# Mythology: Greek, Roman, or Nordic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 31, 2001, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366 "2001-07-31T18:25:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2001, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/41 "2001-08-03T15:20:25Z")
> [@](#): > > This fits in with your explanation above – that the “enlightened” thinkers of the 18th century were looking to Greece and Rome, and this was the same philosophy that was driving the people who decided what it meant to be educated and cultured in the US. Ok, so we are definitely in agreement here. I wasn’t entirely sure whether you were arguing that material culture was another stimulus to pedagogy or whether the material culture itself kept G-R culture relevant in some unmediated fashion. > [@](#): > > Again, most did not travel, but sometimes the wealthy and privileged did. They brought back souvenirs of their travels. There is a particular style of oil painting that depicts ancient ruins and other famous sites – these paintings were practically mass produced, and sold as souvenirs. Indeed. A friend of mine wrote her thesis on the traveling habits of Victorian bourgeois. Fascinating subject, even if it doesn’t exactly polish my baguette. Their favorite site was Italy, and as soon as they were able to reap the benefits of a higher standard of living, they traveled to Italy in legions. Travel guides produced in the middle to late 19th century are fascinating. > [@](#): > > Later in the 19th century, a galvanizing event occurred – Heinrich Schliemann discovered the ruins of Troy. Putting issues of scholarship aside, the general public was suddenly excited by the fact that Troy was a REAL PLACE. The ancient Greeks had been drifting around the popular imagination for a while, and perhaps they would have eventually been replaced by a fascination with another culture, but this discovery was significant because it created a focus and a new relevance for Greek mythology. This is interesting. I always viewed Schliemann as something of a kook. I suppose I underestimated his influence on the popular imagination. Would you mind elaborating a little more on this? > [@](#): > > There is probably some trickle down classicism at play here – scholars make more discoveries in this field, university collections and museums get more actual stuff to display, kids get dragged to the museum, where some of them at least get interested in the larger-than-life statue of a guy cutting off a chick’s head (and she’s got SNAKES for HAIR, how cool is THAT?). This is very true. But what strikes me is odd is the timing. Classical, and especially Roman studies were at an all time low in the period just before and after WWII, yet this seems to be when, in America at least, there is a renewed interest in our Western heritage. The English and French were uncomfortable dealing with Roman literare and history due to its unabashed imperialism. In the wake of the war, this seems perfectly understandable. And scholarship was effectively dead in Germany and Italy. Classics were for a large degree stagnant. > [@](#): > > This brings us up to the present day, and why most of us had a unit in school where we learned that Athens invented democracy but America made it better, never carry a fox inside your shirt, and beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Indeed. But for the past several years other mythological and cultural systems have been taught in school, yet G-R still seems predominant. Institutional inertia? MR ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2001, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/42 "2001-08-03T20:45:25Z")
Great Thread! I’d like to address a point that hasn’t been brought up. Namely that much of the Germanic/Nordic heritage we have is obscured by the fact that it is so ubiquitous(sp?). Tiws-day, Wodens-day, Thors-day, Frigs-day etc… Look where germanic people ended up: Germany (obviously), the Scandinavian countries, France (the Franks), England (the Saxons and later the Normans), Sicily (the Normans), Italy (the ostrogoths, the Lombards, the Franks, later the Normans), much of eastern Europe (this was one of the justifications Hitler used for invading eastern europe), the Byzantine Empire (the Varangian guard), Russia (Swedish traders, some say the ‘Rus’ in Russia came from the red-haired Vikings. I dunno.) The above list is a sort of haphazard collection of places where Germanic people ended up in. It is by no means complete, it also says nothing about the influence of Germanic culture upon these places. Undoubtedly some Germanic influence remained in the places they settled. As I write this I realize that there is another point that hasn’t been addressed. Namely, both the Greco-Roman culture and the Germanic culture (not to mention the Celtic culture) both ultimately derived from Indo-European roots. Ok, so they changed and evolved in their own directions but I believe it is fair to say that the cultures share common roots. Also remember that the Germans and the Greco-Romans were in contact for quite a long time. They must have influenced each other. -sjc ps an earlier poster speculated that the greco-roman myths might be more popular because we find them more entertaining than their germanic counterparts. I have to say that most myths I was exposed to in and other places were edited or retold with the interesting parts gone. No sex or violence. Think of Disney’s Hercules. Hera is there at Hercules’ birth all smiley and glowing as if she was the mother and not the cuckolded wife of Zeus. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2001, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/43 "2001-08-03T21:45:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Maeglin \* > I wasn’t entirely sure whether you were arguing that material culture was another stimulus to pedagogy or whether the material culture itself kept G-R culture relevant in some unmediated fashion. I think we’re agreeing, as I’m arguing that the material legacy was used to bolster the pedagogy, and that its advocates were successful in some part because the teeming millions were somewhat predisposed to be receptive to this idea, having had exposure to the relics of G-R culture. At the same time, I think this takes on a bit of a cyclic nature, in that once you’ve got people saying G-R civilization is important, more G-R icons are preserved, restored, reproduced and displayed, so your next generation of thinkers comes of age having even more contact with these artifacts. > [@](#): > > _snipped for the sake of brevity, but it’s about Schliemann and Troy_ > > I always viewed Schliemann as something of a kook. I suppose I underestimated his influence on the popular imagination. Would you mind elaborating a little more on this? I don’t think I would call him a kook, at least not on the Ignatius Donnelly kook-scale. He was certainly dishonest and as crafty as the day is long. He was also something of a showman, and he anticipated (correctly) that people would be much more interested in his discoveries if they included a big cache of gold. Priam’s Treasure was his “proof” that the Iliad was based on fact, and can be seen as a smaller-scale precursor to the 1922 King Tut mania. From the get-go, some scholars were in an uproar over this, but Schliemann’s fans included Prime Minister William Gladstone. You might wish to read [this review](http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1992/03.06.02.html) of a collection of essays that cover several Schliemann issues, including the response of the general public. > [@](#): > > institutional inertia? I think this sums it up nicely. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2001, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/44 "2001-08-04T01:05:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Barbarian \* > \*\*The way I look at it, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are named after Norse gods. > > Greco-Romans have Saturday. > \*\* Or Lunes, Martes, Miércoles, Jueves and Viernes… we _are_ we discussing _Western_ culture 🙂 \*\* > [@](#): > > Western culture celebrates Christmas, which is basically a bastardization of Yule, which is a Nordic tradition. > \*\* Hmm… methinks that by the time Christianity got around to penetrating Northern Europe much, it had been banging around the Mediterranean world for a coupla centuries, and already had time to set the Nativity Season roughly around the Mithraic Birthday of the Undefeated Sun, and the Roman Saturnalia. Yule happened to be a perfect fit. This is a great thread, and I like to thank **Maeglin** and **delphica** for this very valuable information. As for the last point made in their posts – yes, institutional inertia has a heaping lot to do with how come to this day the GrecoRoman myths are still thought of as the “default” myth of “Western culture.” Why teach anything else, it’s what we’ve been doing forever… BTW in the case of the US Founding Fathers, they were of course so totally committed to the “Enlightenment” that when they decided to set up free country and decided it should be a “republic” with a limited “democracy”, they thought the Greco-Romans were the greatest role models. Notice how they called the upper legislative body the “Senate”, as opposed to the _Thing_ (as in, Iceland’s also-venerable legislative body) Though Latin and the “Classics” (GrecoRoman) are no longer de-rigeur to be considered “educated”, this was so sufficiently late into the XXth Century that the bias had time to percolate into the new marker of the Common Culture, mass entertainment. This leads to the reality that US and other Western-nation audiences haven’t even been offered as many movies about the entire pantheons of the rest of the world as about Hercules alone, never mind the rest of the GR myths. A new generation grows up on this and the cycle goes on… I do not see it changing much in educational circles, and I’m pessimistic among the general public: in the latter case _all_ mythology sadly seems engulfed in New-Age pop reinterpretations (e.g. pseudo-Celtic “pagans” who just pulled their “tradition” out of their hats) ; or in repeated iterations of ever-more-distorted pop media renderings (I wonder how many Americans learned _everything_ they know about GR, Celtic AND Norse myths from “Hercules:TLG” and “Xena”) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2001, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/45 "2001-08-04T01:21:40Z")
Another factor that might have something to do with retroactive “classicization” is the development of science and technology. The Greeks did have far more theoretical development of mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, etc., than the northern European cultures did. Some of that survived in medieval Byzantium and Latin Europe, but it was the rediscovery of the classical texts in the twelfth through fifteenth century that really kick-started the so-called “Scientific Revolution”. Ballistics, hydrostatics, Copernican astronomy, calculus, all that stuff got a huge part of its impetus from the late medieval encounters with the Greek works of antiquity. The more practical vernacular traditions of computation, calendrics, architecture, etc., just didn’t have the flash by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/46 "2001-08-06T14:55:26Z")
> [@](#): > > I think we’re agreeing, as I’m arguing that the material legacy was used to bolster the pedagogy, and that its advocates were successful in some part because the teeming millions were somewhat predisposed to be receptive to this idea, having had exposure to the relics of G-R culture. At the same time, I think this takes on a bit of a cyclic nature, in that once you’ve got people saying G-R civilization is important, more G-R icons are preserved, restored, reproduced and displayed, so your next generation of thinkers comes of age having even more contact with these artifacts. This all sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I am most curious, however, why the distinction persists between “high” and “low” culture. It makes perfect sense in the context of the Middle Ages, in which only a relative handful of people had access to the literary relics of the treasured past. But now, in a society in which few people value direct access to the classics, why are we so comfortable maintaining ther privileged role? Thanks for the Schliemann links. Very interesting stuff. > [@](#): > > . The more practical vernacular traditions of computation, calendrics, architecture, etc., just didn’t have the flash by comparison. Hmm, also a good point. Intellectual priorities changed, thus literary models changed. I do have some sympathy: although the Venerable Bede is a close personal friend of mine, I’d much sooner pick up a copy of the _Timaeus_ than read about one hundred years of Easter calculation. Lots of other great material…I am sure I will respond later on. MR ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/47 "2001-08-06T19:18:28Z")
**Maeglin:** \*although the Venerable Bede is a close personal friend of mine, I’d much sooner pick up a copy of the Timaeus than read about one hundred years of Easter calculation. \* Don’t get me wrong, I like a good Easter computus as well as the next historian of science! (Actually, probably much better than most of them.) What provides the superior “flash” of the classical (really, the Hellenistic) scientific works isn’t Plato, it’s Euclid and Archimedes and Diophantos and Ptolemy: not so much superior philosophical insight as superior technical mastery. (I can’t remember the names, but there were these two poor medieval Scholastic schmoes who were trying to work their way through a fragment of Euclid and got hopelessly stuck just trying to figure out what was meant by the “external angles” of a triangle!) Even if you didn’t care about all the philosophical implications, even if all you wanted was to solve a technical problem, the ancient works were just **so** much better value than the medieval ones (for anything beyond the most routine computations, that is). I would never diss the northern Europeans on the richness of their mythological or epic or religious traditions, but nobody geeks like a Greek. 🙂 (Well, some of the Indians and the Arabs did, but I guess that’s another story.) ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2001, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/48 "2001-08-06T19:42:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > … but nobody geeks like a Greek. **Kimstu** , I don’t know or care if that is true or not, but that’s a _brilliant_ line and now I have to figure out to work it into conversations. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/49 "2001-08-07T14:40:27Z")
**Kimstu** > [@](#): > > Don’t get me wrong, I like a good Easter computus as well as the next historian of science! (Actually, probably much better than most of them.) Fair enough. Is that some sort of occupational hazard? 😉 More seriously and even farther afield, what do you think of the work of Walter Burley and the Oxford Calculators? Though I am an aspiring history of literature, 14th century science never ceases to amaze me. > [@](#): > > What provides the superior “flash” of the classical (really, the Hellenistic) scientific works isn’t Plato, it’s Euclid and Archimedes and Diophantos and Ptolemy: not so much superior philosophical insight as superior technical mastery. Fair enough. What of Aristotle, though? Commentaries on his _Physics_ and _De anima_ were tremendously influential for almost fifteen hundred years. His work provided the intellectual impetus for natural inquiry in the 12th century. > [@](#): > > I can’t remember the names, but there were these two poor medieval Scholastic schmoes who were trying to work their way through a fragment of Euclid and got hopelessly stuck just trying to figure out what was meant by the “external angles” of a triangle!) I can’t say I blame them. One of my math geek friends asked me to do him a favor and translate a few paragraphs of Euclid for him. I _have_ had years of geometry and I still couldn’t produce anything really satisfactory. The scholastic shmoes didn’t know Greek nor had modern geometric training. > [@](#): > > Even if you didn’t care about all the philosophical implications, even if all you wanted was to solve a technical problem, the ancient works were just so much better value than the medieval ones (for anything beyond the most routine computations, that is). Fair enough. You don’t think the contributions of Robert Grosseteste, Jean Buridan, and Francis Bacon are undervalued? > [@](#): > > I would never diss the northern Europeans on the richness of their mythological or epic or religious traditions… I don’t think I could picture you “dissing” anyone, but I will take your word for it all the same. 😉 MR ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/50 "2001-08-07T17:00:24Z")
( **delphica** , 😉 !) **Maeglin:** \*Is [liking an Easter computus] some sort of occupational hazard? \* More or less, though I prefer to think of it as one of the job perks. 😉 \*More seriously and even farther afield, what do you think of the work of Walter Burley and the Oxford Calculators? Though I am an aspiring history of literature, 14th century science never ceases to amaze me. \* No question, that is an amazing body of work, and we would never have got Renaissance physics or calculus without it. (I don’t know much about it, I’m afraid, though I did have an undergraduate student who wrote a thesis on the Calculatores.) Though much of it seems to be inspired, as you point out, by the Aristotelian tradition that started to come in from Arabic translations in the 11th and 12th centuries, so the Greeks get a couple points on that too. \*‘What provides the superior “flash” of the classical (really, the Hellenistic) scientific works isn’t Plato, it’s Euclid and Archimedes and Diophantos and Ptolemy: not so much superior philosophical insight as superior technical mastery.’ Fair enough. What of Aristotle, though? Commentaries on his Physics and De anima were tremendously influential for almost fifteen hundred years. His work provided the intellectual impetus for natural inquiry in the 12th century. \* Oh, no question, The Philosopher played a big role. You know, it’s a very interesting question, because part of the “folklore” of the “Scientific Revolution” is its championing of \*\*anti-\*\*Aristotelianism (e.g., in Galileo’s dialogues), promoting “mathematics as the language of nature” instead of Scholastic logic. But that image conceals the ways in which the “new sciences” themselves were initially shaped, and continued to be influenced, by the Scholastic tradition—all those Oxford guys again, and so forth. _I can’t say I blame them. One of my math geek friends asked me to do him a favor and translate a few paragraphs of Euclid for him. I have had years of geometry and I still couldn’t produce anything really satisfactory. The scholastic shmoes didn’t know Greek nor had modern geometric training._ Absolutely, and I don’t think I would have done any better in their place, but my point was to show how minimal their mathematical competence was as compared to **ancient** geometric training. I don’t like to be positivist about historical developments (now that **is** an occupational hazard for historians of science, if you like :)), but it’s really hard to avoid describing the technical depth of Euclid and Apollonios and Archimedes and that crowd as being somehow “inherently superior” to that of the medievals. \*You don’t think the contributions of Robert Grosseteste, Jean Buridan, and Francis Bacon are undervalued? \* Yup, I do, although they have been getting a fairer share of attention in recent years. But they’re still no Archimedes—and to be fair, what I mostly mean by that is that they had no access to the full mathematical heritage that enabled Archimedes’ accomplishments and those of the other Hellenistic mathematicians and astronomers. Again, though, can we really consider their tradition **separate** from that of the classical ancients, the way we can distinguish between Greek and Norse mythology? I quite accept your argument that there are significant **independent** northern European intellectual traditions that got unfairly steamrollered by the early modern romance with the classics, but I’m not sure that what we now call the “scientific” work can count as one of them. \*‘I would never diss the northern Europeans on the richness of their mythological or epic or religious traditions…’ I don’t think I could picture you “dissing” anyone, but I will take your word for it all the same.\* Oh my, you should ask **december** or **pkbites** or someone like that on one of the political threads—but thanks all the same! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/51 "2001-08-07T20:59:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Is [liking an Easter computus] some sort of occupational hazard? > > More or less, though I prefer to think of it as one of the job perks. 🙂 All right, I’ll give you that. Medievalists retain Scholasticism, the butt of entirely too many jokes, as a perk. I fully agree with the late great John Murdoch, who argued that “Scholasticism is like sex and sunsets: you really can’t describe it, you just have to do it.” I have tried to explain this to people several times. Apparently they think I am unable to see the irony inherent in comparing the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas to sex. It wasn’t even that funny the _first_ time. > [@](#): > > (I don’t know much about it, I’m afraid, though I did have an undergraduate student who wrote a thesis on the Calculatores.) Though much of it seems to be inspired, as you point out, by the Aristotelian tradition that started to come in from Arabic translations in the 11th and 12th centuries, so the Greeks get a couple points on that too. Everything I know about it essentially derives from a book written by one of my former teachers whom I worked for as a research assistant in college. [Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century : Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of Scientific Thought](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521793866/qid=997217079/sr=1-2/ref=sc_b_2/104-1106278-9258345) by Joel Kaye is an excellent read. And yep, the Greeks score on that one. Aristotle’s influence on the intellectual history of the Middle Ages is one of those handful of Truths that I would take on faith alone. 😉 > [@](#): > > You know, it’s a very interesting question, because part of the “folklore” of the “Scientific Revolution” is its championing of anti-Aristotelianism (e.g., in Galileo’s dialogues), promoting “mathematics as the language of nature” instead of Scholastic logic. But that image conceals the ways in which the “new sciences” themselves were initially shaped, and continued to be influenced, by the Scholastic tradition—all those Oxford guys again, and so forth. Thank you for articulating a problem that I both always knew yet never knew existed, namely, why these “new scientists” tried to divest themselves of all appearances of medievalism when medieval science itself is derived from the same classical tradition. I hope there is a good book out there which addresses this problem. > [@](#): > > I don’t like to be positivist about historical developments (now that is an occupational hazard for historians of science, if you like ), but it’s really hard to avoid describing the technical depth of Euclid and Apollonios and Archimedes and that crowd as being somehow “inherently superior” to that of the medievals. Oh, I understand completely. The discussions I have had with historians of science, especially those who study scientific thought in the Middle Ages and in Greece and Rome, always seem to bring out my most bankrupt postmodern tendencies. I suppose it’s the occupational hazard of being a wannabe literary historian. 😉 > [@](#): > > But they’re still no Archimedes—and to be fair, what I mostly mean by that is that they had no access to the full mathematical heritage that enabled Archimedes’ accomplishments and those of the other Hellenistic mathematicians and astronomers. Indeed. I’ve studied plenty of Hellenistic academic philosophy but I don’t have the slightest idea how such vigorous scientific works were produced. Another book suggestion? > [@](#): > > Again, though, can we really consider their tradition separate from that of the classical ancients, the way we can distinguish between Greek and Norse mythology? I quite accept your argument that there are significant independent northern European intellectual traditions that got unfairly steamrollered by the early modern romance with the classics, but I’m not sure that what we now call the “scientific” work can count as one of them. As I don’t even have limited mastery or understanding of the material, I really don’t know. I tend to view most medieval and early modern cultural production as, to use a modified Peter Brown metaphor, a rich field. Fertile but dormant native soil is sown with classical fertilizer and forrowed, and the germinating plant is neither wholly native nor wholly classical. Are there any “vernacular” lines of scientific inquiry that were enhanced and enriched by the classical tradition? Or perhaps there is greater continuity in the scientific modes of thinking with the ancient world than there is in literary and philosophical modes? I really don’t know. > [@](#): > > Oh my, you should ask december or pkbites or someone like that on one of the political threads—but thanks all the same! Ha. As a liberal cut from a similar cloth as yourself, I have used stronger language with **december** especially, and I still don’t consider it dissing. Gentle chiding, perhaps. 😉 I was a little more severe on this thread, for reasons that I do not understand now, yet must have seemed logical at the time I wrote my first post. MR ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/52 "2001-08-08T16:26:26Z")
**Maeglin:** \*Medievalists retain Scholasticism, the butt of entirely too many jokes, as a perk. I fully agree with the late great John Murdoch, who argued that “Scholasticism is like sex and sunsets: you really can’t describe it, you just have to do it.” \* A great line, but your reference to the “late great John Murdoch” startles me: are we talking about John E. Murdoch, the Harvard historian of medieval science? He didn’t look “late” at the last colloquium I saw him at a few months ago! you know something I don’t here?.. ☹ 😕 \*Thank you for articulating a problem that I both always knew yet never knew existed, namely, why these “new scientists” tried to divest themselves of all appearances of medievalism when medieval science itself is derived from the same classical tradition. I hope there is a good book out there which addresses this problem. \* Good question (and thanks for the Kaye reference!). I’d start out with A. C. Crombie’s classic _History of Science from Augustine to Galileo,_ which at least covers the rise of anti-Aristotelianism though it doesn’t deal with more recent investigations. If I think of a better recommendation I’ll let you know… _The discussions I have had with historians of science, especially those who study scientific thought in the Middle Ages and in Greece and Rome, always seem to bring out my most bankrupt postmodern tendencies._ I know how you feel! It is very easy to get really conflicted about methodology in this field: my post-modernist is mad at my positivist and isn’t speaking to myself and even if they were, the neighbors would think I had taken leave of our senses. 🙂 \*I’ve studied plenty of Hellenistic academic philosophy but I don’t have the slightest idea how such vigorous scientific works were produced. Another book suggestion? \* Not a clue, I’m afraid! We have so few of what the body of texts must have been, and we know so little about the lives and training about most of the authors, that it’s very largely speculative. More and more evidence is making it clear how dependent the Greeks of the early Hellenistic period were on the Babylonians for the fundamentals of their mathematics and astronomy (Alexander Jones’ new book _The Oxyrhynchus Papyri_ is a very exciting treatment of this—well, okay, if you’re the kind of person who finds fragments of astronomical tables exciting. 🙂 But it really is a dazzling revelation about the real extent and nature of the links between the Babylonian and Greek traditions, and it’s probably just the tip of the iceberg). But as far as we now know, the idea of interpreting these techniques by geometical models approximating physical reality was a—was **the** —Greek innovation, and we don’t really know why they did it or how they started it. It was just a Greek thing to do, like eating olives. 🙂 _Are there any “vernacular” lines of scientific inquiry that were enhanced and enriched by the classical tradition? Or perhaps there is greater continuity in the scientific modes of thinking with the ancient world than there is in literary and philosophical modes?_ Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. No, as far as I know, all the traditions of the exact sciences (mathematics, astronomy, etc.) in northern Europe were ultimately based on fragments of the classical tradition (bits of Euclid or Nichomachus or Vitruvius or whoever). (That is, if we’re discounting the archaeoastronomy stuff from prehistoric times like Stonehenge, which AFAIK leaves no trace at all in any textual tradition, besides being pretty darn speculative anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/53 "2001-08-08T16:48:42Z")
> [@](#): > > are we talking about John E. Murdoch, the Harvard historian of medieval science? He didn’t look “late” at the last colloquium I saw him at a few months ago! you know something I don’t here? Well, I’ll be damned. You just made my day. I am still upset over RW Southern’s death in February. Indeed, John Murdoch is most enthusiastically _not_ dead. My mentor in college was one of his students. I honestly don’t have the slightest idea why I thought he had shuffled off this mortal coil. > [@](#): > > I’d start out with A. C. Crombie’s classic History of Science from Augustine to Galileo, which at least covers the rise of anti-Aristotelianism though it doesn’t deal with more recent investigations. If I think of a better recommendation I’ll let you know… Thanks. I’ll check it out as soon as I reduce the queue. I am really starting to resent my day job. 😉 > [@](#): > > I know how you feel! It is very easy to get really conflicted about methodology in this field: my post-modernist is mad at my positivist and isn’t speaking to myself and even if they were, the neighbors would think I had taken leave of our senses. I hear you. My dichotomy is of a slightly different character: my “lang” almost inevitably gets the better of my “lit,” which makes me extremely unpopular among my fellow students. Lit Student: “You mean you have your degree in classics?” Maeglin: “Uh, yeah.” LS: "You can read those dead languages? M: “Well, they take a long time to learn, but…” LS: “So you actually, like, have to know stuff, right?” M: “Uh, guess so.” LS: “Damn, that sucks.” Whereupon the Lit Student walks away. And FTR, I went to an Ivy League school. I hate to perpetuate the lang/lit dichotomy, but it exists in full force in almost every literature department I have encountered. Lit folks are brilliant and inspired, lang scholars are narrow-minded and mundane. > [@](#): > > We have so few of what the body of texts must have been, and we know so little about the lives and training about most of the authors, that it’s very largely speculative. More and more evidence is making it clear how dependent the Greeks of the early Hellenistic period were on the Babylonians for the fundamentals of their mathematics and astronomy (Alexander Jones’ new book The Oxyrhynchus Papyri is a very exciting treatment of this—well, okay, if you’re the kind of person who finds fragments of astronomical tables exciting. I’ve worked with the Oxyrhynchia material before, actually. On stuff that was even more exciting than astronomical tables. I had the pleasure of trying to make heads or tails of tax receipts, documents referring matters to the Strategos, and other such effluvia of the Ptolemaic and Roman governments. And I _will_ check out the Jones. My teacher was Roger Bagnall, definitely an authority on Egyptian papyrology and epigraphy, and he would wax on about the reams of astronomical information that no one could be bothered to analyze because it is all too boring. I don’t think he would have appreciated it if I pointed out the irony. Great man, though. > [@](#): > > But as far as we now know, the idea of interpreting these techniques by geometical models approximating physical reality was a—was the—Greek innovation, and we don’t really know why they did it or how they started it. It was just a Greek thing to do, like eating olives. I eat olives by the cartload. My math skills should be better. At any rate, it really is frustrating that this incredible development cannot be contextualized with any degree of certainty. Has anyone done convincing treatments to date? > [@](#): > > No, as far as I know, all the traditions of the exact sciences (mathematics, astronomy, etc.) in northern Europe were ultimately based on fragments of the classical tradition (bits of Euclid or Nichomachus or Vitruvius or whoever). That answer is entirely too continuous for me, but I shall have to take your word for it. I want to see some fragmentation, damnit. 😉 MR ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2001, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366/54 "2001-08-09T20:39:27Z")
**Maeglin:** \*I hear you. My dichotomy is of a slightly different character: my “lang” almost inevitably gets the better of my “lit,” which makes me extremely unpopular among my fellow students. […] LS: “So you actually, like, have to know stuff, right?” M: “Uh, guess so.” LS: “Damn, that sucks.” Whereupon the Lit Student walks away. And FTR, I went to an Ivy League school. I hate to perpetuate the lang/lit dichotomy, but it exists in full force in almost every literature department I have encountered. Lit folks are brilliant and inspired, lang scholars are narrow-minded and mundane. \* Preach it, brother. Historians of science—probably all historians, for that matter—run into the same problem, where the majority work on a fairly well-defined tradition in one or two (usually modern) languages using published texts (and sometimes archival material and/or oral history). The minority who work with primary sources in multiple obscure and/or ancient languages—“textual scholars”—are considered dull and irrelevant, even though we’re the ones who know the real answers to such Cecilesque questions as “why are there 360 degrees in a circle?” and “why is classical mythology more important than Norse?” \ Well, Cecil loves us, at least. 🙂 \*At any rate, it really is frustrating that this incredible development cannot be contextualized with any degree of certainty. Has anyone done convincing treatments to date? \* Well, you know the one about the thesis advisor’s comment to his student: “Your thesis is both brilliant and original. Unfortunately, the parts that are brilliant aren’t original, and the parts that are original aren’t brilliant.” 🙂 Along those lines, the treatments of Greek scientific innovation that are convincing have little certainty, and the ones that speak with certainty aren’t convincing. But you might look at O. Neugebauer’s _The Exact Sciences in Antiquity,_ which however (softly be it spoken, I was trained in the Neugebauer school and I still think it’s the best history of science around) is a trifle too positivist for my taste: it seems to assume that geometrical modeling of physical reality is what a scientific culture is **supposed** to do, so you don’t really need to explain its development, you just need to document it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mythology-greek-roman-or-nordic/74366.md?page=2)