Archeologists have found the oldest evidence of chemical warfare

[The Persian Cataphract]

Mediolanicus,

No one disputes the macro-historical influence, importance, and not least the legacy left behind the Graeco-Roman model of civilization. I agree with you that in regards to the judicial apparatus, and not least, in the corpus of Western philosophy, where we hear of eminent personalities such as Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper, and any other comparable individual who readily acquired the wisdom passed down to us from the especially Greek philosophers (Out of which I believe Diogenes of Sinope, otherwise so underrated, might have had the most profound effect in our modern society). What must however be disputed is this illusion of some "successorship". Equally, western philosophy was greatly complemented by the teachings of Persianate philosophers and polymaths such as Alhacen, Alpharabius, Avicenna, and Rhazes, and perhaps one of the greatest thinkers of them all, the Arab polymath Averroës. Even here therefore, we must stray away from ascribing some commonly available laws as being of particularly "Greek" or "Roman" character.

Did someone here actually know that the early American presidents read Xenophon's "Cyropaedia", mostly in complement to Machiavelli's "The Prince"? This was unraveled in Cyrus Kar's documentary "In Search Of Cyrus The Great", and apparently the work was fondly read especially by Thomas Jefferson. Certainly, the content of the Cyropaedia is subject to intensive debate, and may have been the idealization of the beneficent sovereign, but nonetheless, this is an important tidbit.

The essence of the argument however is that Eurocentric proponents are so wanton to claim that the entire basis for "Western civilization" (Which I believe is yet another fallacious construct) lies in the cradle of the Graeco-Roman civilization. Then where did this legacy "disappear" during the lengthy Middle and Medieval ages? Something is obviously not in order, and it sounds like some people want to eat the cookie and still keep it. Nordicist historians attempted to write off the Byzantines as the continuous bearer of the Romanesque culture (The very term "Byzantine" itself is a Nordicist construct), and conversely ascribed this to the Germanic dynasties who ruled an entity otherwise known as the "Holy Roman Empire".

Countries such as Sweden actively downplay their ancient legacy, relegating the Vendel and the Viking eras as some barbarous interlude, where mentioned people only raided and ravaged entire dwellings just for the shits and the giggles; instead, Swedish historiography has done its utmost to rather reaffirm the Franco-Flemish royal dynasty of the Bernadotte and associated "noble houses", even though that particular dynasty is from a historiographic point of view fairly recent. Even though the Vikings apparently reached the shores of northern Persia and discovered the Americas centuries before Columbus' clumsy expedition into India, they are still declared a backwater culture.

Interesting read, TPC, but how do you support the notion that "Graeco-Roman civilization" is not the backbone of today's "Western civilization"?

This is a ludicrous argument and makes no sense if rationalized in logical notation; the argument is invalid because I levy upon the positive claimant the burden of proof, as an opposing party. Is it fair then to levy such burden of proof from the source of counter-inquiry/dispute/dissensus? However, let us for a brief moment assume that it is valid, in some hypothetical twist: How do you prove a negative?

Indeed, let us apply your reasoning in some random scenario of a theological (simplified) debate between a religious proponent and an atheist; the religious proponent states that there is a God. The atheist responds by counter-inquiry, the demand of proof to support the positive statement. The religious proponent responds in his own terms for the atheist to prove that there is no super-natural being. This is clearly fallacious reasoning. And not only is it faulty reasoning, but by itself is a can of worms, and is often deemed the root to many other syllogistic fallacies, including that of affirmative conclusion from a negative premise. The demand for negative proof, otherwise known as "reversed burden of evidence" is a fallacy.

I mean, does this sound rational to you?

"A supernatural force must exist, because there is no proof that it does not exist."

My main arguments, I think at least, have been quite clear. We cannot trivialize history, and the utterly complex mechanisms of cause-and-effect, consequentiality, and whatnot because some great power wants to be looked upon in some manner of mode or inspiration. Hitler too laid a claim upon the Roman legacy, and not least, laid a claim to the Aryan identity (Which came to be adapted into a Pan-Germanic ideology), in which the previous claimants were completely ignored, save for the Iranian nation, because Hitler saw an opportunity of bargaining for petroleum. Or as in the case of the Roma people, slaughtered, in one of history's great ironies. Now what? I just flipped the coin.

History has a tremendous potential to influence countries into great deeds. Influence. Steer. Direct. But we cannot walk around and say "America is Rome" because both happen to coincidentally have strong armies; then we might as well as say "America is Persia", simply because allusions to the Persian expedition against Athens as a retaliation to the mass-arson of Sardis finds parallels in 9/11... This pick-and-choose mentality is absurd. And I'm not sure if the Greeks of today enjoy having their heritage being flaunted like some cheap McDonald's burger. It's all about geo-political allusions, just as much as it applies here for Persians being the "inventors of chemical warfare". I'd personally rather have "inventors of equestrian chivalry and bad-ass knights", but that's apparently too much to ask for. As easily as some would compare America to Rome, it has been as easy for others to ascribe Iraqi insurgents or Saddam to the ancient Persians... Which is quite a laughable irony for anyone even mildly informed about the history of the Near East and Iranistics.