In search of rules

This statue of the goddess Eirene (Peace) holding the child Pluteios (Wealth) appears balanced and in repose. Try holding the pose for a few moments however and it will be obvious that she has merely paused in the middle of an ongoing movement. Her body twists in several directions so that what stability it has is the result of contrary forces temporarily in equilibrium.

Like Egyptian statues she represents an ideal, in this case worked out mathematically. Greek sculptors knew that the gods could hardly be less than perfect, so were driven to seek rules by which this perfection could be measured. The most perfect of geometrical forms is the circle, so it was to this, as well as to the so-called Golden Section, that they tried to relate all their concepts of beauty.

Buildings were constructed on the same principles and philosophers debated the best form of government as if this too could be discovered by the exercise of reason. However, the Greeks recognised that an attempt to rule the world by reason alone would be doomed to failure because human nature has its chaotic side. What mattered was self-control.