Greek mythology abounds in the perennial wisdom found among the Native Americans which had been forgotten by the Western World on the rampage of an expanding capitalistic model.
That you can't eat money was not just the wisdom of the Native Americans but so it was also in Ancient Greek tradition.
King Midas turned all he touched into gold so that he could no longer eat food since as soon as he touched it, it was turned to gold.
Mithridates VI king of Pontus fed a Roman governor molten gold poured down his throat, a symbolic punishment for the governor's greed. I have heard a similar story of indigenous people in South America having done the same to a Spanish colonial governor, but have yet to confirm it.
The Roman millionaire Crassus, who without authorization greedily invaded the Middle East for it's riches was captured by the Parthians and kept in a golden cage whereby he subsequently starved to death surrounded by gold as he had always wanted to be surrounded by gold.
Contrary to the right wing mythology that the Ancient Greeks worshipped greed, (poorly adopted from Nietzsche who had been writing in an asylum for invalids on the supreme value of strength) it was the opposite. To the Ancient Greeks greed was hubris. A person's life wasn't to glorify themselves with riches, but to worship the gods and to make sacrifice for them. Time and again this appears in the mythology from the Lydian ruler Croesus now a word in English for greed, to the wealthy Midas who ruled near the same gold rich region.
The progression of metals and the society they wrought to Hesiod was equated with the degradation of human existence, society and the earth. Contrary to the modern idea that the acquisition of metals used for utilitarian purposes is a hallmark of development that marks the Old World from the new the ancients felt that the acquisition of metals merely increased human suffering and their estrangement from nature.
To the Ancient Greek historians like Herodotus to the Islamic historian Ibn Khalidun history was cyclical. Decadence made one weak and it was this weakness caused by decadence which lead to the downfall of the powered elite and the reinvigoration by the poor, but hardy folk of the Earth.
Of course there was a difference between the thinking of the Classical Greeks and the Homeric Greeks to the Classical Greeks the Homeric Greeks led to the Dark Ages in later thinking and their heroes were often portrayed as flawed greedy individuals who kept power among themselves and whose hubris led to their downfall. There are at least three elements in this change of attitudes among many of the classical Greeks. First there was the collapse of Mycenaean civilization of the Hellenic mainland, which ushered in the period referred to as 'The Greek Dark Ages.' Second there is an axial/Democratic development, but there is another strata one finds increasingly present, the Ancient wisdom of the Aegean and it's worship of Gaia prior to the Goddesses' subjugation, and to the abduction of her daughter and subsequent worship of Plutus that our society still worships today.
That you can't eat money was not just the wisdom of the Native Americans but so it was also in Ancient Greek tradition.
King Midas turned all he touched into gold so that he could no longer eat food since as soon as he touched it, it was turned to gold.
Mithridates VI king of Pontus fed a Roman governor molten gold poured down his throat, a symbolic punishment for the governor's greed. I have heard a similar story of indigenous people in South America having done the same to a Spanish colonial governor, but have yet to confirm it.
The Roman millionaire Crassus, who without authorization greedily invaded the Middle East for it's riches was captured by the Parthians and kept in a golden cage whereby he subsequently starved to death surrounded by gold as he had always wanted to be surrounded by gold.
Contrary to the right wing mythology that the Ancient Greeks worshipped greed, (poorly adopted from Nietzsche who had been writing in an asylum for invalids on the supreme value of strength) it was the opposite. To the Ancient Greeks greed was hubris. A person's life wasn't to glorify themselves with riches, but to worship the gods and to make sacrifice for them. Time and again this appears in the mythology from the Lydian ruler Croesus now a word in English for greed, to the wealthy Midas who ruled near the same gold rich region.
The progression of metals and the society they wrought to Hesiod was equated with the degradation of human existence, society and the earth. Contrary to the modern idea that the acquisition of metals used for utilitarian purposes is a hallmark of development that marks the Old World from the new the ancients felt that the acquisition of metals merely increased human suffering and their estrangement from nature.
To the Ancient Greek historians like Herodotus to the Islamic historian Ibn Khalidun history was cyclical. Decadence made one weak and it was this weakness caused by decadence which lead to the downfall of the powered elite and the reinvigoration by the poor, but hardy folk of the Earth.
Of course there was a difference between the thinking of the Classical Greeks and the Homeric Greeks to the Classical Greeks the Homeric Greeks led to the Dark Ages in later thinking and their heroes were often portrayed as flawed greedy individuals who kept power among themselves and whose hubris led to their downfall. There are at least three elements in this change of attitudes among many of the classical Greeks. First there was the collapse of Mycenaean civilization of the Hellenic mainland, which ushered in the period referred to as 'The Greek Dark Ages.' Second there is an axial/Democratic development, but there is another strata one finds increasingly present, the Ancient wisdom of the Aegean and it's worship of Gaia prior to the Goddesses' subjugation, and to the abduction of her daughter and subsequent worship of Plutus that our society still worships today.
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