1. The Greeks were a calm,
logical people, whose central tenet was "Nothing in excess".
Well,
yes, that saying occupied a special place in Greek culture. And yes, the Greeks
did create philosophy and logic — at least as far as the west is concerned.*
But that doesn't mean it was their nature. After all, why place so much
importance on a rule that comes naturally to you?
The
Greeks could be logical, rational and measured seekers after balance and
proportion. They could also be turbulent, violent, jealous, contentious
drunkards. Yes, Greek culture involved a lot
of drunkenness. Perhaps, if you're academically inclined, you've attended a
symposium. Well, a symposium wasn't originally a staid, intellectual exercise,
but a party designed for hard drinking and (hopefully) sex at the end. Alcohol
played a big part in Greek life: getting drunk was a sacred rite, and they
described it as "the lesser madness that prevents the greater."
They
were hot-blooded and quarrelsome, and extremely competitive, whether it was
athletes at Olympia or cities contending to give a more splendid gift to the
gods than anyone else. The Greeks took everything to excess — including
philosophy and logic.
2. The Greeks were too
otherworldly to develop technology — they were only interested in pure thought.
One
of the facts often advanced to support this is that the Greeks (specifically
Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD) invented a working steam engine, but
apparently didn't see any use for it. In fact, the reason Hero's steam engine
remained nothing more than a curiosity wasn't any lack of practicality, but the
simple fact that the Greeks didn't possess the metallurgy to create a heavy-duty
version that wouldn't explode.**
The
Greeks certainly made use of their inventions where they could, though often in
a haphazard way. Archimedes is best known for jumping out of his bath naked
after thinking up the principle that's named after him, but this wasn't an
exercise in pure theoretical physics. It was actually his solution to the
problem of proving to his king whether or not an object was pure gold or a
fake. In fact, Archimedes's biggest breakthrough was actually an irrigation
machine that was still in use into the 20th century.
Perhaps
the most remarkable known piece of Greek technology is the Antikythera device (a fragment pictured above), a simple analogue computer created
sometime around the 2nd century BC. Though fairly small (but small is good in
computing) it was perhaps comparable to Babbage's difference engine — but the
Greeks actually made and used their computer.
3. Greek buildings and
sculptures were all gleaming white marble.
Of
course they were, we've all seen them — in pictures, if not in life. And
statues from the Renaissance to the Victorian era have paid homage to the
iconic look.
In
fact, the image is simply an accident of antiquity. By the time the great
classical sculptures and temples were being rediscovered in the Renaissance,
many of them were two thousand years old, and had been either weathered or
buried in the earth. Both processes have a tendency to erode the paint from
marble.
The
classical Greeks would have found the idea of leaving marble bare very strange
indeed. Buildings were painted in bright, eye-catching colours — reds, blues,
golds — while marble statues were actually painted to look lifelike. It might
seem odd to us, but remember none of these things were intended to look ancient,
as the more recent equivalents were. They were contemporary and functional, and
the Greeks wanted buildings they could use, and statues that actually looked
like people.
4. All Greek women were
invisible nobodies.
What's
certain is that Greek culture as a whole wouldn't win any prizes for empowering
women. However, the demeaning of women was by no means consistent throughout
Greece or throughout the ancient period. It's known, for instance, that women
could win fame as poets — notably Sappho (right), Erinna and Corinna, though there were
others — and ironically it's been later scholars who've challenged whether some
of their works "could have been written by women". The Greeks never
doubted it.
In
many cities, notably Athens, respectable women were indeed sequestered,
although the limited evidence available suggests that a married woman was far
from powerless within her home. Unrespectable women, on the other hand, were
far more visible. A successful hetaira (courtesan)
could become very much a part of high society, and some, such as Aspasia,
mistress of the great Athenian leader Pericles, were extremely influential.
Not
all women were left uneducated, either, especially by the time of the 4th
century BC. It's recorded that Plato's Academy included at least two female
students, and this wasn't by any means unique. As Greek culture developed into its later period, women could be politically powerful or highly regarded academically, such as Hypatia of Alexandria.
5. The Greeks considered
everyone else as "barbarians".
Strictly
speaking, this is completely true — for the simple reason that barbaros, the word's origin, was nothing more than the Greek word
for a foreigner. It did involve a degree of condescension — the word allegedly
derived from the perception that foreign speech sounded like
"bar-bar-bar"*** — but it wasn't necessarily a term of abuse. Some
"barbarians", such as the Persian king Cyrus the Great, were
routinely held up by the Greeks as models of virtue.
The
Greeks definitely considered their culture the best in the world, but it would
be wrong to think of them as racist in the modern sense. Greece was a cultural
entity, rather than either a geographical or racial one. The definition of a
Greek was someone who spoke Greek, worshipped the Olympian gods and lived in a
city-state. It wasn't irrelevant where your ancestors had come from, but it
wasn't all important either.
tttt
There
are many other misconceptions about the Greeks, both from those who ignore
their failings and from those who ignore their virtues, not to mention those
who've simply learnt their history from Hollywood. They were a turbulent,
contradictory people, who created great beauty and committed atrocities. They
certainly don't offer a model of how we should live, but perhaps what they do
offer is a model of how we can search for a way to live. Even if — as the
Greeks did more often than not — we end up getting it wrong.
* Globally, the Greeks and
the Chinese were about neck and neck. Of course, there are many cultures that
might well have developed sophisticated philosophy, but didn't leave records we
can read to confirm it.
** Other inventions by
Hero include a vending machine and a programmable self-driving cart.
*** There's a widespread
myth that it's actually a Roman word derived from the Latin barbus, meaning beard. The Romans adopted the word from Greek, and were far
more responsible for giving it its current meaning. The Greeks used it long
before, and a) the Greek word for beard is completely unrelated, and b) many
Greek men wore beards and (quite rightly) considered them refined and
dignified.
