
credible to exhibit the pious virtue.

I find myself in extreme poverty, because of my service to the god,(Plato, The

Apology, 23c).

To sacrifice comfort to be pious is simply the virtue that is expected. The reality that all
heroes are pious strongly proves this fact. Odysseus is a foremost hero in denotation of
piety. His brief disrespect towards Poseidon left him in his vulnerable state, but in his
peripeteia, his piety towards Athena brought him home to Ithaca. When he returns
home he finds suitors who ignorantly disregarded the clear invasion of his home.

You dogs! You thought I would never

Come home from Troy. So you wasted my house,

Forced the women to sleep with you,

And while I was still alive you courted my wife

Without any fear of the gods in high heaven

Or of any retribution from the world of men

Now the net has been drawn tight around you,(Homer, Book 22, Line 38).

The act of being impious is the highest oence and it is seen as impolite. The deeds of
the hubris suitors reflected poorly on the Gods, to get away with dishonoring a fellow
man, much less a God, would suce in retribution. The suitors are living like savages.
They have no state, no piety and no respect. They are considered vulgar plebeians,
with no sense of virtue. When a true virtuous hero comes along, that is where the
virtues certainly amalgamate. The sense of justice, courage and piety work together in
many forms. It is hard to find one without the other. Antigone will say she has the same
sense when it comes to burying her brother,

But I will bury him; and if I must die,

I say that this crime is holy: I shall lie down

With him in death, and I shall be as dear

To him as he to me.

It is the dead,

Not the living, who make the longest demands:

We die forever

You may do as you like,

Since apparently the laws of the gods mean nothing to you. (Sophocles, Antigone,
192).

Antigone is committing a crime. However to bury is to respect the dead and the
passage between worlds, which is considered a holy process. The Gods certainly do
not see it as a crime in their eyes. Though the law is to not bury him, piety is above
the law much like justice. The immortal perception of piety therefore is a virtue.

The essential Greek virtues of courage, justice, and piety are unquestionable. With
these virtues, life is progressive in its path, and man more modernized. That is why the
essential virtues are valued and looked highly upon. Those able to achieve the grasp of
these virtues are idolized. The importance of every virtue has its own place. They are
woven together and without each other one could question the existence of any moral
obligation.

Works Cited

Aristotle. The Politics. Ed. Brian Boyd. Annapolis: Key School, 2016. Print.

Homer, and Stanley Lombardo. The Essential Homer: Selections from the Iliad and the
Odyssey. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000. Print.

Plato, and Christopher J. Rowe. The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito,
Phaedo. London: Penguin, 2010. Print.

Sophocles, Dudley Fitts, and Robert Fitzgerald. The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex ;
Oedipus at Colonus ; Antigone. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949. Print.

Thucydides. Peloponnesian War. Ed. Brian Boyd. Annapolis: Key School, 2016. Print.

virtues