Yeah, and Yogurt is Greek too...

Like so many good things this realization came to me while watching an episode of good eats. Now as many of you may know I happen to be rather fascinated with things like history, theology and mythology especially as it pertains to western and northern Europe. I am also one of those people who has always held true the idea that most of the things we attribute to the Greeks were not, in fact, Greek. Odds are good that most of you with even a passing interest in history are now ready to jump down my throat, but think about it for a moment. We may commonly accept that the Greeks somehow came up with ninty five percent of all good ideas in the past, well, ever or that they are the foundation for all western myth (I have even heard some argue the foundation for ALL polytheistic myth and religion though god help me if it hurts to hear it). But how likely is it really that they came up with all of these things, especially when so many of them lack any sort of 'Greekness' to them or have names that are not even remotely Greek?

Think about it. The overall culture of the various Grecko city states really was not that dissimilar from their celtic/protoceltic and Goth/protogoth neighbors, many of whom seemed to exist in small tribes that have been evidenced to be at least somewhat democratic. The Greek, like the Romans, French, Japanese and so many other empires seem to have simply been lumped in to taking credit for things that they had no real responsibility for simply due to success at one point. So what do you people think? Are the Greeks really the ubercivilization of the west? or are they simply the ones who got all the credit?

its spelt yogurt.

i shall post on the actual topic subject later

Oh, no, the Greeks were clowns. And yogurt is Turkish.

lol I reloaded the Off topic page just as I grabbed a yogurt to find this topic had opened up.. Funny.

Speaking as a half-Greek with one of the most Greek fathers there is, the things that you hear the Greeks did all depend on who they're coming from. We did some cool shit, yes, and for that (And the exaggerations in 300) people start giving us credit for other stuff that they think might be remotely related. We didn't do all of it, but all of those war stories about our wicked strategies... Yeah, those are true.

What most people don't realize is that at the time, there was no unified Greece, there existed numerous warring(And peaceful) city-states, and there was no central "Greek" thinking center or any of that. And because of this, many neighboring places' achievements grouped in with them as the misconceived notion of there being one Greek empire ruling over them all.

And also, I spell it "Yogourt". Canadians are wacky like that.

no, they had no real unification. Just as there is no unification in the Gauls, Goths, Turks or other regions at the time. The point still stands though that while I do buy that the Greeks did some interesting things, I also think that most of it was a combination of roman infatuation mixed with the roman penchant for taking EVERYTHING from every other culture and mixing it into their own rather than looking at it for what it was (Hence the screwed up view most people get about mythology and the assumption that most of it is 'Hellenistic' in nature.)

It just Urks me when people fail to realize that the Greek people didn't do everything, or when people like my dad assume everything stems from the Greek rather than realizing that many things though conquest were filtered though Olive-colored glasses so to speak.