Inspired by the ancient Greek ideals of Sound Mind and Sound Body, the Tragos Quest to Greece provides an opportunity for undergraduates, mentors and professors to experience the origins of fraternal organizations and the foundation of Sigma Phi Epsilon’s Balanced Man Ideal. The idea that a balanced man requires a sound mind and sound body, working at it all your life, goes back to the time of Aristotle 2,600 years ago. This is no fad.

It’s a way of living which promotes a virtuous, fulfilled and accomplished life, but it’s hard, requiring diligence and needing the encouragement that comes from brotherly love. The great classics scholar, Edith Hamilton, explained in her landmark book, The Greek Way, that all civilizations previous to the Greeks were preoccupied with death. In all their art and literature and worship, the Greeks turned full face to life: “To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit, which distinguished it from all others that had gone before.”

My wife, Lilli, and I endowed this program to help more SigEps study the philosophers who inspired our founders and ritual on the site where that thinking originated. Our hope is that we ensure the Fraternity will stay true to the concept of a balanced man as its ideal, a man who will live a life of accomplishment, a life worth living. The Tragos Quest to Greece promotes the value of studies which are not only career preparation, but more life training, promoting wisdom at a young age by studying philosophy.

Will you be one of the balanced men who retraces the path of the world’s great philosophers and thinkers? Will you be the brother who discovers his way among the ruins and readings that our founders embraced?

Take the next step and apply for the Tragos Quest to Greece by December 1.

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