"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull."

W.C. Fields

The Greeks could baffle and dazzle the world with brilliance and bull Sh@$.

There is no sharper contrast to that of the Persian than the Greeks. The Greeks allowed and encouraged popular participation in public politics unlike the monolithic monarch of Persia. Well, unless you were a woman or a slave or, you asked too many questions, eghm… Aristotle. But I digress…The Greek civilization was shaped by history… Profound, huh… as well as geography. The Greek political system was made up of many city state micro political institutions, which rolled up to a centralized government in Athens. This was a function organically devised out of necessity, adding my own interpretation, more than decisive thought or grand architecture. The geography in Greece, unlike Persia was not expansive but a harsh rocky and mountainous terrain, which made it hard to communicate and organize, if only they had the internet, huh… They could simply blog about politics… But again I digress. In order to organize and function, responsibility was delegated to the city states which gave individual cities shared power. This combined with the allowed participation of the public in state politics formed the first known notion of democracy…

Greek expansion took place in the form of settlements as opposed to conquests and spread quickly all around the rim of the Black Sea. Much of this expansion was driven by Greek farmers in search of fertile land and Greek Iron traders in search of Iron.

Ok – Gotto run… It’s breakfast time and I am hungry… More to follow…