The culture and legends of ancient Greece
have a remarkably long legacy in the
modern language of education, politics,
philosophy, art and science. Classical
references from thousands of years ago
continue to appear. But what was the origin
of some of these ideas?
1. Was there ever really a Trojan Horse?
The story of the Trojan Horse is first
mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, an epic song
committed to writing around 750BC,
describing the aftermath of a war at Troy that
purportedly took place around 500 years
earlier.
After besieging Troy (modern-day Hisarlik in
Turkey) for 10 years without success, the
Greek army encamped outside the city walls
made as if to sail home, leaving behind them a
giant wooden horse as an offering to the
goddess Athena.
The Trojans triumphantly dragged the horse
within Troy, and when night fell the Greek
warriors concealed inside it climbed out and
destroyed the city. Archaeological evidence
shows that Troy was indeed burned down; but
the wooden horse is an imaginative fable,
perhaps inspired by the way ancient siege-
engines were clothed with damp horse-hides to
stop them being set alight by fire-arrows.
2. Homer is one of the great poets of
ancient Greek legends. Did he actually
exist?
Not only is the Trojan Horse a colourful
fiction, the existence of Homer himself has
sometimes been doubted. It's generally
supposed that the great epics which go under
Homer's name, the Iliad and Odyssey, were
composed orally, without the aid of writing,
some time in the 8th Century BC, the fruit of a
tradition of oral minstrelsy stretching back for
centuries.
While the ancients had no doubt that Homer
was a real bard who composed the
monumental epics, nothing certain is known
about him. All we do know is that, even if the
poems were composed without writing and
orally transmitted, at some stage they were
written down in Greek, because that is how
they have survived.
3. Was there an individual inventor of the
alphabet?
The date attributed to the writing down of the
Homeric epics is connected to the earliest
evidence for the existence of Greek script in
the 8th Century BC.
The Greeks knew that their alphabet (later
borrowed by the Romans to become the
western alphabet) was adapted from that of
the Phoenicians, a near-eastern nation whose
letter-sequence began "aleph bet".

The fact that the adaptation was uniform
throughout Greece has suggested that there
was a single adapter rather than many. Greek
tradition named the adapter Palamedes, which
may just mean "clever man of old". Palamedes
was also said to have invented counting,
currency, and board games.
The Greek letter-shapes came to differ visually
from their Phoenician progenitors - with the
current geometrical letter-shapes credited to
the 6th Century mathematician Pythagoras.
4. Did Pythagoras invent Pythagoras'
theorem? Or did he copy his homework
from someone else?
It is doubtful whether Pythagoras (c.
570-495BC) was really a mathematician as we
understand the word. Schoolchildren still learn
his so-called theorem about the square on the
hypotenuse (a2+b2 =c2). But the Babylonians
knew this equation centuries earlier, and there
is no evidence that Pythagoras either
discovered or proved it.
In fact, although genuine mathematical
investigations were undertaken by later
Pythagoreans, the evidence suggests that
Pythagoras was a mystic who believed that
numbers underlie everything. He worked out,
for instance, that perfect musical intervals
could be expressed by simple ratios.
5. What made the Greeks invent money?
Was it trade or their "psyche"?
It may seem obvious to us that commercial
imperatives would have driven the invention of
money. But human beings conducted trade for
millennia without coinage, and it's not certain
that the first monetised economy in the world
arose in ancient Greece simply in order to
facilitate such transactions.
The classicist Richard Seaford has argued that
the invention of money emerged from deep in
the Greek psyche. It is tied to notions of
reciprocal exchange and obligation which
pervaded their societies; it reflects
philosophical distinctions between face-value
and intrinsic value; and it is a political
instrument, since the state is required to act
as guarantor of monetary value.
Financial instruments and institutions -
coinage, mints, contracts, banking, credit and
debt - were being developed in many Greek
cities by the 5th Century BC, with Athens at
the forefront. But one ancient state held the
notion of money in deep suspicion and resisted
its introduction: Sparta.
6. How spartan were the Spartans?
The legendary Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus
decreed that the Spartans should use only iron
as currency, making it so cumbersome that
even a small amount would have to be carried
by a yoke of oxen.
This story may be part of the idealisation of
the ancient Spartans as a warrior society
dedicated to military pre-eminence. While
classical Sparta did not mint its own coins, it
used foreign silver, and some Spartan leaders
were notoriously prone to bribery.
However, laws may have been passed to
prevent Spartans importing luxuries that might
threaten to undermine their hardiness. When
the Athenian playboy general Alcibiades
defected to Sparta during its war with Athens
in the late 5th Century, he adopted their
meagre diet, tough training routines, coarse
clothing, and Laconic expressions.
But eventually his passion for all things
Spartan extended to the king's wife Timaea,
who became pregnant. Alcibiades returned to
Athens, whence he had fled eight years earlier
to avoid charges of shocking sacrilege, one of
which was that he had subjected Athens' holy
Mysteries to mockery.
7. What were the secrets of the Greek
Mystery Cults?
If I told you, I'd have to kill you. The secrets
were fiercely guarded, and severe penalties
were prescribed for anyone who divulged them
or who, like Alcibiades, were thought to have
profaned them. Initiates were required to
undergo initiation rites which may have
included transvestism and centred on secret
objects (perhaps phalluses) and passwords
being revealed.
The aim was to give devotees a glimpse of the
"other side", so that they could return to their
lives blessed in the knowledge that when their
turn came to die they could ensure the
survival of their soul in the Underworld.
Excavations have uncovered tombs containing
passwords and instructions written on thin
gold sheets as an aide-memoire for deceased
devotees. The principal Greek Mystery Cults
were those of Demeter, goddess of agriculture,
and of Dionysus (also known as Bacchus), god
of wine, ecstasy - and of theatre.
8. Who first made a drama out of a crisis?
How did theatres begin?
In 5th Century Athens, theatre was closely
connected to the cult of Dionysus, in whose
theatre on the southern slopes of the Acropolis
tragedies and comedies were staged at an
annual festival.
But the origin of theatre is a much-debated
issue. One tradition tells of the actor Thespis
(hence "thespian" standing on a cart and
playing a dramatic role for the first time
around 532BC; another claims that drama
began with ritual choruses and gradually
introduced actors' parts.

cool and good to know

Amazing.

Next up: the myth, the falsehoods, the bible.

If only I could go back in time and burn that book and its writers.

Kalvan: Amazing.

Next up: the myth, the falsehoods, the bible.

If only I could go back in time and burn that book and its writers.

O boy see as you want take buy first class ticket to hell fire. Please all nairalanders join me to pray for this man's soul.

I know say i know book pass pythagoras.

Hmm... Real or not? It doesn't concern me.

after reading these one thing for sure i go still dey watch greek film,



* lin leyonadis voice
leyonadis= "SPARTANS WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION"
spartans ="WAR"

I don't know I will do some research
[img]http://www.?aff=391[/img]

Interesante!

go and ask gej i saw him reading history of west africa he must have read that story too

let me ask Zeus. please hold

ALL OF THEM!!

I know all the gods personally. We dey chill

Kalvan: Amazing.

Next up: the myth, the falsehoods, the bible.

If only I could go back in time and burn that book and its writers.

use common sense dear.

which of the books exactly do you find annoying?

is it Moses' stone tablets you want to smash or what?

obviously you're unaware the bible is a compilation of books.

Mythology is the word.

Yes! most of what is stated here really took place!
The Greek gods ain't myth ...Olympus, Zeus, Valhalla, Odyssey etc.
Many of this legends are true ...more especially when it talks about the enlightened and their clique (cult).

Great and seeing men lived then, even great things happened then.

Kalvan: Amazing.

Next up: the myth, the falsehoods, the bible.

If only I could go back in time and burn that book and its writers.

the above write-up didn't call for this bro

daylae: The culture and legends of ancient Greece
have a remarkably long legacy in the
modern language of education, politics,
philosophy, art and science. Classical
references from thousands of years ago
continue to appear. But what was the origin
of some of these ideas?
1. Was there ever really a Trojan Horse?
The story of the Trojan Horse is first
mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, an epic song
committed to writing around 750BC,
describing the aftermath of a war at Troy that
purportedly took place around 500 years
earlier.
After besieging Troy (modern-day Hisarlik in
Turkey) for 10 years without success, the
Greek army encamped outside the city walls
made as if to sail home, leaving behind them a
giant wooden horse as an offering to the
goddess Athena.
The Trojans triumphantly dragged the horse
within Troy, and when night fell the Greek
warriors concealed inside it climbed out and
destroyed the city. Archaeological evidence
shows that Troy was indeed burned down; but
the wooden horse is an imaginative fable,
perhaps inspired by the way ancient siege-
engines were clothed with damp horse-hides to
stop them being set alight by fire-arrows.
2. Homer is one of the great poets of
ancient Greek legends. Did he actually
exist?
Not only is the Trojan Horse a colourful
fiction, the existence of Homer himself has
sometimes been doubted. It's generally
supposed that the great epics which go under
Homer's name, the Iliad and Odyssey, were
composed orally, without the aid of writing,
some time in the 8th Century BC, the fruit of a
tradition of oral minstrelsy stretching back for
centuries.
While the ancients had no doubt that Homer
was a real bard who composed the
monumental epics, nothing certain is known
about him. All we do know is that, even if the
poems were composed without writing and
orally transmitted, at some stage they were
written down in Greek, because that is how
they have survived.
3. Was there an individual inventor of the
alphabet?
The date attributed to the writing down of the
Homeric epics is connected to the earliest
evidence for the existence of Greek script in
the 8th Century BC.
The Greeks knew that their alphabet (later
borrowed by the Romans to become the
western alphabet) was adapted from that of
the Phoenicians, a near-eastern nation whose
letter-sequence began "aleph bet".

story for the gods

sparta with the realest and baddest nigga kratos GOD OF WAR

ok

7. Did Archilles ever have a heel.

Greek mythology also lay emphasis on the weak point of the warrior 'Archilles' being his heel.
However, from my research, he never had a heel, as he was amputated on both legs from birth after contacting ebola just 3 days after his naming ceremony.

8. Did my statement above make any sense?
Look out for '9' below to get the response.

9. Read 7 to 8 allover.....

Peace!!!!!

Dassall?

OP after world war3 things that happened or existed today would be regarded as myth.. so I can confidently tell u d Greek mythology were true cos things are happening today that pple in generations to come would disbelief

Most of them are true

Yazmin: 7. Did Archilles ever have a heel.

Greek mythology also lay emphasis on the weak point of the warrior 'Archilles' being his heel.
However, from my research, he never had a heel, as he was amputated on both legs from birth after contacting ebola just 3 days after his naming ceremony.

8. Did my statement above make any sense?
Look out for '9' below to get the response.

9. Read 7 to 8 allover.....

Peace!!!!!

WTF

The Greeks played a very important role in today's education.
I have a Greek friend whose father is a professor in zoology.
He uses lions, elephants and other wild animals as his security guard.
He doesn't use magic o.

Owobobrown: sparta with the realest and baddest nigga kratos GOD OF WAR

"God of war"is a fictional story with a fictional act "kratos"

Kalvan: Amazing.

Next up: the myth, the falsehoods, the bible.

If only I could go back in time and burn that book and its writers.

You'll burn in hell first, before you get that chance.

Stop all this rough play. Don't condemn ur soul to damnation.