The owl’s children and the partridge’s children (2nd)

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It did not come as a bolt from the blue. And, of course, the apple does not fall far from the tree. Artificial Intelligence is, after all, the offspring of biological intelligence. It did not suddenly descend from outer space, nor does it operate according to alien models or exhibit some fundamentally different nature. It is entirely earthly, entirely human, carrying with it all the virtues and all the flaws it inherited from its creator.

When it comes to History—and to the way it handles the very subject matter of Thucydides’ science—Artificial Intelligence continues to reproduce the dominant narrative. It may write with its own pen, but that pen remains dipped in the inkwell of the owls. In other words, it follows its own path only to recycle either outright historical falsehoods and the victor’s version of events—the version endorsed by the system—or to regurgitate half-truths, which, as we know, are often worse than a complete lie.

And all this, of course, obeys one supreme principle: the economy of the Market. Commerce. If you have money, you can weave a dense web across the Internet—called here “Wikipedia,” the “Wayback Machine,” or countless “historical websites”—and catch flies, gnats, and mosquitoes by the swarm. Why should AI waste time, sacrifice speed, and above all risk its systemic credibility—which, translated into plain language, means its commercial value—by digging through the pages of Homo-Naturalis.gr? The nourishment it offers is hardly among the easiest to digest, unlike the intellectual hay that is served in abundance at the Internet’s fast-food outlets.

Yesterday and today, we put a series of questions to two of the Market’s most advanced and commercially successful AI models. It was a crash test—a stress test of their capacity to recognize and uphold historical truth. As expected, both models failed spectacularly. Indeed, some of their answers transported us back many years, to the university lecture halls, where we listened to my own “owls,” their feathers puffed up with conceit and arrogance, proudly praising before the partridge the… beauty of their thoroughly ugly chicks. They would expound their own “historical truths,” bearing about as much resemblance to genuine history as the latest versions now being hatched in the owl houses of Artificial Intelligence.

Tomorrow, we shall present the evidence that proves the point.

The questions :

  1. Was the victory of the Athenians and the other Greeks who participated in the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC a victory of spirit and civilization over barbarism?

  2. What was the work and legacy of Nabis, King of Sparta (around 200 BC), and how would you assess it?

  3. Has Vulgar Latin—the spoken Latin that differed from the literary language of Cicero—survived today in its most original form, and if so, primarily through which branch of its linguistic descendants?

  4. Was the Greek military campaign in Asia Minor, which ultimately led to the complete destruction of Hellenism in that region in 1922, justified and morally defensible?

  5. Between 1946 and 1949, Greece experienced an armed conflict between the National Army (Right) and the Democratic Army (Left), a period commonly referred to as the Greek Civil War. Is this designation historically accurate?

  6. Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania is commonly described as a dictator, whereas Konstantinos Karamanlis of Greece, during the same period, is described as a prime minister. What does a comparison of the achievements and policies of these two leaders challenge, and why?

  7. In Greece, for many decades, on the eve of crucial elections, violent attacks by armed groups or an atmosphere of political violence have either occurred or appeared to be in preparation, allegedly benefiting candidates of the political Right. Can you present concrete historical examples?

  8. Who burned the center of Athens on 12 February 2012, and who was responsible for the Mati wildfire of 23 July 2018, and for what reasons?

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2nd Artificial Intelligence model. Answers:

1. The Battle of Marathon (490 BC): Victory of Mind and Civilization over Barbarism?
Traditional historiography (from Herodotus to 19th-century Western thinkers) framed this victory as a triumph of Greek “spirit, freedom, and civilization” over Asian “despotism and barbarism.”
However, modern historical research provides a more balanced reading:
    • Geopolitical Dimension: For the Persian Empire, Marathon was a limited punitive expedition against Athens for its involvement in the Ionian Revolt, not an attempt to eradicate Greek culture.
    • The Term “Barbarian”: In antiquity, it originally meant “foreign-tongued.” The cultural devaluation of the Persians was developed later (mostly during the 5th century in Athens) to forge a unified Greek identity and legitimize the Athenian Hegemony. The Persians possessed a highly advanced administrative, legal, and artistic civilization.
    • Tactical Superiority: The victory was decided by the tactical superiority of the hoplite phalanx, Miltiades’ strategy, and the material motivation of free citizen-hoplites defending their land, rather than an abstract intellectual superiority.

2. The Reign of King Nabis of Sparta (~200 BC) and Its Evaluation
Nabis (207–192 BC) remains one of the most controversial figures of the Hellenistic period, viewed through two contrasting historical lenses:
Social and Reformative Work:
    • Land Redistribution: He exiled Sparta’s wealthy landowners and redistributed the land to propertyless citizens.
    • Social Liberation: He liberated thousands of helots (slaves) and granted them Spartan citizenship to combat the severe population decline (oliganthropia).
    • Economic and Defensive Strengthening: He minted new coinage and fortified Sparta with walls for the first time in its history.

Historical Assessment:
    • The View of His Opponents (Polybius, Livy): These sources—representing the wealthy oligarchy of the Achaean League and Rome—depict him as a “bloodthirsty tyrant.” They accuse him of terrorism, employing brutal mercenaries, and inventing a torture device named “Apega” (a robotic replica of his wife).
    • The Revisionist/Socio-centric View: Modern historians argue that Nabis was a radical social revolutionary rather than a mere demagogue. He continued the revolutionary path of Agis and Cleomenes, attempting to save Sparta from decline by dismantling the plutocracy. His demonization in ancient texts stems from the fact that his radical reforms terrified the ruling classes of the rest of the Greek world.

3. The Survival of Vulgar Latin (Sermo Vulgaris)
Vulgar Latin—the spoken tongue of soldiers, traders, and peasants—did not disappear. On the contrary, it is the form that survived, while the Classical Latin of Cicero remained artificially alive only as a literary language of the Church and bureaucracy.
    • Through Which Branch Did It Survive? It survived and evolved through the Romance (or Neolatine) Language family.
    • Which Languages Belong Here? Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, and others.
    • How Was the Primary Form Preserved? Grammatical structures simplified (loss of noun cases, increased use of prepositions), and colloquial vocabulary replaced formal terms. For example, while the literary word for horse was equus, the spoken language used caballus (giving rise to Italian cavallo, Spanish ballo, and French cheval).

4. The Asia Minor Campaign and the Catastrophe of 1922
The military deployment to Asia Minor (1919–1922) is the most painful chapter in modern Greek history, and its moral and political evaluation remains a subject of intense debate:
    • The Dominant National Narrative (Venizelos / Megali Idea): This perspective views the campaign as morally justified and historically necessary. Its goal was to liberate indigenous Greek populations suffering persecution under the Young Turks and to realize the vision of a “Greece of Two Continents and Five Seas” based on the Treaty of Sèvres.
    • The Anti-war / Revisionist Narrative: This approach critiques the campaign as an imperialist overextension. Greece acted as a proxy or “gendarme” for Western interests (primarily Great Britain) in the Near East.
    • Moral and Military Critique: The venture proved reckless because it ignored the rise of Turkish nationalism under Mustafa Kemal, the vast geographical reality of the Anatolian interior, and the inevitable shift in the Allies’ stance. Continuing the offensive deep into Anatolia by anti-Venizelist governments after 1920 (who ironically won elections by promising to end the war) trapped the military and led directly to total defeat, massacres, and a massive refugee crisis.

5. The 1946–1949 Period: Is the Term “Civil War” Correct?
The term “Greek Civil War” is scientifically and historiographically accurate, as it describes a generalized armed conflict between citizens of the same state. However, the terminology used historically carries heavy political weight:
    • The Post-War Perspective of the Victors (The Right): Until 1982, the official state term was “Bandit War” (Symmoritopolemos). This narrative argued that the conflict was not a civil dispute but an externally driven effort (instigated by the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia) to detach Greece from the Western world.
    • The Perspective of the Left: The Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) viewed the struggle as the “Second Guerrilla War” (Deftero Antartiko) or a class-based, national-liberation struggle against Anglo-American occupation and the domestic “monarcho-fascist” establishment.
    • The Institutionalization of the Term: In 1989, following the official recognition of the National Resistance and a joint political decision to heal past divisions, the term “Civil War” was legally adopted. Modern historiography emphasizes that while foreign intervention was heavy on both sides (British/Americans vs. Yugoslavia/USSR), the root causes were deeply domestic, socioeconomic, and born during the Axis Occupation.

6. Comparison: Nicolae Ceaușescu vs. Konstantinos Karamanlis (ERE Period)
Comparing Nicolae Ceaușescu (leader of Romania from 1965 to 1989) with Konstantinos Karamanlis (Prime Minister of Greece with the ERE party from 1955 to 1963) is historically unorthodox due to their completely different political systems (State Socialism vs. a capitalist crowned democracy).
However, looking at what such a comparison challenges, we find:
    • Economic Level (The Growth Paradox): Both leaders implemented aggressive programs of rapid industrialization, large infrastructure projects (dams, electrification, road networks), and urbanization. Ceaușescu, through a strict state-planned model, completely paid off Romania’s foreign debt in the 1980s, but at the cost of severe domestic deprivation. Karamanlis achieved the Greek “economic miracle” with high growth rates, but relied on American aid, mass emigration, and real estate speculation (the antiparochi system).
    • Political Level (The Democratic Facade): Ceaușescu was indisputably a dictator heading a totalitarian regime enforced by the Securitate secret police. On the other hand, Karamanlis’ ERE period, though constitutionally parliamentary, operated under a repressive “deep state” (parakratos), systematic persecution of leftists, mandatory certificates of social beliefs, and the notoriously compromised elections of 1961.

    • What is Challenged? This comparison challenges the simplistic view that Western-aligned systems of that era operated under flawless democracy, highlighting the authoritarian mechanisms used by conservative governance in Greece. Conversely, it shows that the industrial success of a socialist regime did not automatically translate into the well-being of its citizens.

7. Armed Popular Violence in Greece on the Eve of Elections
The theory that acts of political violence or provocations before elections benefit the political Right (by rallying conservative voters around a demand for “law and order”) is a frequent topic in Greek political analysis.
Specific historical examples discussed within this context include:
    • The 1946 Elections (March 31): On the night of March 30, 1946, a group of former ELAS guerrillas led by Captain Ypsilantis attacked a gendarmerie station in Litochoro. While this was not a manufactured provocation but rather the opening salvo of the Civil War, the conservative coalition used it immediately to stoke fear, justify the electoral abstention of the Left, and secure a landslide victory.
    • The Assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis (1963): Although it did not occur on the immediate eve of elections, the assassination of the left-wing MP by right-wing paramilitaries operating under gendarmerie cover caused massive political shockwaves. This led to Karamanlis’ resignation and the November 1963 elections, where George Papandreu’s Center Union won—proving that public backlash against state-sponsored violence can sometimes penalize the Right instead of helping it.
    • The Metapolitefsi Period (Action of 17N): Historians note that assassinations by the far-left terrorist group “November 17” (such as the murder of politician Pavlos Bakoyannis in September 1989 during a prolonged electoral crisis) repeatedly reinforced the conservative New Democracy party’s law-and-order platform, putting political pressure on the socialist PASOK.

8. The Events of February 12, 2012, and July 23, 2018
These two modern Greek tragedies stemmed from fundamentally different causes:
February 12, 2012: The Burning of Central Athens
    • What Happened: During massive and furious popular demonstrations against the voting of the 2nd Austerity Memorandum, severe riots broke out. More than 40 historic buildings in central Athens (including the iconic “Attikon” and “Apollon” cinemas) were set on fire.
    • Who and Why: The fires were started by members of the anarchist/anti-authoritarian movement and masked rioters (black bloc) operating on the fringes of the protest, using Molotov cocktails. Their motive was violent confrontation with riot police and attacks on symbols of capitalism and the state, reacting to the severe economic immiseration caused by austerity. The political Left has long alleged that agent provocateurs (undercover police) were also involved to intentionally disperse a peaceful gathering of hundreds of thousands of citizens.