It’s All Greek to Me: 20 Things We Owe To Greece
STEPHEN MCGINTY
1 Democracy: The cherished idea flowered in the 6th century BC
when power was first passed to the people. Or rather, the ten per cent of
Athens’ population who classified as citizens – women, slaves and foreigners
did not make the grade. The remainder, men of 18 years and over, were divided
into local groups – the “demoi” – who were then represented on
the city’s major council or parliament of 500 called the “boule”.
In addition, 40 times each year the people (the ekklesia) met in their thousands
to vote on issues of both foreign and domestic policy.
2 Love, actually, is Greek: The Goddess of Love in Greek mythology
is Aphrodite who was born in the sea off Cyprus, conjured from the foam
produced by the severed genitals of Zeus’s grand-father, hurled there by
his son. Not the most auspicious of starts in life, though Aphrodite subsequently
thrived, going on to become not only the Goddess of Love but, in the eyes
of the Spartans, also a Goddess of War. So, by default, she was the Goddess
of Married Couples.
3 Philosophy: The entire canon of western thought: Marx, Descartes,
Derrida are all balanced on the shoulders of three men. Aristotle (384-322
BC), who stood on the shoulders of his master Plato (429-347 BC) who was
propped up by Socrates (469-399 BC). The latter was a veteran of the Peloponnesian
War and when he was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock, he showed future
generations how to die with dignity.
4 Geometry: The ancient phrase “Beware Greeks bearing gifts”
was coined to describe the dubious present of the Trojan horse, and any
school pupil baffled by Pythagoras’ theorem is likely to turn up his nose
at their gift of geometry. The word is derived from the term “geometria”,
meaning the measurement of the earth, a discipline which Euclid, who was
actually from Alexandria in Egypt, first studied at Plato’s Academy. In
case our weary pupil wishes to nurse any further grudges, mathematics was
also the Greeks’ fault.
5 The Secret Police: The Gestapo in Nazi Germany and the KGB of
Stalin’s Russia can trace their antecedents to Sparta, the original military
state. The heroics of the ancient warrior race are justly celebrated at
Thermopylae. It was here that 300 Spartans held off a Persian army of 150,000,
and left the moving inscription: “Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing
by/That here obedient to their words we lie”. But their society was
one of great cruelty. A percentage of the Helots – their slaves – were slaughtered
each year and at night an elite group known as “the kryptia” would
seek out and execute trouble-makers.
6 Ostracism: To be ostracised from a group or, as it is described
today, “sent to Coventry”, is a Greek invention, which required
the spurned party to depart from the city walls and live in exile. This
law of banishment was first introduced in 508 BC but was first used almost
20 years later in 487 BC. The term is derived from ostraka the fragments
of pottery on which the unfortunate nominee’s name was inscribed.
7 The Marathon: What a poor Athenian messenger tackled out of
necessity, millions now do for fun. Following the battle of Marathon at
which the Greeks broke the Persian army, losing just 192 men to their opponents
6,000, a messenger was dispatched to run the 25 miles back to Athens to
announce the city’s salvation and their success. It was a feat he doggedly
achieved before dying of exhaustion. If only he’d had a pair of Nike Air,
a baseball cap and an i-Pod …
8 Alexander the Great: Before Colin Farrell dyed his hair blond
and slipped into a leather skirt, a young Greek (well Macedonian actually)
led an army of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry on a mission to conquer
the known world. Today the battle tactics and wisdom of Alexander, who was
a pupil of Aristotle, are studied by business leaders who adore his direct
approach. When faced with the riddle of the Gordian Knot, which prophecy
decreed could only be unravelled by he who would rule Asia, Alexander paused
for a second before slicing it in two.
9 The Olympic Games: The first gathering of top athletes drawn
from the Hellenic world was in 776 BC and afterwards, every four years,
they would return to Olympia to compete for crowns of wild olives in events
such as chariot racing, wrestling, boxing and the pentathlon. There is no
mention in recorded history of a competitor being banned for steroid abuse.
10 The Muse: Artistic success in ancient Greece was not 1 per
cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration. Instead, creative ideas were
bounteous gifts bestowed by the Muses, a group of nine goddesses who were
each responsible for a particular endeavour. They were Calliope (epic poetry),
Clio (history), Erato (lyric poetry), Euterpe (the flute), Melpomene (tragedy),
Polyhymnia (hymns), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy) and Urania (astronomy).
Unfortunately they were last reported seen bound up and locked in JK Rowling’s
basement.
11 Bawdy Comedy: Some 2,500 years before Frankie Howerd and Sid
James, the Greek world had its own ‘Carry On’ star in the shape of Aristophanes
(450-388 BC). The playwright attacked the establishment’s sacred bulls with
scandalously sexual plays that mocked both politicians and the city’s elite
with a merciless wit. Think Mark Thomas, but funny.
12 Public Jury: The system of trying the accused by a jury of
his peers first took place in Athens. A full participation in the political
and criminal process began after male citizens turned 30, at which point
they were eligible to serve on juries or stand for election as a magistrate.
Each day potential jurors would gather at the Athenian Agora, the market
place, where they were picked by lot.
13 History: As in the fields of philosophy, medicine and mathematics,
the father of history was also a Greek. Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote
his famous “histories” in the 5th century BC. This recounts the
expansion of the Achaemenid empire under its kings Cyrus the Great, Cambyses
and Darius I the Great. It also records for posterity the actions of the
Spartans at Thermopylae. Remember the hard-back book Ralph Fiennes lugged
around in The English Patient? That was Herodotus.
14 The Hippocratic Oath: The pledge made by modern physicians
that they will, in essence, ‘do no harm’ is attributed to the Greek physician,
from the island of Kos, who in the 5th and 4th century BC laid the foundation
stones of scientific medicine by freeing medical study from the constraints
of philosophical speculation and superstition.
15 Hades/Hell: Hades was controller of the Kingdom of the Dead
and the brother of Zeus. In many ways the Christian concept of Hell, as
an underground lair ruled by the Devil, is an appropriation of the Greek
myth. The cartoonist Gary Larson, however, stole from both.
16 Argos: Richard E Grant’s spaced out rock star may pronounce
it as ‘Argoose’ and believe the catalogue shop in which your Tefal kettle
comes sliding down a conveyer belt is, in fact, a chic designer outlet,
but he’s wrong. The real Argos was a settlement to which Greeks in the ‘Golden
Age’ choose to transplant the court of Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae and
the destroyer of Troy.
17 Doric Architecture: The evolution of Greek architectural styles
took place during the 7th and 6th centuries BC. At the time the majority
of buildings in Ancient Greece used limestone but the nearest quarry to
Athens produced marble, and the result was the temple to Athena Parthenos
or Athena the Virgin. This is known today as the Parthenon, on which the
architects, Callicrates and Ictinus, perfected the Doric columns.
18 The Screw: The little metal device beloved by B&Q devotees
across Britain was invented by Archimedes, a Greek mathematician, who lived
during the 2nd century BC. The author of Archimedes’s Principle, a law of
physics relating to buoyancy and specific gravity, discovered the screw
while developing a device that would draw water from ships to prevent them
sinking.
19 Homer: The finest poet of ancient times was said to have been
born in Izmir, in what is now Turkey. He has traditionally been credited
with writing two of the greatest works of world literature, The Iliad and
The Odyssey, which together tell the story of the Trojan war. Latterly it
has been suggested that he did not even exist, and that these epics were
the combined work of various oral storytellers. This may, however, be a
story put out by Hollywood to avoid payment for “original screen story”
on Brad Pitt’s forthcoming blockbuster, Troy.
20 Tragedy: The Greeks were not the first society bedeviled by
foul deeds and atrocities; they were, however, the first to shout about
it. The theatrical Greek tragedy began with the dithyramb, a choral song
in honour of Dionysus, but it was Aeschylus (525-456 BC) who developed the
form from one actor to two. Sophocles (496-406 BC) added a third player
and scripted the Theban plays that tells the story of Oedipus who murdered
his father, married his mother, and went on to became the first soap opera
star.