Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-02-17]:Just saw a show on History Channel regarding the formation of the New World. The show depicted crucial events that played a role in the formation of the world as we know it today. It showed the discovery of America by the Vikings. But did not mention anything about the fact that ancient Greeks had discovered America thousands of years ago. You see, a sheer propaganda story like the one of the Viking “discovery” is much more powerful than the hundreds of ancient Greek amphorae found in the continent…
The show then continued to the Fall of Constantinople under Mehmed. And although it talked a lot about the Turks which performed the siege, it did not say ANYTHING about the nationality of the people inside the walls of Constantinople. It referred to them just as “the people inside the walls” !!!
Modern anthellenes (ανθέλληνες) use many means to propagate their propaganda. And it is really obvious that “credible” channels like History Channel would be used in such an effort. The Byzantium was a Greek Empire. Many people envy it and wish to use its name for their own purposes.
It is really funny and extreme to believe that Byzantium was not Greek but something else. The Roman part of the Roman Empire was destroyed and the Eastern part was a purely Hellenic (Greek) one! Every aspect of Byzantine culture, from the names of the Emperors, the language spoken, the ways of everyday behaviour, philosophy (though with a turn to theology because of the new religion) is something every Greek can recognize today in this own way of life and surely something even ancient Greeks would recognize as extremely familiar (e.g. the ancient Greek language). [1] The role model for people in Byzantium was not any former Roman empire, but the Greek Alexander the Great. [2]
History Channel claims that the Byzantine Empire was a Roman one (!!!) [see here], not giving ANY value to “simple questions” like… How many Roman were there? If this was a Roman empire, were did the Greek population go for more than a thousand years? Vanished into thin air? Abducted by aliens? Nonsense can have and MUST have a limit. But people blinded by their propagandas purposes know no boundaries. Byzantine Empire used to be called the "Empire of the Greeks" (Latin: Imperium Graecorum) back then in the West and the Byzantine Emperor was referred to as Imperator Graecorum (Emperor of the Greeks) [3]. An Empire which spoke Greek and which was the birthplace of modern Orthodox Christianity as we know it today (to which Greece is in the leading position as we speak) cannot be nothing BUT Greek.
Too much for a HISTORY channel to take into account…
After all, those who fund it do not care about such minor details…
Related article: Βυζάντιο - Η Χιλιόχρονη Αυτοκρατορία
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