The Ancient Greek Perspective Of Modern Times
(unfinished)
If you were ancient Greek, you might not understand things in modern times. You wouldn’t understand why there was less wine at parties, and more apple cider and sparkling water. You wouldn’t understand why everyone was holding bright rectangles at all times. You wouldn’t understand why there were big white birds in the sky with people on them. You wouldn’t understand a lot of things. In this blog post, I try to explain all of that through an ancient Greek perspective.
Technology
Ancient Greeks would say that electricity is a form of power made by Zeus1’s lightning bolt. They might also believe that Zeus has a computer that can connect to anything on the internet. They could also believe that Zeus and Dionysus2 work together to make eRSVPs work. By all of this logic, Zeus, Apollo3, and Dionysus work to make electric dance music work.
Ancient greeks would also understand that airplanes are made by humans but they would believe that they are controlled by the Anemoi4.
Ancient greeks, once they knew that gasoline was drilled from underground, would for sure believe that gasoline is controlled by and made by Hades5, and that cars are controlled by Hades too. By this logic, electric cars are controlled by Zeus. Sounds like a good sales pitch.
Culture
Ancient Greeks would for sure believe that Happy Birthday was written by Dionysus, since he is the god of festivity, among other things.
Ancient Greeks would also have stories for non-Greek river gods6. An example of a story about one could go like this:
Amazonius7 is a river and a river god, nowadays. Once, a long time ago, Amazons lived in Scythia. But one day, an enormous drought hit Scythia. Many Amazons had many ideas about where they could go. But one Amazon had one special idea.
“We should try to go as far as we can from this land and land once we have gone farther than the gods want us to.” said one Amazon.
“But what if we starve?” asked an Amazon ruler.
“We shall make many boats as large as we can, and we shall put all our harvest into it, and if we run out, we have rowed too far.” replied the Amazon.
And they did. Construction began immediately, and collection of food and water started. For several years, all Amazons had lots less to eat and drink, from both the drought and the saving for later. On the fateful day that the ships were complete, all Amazons got onto the ship and the ship set sail.
When the ship passed through the Hellespont, they still had enough food. When the ship passed through the pillars of Hercules, they still had enough food. Their food and drink lasted for so long because they had spent years saving it, and they rationed it out very little. They only ran out of food and drink months after they started their journey, at an unnamed river, in an unnamed land.
When they landed at the river, they had very little food or drink and they very much needed it. When they landed there, they saw the god of the river.
“Hello, who are you?” asked the god.
“We are the Amazons. We need the food of the trees by your river.” replied an Amazon ruler.
“I shall permit you the food of my rainforest if you give me a name. I have not been able to talk about my river to outsiders well without one.” said the god.
“We are the Amazons, so you shall be Amazonius.” declares the ruler.
“Very well. Come on in.” said the newly named Amazonius.
world
note: Oceanus
Terms for modern things in Ancient Greek
note: I am just using the wiktionary articles for different suffixes. I did not study Ancient Greek.
web - ΛΟΓΙΣΤΊΑ, logistía, lit. “calculator-ia”
computer - ΛΟΓΙΣΤΉΣ, logistḗs, lit. “calculator”
phone - ΛΟΓΊΣΤΙΟΝ, logístion, lit. “small calculator”
airplane - ἈΕΡΟΣΚΆΦΟΣ, aeroskaphos, lit. “aerocraft”, like in Modern Greek
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