Gnōthi Sauton
To know thyself is just as easily understood as a call to become aware of one's limits — a reminder that you are mortal, and far from divine.
While Socrates may have expounded upon this common Greek aphorism to promote self-reflection, it has ultimate connotations of morality. To know thyself is just as easily understood to be a call for one to become aware of one's limits. Reminding the person that they are in fact mortal, and far from divine in any way. A pattern seems to emerge when any exalted person exemplifies flawed or dubious morality. Amongst the greatest examples of this is that of Agamemnon's demise. The process by which he meets his end was dubbed the calculus of moral decline, and it tracks the stages through which one falls in going from their zenith to their ultimate death.
Olbos, coming to be interpreted in English best as wealth, represents the first stage of moral decline. Most interestingly, the word Olbos also meant bliss. Herein we can understand the dual nature of this initiating stage. To take the example of Agamemnon, for him to be subject to this calculus of moral decline he needs to be someone of great wealth and someone who is, as a result of his wealth, in a general state of bliss — free from the overarching hardships most suffer from.
As a result of his Olbos, Agamemnon, seeking even greater heights and power and aiming to demonstrate his might, begins to satiate himself: Koros. Agamemnon's act of Koros can be interpreted in many different ways: his indulgence in the war for Achilles' concubine can be seen as one principal example.
As a result of his Koros, he levies upon himself the grudge (envy) of the gods — their Phthonos. This can be seen as the critical point in Agamemnon's calculus of moral decline; a point at which the gods have taken notice of his Koros and have been angered, and are set to put things in motion to ensure his destruction. Agamemnon has, in effect, unknowingly, crossed the rubicon; except he will not be as fortunate as Caesar.
Consequently, Atë (derived from aao, which means to enchant) is the stage of bewilderment and moral blindness wherein Agamemnon commits a morally depraved act out of his own Hubris — the sense that one is above ordinary rules and morality. These two stages see Agamemnon walk across the tapestry that his wife Clytemnestra has laid out for him as a moral trap. After some goading that the prince of Troy would have walked across the carpet had he won the war, Agamemnon, tragically for his own fate, walks across too. As a result he has disrespected and angered the gods and created the legal pretext for the retribution and wrath of the gods in the final stage, Nemesis. This stage sees him be killed by his wife in a bathtub as he waits to begin bathing, thereby completing the calculus of moral decline and bringing Agamemnon to his bitter end.
Similar patterns can be found in the Story of the House of Atreus, where Tantalus commits morally dubious acts as he invites the Gods to his own mortal place and then goes as far as to feed them his own mortal son. In fact, this exact act sets in place the curse on the House of Atreus that continues on until atoned by Orestes, Agamemnon's son, in a court of justice held jointly by humans and gods.
The calculus of moral decline is not confined to antiquity. A pattern seems to emerge when any exalted person exemplifies flawed or dubious morality — and the ancient Greeks, with their characteristic precision, gave us the language to name every step.