Hamilton begins by highlighting the common misunderstanding that mythology depicts the blissful state of man in his original harmony with nature. On the contrary, Hamilton notes, the lives of ancient people were not romantic and beautiful, but full of hardship, disease, and violence. For Hamilton, the Greek myths are remarkable in that they show how far the Greeks, an ancient civilization, had advanced beyond a primitive state of savagery and brutality. By the time Homer wrote his epic, the Iliad, a new way of looking at the world had come into being. According to Hamilton, this new perspective is critically important, revealing a great deal not only about ancient Greece but about modern America as well—as so much of our own culture comes directly from the Greeks.