Is Ancient Greece overrated?

But Roman civilization is itself overrated. The area of the old Roman Empire which is still "Roman" is limited - I'd count Italy, Spain, Portugal and France as Rome's successors.

All the other countries don't descend from Rome, but have their own roots. The Nordic countries were never part of the Roman Empire. Germany and Germanic cultures have their own independent history. The Poles, Russians and other Slavs have an entirely non-Roman history. The Arabs also have their own culture and identity, as do the Turks.

The Greeks of today have nothing much in common with the Ancient Greeks, other than the language and even that has evolved so far that ancient Greek is incomprehensible to modern Greeks.
Well Europe is Christian because Rome is Christian, the Latin alphabet and Latin-Romance linguistic influence comes from Rome ultimately, on top of that even areas that were submersed by Slavic or Germanic people in the East or Britain ultimately were re-brought into a Roman-Christian framework by the start of the high middle ages.
 
I think Russia would historically disagreed with you, as would nearly every country with its legal tradition being tied to the Corpus Juris Civilis. The fact that Latin and Greek were languages of learning - hell, that most of Europe was CHRISTIAN is part of how the Roman Empire was deeply influential on them, even if it was indirect - in exactly the way India should be considered influential on European mathematics.

On your last point - I wouldn't say that IN Greece. They may take particular issue with that. It also seems odd as Middle English is incomprehensible to me, but we'd still say that the English are connected to those who spoke Middle English. (Unless I'm missing your point)

OK, Christianity is a good argument for the legacy of Rome... although one can argue it isn't strictly a "Roman" product since the original Roman religion was polytheistic. Christianity came out of Judea in the 1st century AD and was persecuted by Romans for centuries until eventually it spread to the elite of society.

My point about Greece is that the modern nation doesn't really have anything in common with the Ancient Greek culture, in any way, and that the hero-worship of that culture in modern Greece is artificial, fake, phoney, a fraud, and largely a product of 19th century nationalism.

Greece's actual culture owes far more to the Byzantine period, as I've said earlier. But that is downplayed, for "reasons" that have a lot to do with modern history, and not much with ancient times.
 
I would add that the ancient greeks had a really unique experience: the polis. This was a very special circumstance in history and contributed greatly to their special development. And later the loss of the polis was a huge impulse they had to deal with - this is reflected in great detail in hellenistic culture and philosophy.
 
I would add that the ancient greeks had a really unique experience: the polis. This was a very special circumstance in history and contributed greatly to their special development. And later the loss of the polis was a huge impulse they had to deal with - this is reflected in great detail in hellenistic culture and philosophy.
Eh, many other cultures had the ideals of the city-states: Iron Age Celtiberians, Phoenician-Carthaginians, Early Modern Northern Italians, Malays (okay, kingdom-states but each king only rules one or two major city firmly anyway), etc.
It's just none of them are the celebrated precursors to the Modern Western Civilization.
But yeah, the story of Hellenes is the story of poleis and tyrants. When the polis is gone, Hellenism is gone - they call each other Rhomaioi instead.
 
OK, Christianity is a good argument for the legacy of Rome... although one can argue it isn't strictly a "Roman" product since the original Roman religion was polytheistic. Christianity came out of Judea in the 1st century AD and was persecuted by Romans for centuries until eventually it spread to the elite of society.

My point about Greece is that the modern nation doesn't really have anything in common with the Ancient Greek culture, in any way, and that the hero-worship of that culture in modern Greece is artificial, fake, phoney, a fraud, and largely a product of 19th century nationalism.

Greece's actual culture owes far more to the Byzantine period, as I've said earlier. But that is downplayed, for "reasons" that have a lot to do with modern history, and not much with ancient times.

I'd counter that is we agree that Christianity wasn't "Roman" (I'd argue that without the Romans you'd likely not have seen Christianity evolve in the way it did), there is a deep relationship between them that radically altered Christianity in ways, through the rise of Donatism, Nestorianism, and all sorts of groupings, let alone Chalcedonism. Roman Christianity is very different from Non-Roman Christianity in many ways, and it was Roman Christianity that influenced Europe.

I'd agree, tbh. I mean, I see no recent Pericles statues, but I have a great photo of me with Constantine XI in Athens. However, The Greek Sphere is a big root of the Roman West vs Roman East (yay divisions) that preceded and partially formed the Byzantine period culture. So much so that the Romans used 'Latin' as an insult. (Which is mind blowing if you think about it.)

As to modern Greek culture? I mean, I'm not a Greek National, but I'm more than happy to say that it like many other Nationalism are constructs used by the powerful to create a narrative.
 
But Roman civilization is itself overrated. The area of the old Roman Empire which is still "Roman" is limited - I'd count Italy, Spain, Portugal and France as Rome's successors.

Putting aside the fact that you missed Romanian as another decently-sized European country... around 800 million people globally speak a language directly derived from Latin:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

You can’t mention Spain and Portugal, for instance, as an example of Rome’s influence and not mention Latin America and Brazil.

Also, this doesn’t even take into account non-Romance languages that have been heavily influenced by a Romance language, like English.
 
Putting aside the fact that you missed Romanian as another decently-sized European country... around 800 million people globally speak a language directly derived from Latin:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

You can’t mention Spain and Portugal, for instance, as an example of Rome’s influence and not mention Latin America and Brazil.

Also, this doesn’t even take into account non-Romance languages that have been heavily influenced by a Romance language, like English.

Also the calendar, the basis for our entire modern system of laws, and the whole concept of a republic. You know, fairly minor stuff
 
Putting aside the fact that you missed Romanian as another decently-sized European country... around 800 million people globally speak a language directly derived from Latin:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

You can’t mention Spain and Portugal, for instance, as an example of Rome’s influence and not mention Latin America and Brazil.

Also, this doesn’t even take into account non-Romance languages that have been heavily influenced by a Romance language, like English.

Brazil was not part of the Roman Empire...
 
Also the calendar, the basis for our entire modern system of laws, and the whole concept of a republic. You know, fairly minor stuff
Republic, sure. But democracy? No? The norse tribes and other germanic and celtic peoples would like to have a word with you, having developed (arguably) a more democratic system...
 
I feel that when it comes to mythology, Greece is given too much credit. People see them as being the source of all Roman myths, despite how different the personalities of many of their deities were. I also suspect the thigh about 'Athena winning every battle' was because Athenians wanted to discredit those taking Ares as their patron. Makes a bit of sense when related to the juvenile Spartans. While I don't know much on Roman mythology, as ALL libraries and other places have are details on Greek ones (in which they remove all the epiths from names which show how they were originally different deities which had the name of Olympians stamped over them), but I think there is a more balanced version of the God and Goddess of War in Roman mythology. Probably comes down to how Mars was also a god of farmers and could be seen as more of a defensive god (perhaps also of soldiers rather than Warriors) while Minerva was a part of the Capitoline Triad, which I believe preceding the whole melding stuff between the Italianate/Latinate/etc religions and the Hellenic ones.

I am interested into the Slavic Mythological stuff, in with which Slavic Mythology as far as I know outside of Chernobog and the Baba Yaga, never got any major attention.
 
Republic, sure. But democracy? No? The norse tribes and other germanic and celtic peoples would like to have a word with you, having developed (arguably) a more democratic system...

Semantic distinction. Republics are a form of democracy, and all modern democratic countries have a republican form of government. Not discounting the importance of Norse democratic institutions (the allthing, etc), but to suggest that they had any significant influence on the development of democratic institutions in the United States, or in southern Europe is laughable.
 
Semantic distinction. Republics are a form of democracy, and all modern democratic countries have a republican form of government. Not discounting the importance of Norse democratic institutions (the allthing, etc), but to suggest that they had any significant influence on the development of democratic institutions in the United States, or in southern Europe is laughable.

British democracy owes a lot to Anglo-Saxon consultative assemblies. Ergo, it also had a lot to do with the institutions of the US (though there is a lot of Classical input there).
 
British democracy owes a lot to Anglo-Saxon consultative assemblies. Ergo, it also had a lot to do with the institutions of the US (though there is a lot of Classical input there).
But aren't those US aspects informed by the Enlightenment by the likes of Montesquieu and Rousseau? Even John Locke had some mainland influence in his theories on the Social Contract.

Edit: Sorry, didn't see the parenthesis. But still I think that classical input far outweighs the Anglo-Saxon influence.
 
But aren't those US aspects informed by the Enlightenment by the likes of Montesquieu and Rousseau? Even John Locke had some mainland influence in his theories on the Social Contract.

Edit: Sorry, didn't see the parenthesis. But still I think that classical input far outweighs the Anglo-Saxon influence.

At any rate, European democracy owes far more to Rome than to Athens. There was a distinction between common folk and aristocrats in many European parliaments (or local equivalents), which wasn't present in the Athenian assembly.
 
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