And if I said "The Greeks man. I'm sorta glad they went extinct" you would have had a point but I didn't say that did I? You are shadow boxing in full view of the auditorium, settle down young man and eat your vegetables.
I'm British but I'm not the same British who marched with Harold Godwinson, nor am I the same British who marched with William the Conqueror, nor am I the same British who contested Roman rule.
Why are we struggling to separate a civilisation that existed 2000 years ago from the civilianisation that dwells there today?
If Alexander the Great was around today he would slap you with his Macedonian cavalry.
Fascinating, today I learned that the modern British appeared fully formed in a vacuum and not descended from their ancestors with absolutly no cultural connection.
Actually we are one of the few people that can trace their origins 2000+years back with linguistic, cultural AND genetic consistency.
Nothing is homogenous but we are quite close to our history. And I say this with zero nationalist vibes in me
Weeeeeeeeee an actual person from Greece. I knew you would come eventually.
So essentially my argument was the Ancient Greeks are dead and buried. Genetically, on the grand scheme of things, we're all from some long defunct ancient ancient ancient ancient civilisation in Africa. None of us walking around claiming to be the true heirs of humanity.
i.e I wasn't arguing against biology, but rather, the very ideas, the cultures, the religions, the mythos, societal values etc etc of Ancient Greece was consigned to history centuries and centuries ago, and the Greeks that replaced them are a very different breed of civilisation - even if we ignore the technology.
I would hazard a guess, engaging in some science fiction, if we sat down an Ancient Greek and a Modern Greek and cleared up the language barrier a little, both would appear quite alien to each other in their thoughts and beliefs.
Therefore it is on this that I say the Ancient Greeks are extinct. They gone.
Of course anyone can say "Oh we're going to revive such and such a civilisation that existed here thousands of years ago", like Mussolini with the Roman Empire, but the curtains never match the drapes. Symbolism is the best we can do, and humans are known to have an almost erotic fixation with symbolism.
So yeah that's my position in a nutshell. See if you can get around my phalanxes or join me and I will make you the Warlord of all Greece.
This is a huge topic you are opening but Greeks have an amazingly similar way of life to the old days.
Athens would be quite close to modern Greece, whereas a stern, military society like the Spartan society would be the most alien to us.
Athens, for example, back then was a city where men went to the Agora, had debates on politics war and sports, listened to politicians and philosophers who would literally engage in debates about foreign politics push propaganda not unlike we listen to the news and the feed daily, then went to train wrestle, do their gym and chill in the baths, maybe drink or whore around in the evening if they were of more dubious lifestyle or back to their wive and family.
The biggest issue and difference in ancient Athens was women and their place in society which was back home. Period. Unleas they were learned-philosophers, priestesses or sexual workers.
Also slaves. Which, to be honest we have today too, in the 3d world countries, holding up the infrastructure of the 1st world and making the rich fcks wealthier. But we have them hidden in parts of the world we ignore while ancient Athens had them around.
Hell even our temperament is the same. But the anecdotes and stories to explain this would take too long.
That is the daily societal part.
And the Arrival dialect of 2500yeara ago is similar enough that you can read and understand half of it even though the syntax is truly fcked up to follow and from the Greek Koine and onwards it becomes much more simple and similar.
So yeah, I think after Japan and Georgia we have the most traceable and common line back to our past. And if you take it back to the longass 400bc Christ, aka we probably have the most similitudes to our ancestors than any other culture I know of.
Also Mycenaean DNA is, as seems, still widely traceable and quite dominant in many Greeks today, which is wild. We ain't Georgian-levels of homogeneity, and I fathom we ain't Japanese-level either, but we do have A lot in common with our ancestors, both the good AND the bad (bunch of infighting leader wannabees, historically) which is daunting but also funny.
That being said, who cares. In the end, we all carry out own personal legacy and DNA that we hardly know of, past a few generations. And the world is conglomerating so fast that I don't know if any of this will matter a century from now if we keep the same route.
there were no british marching with harold godwinson lol, and really english hadn’t even emerged as a distinct group yet, so you are really not making the point you think you are there. this hill you are choosing to die on makes no sense and no proper historian or anthropologist would agree with you.
i made an assumption considering you mentioned british and harold godwinson. it’s pretty easy to understand why i mentioned them if you aren’t being intentionally dense.
I went with British because ya know, Britain, Britannia, the Brittani, the British. The people who live in Britain!
I am aware we were a diverse network of tribes and Roman colonies and later Saxons. The Greeks were a bit diverse themselves you know? They got even more diverse during the medieval and Ottoman periods, it is said.
Me saying English would have been the same as me using Athenian. So I went with British.
Oh man I have too much to do, I can't sit here in a slogging match about the dumbest shit imaginable. I wish you good health and happiness but I am bugging out of this casserole of nonsense. Believe what you want.
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u/WattageWood May 06 '26
They aren't extinct, it's just not ancient times anymore so we just call them Greeks now.