Part V
In this part . . .
The rest of this book will have hopefully whetted your appetite for all things Greek. Here are four brief chapters giving you an idea of what Greek stuff to look at next - places to go, books to read, inventions to find out about, and slightly dodgy characters who are probably worth a second look. Enjoy!
Chapter 23
In This Chapter
● Sampling Archimedes’s brilliance
● Getting from here to there
● Making the marks on big ideas - writing, history, democracy, and more
Trhroughout Parts I to IV, I mention all sorts of things that the ancient Greeks were the first to come up with, discover, or bring into being. In this chapter I pick out ten of the best! Subsequent generations definitely owe the Greeks a big thank you for the following.
Archimedes’s Inventions
Archimedes himself wasn’t an invention - but he was an incredibly prolific inventor, in addition to being a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer.
He was born in Syracuse on the island of Sicily in 287 BC and spent most of his life there. A huge number of inventions are attributed to him. Many of them are military-based and were used by the Sicilians to fight naval battles against the invading Romans. Specifically, Archimedes invented:
● A fearsome claw that attackers used to fix their ships onto that of their opponents. (See Chapter 5 for more on ancient Greek naval techniques.) It really worked and helped the Syracusans fight the Romans.
● The Archimedes screw, a device that was used for raising water from a low-lying source to higher ground; Archimedes screws are still found in irrigation systems today. According to the old story, Archimedes got the idea for this invention in the bath and shouted ‘Eureka!’ meaning ‘I have discovered it!’
Much of the rest of his life was spent on mathematical calculations, particularly developing ideas about spheres and cylinders. He died in Syracuse when the Romans finally conquered and sacked the city in 211 BC. He was buried in a tomb designed according to his own principle (that a sphere has two-thirds the volume and surface area of the circumscribing cylinder - phew!). What a man.
The Railway
Yes, it’s true. The ancient Greeks did have a railway - of sorts.
The first version was just a rutway with tracks dug in the ground to move heavy carts more easily, but in 600 BC a man called Einander of Corinth developed a trackway paved with hard limestone. It was used to haul ships across the Isthmus of Corinth, allowing people to avoid the long journey by boat around southern Greece when travelling from the west coast to the Aegean. The railway doesn’t exist any more and ships use the Corinthian canal instead.
Modern historians have classified this trackway as a railway, although it wasn’t used for public transport. Just as well because no Greek came up with a solution to the problem of leaves on the line.
The Steam Engine
Crazy as it may seem, the Greeks came very close to creating a working steam engine! The man behind this enterprise was the aptly-named Hero of Alexandria. He was born in AD 10 when Egypt was under the control of the Roman Empire. Yes, he is a little out of the period of ancient Greece covered in this book, but I’m going to include him anyway!
The device that Hero came up with was a ball fixed onto a pivot over a cauldron. When the contents of the cauldron boiled, the ball span - creating a steam engine. Unfortunately nobody really knew what to do with Hero’s invention.
Vending Machines
This invention comes from Hero of Alexandria as well. He invented a machine that responded to having a coin dropped into the slot at the top. The wooden device dispensed holy water into a cup placed underneath by those visiting a shrine. If only he had invented the Mars Bar as well - he could’ve made a mint!
Writing
Around 750 BC the Greeks began to use a system of notation that eventually developed into the Greek alphabet and from then on into the first European language. See Chapter 1 for more details on this life-changing invention.
Writing varied hugely from place to place within the ancient Greek world, but by the fifth century it had developed into a common language. It’s probably fair to say that I wouldn’t be writing this book in English if the Greeks hadn’t invented Greek. Well done them!
History
Okay, so the ancient Greeks didn’t invent history - it’s all around, happening all by itself, after all. But they did invent writing about history.
Before the Greeks had their language, events and history were passed down verbally, but eventually history began to be written down too.
Herodotus’s Histories (written 431 BC-425 BC) were the first attempt to write down the history of Greece and are an entertaining if unreliable read. History writing really began with Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War (written in 431 BC), a lengthy historical text about a big event (see Chapter 8), written by someone who was actually there.
Comedy
Like history, comedy has always been around, but the ancient Greeks were the first to turn it into a genre.
The comic plays of writers like Aristophanes (circa 456 BC-386 BC), took contemporary political situations and mixed them with farce and fantasy to produce satirical comedies that influenced subsequent sources of laughter in everything from commedia del arte, pantomime, modern satire, and even late-night sketch comedy. Aristophanes’s greatest plays are still translated and performed today.
Later comic writers like Menander (circa 342-291 BC) removed the satirical elements and produced a kind of comedy of manners that influenced later playwrights from Shakespeare to Noel Coward.
Money
Coinage was a very definite ancient Greek invention. The Greek towns in Asia Minor began to use formal coinage in about 600 BC, replacing the old system of bartering with goods. Initially only a few varieties of coin were used but by the Hellenistic period (from 350 BC onwards), systems of paper money transfer had been developed.
The Romans eventually took over all these monetary systems in order to exact punitive taxes on their colonies. So the Greeks are in part responsible for your council tax bill. Thanks very much!
Musical Notation
Music was a very important part of Greek life, accompanying all religious ceremonies, celebrations, and dramatic performances. The theory behind music was of great interest to both philosophers and mathematicians, in particular Aristoxenus of Tarrentum (circa 350 BC).
In around 300 BC the Greeks developed a system of melodic notation that enabled music to be written down. Two different systems were developed: one for vocal music and one for instrumental, using signs developed from letters of the alphabet. This system didn’t really record melody and rhythm in the way that the modern system of eight tones in an octave does, but for the simpler music of ancient Greece it worked perfectly well and became standard throughout the ancient world up until around the fifth century AD.
About 50 scores have survived from the ancient world from various inscriptions and manuscripts. When performed, it’s a spare delicate music played on only a few instruments and is quite reminiscent of traditional Japanese music.
Democracy
Whether the democracy developed in Athens was the first in the world is a controversial issue. Many scholars have come up with other examples of representative government that took place earlier in areas as far away as Africa.
In a sense the exact chronology of democracy doesn’t matter. The Athenian Greeks didn’t know about other regions’ governmental practices but still decided through a lengthy process of social change that the whole city should vote on issues of government via a participative democracy.
Athenian democracy wasn’t a perfect system (see Chapter 7). It denied any role to women, for example, but it was the first European democracy and one that many others have claimed as an inspiration.