By Eugenia Manolidou
When a country with the economic and technological power, as well as the international reach, of China devotes institutions, academic energy and public attention to classical and humanistic studies, the significance of the event extends far beyond the boundaries of an academic conference.
The 2nd World Conference of Classics, held in Athens from 9 to 11 June, 2026 brought into sharp focus one of the great questions of our time: what kind of education does the human being need in a world where technology is advancing at a speed that often exceeds our capacity to reflect on its consequences?
I had attended the first conference in Beijing in 2024, and I still remember the impression made on me by the seriousness with which the Chinese academic and cultural community approached Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Thucydides, Confucius, Lao Tzu and the great traditions of East and West. In the age of artificial intelligence, automation, global competition and the extraordinary production of information, China turns towards ancient wisdom in order to discuss harmony, justice, responsibility, political thought and the relationship between the human being, society and nature.
In Athens, this dialogue acquired even greater symbolic force. Greece, the place where philosophy became an exercise of the mind, tragedy revealed the depth of human destiny, democracy shaped the meaning of citizenship, and paideia became connected with the cultivation of the human person, entered into dialogue with another great civilisation, one with an ancient tradition, historical self-awareness and a strategic commitment to knowledge. This meeting, from Beijing to Athens, showed that classical studies can function as a shared language between civilisations seeking to think about the future with historical depth and intellectual responsibility.
A special place within this framework was held by the event in Marathon, entitled “Seeds of Civilisation”, where young people from Greece and China communicated through letters, myths and symbols, taking wheat, the earth and cultivation as their starting point. At the same event, the trailer of the documentary Wheat, the Seed of Civilisation, in which I participate, was presented for the first time. I had the opportunity to speak about Demeter, the goddess of fertility, cultivated land and humanity’s passage from wild nature to organised community, in parallel with Shen Nong, the Divine Farmer of Chinese tradition, who is associated with agriculture, herbs, healing knowledge and the beginnings of human cultivation.
There, in Marathon, the seed became an image of memory, nourishment, continuity and creation. Demeter and Shen Nong, two figures from distant civilisations, illuminated the same human truth: the cultivation of the earth was also the cultivation of community, knowledge, ritual and the human relationship with the world. Through this convergence, it became clear how antiquity can approach young people in a way that is direct, poetic and pedagogically fruitful.
This is also the path we have served for years at Elliniki Agogi. Ancient Greek, mythology, philosophy, history and art become for children a way of thinking, an exercise in judgement, linguistic cultivation, imagination and paideia for the age of artificial intelligence, when they are taught with vitality, accuracy and a meaningful connection to their world. This Greek-Chinese encounter reminds us that classical education gains new strength when it becomes dialogue, participation, memory and creation.
China, with the determination of a country that plans its future, turns towards classical wisdom in order to give human measure to its technological power. Greece, which gave birth to words, concepts, myths and ideas of universal radiance, is called today to undertake an equally bold task: to offer this inheritance once again to children as a language of thought, as an education in judgement, as a force of freedom, and as a light that still shines. Greek classical civilisation belongs to humanity, but the responsibility to keep it alive begins with us.