The Agenus and the Social Order of the Greeks

Nietzsche graduated Schulpforta with a dissertation on the topic of Theognis of Megara. Theognis was a Greek aristocrat from a Dorian city-state, famous for his poetry which survives only in fragments. For millennia, he was regarded as a gnomic poet, whose works were intended to impart moral lessons. In his study of Theognis, Nietzsche combats this view, and argues instead that Theognis was only perceived as a moralist in the post-Socratic zeitgeist. What Nietzsche finds instead is a passionate man who wrote poetry at all seasons and occasions of life, and who spoke for an aristocratic ethos that was collapsing during the democratic revolutions of Greece. In this essay, among the earliest works of Nietzsche, we find the beginnings of his own identification with the old social order of Greece, and even his implicit criticisms thereof. Episode art - Statue of Janus, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons