Abstract
Nietzsche'sutmost philosophical concern, which he described as "deepening of pessimism" (Nietzsche, KSA 2, 370), is connected with his struggle about the difference between optimism and pessimism. The first time when he investigated the struggle between optimism and pessimism, which he called his "fundamental question" (KSA 1, 15), was in the relation of the Ancient Greeks towards pain in his book "The birth of Tragedy: Or -Hellenism and Pessimism".
A central point in Nietzsche's thinking later on became rather not the philological issue of how the Ancient Greeks handled pain, but, by developing his genealogical method, what kind of relation towards pain became predominant in modern times.