The Ancient Greeks
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Saturday, February 17 2007 16:11
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The real question is how many knots a trireme has to go at in order to reach conclusions prematurely. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Saturday, February 17 2007 16:31
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It depends on who is at the oars and what their motivation is. Dikiyoba. Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, February 17 2007 17:53
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Kyrek, you don't even seem to know what position you're defending any more. Are you saying that the average ancient Greek (or at least, the average ancient Greek oarsman) was stronger than the average modern human because they did more manual labour? If so, nobody here is disputing that. But then you can't seem to decide whether they were naturally stronger than any modern human could hope to be due to genetics, or just stronger than almost all modern humans because they spent their entire lives exercising. We're telling you that the latter position is much more plausible, and you seem to vacillate between the two with every second post. [ Saturday, February 17, 2007 17:54: Message edited by: Cryptozoology ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, February 17 2007 23:32
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There are also some reasons to doubt even the more plausible option. What was the daily manual labor of most ancient Greeks? Farming. Most of us have probably seen third world farmers in documentaries. They don't look like supermen to me. Subsistence farming can be a tough way of life, but it's not like an 8-hour gym workout every day. Trireme crews in training may well have made more effort than that, but in fact we just don't know. It has always been true that forming military units and keeping them well-trained are two different things, the first generally much easier than the last. And to dominate the sea, a navy only needed to be better than its contemporary opponents. Ancient people were all little guys. The average height of people seems to have increased rapidly in just the last century or two, at least in richer countries. My understanding is that getting more protein in childhood is the cause, not any genetic change. And, other things being equal, bigger people are stronger. And I don't know about ancient times, but I recently read somewhere that the average level of health in the US civil war was pitiful by modern standards. The incidence of chronic disease was appalling, and armies suffered more from disease than from battle. I believe that again the explanation for modern superiority is thought to be improved childhood nutrition, making everyone more robust throughout their lives. Obviously my own source citation could use some work here. Extrapolation from the US civil war to the ancient Greeks is of course not obviously sound. But altogether, for what it's worth, I'd bet that a properly trained crew of modern athletes, in a trireme built to modern scale, would totally whup the best trireme ancient Greece ever saw. For that matter, a properly trained modern team, of whatever kind, would whup the best anything ancient anywhere ever saw. And a team from a few centuries in the future would whup us, assuming no catastrophe befalls before then. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 01:10
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quote:For what it's worth, modern Olympic records tend to be much better than equivalent ancient Greek Olympic records. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 06:27
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SoT: The trick is "properly trained," I would argue. None of us here know about trireme crew training, but I'd be surprised if no classicist knows, and I'd also be surprised if it weren't very thorough. There is no doubt that ancient Greek warriors were pretty darn strong, because they wore hoplite armor and were still able to move around (and we have a good sense of what hoplite armor looked like, because we've dug up reasonably intact pieces of it). But again, we have to be careful with our comparisons: are we comparing average physical strength of modern people to ancient Greeks, or are we comparing strength of modern athletes to Greek rowers? I would contend that we moderns are on average pretty fat and slothful, and the Greeks probably had much more stamina, whether or not they had more muscle mass. Our athletes are another thing again, though. Once we start getting into issues of diet and exact body composition, we have to start specifying more than just "ancient Greece." The pre-classical Mycenean Greeks had a radically different diet from the Athenians of the 4th and 5th centuries B.C., judging by skeletal remains, for example. And ancient people were not all short. Many of them were, and average heights were probably lower than they are now, but there have always been some exceptionally tall people (especially among the rich and well-fed), and there were some six-footers even then (again judging by skeletal remains). -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5410
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 06:57
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For what its worth, this topic seemed to start out regarding long distance running and what the Greeks were capable of. We've proved in modern times athletes are capable of exceeding recorded histories triumphs. I believe the same would occur for rowing Trieres. Course, modern humanhas the time and leisure to train specifically to exceed the best there was, the best there is and the best there evere will be. The advantage the Greeks would have would be in practice, as in practice makes perfect. -------------------- "Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things." "You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares." Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5754
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 10:03
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I am saying that part of it is training, labor, etc, but part of it is also genetic difference. The reason I think part is genetic difference is because I think that from all the fighting their bodies changed. They had many, many wars with each other, and many with other opponents. I am saying that it came from generations of training and wars. Like for instance, if the modern world were to do the same as the Greeks for 500 years, they would reach the point wherethe Greeks were. quote:Earlier you were saying that we didn't know the systems the Greeks used, and here you using a recording from then as evidence. So do we know the system, or not? The Greeks didn't spend their life training for one thing. The trained for multiple things. The runners would be in an army part of the year, working for another part, and doing a bit of training as well. And I am comparing the Greeks that did eqaul muscle building exercise with a modern person. It doesn't matter the amount of exercise as long as they did an eqaul amount. Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 11:17
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quote:Hey, it worked for those giraffes who kept stretching their necks, right? Seriously, though, you might want to do a little review on how genetics works. The genes sit snugly in their chromosomes, safe in their microscopic world, and aren't affected any more by a warrior's exertions than the warrior is by the motions of the planets. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 11:22
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I don't think war is a very good selective pressure for muscle. It helps, but in the case of the Greeks was intermittent, affected only men, and also selects for, say, resistance to disease and ability to stay away from the front lines. And again, I want to know what happened to all those martial muscularity genes if they're not around in the strongest athletes today. —Alorael, who thinks that the average Greek was probably less indolent and also quite probably less healthy than the average first-worlder today. More labor builds muscle, but more labor in bad conditions on a sparse diet isn't good for you. Still, it's at least plausible that the trireme-rowers were all well-fed men who fully bought into the Greek culture of athletics and spent every spare moment perfecting their rowishness. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 16:52
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What I mean is that the strength is passed down and the descendant's muscles slowly change so that there is the same amount of muscle, but the muscle is stronger. The women did more strenuous work than in modern times, discounting athletes and such. In terms of women there would be alesser difference because of sexism. The soldiers would be supplied with food to keep them healthy. The Greeks toke battle, sailing and sports very seriously. All of those people would be supplied with food to keep up their stamina. The laborers couldn't have had as bad conditions as modern third world countries, because they were expected to go to war when needed, and many of them competed in the Olympics. Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 18:19
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quote:Please show me where in this thread I said that. Besides, even if I did, there's no inconsistency in saying that we know the units the Greeks used to measure distances such as one would make a long jump over, but not the units they used to measure distances such as one would row a trireme over. quote:Sorry to disappoint you, but Lamarckism was discredited a century ago. You can't make your descendants stronger by exercising a lot yourself, since exercise doesn't change your genetic code. quote:Australians take sport very seriously too; when asked who his personal hero was, the Prime Minister named a cricketer. Doesn't stop 60% of us from being overweight. [ Sunday, February 18, 2007 18:30: Message edited by: Cryptozoology ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 18:45
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Trireme-crewing was an honor, not slave-work, remember: only fairly well-off (e.g. well-fed) Greeks were allowed to do so. And because the Greeks put an astounding value on athleticism, the result was a class of relatively physically robust people with grueling training behind them. The Greeks would almost certainly have run circles around, say, the Parthians, who didn't have the same kind of athletic training and probably wouldn't have been crewing their triremes with the middle-to-upper-class. However, looking at the conclusion of this study as saying that the Greeks had superhuman strength is faulty: it's much more plausible (remember Occam's Razor) that the Greeks' speed at sea was exaggerated (remember, they also believed Poseidon controlled the sea) and/or that ancient triremes were constructed, maintained, or sailed in a speed-increasing manner more or less lost to history. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5410
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written Sunday, February 18 2007 19:24
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After re-reading these posts I can safely say that there will be many whose children have extremely thick foreheads from their parents having beaten them against the keyboard, if indeed it is true that certain practices can cause genetic changes downstream. -------------------- "Dikiyoba ... is demon ... drives people mad and ... do all sorts of strange things." "You Spiderwebbians are mad, mad, mad as March hares." Posts: 687 | Registered: Wednesday, January 19 2005 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5754
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written Monday, February 19 2007 12:47
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What I mean is that the people who are arguing with me are saying that we can't rely on those records, and is hard to create an argument when I don't get to use something abd you do. The Greeks couldn't have spent as much time practicing for the Olympics. The had to earn money, grow/but food, and many other things like that. They didn't win anything in the Olympics, so they had to do a lot of other stuff which modern athletes wouldn't. They spread out their training also, and didn't train only for one thing. What I mean is that the muscle changes to allow more strength for the amount of muscle. I am saying that the training and stuff would change the muscle, not necessarily the strength. I mean that they all did the sports and battle, not just toke it seriously. I mean taking part, not watching others take art. I am not saying that they had superman strength, I am just sayng that they are stronger than we are. They wouldn't change the records because Poseidon made them go faster, they would think that Poseidon had made their fleet the best known to the world. Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, February 19 2007 13:02
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If the Greeks couldn't spend as much time training, by which I assume you mean exercising and practicing form, then why would they be better at it than modern athletes? If exercise makes muscles better but not stronger, I don't know what you mean. If you mean it makes them stronger, I agree, but you've already said that modern athletes get more chances to build up muscle. Not all Greeks were soldiers and athletes. Most weren't. And I still don't see how that's relevant, because there seems to be no disagreement that the average Greek was more fit than the average Spidwebber. The average athlete, modern or ancient, is a different story. —Alorael, who thinks superhuman strength is exactly what you are concluding. If they have strength that is no longer humanly possible, their strength was superhuman from a modern perspective. That still makes no sense. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Monday, February 19 2007 13:08
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quote:I'd like an exact biological description of how this works or a reference to such a description. This claim is far more specific than just, "Yeah, the Greeks were pretty strong." -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5754
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written Monday, February 19 2007 16:03
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Modern athletes spend more time building up certain muscles that help them with their event or sport. The Greeks did more all around muscle building activities. Modern athletes have certain muscles that are stronger, but the Greeks are all around stronger. Not all Greeks were athletes or warriors, but all had to know how to use a weapon in case of a militia call-up, and most of them were athletes. No, I am not concluding that the Greeks had superhuman strength. I am saying that the Greeks were stronger than we currently are, but in not to long a time we could regain that strength. It isn't out of our reach, all we have to do is exercise hard for 3 or 4 generations so that the muscle form changes. Sorry, I don't have a biological desription of it. That's just my understanding of how it works. Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
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written Monday, February 19 2007 16:38
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quote:You don't have a biological description of it because this is not really how things work, cf. Thuryl's post on Lamarckism. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5754
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written Monday, February 19 2007 16:45
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Ok then, I give in. I thought that was how it worked, but since I am wrong I no longer think that Greeks are genetically stronger than modern people. I surrender. Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
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written Monday, February 19 2007 16:55
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That's pretty close to a Spiderweb first, and I'm impressed. Not only did Kyrek stand his ground, he also knows how to concede gracefully. There's a lesson in here for all of us next time Geneforge and politics come up. —Alorael, who thinks this was a remarkably good argument with remarkably little anger on either side. Of course it's about something with absolutely no importance or relevance to daily life, but still! Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5754
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written Monday, February 19 2007 16:58
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Why thank you. :) Topics aren't usually as fun if they have anything to do with everyday life, discounting politics of course. Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
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written Monday, February 19 2007 17:16
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Hmm. That was not the response I expected, but it was far better than the one that I expected. I applaud you, Kyrek. I wonder if Garrison found my replies gut-ticklingly ill-intentioned in this thread, too, despite the (again) remarkable lack of anger. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5754
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written Monday, February 19 2007 17:20
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I couldn't have gone any farther without a "well that is true but nobody has proved it yet" or something similar. I don't think that my other posts were like that, and if they were I am sorry. And I didn't find you're posts ill-intentioned at all, why would Garrison? Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Monday, February 19 2007 20:56
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quote:Well, hey, since you were gracious, let me clear up a little bit about what I was talking about. Re. record falsification: The problem is that very few written records survive a long time, especially in ancient Greece. Books just didn't exist on stuff like records and ship construction; for the most part stuff like that was oral tradition. The Greeks didn't have a strong skeptic tradition like we do now, so a little falsification could go a long way. As for how strength increases genetically: the only way for strength to promote itself genetically is for strength to be a selecting factor evolutionarily. In other words, if having a genetic disposition to might makes you pass on more genes and bear more children, over time those might genes will show up more. This is the same for any sets of genes. Quick example: the trait that causes sickle-cell anemia also confers resistance to malaria, which is a huge cause of illness and death in sub-saharan Africa. In areas where malaria is not a threat, sickle-cell anemia sufferers have no advantages over the normal population and tend to die off before reproducing, or at least before reproducing much. In areas with endemic malaria, on the other hand, sickle-cell anemia is better than the alternative, which is death by malaria at a very early age (possibly before puberty, which removes you from the gene pool, period). That's why the sub-saharan African population has a disproportionate amount of sickle-cell anemia. Bear in mind that developed over thousands of years, and involved EXTREMELY DRASTIC SELECTION - sickle-cell anemia is very dangerous to your health and well-being, and so is malaria. This is stuff that is a matter of life or death before puberty. Get the wrong trait (in Africa, SSA; in Europe, lack thereof) and your genes won't pass on; get the right one and they will. (It isn't quite as dramatic as all that, but it's pretty close.) Now, any genetic determiner of strength - let's say there's a gene which allows you to bulk up faster, speeds up your metabolism, or makes you taller - is generally not a huge selective force. If you're from an area where mulish labor, possibly to the death, is required from the entire population - say, the Incas in the 16th through 19th centuries - then you might start seeing genetic potential for strength growing. (Anyone with a genetic disposition to physical weakness would fail to pass on their genes.) But you need millennia to remove or render endemic specific genes. In the case of the Inca, you might have a skewed spread of strength/weakness genes, but it happened too quickly and was sustained for too little time to cause serious natural selection at the genetic level. Incidentally, this is the same reason some people have black skin and others white: lower levels of melanin increase the natural lifespan in temperate climates, because the farther north you get the less sun you get day-to-day, and the better your skin should be at absorbing what little sunlight you get directly. So people fortunate enough to be born with genetics causing less pigmentation lived longer and had more kids in northerly (or, in some areas, southerly) climes, whereas people born with more pigmentation near the tropics tended to live longer and have more kids. Again, this is a clear example of genetic selection taking a lot of time. The natives of Ecuador look closer to Chinese people than Congolese people, even though they share a latitude - this is because the Congolese have had eons to adapt darker skin, but the Ecuadorians originated somewhere in Asia and have only been selected towards darker pigmentation since a few millennia ago. As for now? That's basically over: Vitamin D is synthesized and products and animals containing it are sold around the world, and sunscreen and protective clothing are readily available. Appropriateness for the solar climate in terms of melanin is no longer a selecting factor; it is more or less as easy for a Swede to have a dozen children in Kenya as it is for a !Kung. Does that mean evolution is over? No. Now it just works in different ways. Whatever makes you survive longer and have more kids is evolutionarily favorable - IF it can be inherited. Fundamentalist Mormons have many, many kids, but that's not evolutionarily relevant - their kids aren't born fundie-Mormons, they're made fundie-Mormons. --- To simplify it all, this is how evolution works: If you have a trait that can be inherited genetically, it's a candidate for [natural] selection. If having it prevents you from reproducing, it is selected out. Fewer kids will be born with it, or born carrying it, in the next generation than this one. If having it doesn't prevent you from reproducing, it is not selected out. If having it helps you reproduce more, it is selected favorably. More kids will be born with it, or carrying it, in the next generation than this one. Occasionally, traits mutate into your genetic makeup from nowhere. If they have no effect on reproducability, they don't select one way or the other. Otherwise, they apply the same way. Some traits mutate very readily. This is why every generation sees the birth of intersexed children, most of whom are sterile and the few of whom who are not do not tend to reproduce much. Sometimes a mutated trait succeeds very well, and becomes endemic. Sometimes an established trait fails completely and falls from the population within a few generations, returning only in sporadic mutations. Genetics is a fun field. It's more complex than all that, but that's the foundations of it. In humans, evolutionary genetics is a pretty much moot field; there are just too many open questions as far as what causes who to reproduce more, especially with the advent of modern medicine. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |