denmark invented the nordic model, inspiring the other nordic bloc countries to join. you've got austrian economics (to be fair austria was petty big when they came along) jamica started cultural trend like ska and regaee. so despite being relatively small, we can
i see three ways this can happen:1.early greece being way more succseful, becoming a mid sized power like for say, the netherland or sweden, that has a good, on par with western standards, academic base, and from there getting lucky by having somone who happened to write a signifcant writing in a specfic subject, receving an intellectual niche inspired by a modern greek person.
2.Greece maneging to pull of an economic miracle using some kind of new and innovative model like s.korea, denmark, singapore and even israel to some extent did. boom, greek model.
3.Greek music manages to sneak in to modern global culture,maybe fused with some other genres like punk and rock, kind off like how celtic music managed to get relatively mainstream both in its original form with bands like riverdance and in its various fusion genres, like celtic punk or rock.
thats my 2 cent anyway.