Trust: A Fragile Cultural Pillar through History

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Trust is like silence in a classroom of students, it can take forever for it to happen, and only seconds to be broken. Like silence, trust is very fragile and not easy to obtain. Trust has been an important cultural attribute in cultures all around the world from the beginning of humanity until now. In Ancient Greece, cultural values were carried out through their daily lives and through stories and myths. Out of the many, one passed on by the Greeks is trust. Trust, along with many other values, it is important to both ancient and present culture, and many examples are shown through stories and myths like in Damon and Pythias, and Jason and Medea. Trust affects me because it determines my relationships with people, and ties in along …show more content…

The two stories that reflect on the value of trust are the stories of Damon and Pythias, Jason and Medea. Although from both stories, trust is not what the main point may seem to be, trust truly plays an important role in the stories. In the story Damon and Pythias, these two men were best friends. Both of them decided to take a trip to Syracuse, far away from their home in Sicily. In Syracuse, Pythias said something to the king that offended him and Pythias was put into prison and was sentenced to death. Pythias pleaded to the king to let him say goodbye to his family. Damon stepped in and took his place in prison while he was gone. The king in disbelief of the trust between the two, gave Pythias a month to return, or else Damon would be killed. After Pythias said his goodbye's and was on his way back, he was attacked by pirates and was forced to swim to the island, and run to the king's palace. As Damon was put into his place of death, the king taunted him about his stupidity in trusting his friend, yet Damon still had no doubt that Pythias would return. The second before Damon was going to die, Pythias showed up and saved him. The king was in shock and truly impressed by their trust, that he didn't kill either of them. This story definitely shows a true sign of trust because Damon was willing to die for Pythias just so he could say goodbye to his family. With trust, they were able to achieve great …show more content…

The story of Jason and Medea shows the part of trust that doesn’t have your typical happy ending. Jason, a king’s son grew up away from the kingdom, and went to go take his place on the throne after Pelias expropriated his place. When Jason shows up, Pelias makes up that in order to have the kingdom he must bring the Golden Fleece to him. Jason believes it, and gathers a group (the Argonauts) to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Together they go through countless challenges and defeat the first few. Hera asked for Aphrodite’s help because she felt like the Argonauts were in danger, so they send a witch named Medea to accompany them in their adventure and to make her fall in love with Jason. After they stole the fleece, they returned home only to find out that Pelias killed his father and his mother died from sadness. So Jason and Medea plot revenge and also bring his father back to life. Jason and Medea ended up having two children but Jason ended up betraying Medea and marrying someone else. She was very overwhelmed and plotted a horrible revenge. In this story, we see a tragic ending between two people. After Jason betrayed Medea and got married to someone else, Medea was enraged and broken because the trust she had with him was ruined. When there is a lack of trust from both sides of a relationship, many things can go wrong. Maybe not as far as Medea took it, but still something bad. Overall, trust is very important

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