Why Were the Greeks So Clever?

[Alexandru H.]

I would say... competition.

The Greek world was a patchwork of small-knited "nationalist" city-state that competed in everything, from sports to military achievements, from poetry to architecture. Not every creation was valuable; but the sheer quantity of works ensured that at least some of them were pieces of genius. For example, we know of only three great tragic authors, all three living in that great period of 500 to 400. But the real number of tragic authors was huge: even some philosophers wrote tragedies. I would suspect that in each city housing an amphiteater there was some kind of local author trying to have his plays on the stage, between those of Sophocles and Eurypides.

But that was the situation of most of the world.
And most of the world sucked.

It wasn't. No other nation took so much pride in having contests. Look at Sophocles and the result of his achievements: kind of hard to find other nation in the ancient world showering a simple writer with so many signs of appreciation.

[jimmy olsen]

the first real usage of Greek we have is a really very clever introduction by a cup, warning that the person drinking will get beer goggles

Two Greeks, One cup?

[Martinus]

I would say... competition.

The Greek world was a patchwork of small-knited "nationalist" city-state that competed in everything, from sports to military achievements, from poetry to architecture. Not every creation was valuable; but the sheer quantity of works ensured that at least some of them were pieces of genius. For example, we know of only three great tragic authors, all three living in that great period of 500 to 400. But the real number of tragic authors was huge: even some philosophers wrote tragedies. I would suspect that in each city housing an amphiteater there was some kind of local author trying to have his plays on the stage, between those of Sophocles and Eurypides.

In philosophy the situation is the same. Apart from some works, we have literally only a small handful of the ancient philosophical texts. Many of them were lost in time; but I suspect that most of them had no real value. Antiquity kept only the best (with some exceptions, of course).

I'm inclined to agree.

In a way you could also see a parallel between Greece and Europe, in that Greece was to the Mediterranean world what Europe was to the world - a relatively poor land divided between a patchwork of states filled with some angry and greedy motherfuckers.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Jared Diamond mentioned this in Collapse, a fantastic little anecdote. 

Mycenaean, roughly the Bronze Age version of Greek, was a written language, but all our examples of the language are lists of sacrifices to Gods or tribute or payment.  The written language appears to have had no popular usage, and died out very rapidly during the early part of the Greek Dark or Geometric period. 

But this is our first example of Ancient Greek is the famous inscription on Nestor's drinking cup, which is

ΝΕΣΤΟΡΟΣ:...:ΕΥΠΟΤΟΝ:ΠΟΤΕΡΙΟΝ
ΗΟΣΔΑΤΟΔΕΠΙΕΣΙ:ΠΟΤΕΡΙ..:AΥΤΙΚΑΚΕΝΟΝ
ΗΙΜΕΡΟΣΗΑΙΡΕΣΕΙ:ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΕΦΑΝΟ:ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΕΣ

Or

Nestor's cup I am, good to drink from.
Whoever drinks this cup empty, straightaway
the desire of beautiful-crowned Aphrodite will seize.

So while the Mycaneans (and basically everyone else up until the Greeks) used the written language exclusively for religious or clerical purposes, the first real usage of Greek we have is a really very clever introduction by a cup, warning that the person drinking will get beer goggles.  This is even funnier because Nestor's Cup plays an important part in The Illiad, so the first example we have of Greek is also our first example of literary satire. 

Why were the Greeks different?  Why did they do so much? Any thoughts? Opinions?

I thinks the same reason that one of the words for assfucking is doing it greek. clears the mind.

[Razgovory]

I'm inclined to agree.

In a way you could also see a parallel between Greece and Europe, in that Greece was to the Mediterranean world what Europe was to the world - a relatively poor land divided between a patchwork of states filled with some angry and greedy motherfuckers.

Except that Europe is a very rich land.

[jimmy olsen]

I'm inclined to agree.

In a way you could also see a parallel between Greece and Europe, in that Greece was to the Mediterranean world what Europe was to the world - a relatively poor land divided between a patchwork of states filled with some angry and greedy motherfuckers.

Except that Europe is a very rich land.

Historically that's not true, Europe was quite poor compared to East Asia and the Middle East, especially when you moved in from the Mediterranean coast.

[Razgovory]

I'm inclined to agree.

In a way you could also see a parallel between Greece and Europe, in that Greece was to the Mediterranean world what Europe was to the world - a relatively poor land divided between a patchwork of states filled with some angry and greedy motherfuckers.

Except that Europe is a very rich land.

Historically that's not true, Europe was quite poor compared to East Asia and the Middle East, especially when you moved in from the Mediterranean coast.

I thought we were talking about the natural resources not wealth of the people.

[saskganesh]

I'm inclined to agree.

In a way you could also see a parallel between Greece and Europe, in that Greece was to the Mediterranean world what Europe was to the world - a relatively poor land divided between a patchwork of states filled with some angry and greedy motherfuckers.

Except that Europe is a very rich land.

Historically that's not true, Europe was quite poor compared to East Asia and the Middle East, especially when you moved in from the Mediterranean coast.

I thought we were talking about the natural resources not wealth of the people.

it's linked but it changes. the question is whether one can tap into the resources and then use them, which is dependent on technology and knowledge.

like, grazing and hunting buffalo on oilsands did not help the Dene much. now, it's the 21st century, and northern Alberta hosts the biggest construction project on the planet.

Northern Europe did not come into its own, economically (and resource-wise), until the Middle Ages. and then it grew a whole lot more.

[alfred russel]

Maybe the greeks were exceptional because they were absorbed by the Romans, who had a fetish for their intellectuals? If the Romans had the same attitudes toward the Greeks as the Greeks/Macedonians had to the Persians, would we have enough exposure to their works to consider them a cornerstone of western civilization?

[Razgovory]

I don't think of them as the corner stone of western civilization.

[saskganesh]

I don't think of them as the corner stone of western civilization.

well, there's two major tracks. one is the classical (romano-greek) and the other is middle eastern (jews [religion] and phoenicans [alphabet] and arabs [math and a lot of other useful stuff]).

there's other influences of course, and all those named cultures influenced eachother throughout history but Europe's syncretic genius was bringing them all in and then going beyond.

[Razgovory]

I view the Mediterranean civilization as having collapsed in the West a little after Rome fell but last longer in the east.  Western civilization started on the rubble of the older one, and while it borrowed alot from the past it was distinctly different.

[Martinus]

I don't think of them as the corner stone of western civilization.

well, there's two major tracks. one is the classical (romano-greek) and the other is middle eastern (jews [religion] and phoenicans [alphabet] and arabs [math and a lot of other useful stuff]).

there's other influences of course, and all those named cultures influenced eachother throughout history but Europe's syncretic genius was bringing them all in and then going beyond.

Yup. The common meme is that the Western civilization rests on three pillars: the Greek philosophy (and by extension, political ideology), the Roman law and the Christian religion. The fact that Christian religion itself is a mix of Hellenic and Jewish ideas gives Greeks 1.5 out of the 3, which is not bad.

[Martinus]

I view the Mediterranean civilization as having collapsed in the West a little after Rome fell but last longer in the east.  Western civilization started on the rubble of the older one, and while it borrowed alot from the past it was distinctly different.

That's rather ignorant. The entire history of Western philosophy and ideology can be described as an argument between Aristotle and Plato.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I view the Mediterranean civilization as having collapsed in the West a little after Rome fell but last longer in the east.  Western civilization started on the rubble of the older one, and while it borrowed alot from the past it was distinctly different.

That's a view that has come under quite a bit of pressure -and rightfully so- in the last few decades.

A better cesure (sp? I mean breaking-point) is the rise of the arabs. That one cut the Mediterranean world truly in two (and even then the cutting was never absolute)