Remember the American tourist Homer Thrace who, having gone to Greece in search of its ancient philosophers but becoming disillusioned, interrogates a prostitute named Ilya (played by Melina Mercouri) about what has gone wrong?
‘No society ever reached the heights that were attained by ancient Greece! It was the cradle of culture. It was a happy country. What happened? What made it fall?’ he pleads with her - click here.
But was there ever such a Greek Golden Age? When, exactly, was Greece great? In fact, nostalgia for a lost greatness can be found in the so-called Golden Age itself. Even in the mid-fifth century BCE, Athenians were already looking back with longing. And so it goes for the rest of us: we all look back with longing to our own 'Golden Age' and, in doing so, proclaim our own decline.
I think I just sit back and watch 'Never on Sunday' to remind myself of my own personal 'Golden Age' in Greece which will never come again.
