Ancient Persia

From around 550 BCE to the age of Alexander the Great in the 330s BCE, each successive generation of Greeks had its own particular way of reconfirming, as needed, Hellenic identity against the ever-changing yet ever-present Persian threat. The Greek obsession with the Persians focused on minimizing their credibility as a superpower. 

Denigration of the Persians—by vilification or lampooning—was intended to cauterize the wounds of anguish and fear provoked by the threats and realities of being neighbors of an empire whose territorial ambitions were very real and which showed no sign of ever abating.

In order to increase Greek morale, a series of what might be termed “cathartic” images were created on stage, in sculpture, and in the other arts. These disparaged, degraded, and belittled the Persians and confirmed Greek (especially Athenian) pre-eminence.

One such object is a red-figured wine-jug dated to the mid-460s BCE. Known as the “Eurymedon Vase,” it shows a humiliated Persian soldier bending forward from the waist. His backside is offered up to a grubby Athenian squaddie who stands with his erect penis in his hand, rushing forward in order to penetrate the Persian’s rear. 

The painted rape scene (for that’s what it is) was created as a “commemorative issue” at the time the Athenians celebrated a victory over Persian forces at the battle of the River Eurymedon in Asia Minor in 467 BCE. It was used at some kind of drinking party, probably a soldiers’ get-together. As the jug was passed around a group of hoplites—the Greek equivalent of GIs—so the wine flowed and the dirty jokes began to fly. So too was the Persian on the vase manhandled from soldier to soldier.

As each drinker gripped the jug, he replayed the drama of the scene: “Now I am Eurymedon,” he boasted. “Look at me, buggering this Persian!” The vase image is a perceptive visualization of soldiers’ humor, although it is highly likely that the scene reflected a lived reality. 

After all, the post-battle rape of defeated soldiers has never been just a drinking-game fantasy. The Eurymedon vase was an expression of the Athenian zeitgeist of the 460s BCE. It was a well-aimed joke on recent unexpected but fortuitous political and military events which demonstrated the natural superiority of the Greeks over the barbarian Persians.  READ MORE...

Evolution of the Alphabet

Over the course of 2021, the Greek alphabet was a major part of the news cycle.

COVID-19 variants, which are labeled with Greek letters when becoming a variant of concern, normalized their usage. From the Alpha variant in the UK, to the Delta variant that spread from India to become the dominant global strain, the Greek alphabet was everywhere. Seemingly overnight, the Omicron variant discovered in South Africa has now taken the mantle as the most discussed variant.

But the Greek alphabet is used in other parts of our lives as well. For example, Greek letters are commonly used in mathematics and science, like Sigma (Σ) denoting a sum or Lambda (λ) used to represent the half-life of radioactive material.

And the study of linguistics shows us why using Greek letters in English isn’t completely farfetched. This visualization from Matt Baker at UsefulCharts.com demonstrates how the modern Latin script used in English evolved from Greek, and other, alphabets.

It’s All Proto-Sinaitic to Me
Before there was English, or Latin, or even Greek, there was Proto-Sinaitic.

Considered the first alphabet ever used, the Proto-Sinaitic script was derived in Canaan, around the biblical Land of Israel. It was repurposed from Egyptian hieroglyphs that were commonly seen in the area (its name comes from Mount Sinai), and used to describe sounds instead of meanings.

As the first Semitic script, Proto-Sinaitic soon influenced other Semitic languages. It was the precursor to the Phoenician alphabet, which was used in the area of modern-day Lebanon and spread across the Mediterranean and became the basis for Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and of course, Greek.

Evolving into the Greek, Roman, and Latin Alphabets
Over time, the alphabet continued to become adopted and evolve across different languages.

The first forms of the Archaic Greek script are dated circa 750 BCE. Many of the letters remained in Modern Greek, including Alpha, Beta, Delta, and even Omicron, despite first appearing more than 2,500 years ago.

Soon the Greek alphabet (and much of its culture) was borrowed into Latin, with Archaic Latin script appearing circa 500 BCE. The evolution into Roman script, with the same recognizable letters used in modern English, occurred 500 years later in 1 CE.  READ MORE...

Mornings are always better when one is being served Espresso...  whether it be Turkish, Greek, or Italian...  Espresso is the coffee of the enlightened...