The Odyssey (2026)

Locnar said:

What? You know "medieval" Greek is perfectly readable and understandable by modern Greeks right? The religion is also identical. You think all that was snuffed out just because the new rulers became Ottomans? The opposite, and Greek princes and patriarchs were given authority and rule over other Orthodox (Bulgarian, Romanian, etc) subjects in the Ottoman Empire. Very little changed.

You'd have to define what you mean by "culture". If there is any culture that we can claim to be continuous throughout the centuries, it would be Greek. Israeli jews can't even read the majority of "Jewish" medieval work, because its in a Germanic language and their "real" (Hebrew) language had to be artificially resurrected into a living language again......... I'm willing to bet there has been more religious change in Jews over these past 2k years than the Greeks.

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The traditional definition of Culture:

1. the beliefs, customs, arts, etc. of a particular social group, place, or time
2. a particular society that has its own characteristic features of everyday existence (as pastimes or a way of life)

Just because people still speak the same language doesn't mean the culture is identical. My shorthand for it is if a person of one period in time could live in the other period and fit in socially, with zero changes on their part. While some places change culture fairly fast, especially today (U.S. of the last 70 years), even the slowest drifting culture is probably going to be foreign after 200 years. Granted, the farther we move back in time, the slower change seems to come, at least from our perspective.

To clarify, I didn't mean Ancient Greek culture died on the exact date they capitulated to the Romans nor when Eastern Romans capitulated to the Turks, but instead it would usher in changes that the new dominate culture (of the ruling class) would naturally impose as they ruled the minority party (Greeks in the Ottoman empire). In the case of the Turks, being under the thumb of not only a foreign power, but a foreign religion is going to cause people to conform in at least some ways, in order to get along. After enough time, those changes become part of that culture.

Another huge break culturally, that can easily be pointed to is the Christianization of the Roman empire and the backlash of Julian trying to restore polytheism. Over the course of 50 or so years everything would have probably changed drastically.


To circle back around, when people talk about ancient Greece being the foundation of western civilization it means exactly that. It's the single largest influence on what we call Western Civilization today. It's still just a link in the chain; the largest link, but a link all the same (which has absolutely nothing to do with modern Greek culture).

That said, ancient Greek culture certainly influenced all cultures that Alexander touched as well. Although seemingly less than the west, in no small part due to the European Renaissance injecting ancient Greek culture/philosophy back into the primary cultures of the various nations of the time (while the near east was stuck in the quagmire that is Islam).

Locnar said:

Nothing is "identical" even after 50 years, much less 5,000. Accounting for the normal changes in time, the Greek culture HAS been continuous from start to finish in every meaningful way. The Greeks under the Romans continued to study their language, history, and myths. When the Greeks assumed the Roman name and political mantel they continued to do the same. All the medieval writings are full of call backs and quotes from everything from Homer and the Myths onward. And of course in the modern period, its just a continuation of the medieval civilization they had with the normal modernizations that can be expected.

To this day Turks say they WISH they assimilated their minorities and made Turks out of them all. But they adopted a decentralized system and the "rum" (ROMAN) millet (nation) was left to its own devices, under the rule of its Greek Patriarch and Fener (suburb in Istanbul) nobles until the modern period.

Actually now that I think about it, there were several areas of the Greek word that ever even experienced Ottoman/Turkish rule. The far southern Mani Peninsula and several Islands. The lords of Mani said "Our Emperor never surrendered and neither did we". They eventually joined the new modern Greek state.

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We do not use the word culture in the same way then. When looking at a group of people over a long timeline, I would consider that "culture heritage" instead of just "culture." To put it another way, "culture heritage" is the chain, while "culture" is the links going through time.

I'll stick to the Webster definition when thinking about groups of people through history and their specific culture of that time not matching the culture of today or some other point in history.

As an aside, for some reason your arguments remind me of the inheritor of Peter arguments I have read.

Modern Greeks done nut lib in the parthe-nones so they are not Greeks

Locnar said:

Who? A pope?

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More that your religious bias seemed to be showing a bit and that reminded me of the one true church argument (obviously it's the Mormons, who get to own planets).

Burns said:

More that your religious bias seemed to be showing a bit and that reminded me of the one true church argument (obviously it's the Mormons, who get to own planets).

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Not if the Belters take their ship first