/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6115186]

Who did the Greeks start with?

[Anonymous No.6115192]

Life

[Anonymous No.6115195]

Greek oral tradition.

[Anonymous No.6115205]

>>6115186
The greeks.

[Anonymous No.6115211]

Thales

[Anonymous No.6115216]

The Egyptians

[Anonymous No.6115238]

>>6115186
Sumerians, Egyptians, Indians, other North-Africans, Levantines, etc.

[Anonymous No.6115626]

>>6115238
>indians

[Anonymous No.6115662]

>>6115186
They were original. And no, not everyone was a richfag like Plato and could travel everywhere.

[Anonymous No.6115669]

>>6115186
Sumerians.

[Anonymous No.6116098]

>>6115626
Who was Alexander the great?
Why did the Epicureans and Stoics come up with the same ideas as the Buddhists and Hindus at around the same time?

[Anonymous No.6116121]

>>6116098
>Alexander the Great
>beginning of the Greeks

There is no evidence to think that early Greeks traded many ideas with those of India.

[Anonymous No.6116125]

>>6115662
>They were original.

[Anonymous No.6116130]

>>6116121
The original sculptural portrayals of the Buddha were done in the Hellenic style for a reason. But that's another story.

[Anonymous No.6116133]

>>6116121

i think the point is that Indian lit and philo came long before the Greeks so there is possibility of the lit and philo being read by the greeks

[Anonymous No.6116943]

>>6116121
Nobody claimed he began the geeks, only that Greece and India influenced each other during the Hellenistic period.

Notice the similarities between Buddhism and stoicism. Notice that the Epicurus came up with the idea of atoms about the same time Hindu scholars had the exact same idea.

[Anonymous No.6116946]

>>6115216
This

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6116969]

>>6116125
They invented things like democracy, drama and term logic, they were pretty original thinkers.

[Twiggy !!ErZLYHNhXgZ No.6116976]

the actual events contorted in the iliad and odyssey took place in western europe among the germanic tribes "homer" was nothing more than the germanics immigrating into greece and spreading their mythology among the greek savage meteorite worshipers

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6116986]

>>6116976
Are you being an ironic imbecile?

[Anonymous No.6116989]

Quick question

Are the Mycenaeans and the Minoans considered Ancient Greek? Every time someone speaks of them, I always feel like they're talking about some other group of people.

[Twiggy !!ErZLYHNhXgZ No.6116995]

>>6116989
ha ha ha ha ha

[Anonymous No.6117013]

>>6116989
They both lived in Greece, but the Minoans did not speak Greek or any known Indo-European language.

[Anonymous No.6117020]

>>6115186
They began with the Babylonians.

[Anonymous No.6117038]

>>6116989
The Mycenaeans were as 'Greek' as the societies that followed them, while the Minoans were culturally and linguistically distinct from the peoples of peninsular Greece.

[Anonymous No.6117044]

>>6116995
>the twiggy tripfag has returned

[Anonymous No.6117091]

>>6116969
Yet they, like every other culture to have ever existed, owed an enormous cultural debt to other older societies. Particularly the Minoans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians and possibly peoples further east. Every sophisticated civilization in the ancient world has its inventions and original contributions. That doesn't change the fact that they participated in the natural process of cultural exchange.

[Anonymous No.6117097]

>>6116969
They invented Greek tragedy, crediting a single culture for inventing 'drama' is like saying a single culture invented storytelling.

[Anonymous No.6117098]

>>6116989
The Mycenaeans were early Greek, the Minoans were a completely distinct and separate culture. The Mycenaeans borrowed heavily from the Minoans.

[Anonymous No.6117115]

>>6116969
Democracy isn't some 'invention' that an individual suddenly conjures up on his desk. It was a development that is observable in varying stages in other societies before the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.6117145]

>>6116121
>Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.6117148]

>>6116098
hellenistic philosophy was sundered by the defeatist east. hellenic philosophy was and shall forever be pure

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6117157]

>>6117115
No, I'd say it was a product of Greek populism. Other societies had less concentration of power, but there was nothing near what was accomplished in Athens, which was even more democratic than the United States was until the 20th Century.

[Anonymous No.6117188]

>>6115186
Wittgenstein

[Anonymous No.6117272]

>>6117188

[Anonymous No.6117351]

>>6117097
You know the first person to ever act in character was a greek?

[Anonymous No.6117355]

>>6117351

How would you know?

[Anonymous No.6117366]

>>6117355
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thespis
You should brush up on your history.

[Anonymous No.6117472]

>>6115211
this

[Anonymous No.6117477]

>>6117472
>>6115211
Thales is almost 300 years after Homer.

[Anonymous No.6117491]

>>6117366
>according to greeks, a greek was the first person to act in character

how surprising

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6117499]

>>6117491
>the Greeks didn't invent drama because someone else might have but didn't record it
Shit argument

[Anonymous No.6117520]

With the Babylonians (who started with the Sumerians), Persians, and Egyptians.

[Anonymous No.6117525]

>>6117499

that's a great argument and it's very likely true, fuckwad

[Anonymous No.6117527]

>>6117499
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_theatre

[Anonymous No.6117529]

>>6115211
>>6117472
THIS. Thales basically had time-vision, or khronos-theoria, and was able to start with himself, so he basically influenced himself.

>>6117477
Thales is pankhronosiastes, he's so pankhronosiastes he's aeon. Don't you piss in water, motherfucker.

[Anonymous No.6117534]

>>6117499
My position is that theatre wasn't "invented" by anyone. It's just an evolution of ritual re-enactment which is common in countless ancient cultures.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6117541]

>>6117525
By that argument, no one invented anything ever because someone else *might* have invented it first without recording it

>>6117527
This doesn't sustain your argument.

[Anonymous No.6117553]

>>6117534
And yet the works of the great Greek playwrights are still read and performed today, unlike those supposedly created by Africans, Egyptians and Indians...

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6117555]

>>6117534
No it isn't, and even if it were, your point would still be shit. Just about all technology and thought is an evolution of its predecessors, you might as well discount all invention, period.

[Anonymous No.6117560]

>>6117541

>no one invented anything

no, it's just cosmologically unlikely that the first we've heard of something in historical documents is the first time that thing ever happened

are you legitimately retarded or just not reading your posts

[Anonymous No.6117563]

>>6117553

what does this have to do with anything at all

what are you trying to say and why

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6117573]

>>6117560
And that makes ascribing any invention to anyone impossible.

[Anonymous No.6117574]

Proto-indo-Europeans.

[Anonymous No.6117580]

>>6117534
But it was the Greeks who took those rituals and produced works of literary art.

[Anonymous No.6117593]

>>6117573

from anywhere past 100 AD or so, yep
It's likely we don't know much about who was the first to do this or that back then

[Anonymous No.6117933]

>>6117593
There's no reason to assume someone came up with something as sophisticated as drama before the Greeks. It's possible, but there is no reason to assume it, and even if they did the Greeks would still have invented it independently, and it would be from them that it comes to us today.

[Anonymous No.6117937]

>>6115186
They started with the Mesopotamians.

[Anonymous No.6117957]

>>6117555
Not that anon but yes it is. The Babylonians were re-enacting their mythology in ritualistic 'plays' long before the true Greek dramas.

Regarding your other posts, there are things that can obviously be said to be invented by someone or group of people, even if there was a process of stimulation and contribution leading up to that invention. But things like democracy and theatre, which aren't mere contraptions that are invented but entire political systems and religio-artistic disciplines, aren't thought up by a single person one day. They are the result of a gradual development over time. Multiple contributions from multiple cultures are involved. The Greeks invented direct democracy in a sophisticated urban culture (rather than say a tribal one), and they invented Greek drama, but both of these had a long line of precedents in many cultures.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6118071]

>>6117957
>The Babylonians were re-enacting their mythology in ritualistic 'plays' long before the true Greek dramas.
Sounds like bullshit

>The Greeks invented direct democracy in a sophisticated urban culture (rather than say a tribal one), and they invented Greek drama, but both of these had a long line of precedents in many cultures.
You cannot possibly consider the democracy of tribes of extended family, to the democracy of tens of thousands of people who have to have their travel expenses covered by the state in order to vote. Greek democracy was not a descendant of tribal democracy, it was was a product of the poor struggling with the wealthy for power in society, it was not an evolution from tribal democracy, in fact it was made possible by Cleisthenes breaking up large tribes into smaller other, state-defined tribes, in order to create a unified Athenian identity. Positions of limited authority in tribal democracy are based on age, in Athens it was mostly a matter of random selection.

[Anonymous No.6118073]

>>6115216
correct.

[Anonymous No.6118165]

>>6118071
>Sounds like bullshit
Is this because you have studied the topic and have come to to such a conclusion based on the evidence? Or are you just saying things you want it to be true? You might want to research the Babylonian Akitu festival and creation myth before you go calling it bullshit.

I never said Athenian democracy was directly inspired by tribal 'democracy'.

[Anonymous No.6118514]

Weren't The Greeks influenced by The Egyptians ?

[Anonymous No.6118940]

>>6115186
They didn't really have time reading. Back then, Greece was like a gay nightclub before Aids and drug prohibition.

All Ancient Greek wisdom, virtue and philosophy is conceived entirely from post orgasmic clarity.

[Anonymous No.6119019]

>>6117933
For a fucking retard

[Anonymous No.6119035]

T
T
K
M

[Anonymous No.6119054]

>>6117933
>>6119019

Give up mate the guy is lost.
He dismiss your argument by using an arbitrary date (100 AD). Which is peculiar, since there were great historians before 100 AD.
I guess you might split up between an historical and a anhistorical periods, but you then have to consider the invention of history. Not merely recording something but some vaguely critical and "scientific" history. Of course the anon in question won't accept that Greeks invented history, because someone else before might have.

[Anonymous No.6119089]

>>6116130
>The original sculptural portrayals of the Buddha were done in the Hellenic style for a reason. But that's another story.
tell us then

[Anonymous No.6119108]

Shit the greeks came up without a doubt:

>Hoplite and the phallanx
>Large scale familiar agriculture
>Large scale citzenryship
>Natural philosophy
>Threedimensional mathematics
>Political science
>Non-religious History
>Pedagogy
>Rethoric
>Scientific Medicine
>Democracy

[Anonymous No.6119109]

>>6115626
>Upanishads are mankind's oldest works of philosophy, predating the earliest Greek philosophy. They are the concluding part of the Vedas, the ancient Indian sacred literature, and mark the culmination of a tradition of speculative thought first expressed in the Rig-Veda more than 4000 years ago. Remarkable for their meditative depth, spirit of doubt and intellectual honesty, the Upanishads are concerned with the knowledge of the Brahman, the Ultimate Reality, and Man's relationship with it.

It's not that strange, mate.

[Anonymous No.6119232]

In truth, the egyptians. But in meme style the sumerians.

[Anonymous No.6119357]

They started by traveling.