mhaze,

I envy your attendance at being able to
attend an outdoor Greek theatre. The closest
thing I came to doing it was at the University
of Santa Cruz - which had a replica built.

cont'd ...

Sorry - I meant to say the University of Calirornia
in Santa Cruz. It had a very strong Humanities
Department and an interest in Greek theatre.
The following may be of interest:

http://classicalstudies.ucsc.edu/news-events/news-archive/music-2011.html

The magnificent culture produced in ancient Greece has been mainly lost. From "The History of Philosophy" by Grayling:

"There is a wall standing between us and the world of antiquity: the period of decline and fall of the Roman Empire and the rise to dominance of Christianity. Edward Gibbon connected the two phenomena, blaming the former on the latter. He is in significant part right. Remember that in 313 CE the Emperor Constantine gave Christianity legal status and protection by the Edict of Milan and not long afterwards, in 380 CE, the Emperor Theodosius I decreed by the Edict of Thessalonica that Christianity was to be the official religion of the Empire outlawing others. The change brought rapid
results. From the fourth century of the Common Era (CE, formerly cited as AD) onwards a vast amount of the literature and material culture of antiquity was lost, a great deal of it purposefully destroyed. Christian zealots smashed statues and temples, defaced paintings and burned 'pagan' books, in an orgy of effacement of previous culture that lasted for several centuries. It has been estimated that as much as 90 per cent of the literature of antiquity perished in the onslaught. The Christians took the fallen stones of temples to build their churches, and over-wrote the manuscripts of the philosophers and poets with their scripture texts. It is hard to comprehend, still less to forgive, the immense loss of literature, philosophy, history and general culture this represented. Moreover, at the time Christianity existed in a number of mutually hostile and competing versions, and the effort - eventually successful - to achieve a degree of consensus on a 'right' version required treating the others as heresies and aberrations requiring suppression, including violent suppression."

Through the study of Latin or ancient Greek classics
students develop linguistic and analytical skills
which serve them well in a variety of contexts.

Like all fields in the Humanities the study of the
ancient world has unlimited potential to make a
person a more thoughtful, articulate, and critically
astute human being.

The best reason to study Classics is the material
itself. Ancient art, literature, architecture,
science, philosophy, and law have survived the
millennia partly due to chance but also because of
their enduring power to inspire thought.

cont'd ...

My apologies. I forgot to add and acknowledge
the link that summed up the question "Why
Study Classics" by Dana and David Dornsife
at the University of Southern California
(my old stomping ground). There's more at:

http://dornsife.usc.edu/clas/why-study/

They sum things up rather well.

mhaze,
>The importance of the events of September 480 BC can hardly be overstated

On the contrary, I think that's exactly what you're doing! Greek states rose, fought and fell before and after that. The Greek culture and ideas of freedom had already started to spread to Rome, which had by then developed a form of democracy that would be recognisable today (unlike the original Athenian form). Meanwhile Sparta was a totalitarian dystopia much worse than anything it was fighting against.

Did those events have much long term impact? Probably, but you can say that about many ancient battles - there's no need to overstate the importance of this one. Despite the myths of movie makers, western civilisation did not hinge on its outcome.