Αntyllus, one of antiquity’s most skilled and innovative surgeons, was an ancient Greek physician active in Rome around 150 AD. Though influenced by earlier Greek medical traditions, he broke from the conservative models of physicians such as Hippocrates and Galen and introduced practical surgical procedures, especially for vascular conditions. These shaped medicine for centuries.

Beyond aneurysms: A versatile surgeon

Antyllus is best known for designing the first effective surgical treatment for aneurysms. While earlier physicians feared vascular surgery, Antyllus embraced it with precision.
He classified aneurysms into traumatic and spontaneous types. His method involved tying off the artery both above and below the swollen vessel. Then, he excised the aneurysmal sac.

This direct approach represented a major advancement. It became the standard procedure for aneurysm treatment and remained in use until the 19th century. Unlike Galen, who emphasized theory, Antyllus prioritized anatomical understanding through practice. He accepted surgical risks others avoided, setting the foundation for vascular surgery.

Antyllus’s contributions extended beyond arteries. He developed surgical techniques for the abdomen, eyes, bones, joints, and breasts. He was also a pioneer in plastic surgery.
His reconstructive operations addressed eyelids, ears, noses, and cheeks. In trauma cases or for cosmetic repair, no one could match his precision.

To control bleeding during operations, Antyllus used cauterization. He also performed early tracheotomies, a high-risk but potentially life-saving procedure.

Oribasius, a later Greek physician, reported that Αntyllus wouldn’t operate on exceptionally large aneurysms due to high risk. For more manageable aneurysms in the limbs and head, Antyllus applied ligatures to the arteries entering and leaving the aneurysm. He then incised the sac, evacuated its contents, and packed the cavity.

Legacy and transmission of Antyllus’ aneurysm technique

Most importantly, Antyllus did not resect the aneurysm sac. He warned against excising the dilated section between ligatures, stating:

“Those who tie the artery, as I advise, at each extremity, but amputate the intervening dilated part, perform a dangerous operation. The violent tension of the arterial pneuma often displaces the ligatures.”

Oribasius also preserved one of the earliest known classifications of aneurysms into true and false types. Specifically, he said:

“There are two types of aneurysms: the first is due to dilatation of the arteries and the second is caused by rupture of the artery emptying blood into the tissues. When an aneurysm is due to dilatation, the form is cylindrical, while the one caused by injury is round.”

Aetius of Amida was a 7th century physician. In his work “On the Dilatation of the Vessels,” he described in detail a surgery likely based on Antyllus’ method:

“An aneurysm located in the bend of the elbow is treated thus. First we carefully trace the artery leading to it, from armpit to elbow, along the inside of the upper arm. Then we make an incision on the inside of the arm, three or four finger-breadths below the armpit, where the artery is felt most easily. We gradually expose the blood vessel and, when it can be lifted free with a hook, we tie it off with two firm ligatures and divide it between them. We fill the wound with incense and lint dressing, then apply a bandage. Next we open the aneurysm itself and no longer need fear bleeding. We remove the blood clots present, and seek the artery which brought the blood. Once found, it is lifted free with the hook, and tied as before.”

Preventative medicine and physical health

Antyllus believed health required daily effort and discipline. He championed preventative medicine alongside surgical skill. For instance, he prescribed exercise regimens that included structured vocal routines. One of his most distinctive practices was vociferation, a method of controlled, loud vocalizing.

He recommended reciting memorized poetry at various volumes while walking and believed deep tones helped expand the trachea and chest, strengthening respiratory health. This practice combined breath control, posture, and movement in a holistic approach to physical well-being.

Before such vocal workouts, Antyllus suggested preparation consisting of massage, bowel evacuation, and a cold sponge bath. These details reflected his methodical attention to physiology.

While Hippocrates emphasized prognosis and symptom observation, he likely saw aneurysms but avoided surgical intervention. Moreover, Galen offered greater anatomical theory, drawn from animal dissection but still steered clear of artery operations.

Antyllus surpassed both in operative practice. Whereas Hippocrates and Galen used caution, Antyllus applied bold innovation grounded in anatomy. His hands-on techniques proved enduring. Byzantine and Islamic medical texts preserved his methods, which reached medieval Europe through translation.

Legacy of a Forgotten Surgeon

Despite the historical focus on Hippocrates and Galen, Αntyllus, the Greek physician, remains a towering figure in the evolution of medicine, uniting theory with surgical practice. His aneurysm procedure became standard practice for over 1,500 years. Antyllus developed detailed and replicable techniques in plastic and general surgery.

Αntyllus’s advocacy for preventative care—including vocal and physical training—also marks him as an early holistic health thinker. To say the least, he deserves recognition as the first true vascular surgeon of antiquity, as his skill, anatomical knowledge, and forward-thinking philosophy left a lasting imprint on medical history.

@theculturemuse

Check out this #rare #ancient #roman #surgical kit in the #neuesmuseum #berlin #medicine #healing #surgery #asclepius #history #storytime #foryoupage #fyp

♬ original sound – The Culture Muse

Ancient Greeks made some of the most impressive astronomical discoveries in history, including Eratosthenes’ calculation of the circumference of the Earth.

It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that we managed to launch satellites into space and determine the exact kilometers of the circumference of the Earth: 40,030.2 kilometers.

But how, then, could the ancient Greek mathematician, Eratosthenes, manage to find pretty much the exact same number without having any pictures of Earth from space or even proper measuring tools?

Amazingly, Eratosthenes didn’t have much more than a stick and his brain when he made the amazing discovery.

How Eratosthenes discovered the circumference of the Earth

Born in Cyrene, an ancient Greek colony in modern-day Libya in 276 BC, Eratosthenes was a polymath, meaning that he had vast knowledge of many different subjects, including mathematics, astronomy, music theory, and poetry.

Over two thousand years ago, Eratosthenes heard that in Syene, a town south of Alexandria in Egypt, no vertical shadows were cast at noon on the summer solstice, as the sun was directly overhead.

The Greek mathematician wondered if this was the case in Alexandria, too, a few hundreds of miles to the north of Syene.

He decided to conduct an experiment. On June 21st, he went to Alexandria and put a stick directly in the ground and waited to see if a shadow would be cast at noon.

It turns out there was one, and he tried to measure it. The shadow cast measured to about seven degrees.

After conducting the experiment, Eratosthenes came to a very logical conclusion that if the sun’s rays are coming in at the same angle at the same time of day and a stick in Alexandria casts a shadow of seven degrees while the stick in Syene does not cast a shadow at all, it must mean that the Earth’s surface is curved.

Carl Sagan, the American astronomer, author, and science communicator was renowned for making difficult scientific concepts understandable to the millions; he did exactly this at the beginning of his renowned series Cosmos by explaining the thought process of Eratosthenes.

His calculation

The idea of a spherical Earth was already known by Pythagoras around 500 BC and validated by Aristotle a few centuries later.

If the Ancient Greeks before him were right, and the Earth was a sphere, Eratosthenes could use his observations to calculate the circumference of our planet.

After hiring a man to pace the distance between Syene and Alexandria, he found out that the two cities were five thousand stadia apart, which is about eight hundred kilometers.

He could then use simple proportions to find the Earth’s circumference—7.2 degrees is 1/50 of 360 degrees, so 800 times 50 equals 40,000 kilometers.

And just like that, an ancient Greek calculated precisely the circumference of our entire planet with just a stick and his brain over two thousand years ago.

Eratosthenes accomplished many feats throughout his life, including the creation of a chronology of Greek history, an algorithm to find every prime number, and the first global projection of the Earth.

Ancient Greeks made some of the most impressive astronomical discoveries in history, including Eratosthenes’ calculation of the circumference of the Earth.

It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that we managed to launch satellites into space and determine the exact kilometers of the circumference of the Earth: 40,030.2 kilometers.

But how, then, could the ancient Greek mathematician, Eratosthenes, manage to find pretty much the exact same number without having any pictures of Earth from space or even proper measuring tools?

Amazingly, Eratosthenes didn’t have much more than a stick and his brain when he made the amazing discovery.

How Eratosthenes discovered the circumference of the Earth

Born in Cyrene, an ancient Greek colony in modern-day Libya in 276 BC, Eratosthenes was a polymath, meaning that he had vast knowledge of many different subjects, including mathematics, astronomy, music theory, and poetry.

Over two thousand years ago, Eratosthenes heard that in Syene, a town south of Alexandria in Egypt, no vertical shadows were cast at noon on the summer solstice, as the sun was directly overhead.

The Greek mathematician wondered if this was the case in Alexandria, too, a few hundreds of miles to the north of Syene.

He decided to conduct an experiment. On June 21st, he went to Alexandria and put a stick directly in the ground and waited to see if a shadow would be cast at noon.

It turns out there was one, and he tried to measure it. The shadow cast measured to about seven degrees.

After conducting the experiment, Eratosthenes came to a very logical conclusion that if the sun’s rays are coming in at the same angle at the same time of day and a stick in Alexandria casts a shadow of seven degrees while the stick in Syene does not cast a shadow at all, it must mean that the Earth’s surface is curved.

Carl Sagan, the American astronomer, author, and science communicator was renowned for making difficult scientific concepts understandable to the millions; he did exactly this at the beginning of his renowned series Cosmos by explaining the thought process of Eratosthenes.

His calculation

The idea of a spherical Earth was already known by Pythagoras around 500 BC and validated by Aristotle a few centuries later.

If the Ancient Greeks before him were right, and the Earth was a sphere, Eratosthenes could use his observations to calculate the circumference of our planet.

After hiring a man to pace the distance between Syene and Alexandria, he found out that the two cities were five thousand stadia apart, which is about eight hundred kilometers.

He could then use simple proportions to find the Earth’s circumference—7.2 degrees is 1/50 of 360 degrees, so 800 times 50 equals 40,000 kilometers.

And just like that, an ancient Greek calculated precisely the circumference of our entire planet with just a stick and his brain over two thousand years ago.

Eratosthenes accomplished many feats throughout his life, including the creation of a chronology of Greek history, an algorithm to find every prime number, and the first global projection of the Earth.

An ancient Greek plant, now extinct, called Silphium, was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for perfume, seasoning, medicine, and even contraception. It was one of the most sought-after goods in the ancient world.

The plant was so useful that Julius Caesar himself was said to have a large stash of silphium on hand at all times.

Silphium only grew in a narrow strip of land near the North African city of Cyrene in modern-day Libya and was essential to the city’s economy. The cultivation and trade of the plant transformed Cyrene into the richest region of Africa at the time.

Its widespread use in the ancient world allowed Cyrene’s economy to flourish, which in turn transformed the city into a center of art, culture, and medicine in the ancient Greek world.

In fact, it was home to a famous medical school and even a philosophical movement based around happiness whose members were called the Cyrenaics. Eratosthenes, the famous Greek mathematician, was a native of the city.

Although now extinct, researchers have determined, through studying ancient drawings and descriptions of the plant’s taste and appearance, that silphium likely belonged to the genus Ferula, which includes existing plants like giant fennel and asafoetida.

This theory is bolstered by the fact that asafoetida, which is still widely used today in Indian and central Asian cooking, was used as a cheaper substitute for silphium in antiquity, meaning that it was either related to the plant or had a very similar flavor.

The extinct plant silphium had many uses for ancient Greeks

Plants of the genus tend to resemble ancient depictions of the plant, which was widely found on coins from Cyrene due to its economic importance to the city.

It seems to have been a tall, flowering plant with a heart-shaped seedpod on the top. In fact, some theories about the origins of the modern symbol for love point to the shape of silphium’s seedpod, as the plant was widely used as an aphrodisiac.

Silphium was long used throughout the ancient Mediterranean. Both the Minoans and ancient Egyptians had specific glyphs to represent the plant, and it was widely lauded in songs and poems across ancient cultures.

According to myth, silphium came from the god Apollo himself. It had a wide variety of medicinal properties and was used to treat cough, pain, warts, fever, and indigestion. Although considered an aphrodisiac, it was also used as a contraception and even as an abortifacient.

The father of medicine Hippocrates himself even prescribed the plant for a protruding gut.

Silphium was likewise found in Greek and Roman cuisine and featured prominently in recipes by Apicius, who compiled one of the most well-preserved collections of ancient recipes in existence today.

Its earthy scent and medicinal properties also made it an important ingredient in perfume, as well as in ancient lotions and creams.

Why did silphium go extinct?

Due to its varied uses, silphium was in very high demand. Yet, by the time of the Roman emperor Nero, who lived from 37 to 68 AD, the plant was virtually extinct. According to Pliny, when the last remaining silphium plant was found, it was given to Nero.

Scholars theorize the plant was over-harvested and over-farmed due to its popularity, causing the soil in the limited area where the plant grew to become devoid of nutrients.

Additionally, shepherds used to feed silphium to their flocks, as the plant would transform the meat, making it tender and delicious. Scholars theorize that overgrazing of the plant likely contributed to its demise.

Others claim that regional climatic changes, which caused once green fields to turn into an arid desert, resulted in the plant’s extinction.

Ancient writers, such as Theophrastus, noted that silphium was very sensitive to changes in soil and therefore could not be cultivated in large  numbers nor in areas outside of Cyrene.

Vladimir Putin is losing the war he started. His army occupies every kilometer at a cost no economy can sustain, and the goals set in February 2022 have quietly vanished from his staff maps.

But this war has more than one front, and one of them runs through Poland. On

The cover image features virologist Anthony Fauci and CIA official James Erdman.

By Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio

VERSIONE IN ITALIANO

CIA Official: “Fauci Intentionally Covered Up the Laboratory Origin of SARS-CoV-2”

It’s May 13th, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, who appears to have performed another small miracle after saving the life of Pope John Paul II in the 1981 assassination attempt on the Vatican.

A senior Central Intelligence Agency operations official appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Senator Rand Paul.

Pressed by Chairman Paul, who had already denounced the CIA’s cover-ups of the lab-built SARS-CoV-2 several months ago, he declared that Dr. Anthony Fauci intentionally helped cover up evidence showing that COVID-19 emerged from a Chinese lab collaborating with US-funded scientists, some of whom were involved in gain-of-function and coronavirus research months before the pandemic.

WUHAN-GATES – 87. “HOW CIA COVERED UP COVID LAB-ORIGIN” (2 videos). US Senator confirms the MILLENNIUM CONSPIRACY Exposed in 86 Gospa News Investigations on SARS-CoV-2

“Dr. Fauci’s role in the cover-up was intentional,” said James E. Erdman III, a senior operations officer for the CIA. Erdman testified during a hearing organized by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

From Fauci’s Censorship to the CIA’s

Erdman, who served on the federal Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG) between March 2025 and April 2026, leading the investigation into the origins of COVID-19, said that this position allowed him to learn of evidence demonstrating that Fauci, the CIA, and other elements of the US intelligence community had actively covered up evidence of a COVID-19 laboratory leak.

This information has been public knowledge in the United States for years.

Because in America, there is no State Secrecy tacitly imposed by the European Union, the various Italian governments, and their complicit media, which, like Fact-Checkers, have banned Gospa News and anyone seriously investigating a pandemic engineered by Fauci and funded by Bill Gates & Co. from social media.

TRUMP Begins Fight vs BIG TECH “CENSORSHIP CARTEL” & Fact-Checking firm NEWSGUARD (our Persecutor)

But Erdman III’s deposition brings together in a disgusting mosaic all the pieces already revealed in our series of Wuhan-Gates investigations. We briefly summarize them for those in a hurry, and refer everyone else to the full article (with automatic translation into Italian) on Gospa News International.

• The CIA whistleblower confirms the existence of extremely dangerous gain-of-function (GOF) experiments for laboratory virus enhancement, exposed by international investigative journalism, US Senators, and even in a dossier submitted by Russia to the UN in Geneva.
• Erdman confirms that Fauci’s study on the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the Covid pandemic (The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2) is a completely fabricated narrative. We add: to force the Indian biologists who first discovered the HIV sequences in the virus to withdraw their research.

WUHAN-GATES 45. First Study on SARS-2 Manmade Hidden by Fauci. Hot E-mail: US Microbiologist had forthwith Discovered “Artificial Spike Alterations”

• The CIA secretly spied on everyone within the agency investigating the man-made SARS, so it also unleashed its Fact-Checker partners to do the same against journalists like us.
• Erdman highlights the central role of Professor Baric (a microbiologist at the University of Carolina working to develop a “recipe” for a laboratory-grown Covid based on Moderna Vaccine Research) and his close collaborator, the famous bat-woman scientist Shi-Zhengli director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

WUHAN-GATES – 81. EXCLUSIVE & EXPLOSIVE STUDY! The “Recipe” to Build a Covid in Laboratory published by Fauci’s collaborator prof. Baric on 2017. Where was Trump?

• The CIA whistleblower revealed that several biological scientists led the Event 201 exercise funded by Bill Gates a few months before the pandemic.
• Edrman was among the first federal agents to mention lawyer Avril Haines, a biological weapons expert, formerly Joseph Biden’s briefcase in Congress, deputy CIA director, and then Deputy National Security Advisor during the Obama-Biden administration (2013-2016). She was a prophet of a respiratory epidemic in 2018 and was later appointed by President Biden to head the US Intelligence Community (ODNI office), where she attempted to cover up any trace of laboratory evidence of SARS-CoV-2, leading to a split in the federal agencies she oversaw.

WUHAN-GATES – 69. How and Why the Spy of Biden & Gates Hid ManMade SARS-Cov-2 in US Intelligence Dossier

• According to Senator Paul, the deposition is sufficient to indict Fauci.
• The final piece of the puzzle is still missing, and will likely never emerge: the fact that SARS-CoV-2 was only partially manipulated in China, under the supervision of the CIA, but most of the recombinant synthetic viruses were developed by American biolaboratories throughout the rest of the world with the support of the European Union and the United Kingdom.
• Current Director of the National Intelligence Agency (ODNI), Tulsi Gabbard, announced a few days ago that shewanted to shed light on those biolaboratories, but shortly after Erdman’s deposition, she was reportedly targeted by a CIA raid...

Here are some of the most significant excerpts from the deposition thanks The Defender article (full below).

The Extremely Dangerous Gain-of-Function Experiments

Erdman also took aim at gain-of-function research. He said scientists from the federal Biological Sciences Experts Group (BSEG) helped overturn a moratorium on funding gain-of-function research that took effect in 2014.

“Several of the BSEG scientists helped Dr. Fauci rewrite definitions of gain-of-function in 2015 to lift a funding pause on dangerous research,” Erdman testified. He said BSEG members “often receive considerable funding from NIAID [the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] and public health agencies.”

WUHAN-GATES – 82. SYNTHETIC VIRUSES: BIOWEAPONS Hidden by PENTAGON. Exclusive US AIR FORCE Secret Paper confirms Dangerous Tests by JASON Group on SARS-Cov2

Scientists participating in BSEG included Ralph Baric, Ph.D., who worked with Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher Shi Zhengli, Ph.D., on gain-of-function experiments, Erdman said. Daszak was later “sent to China with the WHO [World Health Organization] to investigate the origins of COVID.”

Bill Gates’ Exercise with the Intelligence Officer That Covered Up the Lab-Based SARS-CoV-2

Erdman said that some BSEG scientists also played a key role in Event 201, a simulation of a global coronavirus outbreak that took place in October 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Gates Foundation and World Economic Forum were also involved in the planning of Event 201.

“This was a coronavirus pandemic tabletop exercise curiously similar to the events that played out during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was attended by Dr. Fauci and individuals with IC ties like former [Director of National Intelligence] Avril Haynes,” Erdman said.

WUHAN-GATES – 86. SARS-COV-2 BIO-WEAPON: HARSH SUSPICIONS on UK too! Research on Chimeric Human CoronaVirus Hidden in a Patent of Institute funded by DARPA & Gates

A Wall Street Journal investigation last year revealed that in 2021, Haynes opted to brief then-President Joe Biden only on evidence supporting the zoonotic theory.

Fauci’s Indictment for Perjury to Congress

Today’s hearing came two days after the expiration of a deadline to indict Fauci on charges of perjury for allegedly lying to Congress in 2021. Fauci told Congress at the time that NIH and NIAID had never funded gain-of-function research.

Paul had publicly pushed for Fauci to be indicted. Last year, Biden pre-emptively pardoned Fauci for his official acts dating back to 2014. Last month, a grand jury indicted Dr. David Morens, a former top aide to Fauci, for allegedly using his personal email account to hide communications about the origins of COVID-19.

BREAKING: Top Fauci Advisor Indicted in First Criminal Prosecution vs a Senior COVID Official. Full DOJ Statement

Hawley said many of his constituents “want to see the perpetrators held to account,” people like Fauci. He urged Congress to “start tightening the funding strings” of federal agencies that are not cooperating with the investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

The Alleged RAID on Gabbard’s Intelligence Office, Ready to Reveal the Secrets of US Biolabs

According to Fox News journalist Jesse Watters, the sensational allegations emerged Wednesday during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.

Watters claims that Fauci’s whistleblower, James Eardman III, stated in court today that the documents were being prepared for release when the CIA intervened and seized them.

NEW VIDEO – Rep. LUNA: “The CIA RAIDS Gabbard Intel office, Seizing documents on JFK assassination, MKUltra”. On BioLabs too?

“The CIA has 24 hours to return the documents to Tulsi Gabbard’s office, or I will file a motion to issue a subpoena. “These documents were requested by Congress,” Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna declared on her X account.

HANTAVIRUS KILLER – Dossier 1. This RATS-VIRUS Tested as LETHAL BIOWEAPON by US PENTAGON in Ukraine Biolabs (DTRA U-8 project)

This entire earthquake occurred in just a few days, right after the Hantavirus emergency, which the US Pentagon’s biolaboratories had been working on for years in Ukraine…

Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio – founder and director of Gospa News

---

CIA Whistleblower: Fauci Led Multi-Agency Cover-Up of COVID Lab Leak Evidence

All visual links to previous Gospa News posts or videos have been added in the aftermath

by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. – originally published on The Defender – Children’s Health Defense association website

A CIA whistleblower today told the U.S. Senate that Dr. Anthony Fauci intentionally helped cover up evidence showing that COVID-19 emerged from a Chinese laboratory that worked with U.S.-funded scientists — some of whom were involved with gain-of-function research and coronaviruses months before the pandemic.

“Dr. Fauci’s role in the cover-up was intentional,” said James E. Erdman III, a senior operations officer for the CIA. Erdman testified during a hearing organized by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

WHITE HOUSE “LAB LEAK” Report on COVID-19 ORIGINS. A simple Abstract over Misinformations unveiled by Trump to Unmask the Biden-Fauci Censorships on SARS-Cov-2 Manmade

Erdman, who worked for the federal Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG) between March 2025 and April 2026, leading its investigation into COVID-19’s origins, said this position exposed him to evidence that Fauci, the CIA and other elements of the U.S. intelligence community actively covered up evidence of a COVID-19 lab leak.

He said a “small circle” of scientists was involved in the cover-up and helped promote the theory that the SARS-CoV-2 virus had a zoonotic — or natural — origin. Fauci then referred investigators from various U.S. intelligence agencies leading an interagency probe into the virus’s origins to the same scientists, Erdman said.

Erdman said the scientists were linked to gain-of-function research, which increases the virulence or transmissibility of viruses and is used in vaccine development.

Erdman said the cover-up continues today and that CIA whistleblowers have faced retaliation from the agency. When asked if there is still resistance within the CIA to comply with legislation to declassify all COVID-19 origins documents, Erdman responded, “Yes.”

WUHAN-GATES – 59. “Dangerous SARS-2 & Omicron Lab Experiments without Risk Assessment. STOP Them!”. Alert by 5 US Senators. Russia blames the last Boston Research

Erdman told lawmakers that public health policy “would have been very different had the American public been made aware that a virus from a lab in China was going to serve as the foundation for an Emergency Use Authorization mRNA product being mandated by the former administration.”

Paul called the COVID-19 pandemic “one of the most consequential events of our lifetime.” The senator said that “to this day, the American people have never received a full accounting of where it [the virus] came from, what our government knew and why they had to fight their own government to find out.”

Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense, said today’s hearing “broke the COVID-19 spell that has ensnared Congress for over six years.” “Finally, it seems that Congress might start the reckoning that is so desperately needed to account for the deaths and destruction of the COVID-19 years,” Holland said.

Erdman testified today in response to a subpoena the Senate committee issued earlier this month, as part of Paul’s ongoing investigation into COVID-19’s origins.

“COVID VACCINES HOLOCAUST”. British MP Launched the Alarm and was Soon Suspended and Censored by Tory Nazi-Mainstream

The CIA did not clear Erdman to testify. No Senate Democrats attended or participated in today’s hearing — an absence Holland called “inexcusable.” Later today, Fox News reported that the CIA was “not happy” with today’s hearing.

‘From the outset of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci shaped the conclusions’

Fauci spoke with interagency investigators on several occasions in 2020 and 2021, when the CIA was already strongly considering that the virus may have leaked from a lab, Erdman said. Investigators wanted to speak with Fauci — who provided them with a “curated list of subject matter experts,” Erdman said.

However, the list of experts “coincidentally” mirrored the list of co-authors of a key 2020 Nature Medicine paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.” Fauci and other public health officials and media figures later used the paper to refute the lab-leak theory and discredit its proponents as “conspiracy theorists.”

“There is a narrative that was being generated” by Fauci, Erdman said.

US House Committee BOMBSHELL: “Dr. Fauci Potentially Influenced CIA COVID-19 Origins Investigation”

Last year, the Trump administration launched an investigation to determine whether Fauci and others influenced the paper’s conclusions in exchange for funding.

Erdman testified that in August 2021, Fauci’s intervention helped lead the CIA to adopt a neutral stance on the origin of COVID-19, rather than supporting the lab-leak theory. He said:

“It was significantly influenced by Anthony Fauci injecting himself into the IC [intelligence community]. … We have documentation that shows that … the CIA was considering calling this a lab leak [as late as] Aug. 12, 2021. And then, that changed on Aug. 17, 2021. … Unfortunately, because the CIA would not provide us documentation that we asked for, we have no idea why that changed.”

“From BIO-WARFARE to COVID: Cover Up & Collusions among Wuhan, CIA, US Intel & Chinese CCP”. Malone on the RFK Jr. New Book

Less than a week later, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fully licensed Pfizer’s mRNA Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine. A day after the FDA issued its approval, the U.S. military mandated the vaccine for its service members.

Erdman said that while he has not found “smoking gun” documentation of Fauci or other officials openly discussing a cover-up, he said there was a “pervasive undercurrent” indicating this in much of the documentation he’s seen.

“From the outset of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci shaped the conclusions,” Paul said. “Dozens of times, he referred to the idea that the pandemic originating in the lab was a conspiracy.”

According to Erdman, Fauci’s views haven’t changed. “He believes it’s natural origin. He still does,” Erdman said.

CIA ‘illegally’ spied on COVID whistleblowers

Erdman testified that CIA officials who spoke out about the possibility of a cover-up have faced repercussions from the agency, ranging from surveillance to retaliation.

“Following the CIA’s COVID relook that culminated in 2023, the CIA retaliated against analysts supporting the lab-leak hypothesis,” Erdman said. “CIA managers retaliated against them for their refusal to agree with management’s middle-of-the-night anonymous rewrite of the analysis, which changed the assessment to a non-call judgment.”

According to Erdman, the CIA began illegally monitoring “the computer and phone usage” of DIG personnel, including “their investigations and contact with whistleblowers.”

WUHAN-GATES – 80. CIA Report: “SARS-Cov-2 by Bio-Lab“. But US Intel HIDES an IDENTICAL VIRUS built by Pentagon on 2017. New Explosive Study!!!

“These were Americans being spied upon illegally while executing duties directed by the president and under the authority of the director of national intelligence,” Erdman said. At least one CIA contractor was fired as a result, “one day after meeting with the DIG.”

Erdman said the legislative and executive branches will remain misinformed if “this type of behavior is not addressed.”

Several Republican senators who participated in the hearing agreed with Erdman’s suggestions that various government and intelligence agencies are still involved in efforts to cover up evidence of a COVID-19 lab leak.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who last month led a hearing presenting evidence that the FDA knew of a better method to detect COVID-19 vaccine safety signals — including sudden deaths following vaccination — but concealed it, said he sent multiple agencies “very legitimate oversight requests,” which were mostly ignored.

WUHAN-GATES – 70. STORM ON SARS-COV-2 BIO-WEAPON. US Senators vs Intelligence Director. Report on Fauci & Bethesda Boys’ Concealing

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said that after Congress unanimously passed a bill he sponsored in 2023 requiring the U.S. government to release documentation on COVID-19’s origins, the government “deliberately” withheld most documents.

Rather than providing thousands of pages of documents as requested, Congress received five pages, which were partially redacted. “If that isn’t a cover-up, I don’t know what is,” Hawley said.

Oversight of gain-of-function research ‘must have teeth’

Erdman also took aim at gain-of-function research. He said scientists from the federal Biological Sciences Experts Group (BSEG) helped overturn a moratorium on funding gain-of-function research that took effect in 2014.

“Several of the BSEG scientists helped Dr. Fauci rewrite definitions of gain-of-function in 2015 to lift a funding pause on dangerous research,” Erdman testified. He said BSEG members “often receive considerable funding from NIAID [the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] and public health agencies.”

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Scientists participating in BSEG included Ralph Baric, Ph.D., who worked with Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher Shi Zhengli, Ph.D., on gain-of-function experiments, Erdman said. Daszak was later “sent to China with the WHO [World Health Organization] to investigate the origins of COVID.”

Last month, Baric reportedly lost his National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and was placed on leave by his institution, the University of North Carolina. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suspended all funding for EcoHealth Alliance because it failed to properly monitor its coronavirus experiments.

The CIA-Intelligence Officer to Gates Event 201 Exercise

Erdman said that some BSEG scientists also played a key role in Event 201, a simulation of a global coronavirus outbreak that took place in October 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Gates Foundation and World Economic Forum were also involved in the planning of Event 201.

“This was a coronavirus pandemic tabletop exercise curiously similar to the events that played out during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was attended by Dr. Fauci and individuals with IC ties like former [Director of National Intelligence] Avril Haynes,” Erdman said.

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A Wall Street Journal investigation last year revealed that in 2021, Haynes opted to brief then-President Joe Biden only on evidence supporting the zoonotic theory.

Erdman said that as early as May 2020, federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Energy were circulating internal documents suggesting that “all the conditions were present for a lab leak.”

Last year, the Trump administration launched a new version of the government’s official COVID-19 website, presenting evidence supporting the lab-leak theory. The CIA, FBI, Department of Energy, Defense Intelligence Agency, Congress and some foreign intelligence agencies ultimately endorsed the lab-leak theory.

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Erdman expressed support for President Donald Trump’s executive order, issued last year, which paused funding for gain-of-function research for 120 days, a period during which a new federal policy on such research was to be developed. The administration has not yet announced a new policy.

“We need a comprehensive review of government-funded life science research and a move back to pre-9/11 definitions of gain-of-function and WMD [weapons of mass destruction] research,” Erdman said. “Oversight must have teeth.”

Will we see ‘perp walks’ of Fauci, other COVID-era figures?

Today’s hearing came two days after the expiration of a deadline to indict Fauci on charges of perjury for allegedly lying to Congress in 2021. Fauci told Congress at the time that NIH and NIAID had never funded gain-of-function research.

Paul had publicly pushed for Fauci to be indicted. Last year, Biden pre-emptively pardoned Fauci for his official acts dating back to 2014. Last month, a grand jury indicted Dr. David Morens, a former top aide to Fauci, for allegedly using his personal email account to hide communications about the origins of COVID-19.

Paul didn’t address the expiration of the statute of limitations during today’s hearing, but he did suggest that the evidence Erdman presented bolsters the case for the passage of the Risky Research Review Act, legislation he proposed last year.

Hawley said many of his constituents “want to see the perp walks” of figures such as Fauci. He called on Congress “to start pulling purse strings” of federal agencies that are uncooperative with the investigation into COVID-19’s origins.

“It is well past time for us to have [another] Church Committee,” Johnson said, referring to a 1975 U.S. Senate committee that investigated CIA wrongdoing.

Watch the hearing here

by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. – originally published on The Defender – Children’s Health Defense association website

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Sara Corning was a Canadian nurse who saved thousands of Armenian and Greek orphans during the Genocide in Turkey.

Her life of dedication and offering to fellow human beings made her a prominent figure in Canada, Armenia, and Greece, where descendants of the genocide have been honoring her contribution.

Corning was born in the village of Chegoggin, Nova Scotia in 1872. At 24, she decided to become a nurse and moved to the United States for training. She then worked in New England for almost twenty years. Her first experience with disaster relief likely came in 1917, when she returned to Nova Scotia to help the ten thousand victims of the Halifax Explosion.

Corning saved thousands of Armenian and Greek orphans

In 1918, at the age of 46, Corning was certified by the American Red Cross. She joined Near East Relief, an organization established to help civilians affected by World War I, in 1919. Soon after, she landed in Constantinople (Istanbul) with 250 other relief workers and helped rescue and care for thousands of Armenian and Greek orphans over the following decade, often risking her life in the process.

Corning’s first post was in the South Caucasus in the Republic of Armenia. Stationed near Yerevan, she worked among hundreds of thousands of starving refugees who were often infected with typhoid and cholera. Her second post was at Anatolia College in north-central Anatolia. Most mornings, Sara and her colleagues would gather babies left at the college’s entrance by desperate parents.

World War I had ended in 1918, but postwar conflicts continued to rage. The Greco-Turkish War of 1919 to 1922 was one such conflict. By September 1922, Turkish forces were pushing an invading Greek army back to the Aegean coastal city of Smyrna (Izmir).

Corning in the midst of the Greek and Armenian Genocide in Smyrna

Amid the turmoil, hundreds of thousands of people flooded into Smyrna with hopes of being rescued by Allied warships. The United States Navy chose to pursue a policy of strict non-involvement, however, and the Red Cross and Near East Relief were instructed to evacuate only those who were US citizens. A medical team, which included Corning, was assigned to assist. Initially forbidden from bringing locals aboard the ships, they were able to set up triage stations for the refugees.

On September 13th, a conflagration began to rage. As Turkish forces entered the city, entire neighborhoods were set ablaze. Under these conditions, Corning and her colleagues rescued hundreds of children trapped inside two schools. They led them through the smoke and bloodshed, finally delivering them to American warships headed for Greece.

The brave nurse established new orphanages in Greece

In Greece, Corning helped establish new orphanages and became responsible for running one herself. She adopted five girls and funded their education. For her bravery, King George II of Greece awarded her the Knight’s Silver Cross of the Order of the Redeemer, one of the country’s highest honors. She was reassigned to Anatolia College in the late 1920s and worked in the new Republic of Turkey until the college closed in 1930.

Returning to Chegoggin, she lived in her childhood home until her death in 1969 at the age of 97. Her headstone was inscribed with the words “She Lived to Serve Others.”

In 2016, the Sara Corning Society was established in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia to commemorate Corning’s heroic deeds. A memorial was built to honor her.

According to the founders of the society, David and Jennifer Chown, the sculptor’s work reflects Armenian roots, and Sara would have been deeply touched that someone from the country and people she came to know so well erected a statue in her honor a hundred years later.

 

The Greeks have a long and fascinating history in some of the most famous cities of Italy. One example is Naples, which is Italy’s third-largest city. The ancient Greeks founded this city well over 2000 years ago, and their influence is still felt there even today. But how did the ancient Greeks end up founding this city all the way over in Italy? We can learn the answer through ancient historical records as well as from archaeology.

The Legend of the Ancient Greeks Founding Naples

The legend of how the ancient Greeks founded Naples starts with the legend of Jason and the Argonauts. The poem Alexandra, which may have been written in c. 200 BC, records a tradition concerning Naples. It refers to a certain ‘tower of Phalerus’ already existing there in the time of Odysseus. Since Odysseus lived at the time of the Trojan War, this ‘tower’ must be named after a Phalerus who lived before then.

There is only one Phalerus who this could be – the Phalerus who accompanied Jason on his voyage to find the Golden Fleece. Other ancient sources describes this Phalerus as the founder of Gyrton in Thessaly, Phalerum in Athens, and a temple in Cyprus. Therefore, Greek legend clearly associates this Phalerus with the founding of cities. This adds even more support to the conclusion that he was the Phalerus who founded some kind of ‘tower’ in Naples before the time of Odysseus.

Therefore, the reference in Alexandra indicates that Phalerus, an Argonaut, led the ancient Greeks to establish the earliest settlement at Naples.

The Legend of the Foundation of Parthenope

The story of the ancient Greeks founding Naples also involves the legend of Odysseus. On his famous journey home from Troy after the Trojan War, he passed a group of sirens. They tried to use their enchanting singing to get Odysseus and his men to walk overboard and drown. However, Odysseus blocked his men’s ears with wax and then tied himself to his ship’s mast, thus keeping them all safe.

After defeating the sirens, one in particular, named Parthenope, threw herself into the sea in despair at her failure. She drowned, and the waves washed her body ashore at the tower of Phalerus. That location was then named Parthenope in her honor, with a city being built on the site of her grave.

This was not in exactly the same place as the later city of Naples, but it was very nearby, and it is within modern Naples. Parthenope was essentially the precursor to Naples. The two have always been so closely associated that the word ‘Parthenopean’ is a synonym of ‘Neapolitan’ even today.

What Archaeology Reveals About the Ancient Greek Foundation of Naples

Those are the legends, but how well do they match the archaeological facts? Firstly, let us consider the very earliest settlement, supposedly founded by Phalerus, one of the Argonauts. The legend about this location does not reveal where exactly in Naples the ancient Greeks supposedly established it. Nonetheless, in Naples in general, archaeology indicates that the ancient Greeks first settled there in the eighth century BC.

Whether this is actually related to the legend of Phalerus the Argonaut establishing a settlement there or not is up for debate. The archaeological evidence comes from centuries after the traditional era of the Argonauts. Nonetheless, it is possible that they lived later than usually believed.

What about the settlement of Parthenope? Archaeologists have found a Greek necropolis, or cemetery, dating to the early seventh century BC and associated with the hill of Pizzofalcone. This is further evidence that the ancient Greeks were starting settle the area of Naples at that period in history.

How the Ancient Greeks Transformed Parthenope into Naples

This settlement developed into a bustling city over the years. It became a prominent military and trading port. However, its success became its downfall. Cumae, the city from which the settlers of Parthenope primarily came, became jealous of their colony’s success. They did not want it to cause the original city, Cumae, to become abandoned. Therefore, they allegedly decided to destroy Parthenope.

There is little, if any, archaeological evidence for destruction at Parthenope dating to this time. However, whatever really happened, the evidence is clear that another settlement was then established in the Naples area, again by the ancient Greeks of Cumae. They called this city Neapolis, meaning ‘New City’. This eventually evolved into ‘Naples’, the English name for that city today.

The old settlement of Parthenope then started going by the name ‘Palaeopolis’, meaning ‘Old City’. However, it did not disappear completely. It became absorbed into the new settlement, becoming part of Naples.

Russia Day is one of the most important state holidays in the Russian Federation and is celebrated annually on June 12. Until 2002, the holiday officially bore the name Day of the Adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia. It remains one of the country's youngest national holidays and an official day off. The origins of the celebration date back to June 12, 1990, when the First Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia. The document established the supremacy of the Russian Constitution and Russian laws within the republic. At the time, many Soviet republics had already begun asserting their sovereignty, and the declaration emerged during a period when republics across the Soviet Union were moving toward independence. Another important milestone in Russian statehood followed in 1991, when the country officially adopted the name Russian Federation (Russia).

Dimitris Liantinis was a Greek philosopher and professor who believed that ancient Greeks were so preoccupied with the idea of death that it formed the basis of their entire culture. He then disappeared very mysteriously, with some positing that he committed suicide.

Dimitris Liantinis’ early life

Dimitris Liantinis was a professor of the School of Philosophy at the University of Athens, where he taught a class in the philosophy of education and the teaching of Greek language and literature. He also authored nine books, all written in Greek and focused on philosophy and education.

His last name at birth was Nikolakakos, but he changed it to Liantinis to honor his place of birth, the village of Liantina in the prefecture of Laconia.

He completed his high school education in Laconia and, in 1966, graduated from the Department of Literature of the School of Philosophy at the University of Athens. He taught literature at secondary education level from 1968 to 1970 and from 1973 to 1975.

From 1970 to 1972, Liantinis was in Munich, Germany, learning and studying the native language. At the same time, he worked there as a teacher of classical literature at the private Greek high school Otto Geselschaft.

In 1975, he embarked on graduate studies in the School of Philosophy at the University of Athens and was appointed a teaching assistant at the Laboratory of Education. He got his PhD in 1978 with honors. The subject of his thesis was: “The presence of Hellenic spirit in the Duino elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke.”

As a professor, he gave many training seminars and lectures to teachers of secondary education level in Greece.

The Greek professor’s philosophical views

Liantinis’ ideas were strongly influenced by the philosophy of ancient Greece, as well as the ideals of the Romantic movement and the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The professor made several references to the scientific progress of his time, particularly in the area of cosmology, and he made efforts to formulate a connection between that and the existence and nature of God.

He wrote at great length about education, and some of his work focused on what he considered to be the moral and intellectual decline of modern Greeks compared to their ancestors.

To further solidify his position, Liantinis devoted large parts of his body of work to defining exactly what the real value of ancient Greece was, as well as the actual worldview that they held. He argued against the notion that ancient Greece, although ahead of its time for most of antiquity and possibly the Middle Ages, was eventually superseded by the advancements of Renaissance Europe.

In contrast, he believed that the Greeks possessed a complete culture, a kind of super-set for all Western cultures, past and present. As an example, in his book Gemma, he argued that “the Greeks did not need psychoanalysis because they had tragedy.”

This period of intellectual magnificence was short-lived, and Liantinis wrote that “it would be a sign of honesty if the Greeks were to stop philosophizing right after Aristotle.”

He added that today, Greeks are completely unknown as “for the Europeans, we, the ‘New-Greeks,’ are but a faceless bunch, something of a Balko-Turkish Arab. We are the Orthodox with the Russian-like writing and the domes on our village houses.”

Death was also central to the professor’s work and, as he claimed, that of the ancient Greeks. He refuted the idea that ancient Greece was a culture of playful joyfulness and argued that the Greeks had instead presented us with a world of infinite melancholy, a proposition that is consistent with that of Nietzsche, whom he greatly admired.

Their philosophy was a study of death, according to Liantinis, and their conclusions were absolute and hard to accept since they saw death as a final end with no afterlife or moral rewards for the life lived on earth.

The Greek professor’s views on death

Liantinis believed that death as a topic occupied the ancients to such a degree that one could see their whole culture arising from the radical views they held on the subject.

The professor believed the ancient Greeks saw death as an unchanging cosmic law and did not associate whatever afterlife they had conceived with a system of divine punishment or reward like the Abrahamic religions. Although individual myths, such as that of Sisyphus who was condemned to eternal punishment in the realms of Hades, did exist, they were largely exceptions to the rule and never developed into a proper system of beliefs on life after death.

In one of his lectures,[5] Liantinis said Homer describes a scene where the hero, before engaging him in battle, says to his opponent, “The race of men is related to that of leaves, as we momentarily stand fresh on the tree branch, then quickly surrender to the wind and rain.” The lyric poet Pindar also questions in his works: “What are we [men] but dreams of shadows.”

Liantinis’ strange disappearance

On June 1, 1998, Liantinis disappeared, leaving a letter for his daughter, Diotima, where he revealed his decision to vanish on his own free will after lifelong consideration and preparation.

Liantinis’ disappearance evoked many speculations from the public, with some believing he had taken his own life in protest against what he saw as the lack of values in modern Greek society.

Seven years after the professor’s death, Panagiotis Nikolakakos, his cousin, showed Diotima to the crypt where her father lay in the area of the Greek mountain Taygetos. Nikolakakos had been instructed to do this by the late professor before his departure.

Several thorough forensic tests and analyses proved the skeleton in the crypt to be that of Liantinis, but the exact date and cause of his death remain unknown since no lethal substance was detected.

Despite his will stating that his bones should remain on Taygetos, he was finally buried at the cemetery of Kechries near the city of Corinth.

In his last letter to his daughter, he wrote: “My last act has the meaning of protest for the evil that we, the adults, prepare for the innocent new generations that are coming. We live our life eating their flesh. A very bad evil. My unhappiness for this crime kills me.”

The ancient Greeks, renowned for their cultural and intellectual achievements, interacted with numerous neighboring cultures that influenced and enriched their own civilization. Understanding these lesser-known cultures provides valuable insights into the complex web of interactions that shaped the ancient world, making this topic still relevant today.

As one of the most popularly studied civilizations of antiquity, the ancient Greeks tend to overshadow many of the neighboring cultures they interacted with.

However, the Greeks shared the ancient world with a myriad of other interesting cultures and civilizations, some of which are severely underappreciated in mainstream historical discourse.

In this article, we’ll be skipping over the other “heavyweights” of the ancient world, such as the Romans, Egyptians, Persians, and Phoenicians to focus on some of the lesser-known cultures the Greeks were familiar with to various extents.

What did the ancient Greeks think of neighboring cultures?

The term “barbarian” likely finds its roots in the Sumerian word “barbar,” which meant “foreigner.” In Greek, it served as both a loan word and an onomatopoeic representation, mimicking the unintelligible babbling sounds that the Greeks associated with foreigners speaking their languages.

Originally, “barbaroi” served as a neutral, collective name for all non-Greeks, without inherently negative connotations. However, over time, the term acquired a negative meaning, reflecting the prevailing Greek perception of non-Greeks as uncivilized or inferior.

As noted by the academic Stavros Moutsios,  “This political designation of the barbarians, however, did not entail lack of acknowledgment nor of admiration of their achievements.” Indeed, the ancient Greeks often displayed a great deal of curiosity toward neighboring cultures and civilizations.

A good example of this was the practice of religious syncretism, whereby the Greeks would merge the gods of their pantheon with similar foreign deities. For example, the Graeco-Egyptian god Serapis possessed a combination of the Egyptian deities Osiris and Apis with the Greek deities Hades and Demeter.

Naturally, the perceptions of the Greeks toward other cultures varied a great deal. Often, our modern preconceptions of ancient peoples are shaped by the surviving literary sources written by ancient Greek authors about neighboring peoples who were themselves not literate.

The Scythians

The Scythians were one of the most enigmatic peoples of antiquity, famous for their mastery over horses. To call the Scythians “neighbors” of the ancient Greeks is somewhat of a misnomer since the Scythians were nomads and had no fixed borders, but the Greeks had fairly frequent contact with them through trade and war.

The Scythians were an Eastern Ianic people who inhabited the region north of the Black Sea, in present-day Ukraine, southern Russia, Kazakhstan, and parts of Central Asia, from around the 9th century BC to the 4th century AD.

Our main source on the perceptions of the ancient Greeks regarding the Scythians is the accounts of the historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus and later Greek writers. Incidentally, Herodotus, the”Father of History”, is also our main literary source on the Scythians generally.

According to Herodotus, the arrival of the Scythians led to conflict among the Cimmerians, with the royal tribe wanting to defend their lands and the rest of the population seeking to flee. Another account stated that the Scythians chased the Cimmerians out of their territory, forcing them to migrate south into West Asia.

As time passed, the image of the Scythians in Athens became the quintessential stereotype used for non-Greeks, and they were associated with drunkenness due to Greeks’ caricatural representation of foreigners as unmoderated drinkers.

Later Greek literature transformed the Scythian prince Anacharsis into a legendary figure representing “Barbarian wisdom.” He became one of the Seven Sages of Greece and an ideal “man of nature” or “noble savage” figure. Ephorus of Cyme, a 4th-century BC historian, idealized the Scythians as “invincible” people, creating a fictitious account of a legendary Scythian king named Idanthyrsos who defeated the legendary pharaoh Sesostris and ruled all of Asia. This perception of the Scythians as a powerful and wise people became a tradition in Greek literature.

The Scythians were also included in Greek mythology, with mythical Scythian characters appearing in stories. Herodotus of Heraclea, for instance, portrayed Teutarus, a mythical Scythian, as a herdsman who served Amphitryon and taught archery to Heracles. Additionally, the Titan Prometheus was described as a Scythian king, and his son Deucalion was also linked to the Scythians in Greek myths.

The Thracians

The Thracians were a group of Indo-European-speaking people who inhabited significant portions of Southeast Europe during ancient history. They mainly resided in regions that now correspond to modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, and northern Greece. However, Thracian settlements were not confined solely to Southeast Europe; they also extended to north-western Anatolia (Asia Minor) in what is present-day Turkey.

The Greeks and Romans described Thracian culture as tribal, and they remained largely disunited until the establishment of the Odrysian kingdom. The Odrysian Kingdom was a state union of over 40 Thracian tribes and 22 kingdoms that flourished from the 5th century BC to the 1st century AD. It encompassed mainly present-day Bulgaria, with extensions into parts of Southeastern Romania (Northern Dobruja), Northern Greece, and modern-day European Turkey.

By the fifth century BC, Herodotus referred to the Thracians as the second-most numerous people in the known world after the Indians and potentially the most powerful, had it not been for their lack of unity. The Thracians were generally not known for constructing cities, and Seuthopolis was their sole polis.

The Greeks frequently fought with the Thracians but also admired them for their martial prowess and hired them as mercenaries. Both Alexander the Great and his father Philip II fought on the Thracians on various occasions.

The Thracian ruler Kersebleptes was Philip’s most consequential Thracian enemy. Over a series of campaigns from 356 to 340 BC, Philip II succeeded in bringing Kersebleptes under his control as a tributary vassal, and in the process, he conquered a substantial portion of Thrace. Alexander again successfully fought the Thracians – among the other peoples – during the Balkan Campaign of 335 BC.

The Phrygians

The Phrygians were an ancient Indo-European-speaking people who resided in central-western Anatolia. Ancient Greek authors used “Phrygian” as a broad term to refer to a diverse ethnocultural grouping situated mainly in the central regions of Anatolia, rather than denoting a single “tribe” or “people.”

The ethnolinguistic homogeneity of the Phrygians is subject to debate. According to Herodotus, the Phrygians were originally dwelling in the southern Balkans under the name of Bryges (Briges), but they later changed their name to Phryges after migrating to Anatolia through the Hellespont.

While numerous historians purport the theory of a Phrygian migration from Europe to Asia Minor around 1200 BC, Anatolian archaeologists have largely dismissed this notion. Instead, it has been proposed that the Phrygian migration to Asia Minor, which Greek sources indicate took place shortly after the Trojan War, actually occurred much earlier and in multiple stages.

The Greeks and Phrygians had significant cultural connections, particularly in the realm of music. The earliest traditions of ancient Greek music were partly influenced by Phrygian music, which was transmitted through the Greek colonies in Anatolia. The Phrygian mode, known as the warlike mode in ancient Greek music, was one of the musical elements borrowed from the Phrygians.

The Phrygian king, Midas, renowned for his “golden touch,” was said to have been tutored in music by the legendary Orpheus himself, according to mythological accounts. Moreover, the aulos, a reed instrument with two pipes, was another musical invention attributed to Phrygia and subsequently embraced by the Greeks.

In classical Greek iconography, Paris, a Trojan prince famous for abducting Helen in the Iliad, is depicted as non-Greek by wearing a Phrygian cap. This distinct headgear was also worn by Mithras and has persisted in modern imagery as the “Liberty cap” of the American and French revolutionaries, symbolizing freedom and rebellion. More amusingly, the Smurfs also wear the Phrygian cap.

The Importance of Cultural Exchange in the Ancient World

In the context of increasing globalization, examining how ancient cultures, like the Greeks and their neighbors, interacted and exchanged ideas is crucial. These exchanges facilitated the spread of technology, religious practices, and art forms, which had a profound impact on the development of Western civilization.

1. Technological Exchange: The Greeks adopted various technologies from their neighbors, such as the alphabet from the Phoenicians, which became the basis for the Greek writing system. This exchange was pivotal in the development of Greek literature and philosophy.
2. Religious Syncretism: Religious practices were often blended, as seen in the fusion of Greek and Egyptian deities into figures like Serapis, symbolizing a blending of beliefs that enriched both cultures.
3. Artistic Influences: Greek art, especially in pottery and sculpture, shows influences from Thracian, Scythian, and Phrygian styles, highlighting how these cultures contributed to what we now consider classical Greek art.