High life | 13 August 2011

On board S/Y Bushido

According to C.M. Bowra, gold had a divine association with the Ancient Greeks, being more than just a symbolic value, as when Pindar wished to stress the splendour of something he called it golden, whether it was a victor’s crown of wild olives or the opening of a song. Gold stood for wealth in its most magical and least prosaic form, for the radiance it invested in the art of living and for the graces it made possible. I wonder what Pindar would say about gold if he were around nowadays!

Bowra also writes that according to Xenophanes, a social critic of the time, Lydian gold had a harmful effect on Greeks living in Asia Minor, turning the Hellenes into ‘preys of useless luxuries’, and therefore preys to conquest and tyranny. Again, if Xenophanes were around, I wonder what he’d say about rich Arabs covered in it, not to mention rich Eurotrash, but then those who will one day make us their prey — the Chinese — are also covered in gold, just as the Lydians were.