Ancient Greece Exceptionialism

Let's look at Ancient Greece's achievements through a perspective of population demographics. In terms of achievement, Bertrand Russell says

IN all history, nothing is so surprising or so difficult to account for as the sudden rise of civilization in Greece. Much of what makes civilization had already existed for thousands of years in Egypt and in Mesopotamia, and had spread thence to neighbouring countries. But certain elements had been lacking until the Greeks supplied them. What they achieved in art and literature is familiar to everybody, but what they did in the purely intellectual realm is even more exceptional. They invented mathematics * and science and philosophy; they first wrote history as opposed to mere annals; they speculated freely about the nature of the world and the ends of life, without being bound in the fetters of any inherited orthodoxy.

With this in mind, let's look at the population of that town along the Aegean ...

There were no proper population censuses in ancient Athens, but the most educated modern guess puts the total population of fifth-century Athens, including its home territory of Attica, at around 250,000 - men, women and children, free and unfree, enfranchised and disenfranchised. Of those 250,000 some 30,000 on average were fully paid-up citizens - the adult males of Athenian birth and full status. Of those 30,000 perhaps 5,000 might regularly attend one or more meetings of the popular Assembly, of which there were at least 40 a year in Aristotle's day. 6,000 citizens were selected to fill the annual panel of potential jurymen who would staff the popular jury courts (a typical size of jury was 501), as for the trial of Socrates.

A mere 30,000 people set the Western world on its current course cementing and inventing our rational disposition and our most ingrained conceptual frameworks. Its difficult to imagine where we would be without the Greeks because our whole method of thinking is oriented by their contributions whether it be scholastically or everyday, practically.

Examining some comparably large cities illustrates the unlikely happenance of the emergence of Ancient Greece.

• Baton Rouge, Lousiana




• Rochestor, New York




• Windsor, Ontario

And this list isn't even fair because 100% of their populations of 250,000 are free citizens. How could such a concentration of knowledge and original curiosity occur in one tiny area? Is it because of genetics? There would be no evidence of that in the Greeks I met. Was it just a matter of luck and timing? Was it inevitable? I doubt history has any inevitabilities save for death. Is Rochestor next?