I was planning to post this on facebook but I didn’t want to upset “friends”, so I decided to blog about it…
I’m getting a bit annoyed with some comments from Greek friends. Every single time that someone writes/says something negative about Greece, someone states: “When Greeks had civilisation, the rest of the world was living on trees!”. This is obviously not true. If you like history so much, try reading a book and find out why.. Also, you’re talking about Ancient Greek civilisation; the hint is in the name. Ancient. The fact that you find yourselves living in the same area that some great people lived ages ago, doesn’t mean anything.. Not saying that ancient greek civilisation wasn’t great! It was awesome BUT it has nothing to do with modern Greeks.
Maria P.
The Little Misanthropist 
That, and of course the fact that the roots of Western civilization can be traced back to the ancient Near East, where people in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed organized societies and created the ideas and institutions that we associate with civilization. And let’s not forget the invention of the number 0 and maths altogether, which all started in Egypt and Persia (although the Mayans also had a symbol for 0).
So “Western” Civilization didn’t even start in Europe, nor did it start in the Mediterranean lands, but it all began in Northern Africa, the Persian and West Asian lands.
Still a lot of ground breaking inventions, constitutions and philosophies were developed in ancient Greece. No doubt about that. And yes, it probably was awesome…