Why the Worship of Ancient Greece and Rome?

[Kooky]

Why were we lucky to have Muslims empires to preserve Greek Thought when the Greeks preserved it themselves for near a millennium before Islam even existed?

They didn't, though? To my recollection, pagan philosophy was barely taught at all in the medieval Roman Empire. It was Emperor Justinian who is frequently credited with closing the Academy, the last of the great schools of philosophy from the Hellenistic and pagan Roman era.

 

[Kooky]

And speaking of Spartans, why in the hell do people glorify them?

Fascism.

 

[Augustus]

They didn't, though? To my recollection, pagan philosophy was barely taught at all in the medieval Roman Empire. It was Emperor Justinian who is frequently credited with closing the Academy, the last of the great schools of philosophy from the Hellenistic and pagan Roman era.

The Academy that closed under Justinian was a Neoplatonist school of no particular antiquity rather than being the actual Platonic Academy that stretched back to Plato. That was destroyed by Sulla 100 years before the first Christians existed. As such it was not a great school in any real sense. Also it is debated whether or not it was closed down or simply stopped receiving any funding. Neoplatonism was more a mystical 'religion' than a rationalist philosophy too.

Also Platonism is one of the few schools of philosophy that survived with many texts intact precisely because it was most in tune with Christianity.

Arabs were never particularly interested in the Greek literary traditions, so these were almost entirely preserved in Byzantium. Practical 'scientific' texts on medicine, etc survived because they were practical and thus worth preserving.

Other than a small number of obscure and unimportant texts from within the regions conquered by Muslims that no one pays much attention to, what we have was all preserved in Greek.

Scholars in the Arab world contributed many advances which is the real story, but them 'saving' Western knowledge is just a myth.

 

[syo]

Because of horrible Plato and Socrates.
Disgusting.

 

[metis]

Because of horrible Plato and Socrates.
Disgusting.

Ya, whatta they know???

 

[Kooky]

The Academy that closed under Justinian was a Neoplatonist school of no particular antiquity rather than being the actual Platonic Academy that stretched back to Plato. That was destroyed by Sulla 100 years before the first Christians existed. As such it was not a great school in any real sense. Also it is debated whether or not it was closed down or simply stopped receiving any funding. Neoplatonism was more a mystical 'religion' than a rationalist philosophy too.

Also Platonism is one of the few schools of philosophy that survived with many texts intact precisely because it was most in tune with Christianity.

Arabs were never particularly interested in the Greek literary traditions, so these were almost entirely preserved in Byzantium. Practical 'scientific' texts on medicine, etc survived because they were practical and thus worth preserving.

Other than a small number of obscure and unimportant texts from within the regions conquered by Muslims that no one pays much attention to, what we have was all preserved in Greek.

Scholars in the Arab world contributed many advances which is the real story, but them 'saving' Western knowledge is just a myth.

My point wasn't that the Arab scholars living under the Caliphate preserved Greek knowledge, but that the scholars of the Roman Empire didn't. The Eastern Roman Empire was a thoroughly Christianized cultural sphere that had little use for pagan art or literature.

At any rate, the idea that ancient works of art and literature are intrinsically worthy of preservation is a very modern one, built on a material culture where media of writing are plentiful and easily available to everyone.

 

[Augustus]

My point wasn't that the Arab scholars living under the Caliphate preserved Greek knowledge, but that the scholars of the Roman Empire didn't. The Eastern Roman Empire was a thoroughly Christianized cultural sphere that had little use for pagan art or literature.

It had use for that which was deemed part of their culture. Homer, histories, etc.

Basically whatever we still have today was deemed of sufficient value.

At any rate, the idea that ancient works of art and literature are intrinsically worthy of preservation is a very modern one, built on a material culture where media of writing are plentiful and easily available to everyone.

Of course.

It's somewhat silly that many folk find it shocking that people didn't spend the equivalent of thousands of dollars a time and weeks of labour to copy stuff they weren't particularly interested in ad infinitum

Ironically, it's often the same people who rejoice in churches being turned into flats and cafes as Christianity declines.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

These societies were horrible to 90% of the folks who lived in them, so why does Western society glorify them so much?

All human societies were horrible much of the time, in history. Every one was practicing human sacrifice and slavery at one point, for example. (The Greeks have their own ancient version of the Abraham and Issac story, by the way, as well as their own version of the Flood story. The Flood story dates back to the Sumerians in terms of recorded history and at least the Greek and Biblical version wasn't as totally bleak and fatalistic.)

Ancient Greece laid the intellectual and philosophical foundations of Western Civilization. There was a clear progression at hand there, at least among their greatest thinkers (the naval gazing philosophers). Look into classicists like Edith Hamilton to see what I mean. Even without Christianity itself, they were obviously moving towards something like it on their own. Zeus was gradually becoming the Universal Father who cared for the lowly just as Yahweh became, through the OT Prophets and definitely through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. As for Rome, they ripped off Greek thought but established much of Western political thought and were definitely the greatest sculptors.

Western Civilization is an epic of progression (even if we fall into darkness at times, like now). We know we're not perfect, but we have our ideals. We're always striving to do better.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

These societies were horrible to 90% of the folks who lived in them, so why does Western society glorify them so much?

I think this kind of sentiment is more the result of certain "artist choices" in hollywood then anything else.

Because indeed, if I as a non-historian would say the first things that come to mind and / or the general "initial feeling" I get with certain timeperiods, it would be something like this:

- Romans: shiny silver legionairs with golden centurions marching the fields towards glory following their Ceasar sitting on a shiny white horse with a golden banner next to him. Marble cities with over-the-top statues and monuments. It smells of fecies, sweat and corpses though.

- Greeks: old grey bearded men in white with purple toga's holding fierce civilized debate during sunset, with the low sun shining through the pillars of the amfi-theater they are holding the debate in.

- Egyptians: the population are basically slaves of the pharaoh. there's a mystical, dark-ish, mist hanging over this ancient society that I have much trouble identifying with. For some reason, I also associate snakes and other nasty poisonous biters with this period.

- Medieval Europe: grey. everything is grey. The sun never shines. It's always cloudy, windy and raining. Everybody is dirty. Except for that one knight, who's shiny on a white horse. He's the one that gets to have sex with the princes Whoever she is. Not important. She's "the princes".


This was fun
I know, obviously, that these are not accurate depictions of those periods. These are just what my mind "instantly" associates with them. To me, that seems to be seriously influenced by "artistic choices" in holywood and alike...

 

[Kooky]

I know, obviously, that these are not accurate depictions of those periods. These are just what my mind "instantly" associates with them. To me, that seems to be seriously influenced by "artistic choices" in holywood and alike...

You've got your causality reversed, here. Hollywood's sloppy and cliché-ridden depiction of ancient eras is a direct result of a popular image of these eras that frequently predates their depiction in movies, and in some cases even the invention of movies as a medium.

For example, the notion of the European Middle Ages as a plague-ridden, poverty-stricken, superstitious era largely seems to come from 18th and 19th century sources (along with some still shockingly common myths such as ius primae noctae).

 

[Augustus]

For example, the notion of the European Middle Ages as a plague-ridden, poverty-stricken, superstitious era largely seems to come from 18th and 19th century sources

So much bad history is 18th/19th C triumphalism (Enlightenment and/or Western imperial)

The "Dark Ages" type stuff is no different to the Arab Muslim concept of Jahiliyya (age of ignorance) that underpins their origin myth.

To make what comes after appear even more magnificent and miraculous, they have to disparage that which came before: "The age of reason" and "the age of faith" type nonsense that many people still uncritically treat as accurate labels.

Even the term "Enlightenment" is horrendously mawkish and self-regarding. Not really much better than the term "brights" that some secular humanists tried to popularise.

 

[Kooky]

So much bad history is 18th/19th C triumphalism (Enlightenment and/or Western imperial)

The "Dark Ages" type stuff is no different to the Arab Muslim concept of Jahiliyya (age of ignorance) that underpins their origin myth.

To make what comes after appear even more magnificent and miraculous, they have to disparage that which came before: "The age of reason" and "the age of faith" type nonsense that many people still uncritically treat as accurate labels.

Even the term "Enlightenment" is horrendously mawkish and self-regarding. Not really much better than the term "brights" that some secular humanists tried to popularise.

At least they didn't tear down as many religious buildings as their predecessors in Christian Rome or Protestant Europe did. Compared to those eras, the inhabitants of the Enlightenment era got away with a comparatively low amount of massacres of religious and ethnic minorities in Europe proper - although, perhaps that is more because the elites of Europe, in their "enlightened" manner, sought it fit to export most of their genocidal violence to foreign continents.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You've got your causality reversed, here. Hollywood's sloppy and cliché-ridden depiction of ancient eras is a direct result of a popular image of these eras that frequently predates their depiction in movies, and in some cases even the invention of movies as a medium.

For example, the notion of the European Middle Ages as a plague-ridden, poverty-stricken, superstitious era largely seems to come from 18th and 19th century sources (along with some still shockingly common myths such as ius primae noctae).

Could be. Off course, I wasn't around in the 18th century and I got mine from movies and comics and alike.

 

[Kooky]

Could be. Off course, I wasn't around in the 18th century and I got mine from movies and comics and alike.

Studying history is a bit of a hobby of mine, and both the very old stuff and the works of amateur historians tends to be more accessible and easy to acquire than modern academic takes.

A lot of the arguments laid out by Edward Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, for example, is still peddled by a lot of amateur and pop historians, even when both modern historiography and modern archeology have largely undermined most of its central theses with evidence pointing in different directions.

If you're interested in the topic, American military historian Bret Devereaux has just started a series on the Fall of Rome (and whether it even happened to begin with) on his blog. He is one of the few people of actual academic credibility I know of who does extensive work directed towards an audience of mostly interested laypeople rather than peers, and as one of these people, I'm rather fond of his online articles, so I tend to plug them wherever it fits.

 

[England my lionheart]

These societies were horrible to 90% of the folks who lived in them, so why does Western society glorify them so much?

For me it’s the Toga parties and orgies,seriously though I Can’t think of anything worth glorying in Greece or Rome other than Spartacus for Rome and the philosophers of Greece.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

For me it’s the Toga parties and orgies,seriously though I Can’t think of anything worth glorying in Greece or Rome other than Spartacus for Rome and the philosophers of Greece.

I think one should put things in a bit of perspective.

If you think of "the road of humanity" starting as nomadic hunter-gatherers, all the way to the modern age today, then it's pretty much undeniable that the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome marked extremely important milestones in all kinds of ways.

For example, Rome specifically was exceptional in its innovation in terms of city planning.

 

[England my lionheart]

I think one should put things in a bit of perspective.

If you think of "the road of humanity" starting as nomadic hunter-gatherers, all the way to the modern age today, then it's pretty much undeniable that the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome marked extremely important milestones in all kinds of ways.

For example, Rome specifically was exceptional in its innovation in terms of city planning.

I agree but I don’t see they are worth glorifying.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I agree but I don’t see they are worth glorifying.

Well, it's kind of a vague word. What does it actually mean in this context?
I think you'll quickly end up with a definition that makes pretty much nothing worthy of being "glorified".

 

[England my lionheart]

Well, it's kind of a vague word. What does it actually mean in this context?
I think you'll quickly end up with a definition that makes pretty much nothing worthy of being "glorified".

There are definitely”things of note but subdugation and tyranny do not add up to glory imo,that goes for all empires.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There are definitely”things of note but subdugation and tyranny do not add up to glory imo,that goes for all empires.

Let's put it this way...

One could glorify Djokovic's tennis skills and career, while at the same time not ignoring his rather stupid opinions and behavior regarding covid.

One could glorify Michael Jackson's contribution to music and recognize him for the musical legend that he is (and imo will remain for a very long time), even if it turns out that he's guilty concerning those pedophile cases.

Their faults don't really diminish their contributions or make them less important.


Why should Rome or Greece be any different?
There's a difference between "glorifying" aspects of Rome and Rome in general.