"Anabasis" the movie

[artavazd]

While I understand completely the fight against generalisation let's get some quick facts out.

"Europe" as a name is first mentioned in a Greek myth, where Zeus falls in love with her, and transforms himself into a Bull and takes her away from Asia to what is now...Europe. As Greeks first came up with this myth, it is fair to call them "Ancestors" of Europe, as without them it would probably have a different name.

Democracy as you correctly say was invented far from Greece, existed from Northern India to Gaul to Germania. However the very first details on it we have are from Chios (First established Democracy ever with written documents to prove it). Athens, on the other hand, was the first truely "Democratic" state. Its rulers would always have to justify their action. Civil servants were chosen by chance and had to account for their actions. All that and more are described in Aristotle's "ATHENAION POLITEIA" (Constitution of Athens). Mind you according to Ancient Athenians, our own way of government would be called "Oligarchy" as there was no direct democracy as in Ancient Athens. Those are facts, which are written down to us by the Ancients, and are verifiable by archaeologial finds, marble stelai which start off as "EDOXE TEI BOULEI KAI TO DEMOI"="The council (legislative authority) and People have decided that..."
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-aristotle.png
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

Like I said, there is no need to generalize. Ancient Athens had its own very real faults which led to its downfall. There are also many things attributed to Ancient Greeks which are plainly NOT THEIRS, aka this alphabet, which should be called "Evolved Phoenician" not latin. Greek are "Evolved Phoenician" too, and can only claim ancestry because they exist, whereas Phoenicians don't.

Without being or sounding condescending to other cultures, the reason that Greeks are considered the Ancestors of "Europe" is simple. They came up with the word which symbolizes the continent we live in. "Democracy" while it did exist before them, was only put into practice and organized into a system (described by Aristotle) by Athens. The Athenian state organized its public life and state for more than 300 years in Democracy, turning a good idea into institution. This just didn't happen in the West or East of Greece. Roma Republic and all present day polities would be viewed by the Ancient Athenians as Oligarchies. The reason why Ancient Greeks, my ancestors, are considered the fathers of Democracy is because they turned a dream into a working institution and were the first to do so, and left enough data so that we know just how it worked. They weren't neither Super-intelligent, nor Hyper beings. They were just the first.

The Celt, if you want BS, go pester a Bull until he produces what it is you are looking for. Nobody did Ancient Greeks a favor by calling them "Ancestors" of Europe or "Fathers of Democracy". It was based on facts which I have just established and are easily verifiable.

(thanks to ||Lz3|| for correcting me)

Kervanos do not take offense. I am in no way down grading Greek civilization. I am just plainly pointing out that governments of Northern and North western European heritage should not USE Greek achievemnts and customs as propoganda and make false connections with a civilization that is much closer to the rest of the Mediteranian world than to Northern Europe.

Regarding Europe. I would like to point out that demographics have changed dramaticaly since the time of EB. Now demographicaly speaking European like people (caucasians) existed as far east as western china. What is today Turkey was inhabited by "eurpean" peoples. Even today with the vast demographic shifts, the Caucasus if any one has visted their (especialy Georgia, Armenia, and northern Caucasus) You would think you are amongst "eurpeans".

True Democracy never existed in Greece. Or any where else for that matter. Was it not only the land owning men of Athens that can cast votes? Also anyone who didnt belong to the polis could never gain true citizenship of that polis. This is what I mean by Modern governments using the term "democracy" as a propoganda tool.

[The Persian Cataphract]

Okay, everyone take a deep breath.

First of all, I am disappointed and downrightly appalled at the thought of someone referring to the ancient Greeks as "savages" even in highly figurative terms; it goes against absolutely every maxim that the team of Europa Barbarorum stands for. If we wish to make ourselves more independent from the Graeco-Romanocentric scholastic point of view and associated dogmas, fine, we even encourage scrutiny, independent thought and investigation, but this should never come at the cost of disrespecting a culture so macro-historically important and influential as that of the Greeks. Iranology already knows how it feels like to bear the brunt of repairing centuries of numerous Western-European dogmas, bogus Nazi-Fascist "anthropology" and outright Soviet-backed political revisionism. I don't want any of this to be bestowed upon any branch of scholarly studies. It's the worst form of poison and causes extra unnecessary work. Call them Gordian knots if you will.

There is no denying it; Europe, as a term is of indisputable Greek origins (So is Asia too actually... Neither terms are recognized in Old and Middle Persian, nor in the Aramaïc or Babylonian in the astronomical diaries). The problem is that this sense of identity was only recognized the Greeks, and so the term would only gradually be acquired and recognized by other states and nations during the Medieval age and the Renaissance; we have a glorious example of this. The so-called "Byzantines" were actually deprived of their Roman epithet by a bunch of Germanic folks who dubbed their slightly overgrown nation "Holy Roman Empire". It's not hard to see where I am going with this.

Democracy is another one of these indisputably Greek novelties... But something disturbs me. Scandinavian nations, who as usual deride their own native cultures as culturally inferior, take great pride in their own institutions and enjoy with great glee their "European identity", which of course is echoed by sensationalist elementary-grade history books bombastically claiming that the 300 Spartans saved Europe from the 2 million man horde of Oriental tyranny... We know all that, and the entire industry of romanticist exploitation, but excuse my French and my lack of political correctness, but where the fuck was Sweden back then? This is my problem; Greek culture in particular has been subjected to one of the worst forms of thievery, and the worst thing is that Western Europeans flip-flop their admiration freely between relative Athenian pluralism and philosophy to the daring campaigns of Alexander... This is clearly a problem with the consistency and ultimately marking the difference between respectful veneration and indeed inspiration, to downrightly perverse obsession.

It's just like the people who declare Cyrus II The Great as an infallible saint and those who at the same time point to Shapur's military humiliation of Roman emperors. This is not scholarship. This is folly.