National Perspective: What the Athenians knew

ATHENS — In the evening, from the rooftops, the Acropolis shimmers in the failing light. It was, to be sure, once a place of worship. But it also stands as a symbol of the glory that was Greece in the years in which its democracy was founded — the ancients' great contribution to governance and an inspiration to our founders, whose 1787 Constitution was inspired by what the Athenians created in 508 B.C.

This is a country that in the past century has experienced a monarchy, a dictatorship, Nazi occupation, a civil war, a military regime, and a republic that now has a prime minister accused of traducing the very rule-of-law values Athens pioneered in antiquity. But all about this city of ruins, relics and reveries are references and monuments to Greece's ancient democracy. They persist here in folklore and in pillars both real and metaphorical, as they do in the traditions and founding documents of democracies worldwide.