Twin Greco-Roman Islands To Modern World

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
With its rise around the Mediterranean Sea giving way to a rich and centuries-long legacy that remains with us to this day, the Greco-Roman world stood tall as a bastion of science, art, law, and high culture until its tragic decline following the sacking of Rome in 410 A.D. But for all the contributions that have still been left to us--from Aristotle's philosophy to Roman influence within the Anglo-American legal tradition--the world that exists now, in the one-and-a-half millennia since the end of Classical Civilization, has become something they'd find utterly unrecognizable.

That their lot would find it impossible to immediately make heads or tails of our world is quite evident, but let's say that one curious ROB goes further than that by resurrecting, say, a hundred-thousand ancient Romans and Greeks from random dates that range roughly from the fifth century B.C. to the fifth century A.D. Depending on whether they're Greek or Roman, they're each placed in one of two closed-off twin islands in the Ionian Sea, complete with familiar infrastructure and all the provisions they'd ever need so that they won't be forced to forage for themselves and start confrontations that could escalate into something much more ugly if left unchecked. The ROB also leaves each household a conspicuous note that explains their current situation to them all in precise detail, as well as plenty of user-friendly resources on the state of the world nowadays as well as exactly how it got there. This would encompass everything from modern appliances with meticulous instructions on how to use them, to all sorts of books and documentaries on over a thousand years of history that has ensued between the period they were sent from and the present day. So, having received the aid of a curious ROB so that they're not left to their own devices in a setting that they'd likely never wrap their heads around by themselves, how would these resurrected Greeks and Romans--isolated as they may be at first--fare in the modern world?

Leaving our mind-boggling technology aside for a moment, I imagine they'd find us contemporary people very "pampered" and "weak" thanks to how dependent we've become on all our advancements and supply lines to sustain us (even though they'd quickly see the appeal of things like modern medicine, I'm sure). However, I can imagine that they'd also be bemused at how we've put men on the Moon and created bombs that can incinerate whole cities in a heartbeat, but still remain baffled by the recipe for creating ancient Roman concrete. They'd also disapprove of our social norms and contemporary culture, with our historically recent mentality of change and progress for its own sake probably unnerving societies as traditional and time-tested as theirs. On the flip side, the scale and destructive potential of modern conflicts--though tempered by conventions they'd likely find foreign and perhaps too generous to the enemy--would probably astonish them, with the World Wars blowing anything in their frame of reference out of the water in terms of sheer death toll and showcasing the dark side of what modernity has brought into being. How they'd react to myriad and far-reaching geopolitical changes, considering all the cultures and states that have risen and fallen during the past millennium or two, seems like something more difficult to gauge in one fell swoop--though how Britannia and Gallia eventually went on to forge some of the greatest empires the world has ever seen would come as a surprise, not to mention the fact that the most powerful nation to have ever walked the earth sits on a continent whose existence they never knew about in the first place!

Anyways, that's all I have for now. Hopefully, we can keep the conversation going beyond just some initial musings of mine when it comes to how two interlocked, long-dead peoples would react to their distant descendants and the lives they lead in 2020 (or thereabouts).

Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
They would be wondering things like why people are Anti-Slavery, why anyone would have an issue with marrying girls who are as young as 12, why people are against even selling themselves into slavery, why anyone is against the whole male-pedarastry stuff

They would also wonder why people forgot the formula to “greek fire” and the smithing process for “damascus steel”
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
They would be wondering things like why people are Anti-Slavery, why anyone would have an issue with marrying girls who are as young as 12, why people are against even selling themselves into slavery, why anyone is against the whole male-pedarastry stuff

They would also wonder why people forgot the formula to “greek fire” and the smithing process for “damascus steel”

I suppose when we tell them about how it's to prevent girls who are too young and inexperienced from being taken advantage of by older people, they won't understand why we dignify them with that, either?

Forgetting the recipes for Greek fire and Damascus steel seem like much more reasonable causes for concern, especially considering their bemusement at how the same civilizations that made human flight possible and bent nature to their will more than ancient people could've ever hoped to still haven't fully rediscovered either of them.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
I suppose when we tell them about how it's to prevent girls who are too young and inexperienced from being taken advantage of by older people, they won't understand why we dignify them with that, either?

Forgetting the recipes for Greek fire and Damascus steel seem like much more reasonable causes for concern, especially considering their bemusement at how the same civilizations that made human flight possible and bent nature to their will more than ancient people could've ever hoped to still haven't fully rediscovered either of them.

I bet the Ancient Greeks and Romans have more knowledge on how the Ancient Egyptians constructed their pyramids
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
I bet the Ancient Greeks and Romans have more knowledge on how the Ancient Egyptians constructed their pyramids

Perhaps. But then there's actually collecting that knowledge for ourselves, which may be suspect due to a) their likely unwillingness to work with strange "modern" peoples who're demanding that they end "key institutions" like slavery and casual misogyny and b) the various biases that shape their worldview heading into this scenario.

Although, since engineering can be empirically tested to see whether construction and its underlying principles hold up or not, we may have to worry about that less than their accounts of the Egyptian religion or the various "barbarian" peoples they've encountered, for example.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
Perhaps. But then there's actually collecting that knowledge for ourselves, which may be suspect due to a) their likely unwillingness to work with strange "modern" peoples who're demanding that they end "key institutions" like slavery and casual misogyny and b) the various biases that shape their worldview heading into this scenario.

Although, since engineering can be empirically tested to see whether construction and its underlying principles hold up or not, we may have to worry about that less than their accounts of the Egyptian religion or the various "barbarian" peoples they've encountered, for example.

There’s such a thing as bribery, money talks, though I think they would be confused by the concept of “paper money”

Also, I think we could get more complete records of GrecoRoman Mythology

Admittedly, from what I can understand the GrecoRoman Pantheons have undergone too much syncretism and Aphrodite may just be a Goddess of War instead of a Goddess of Beauty
 

Shipmaster Sane

You have been weighed
They would be wondering things like why people are Anti-Slavery, why anyone would have an issue with marrying girls who are as young as 12, why people are against even selling themselves into slavery, why anyone is against the whole male-pedarastry stuff
Athens during one period was not greece as a whole.

Specifically, Sparta decried the child marriages and sexual apprenticeships of Athens, and had a much healthier culture for it.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
There’s such a thing as bribery, money talks, though I think they would be confused by the concept of “paper money”

That's true. As for paper money, I suppose that'd segway into how the people who carry it live comfortable-enough lifestyles to the point of not needing something more durable and long-lasting to trade instead.

They would have no modern weapons,rigt? if Turks do not take over,dudes who traffic humans to Europe would.

Since the islands are in the Ionian Sea between modern-day Italy and Greece, I don't think Turkey would be wise to make (direct) moves. Human traffickers are certainly a problem, but how much they'd be able to get away with due to how much international concern the sudden arrival of the islands would spur as well as how quickly Greco-Roman victims would stand out (i.e. speaking dead languages and being unable to understand modern ones), seems more debatable to me.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
As it applies to how our era is one of constant (and often destabilizing) change, what might the Greeks and Romans make of radical ideologies that gained traction in the twentieth century, like communism and fascism? While I've little doubt that pro-redistribution movements are as old as civilization itself, I feel that the radical writings of Karl Marx and the atrocities of the leaders who carried out his vision--or at least, their interpretations of it--would rather frighten them.

Hopefully, they'd recognize Joe Stalin as the murderous, power-hungry gangster that he was, and perhaps a few of their historians would draw comparisons with Caracalla. I also doubt they'd take kindly to radical red figureheads like Chairman Mao, with his bloodthirsty encouragement of a "Cultural Revolution" designed to sweep away "the old" in favor of "the new" through wanton violence and radicalization of the nation's youth. Pol Pot, I hope, is someone they'd know to be a straight-up lunatic who makes Nero look almost lovable. Killing a quarter to a third of your own people in only a few years for reasons as crazy as wearing glasses or knowing a foreign language tends to do that sort of thing.

Whether they'd denounce Hitler and the Nazis, other than for being needlessly obsessed with race and wasting resources on purging people based on deluded scapegoats, I'm not sure. Maybe they'd like Mussolini better, though I wouldn't be surprised if they still snubbed him as an arrogant failure who didn't deserve to be their successor.
 

Shipmaster Sane

You have been weighed
As it applies to how our era is one of constant (and often destabilizing) change, what might the Greeks and Romans make of radical ideologies that gained traction in the twentieth century, like communism and fascism? While I've little doubt that pro-redistribution movements are as old as civilization itself, I feel that the radical writings of Karl Marx and the atrocities of the leaders who carried out his vision--or at least, their interpretations of it--would rather frighten them.

Hopefully, they'd recognize Joe Stalin as the murderous, power-hungry gangster that he was, and perhaps a few of their historians would draw comparisons with Caracalla. I also doubt they'd take kindly to radical red figureheads like Chairman Mao, with his bloodthirsty encouragement of a "Cultural Revolution" designed to sweep away "the old" in favor of "the new" through wanton violence and radicalization of the nation's youth. Pol Pot, I hope, is someone they'd know to be a straight-up lunatic who makes Nero look almost lovable. Killing a quarter to a third of your own people in only a few years for reasons as crazy as wearing glasses or knowing a foreign language tends to do that sort of thing.

Whether they'd denounce Hitler and the Nazis, other than for being needlessly obsessed with race and wasting resources on purging people based on deluded scapegoats, I'm not sure. Maybe they'd like Mussolini better, though I wouldn't be surprised if they still snubbed him as an arrogant failure who didn't deserve to be their successor.
If they diddnt like Marx, and they diddnt like Stalin, they wouldnt like Hitler or musolini. They were all socialists.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
If they diddnt like Marx, and they diddnt like Stalin, they wouldnt like Hitler or musolini. They were all socialists.

I don't know as much about Mussolini, but National Socialism was at least a much different spin than the revolutionary, "workers of the world unite!" socialism that springs to mind first. Being a beast of "blood and soil" and corporatist economics tends to do that. Having said that, even if they don't view the Nazis as a monsters without parallel like we do, I've a feeling that wiser Greco-Romans would at least see the slippery slope that'd come from an obsession with "racial purity" and a goal of exterminating specific demographics for off-the-wall reasons (which the Third Reich remains the most convenient poster boy for, at least in the Western World).

Expanding a bit on what I've said about our modern propensity for progress for its own sake, I'm interested in what they'd make of the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions that emerged in its wake? The diverse selection of radical ideas introduced by the former, and the sheer social/cultural change and tide of "liberal" reforms that marked the latter, are bound to catch the eye of peoples who had no expectation of constantly-evolving social systems and ways of life in quite the same sense as we do. Perhaps the twentieth century would be of similar (or even greater) note to them, both due to its comparative recency and how it often proved even more bloody and radical than the revolutionary period that preceded it (I can just imagine their reaction to the Sixties, hippies and tie-dye and "free love" aplenty).

That we've gone so far as to think of precise decades as unique eras unto themselves--the Gay Nineties, the Roaring Twenties, the Nifty Fifties, and so on--further underscore this characteristic of constant and year-to-year change, if you ask me. As would our tendency to separate different age demographics into unique generations with their own shared qualities and era-specific upbringings--the GI Generation, Baby Boomers, Millennials, et al.

On the whole, what would probably seem like an outflow of ever-changing lifestyles and new extremes arising left, right and center to Greco-Roman eyes are sure to attract plenty of scrutiny, both needlessly one-sided and somewhat warranted. For those more Greeks and Romans who happen to be more reasonable and level-headed, I can imagine some truly fascinating inter-cultural dialogue arising between them and certain uptimer intellectuals when it comes to the roles and ramifications of progress and tradition (among a host of other subject matters). Keeping that all in mind, though, I'm wondering what @Skallagrim probably thinks of what could come of ROB shenanigans here?
 

Shipmaster Sane

You have been weighed
I don't know as much about Mussolini, but National Socialism was at least a much different spin than the revolutionary, "workers of the world unite!" socialism that springs to mind first. Being a beast of "blood and soil" and corporatist economics tends to do that.
Oh dear oh dear, we've got another one.
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
Keeping that all in mind, though, I'm wondering what @Skallagrim probably thinks of what could come of ROB shenanigans here?
I think that if you transport people from all over a thousand-year period, and from all around the Med, they'd have plenty of trouble relating to each other -- let alone to us.

Someone from the latter period of the Roman Empire, who is a devout Christian and to whose mind the Empire has essentially always existed is going to have trouble comprehending the world-view of someone from the latter period of the Roman Republic, who has never even heard of Christianity, and who think anything that smacks of monarchy is despicable. And then there's that guy from 500 years before that, who doesn't even know what a "Rome" is, and who is wondering what happened to the achievements of his polis.

Even with lots of explanation, just wrapping their minds around all of that is going to take real effort. And that's long before we can speak about how they'd respond to all that latter-day history, which is so far beyond their frame of history that it might as wrll be the annals of the magic kingdom that you're asking them to read.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
I think that if you transport people from all over a thousand-year period, and from all around the Med, they'd have plenty of trouble relating to each other -- let alone to us.

Someone from the latter period of the Roman Empire, who is a devout Christian and to whose mind the Empire has essentially always existed is going to have trouble comprehending the world-view of someone from the latter period of the Roman Republic, who has never even heard of Christianity, and who think anything that smacks of monarchy is despicable. And then there's that guy from 500 years before that, who doesn't even know what a "Rome" is, and who is wondering what happened to the achievements of his polis.

Even with lots of explanation, just wrapping their minds around all of that is going to take real effort. And that's long before we can speak about how they'd respond to all that latter-day history, which is so far beyond their frame of history that it might as wrll be the annals of the magic kingdom that you're asking them to read.

[Shrugs shoulders] Meh. I wondered if someone might say that, sooner or later. Something that might reduce the burden of teaching them is that the average Greek or Roman on the street doesn't have to comprehend everything leading up to the present, merely that doing what the powerful people with the shiny toys say is in their best interest as soon as it becomes clear who's in charge here. ...Then again, having modern authorities come in as if they're the emissaries of the Gods themselves may prove too much of a mind-screw for the Greco-Romans to fully get over, so I guess I can see your point.

Perhaps focusing on the thoughts and responses of more astute and powerful Greco-Romans will make for a more meaningful discussion, then. What Aristotle would make of post-Antiquity philosophy and its implications in the real world should prove interesting, as would Julius Caesar's reaction to how military tactics and technology have transmogrified since his time. Although...the fact that these are inextricably married to all manner of cumulative changes over the centuries might make it hard for them to grasp the nature of how modern governments work, or how we we managed to fight two "World Wars" in one century that completely blow anything within their frame of reference out of the water for sheer scale and mass-desecration. This in mind, they'll probably search for direct analogies to what they're already familiar with so that they can better understand all the new stuff that's arisen. At best, I imagine that strategy would prove only half-successful (i.e. movies and TV being our equivalent to their theater...except for being f--king moving pictures with accompanying sound, of course!).
 

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