 In 1947 , Havelock moved to Cambridge , Massachusetts , to take a position at Harvard University , where he remained until 1963 . He was active in a number of aspects of the University and of the department , of which he became chair ; he undertook a translation of and commentary on Aeschylus ' Prometheus Bound for the benefit of his students . He published this translation , with an extended commentary on Prometheus and the myth 's implications for history , under the title The Crucifixion of Intellectual Man ( and then changed it back to Prometheus when the book was republished in the 1960s , saying that the earlier title had " come to seem a bit pretentious " ) . During this time he began his first major attempt to argue for a division between Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy and what came before . His focus was on political philosophy and , in particular , the beginnings of Greek liberalism as introduced by Democritus . In his book The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics , he argued that for Democritus and the liberals , political theory was based on an understanding of " the behaviour of man in a cosmic and historical setting " : that is , humanity defined as the poets would define it — measured through its individual actions . Plato and Aristotle were interested in the nature of humanity and , in particular , the idea that human actions might be rooted in inherent qualities rather than consisting of individual choices . 
