Why do historians wax poetic about Greeks and Romans but not Germans and Celts?

[Richmondbread]

It's easy to praise something when the information about it has been well-preserved. The culture and customs of the Greeks and Romans are well-recorded, and nobody was successful in wiping out their records. These two factors have resulted in a large amount of information about both cultures being readily available to people who wish to learn more about them.
I will say that one reason why information on the various Celtic tribes is limited is because the Roman Empire wiped out a large portion of their civilizations, resulting in a loss of cultural artifacts. It's hard to form an appropriate, educated opinion on something when there is not a lot of info available.

As to your other remarks:
1. Not everyone obsesses over what ancient people did in the bedroom with one another, so I don't think most historians would take that into consideration when they praise ancient civilizations.
2. I'm assuming you're referring to mythological gods when you say "false idols." You do know that the Celts and Germanics worshiped mythological gods too, right? So if you think it's bad that the Romans and Greeks worshipped mythological gods, you must think it's bad that other civilizations worshipped mythological gods as well?

You don't have to be a huge fan of Roman or Greek culture, but there is no denying that both civilizations DID play a major role in European history. It only makes sense that some historians would find it suitable to talk highly about them.

fair enough.

[Laly]

To demonstrate the persistance of ancient institutions in the European history, the Athenian democracy, the Hellenistic confederations and the Roman law are reffered to as pillars of our societies. That’s what the fathers of the European Constitution wanted to demonstrate, when they proposed, under the supervision of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, to quote, as a preamble, the words from Pericles’ famous funeral oration: “Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; When it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one . . . is kept [out of government] because of poverty.”

Yet, history taught us that the Athenian democracy excluded women, foreigners and slaves, that at its apogee, it was structurally inextrically linked to an excessive imperialism, that the Achaean and Aetolian confederations miserably perished in front of the Roman power, that the Roman law was itself the main pillar of a State which, in its Republican phase, plundered and exploited its provinces and which, in its imperial phase, was a thinly veiled military dictatorship.

In light of these facts, a direct filiation with the European Union becomes difficult to justify… That’s why in 2004, the European Ministers of Foreign Affairs decided to remove officially Thucydides from the Treaty of Rome, declaring at the same time that the ancient origins of democracy are politically incorrect…

So, we can see that the references to Greek and Latin Antiquity are not really in favour with our authorities anymore. If they have become politically incorrect, it’s also because they exclude our dear colonists. Maybe it would be better to take Muhammad, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Rushd as great and wise founding figures for Europe.

[Teutone]

Pre christianity the Germanics were dumb savages with no literature, architecture or developed state structure.

Christianity was the best thing ever happend to us, all praise to god the almighty and to his saint Bonifatius, Amen.

[Chocolatepug37]

What is so special about them? Ancient Greeks were primarily degenerates who practiced sodomy and had no respect for morality and worshiped false idols. Why should we think they are the pinnacle of Western Civilization?

I agree. During the the Greeks and Romans time, Prostitution and orgies were so frequent. Also, prostitutes lives at the temples of worship too.

[Jacques de Imbelloni]

What is so special about them? Ancient Greeks were primarily degenerates who practiced sodomy and had no respect for morality and worshiped false idols. Why should we think they are the pinnacle of Western Civilization?

Because they invented literally everything, from cience to maths, complex forms of state, writing sistem, rationalism and empiricism as methods to approaching truth.
North of the alps wasn't very different to sub saharan africa before the romans, local chieftainships warring with each other, producing almost non surplus of food, and sending all their foreign commerce, to the most evolved societies of the south.

[Rædwald]

What basically everyone in this thread said. Only spoken word. No literature, no method of recording.

Some of the best literature we have on those peoples comes from the Romans.

[JamesBond007]

Because they invented literally everything, from cience to maths, complex forms of state, writing sistem, rationalism and empiricism as methods to approaching truth.
North of the alps wasn't very different to sub saharan africa before the romans, local chieftainships warring with each other, producing almost non surplus of food, and sending all their foreign commerce, to the most evolved societies of the south.

Nope, the Greeks invented Democracy then forgot how to use it. How do you like them apples ? Also, the Greeks invented real seriously theoretically aware maths compared to the Egyptians and Babylonians. Also, Greeks came up with some good philosophical stuff. However, it pretty much ends there. The Romans were anti-intellectual wastes of oxygen. Some of their laws have affect on Western civilization but they were not as Democratic as the Greeks so I have to be skeptical about that but I'm not a lawyer or historian. The Romans are vastly overrated, in fact, any way you slice or dice it.

From Charles Murray's book Human Accomplishment, Significant figures rank by countries

[Jacques de Imbelloni]

Nope, the Greeks invented Democracy then forgot how to use it. How do you like them apples ? Also, the Greeks invented real seriously theoretically aware maths compared to the Egyptians and Babylonians. Also, Greeks came up with some good philosophical stuff. However, it pretty much ends there. The Romans were anti-intellectual wastes of oxygen. Some of their laws have affect on Western civilization but they were not as Democratic as the Greeks so I have to be skeptical about that but I'm not a lawyer or historian. The Romans are vastly overrated, in fact, any way you slice or dice it.

From Charles Murray's book Human Accomplishment, Significant figures rank by countries

Only Athens had democracy, every city have their own system, most of the time they had monarchys so going back to that sistem dosent mean much, also only few people were citizens, they dont have XVIII C AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, that's a complete different thing.

never the less, the basis of what we would call the judicial sistem, legally sanction citizenship, strategic warfare, naval warfare, phisics, biology, medicine, epistemology, logics, Rhetoric, metaphysics, historical research, anthropology, Agronomy, Civil engineering and a longETC

Music, drama, poetry, literature, the most perfect form of figurative art ever crated, clasical arquitecture(perfected by the romans and use by all europeans until the aXIX C)
and as you point out Euclidean geometry, and greek Arithmetic were more advanced than anithing made before them.
The basis of all western civilization lays in classical greece and hellenistic period.

Romans set the basis for moder republics, especially regarding the legislative system and the legal system, litery in many countries today our civil codes take mach of ancient roman law. They put the basis for modern warfare and put civil engineering to a complete different level, creating the first highways, stadiums, hipodromes, artificial fluvial channels and irrigation sistems. Roman autors were the main authority in medicine until the XVIII century.
And finally christianity in its current form is essentially a greco-roman creation, you like it or not, christianity has nothing to do with talmudism and following the halaka, its all about greco roman humanism.


All the great universities in europe were founded as christian schools(Oxford, Paris, Padova, you name it). scholasticism with people like Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon was a product of the roman catholic church intellectual life.
You may like it or not but Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, and even martin luther were a product of the ROMAN catholic church.
Pretending that the renasance and the cientific revolution of the XVII century came out of nowhere can only by said bay a person with no knowledge of history.

Even during the XVII AND XVIII century the industrial revolution was the combination of knowledge produced between the UK France, Germany and Italy, It is not a british merit only, especially having in consideration that latin was the academic language until the XVIII CENTURY.


Grece and Rome are the foundations over with ALL wester civilization stand, there is not such thing as a british or french civilization, that just false, they didnt came out of nowhere, they are just epigonal nations of the catholic middle ages, a product of the late roman times foundations

A sample of the great "british civilization":

[Ethel]

What is so special about them? Ancient Greeks were primarily degenerates who practiced sodomy and had no respect for morality and worshiped false idols. Why should we think they are the pinnacle of Western Civilization?

Germanics were pagans, you dumb bitch. And they raped males as well.

[Tauromachos]

What is so special about them?

Whats so special about Germans?

Greeks and Romans had their peak in Classical times till the early medieval

Germans came later from the late Medieval till now

Americans came after Germans

From these cultures, Greeks and Romans are the oldest,Germans younger and Americans the youngest