Yeah, i also get depressed thinking about how long it took for Rome to fall.

Is there really a narrative that is many thousand years old?

Yeah I’d say the Athenian political narrative had mostly matured no later than Demosthenes. Obviously it’s been interpreated and re-interpreted, and twisted and turned into all sorts of purposes, but the broad strokes have largely been taught the same in Europe since then.

I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say. In this context “fascistic” is a descriptive/indexical term not trying to literally say “the ideological form of facism we understand nowadays arose directly from the legal code of Solon of Athens.”.

Alright fine, proto-fascistic, or you could argue that it’s been so fully incorporated into the fascist mythology that it’s effectively a part of it. It’s not as if fascism arose from the aether. Also while I wouldn’t call your average member of the athenian polis “white” supremacist, they were absolutely supremacists.

Yeah, classics is taught in a super fascistic way at most levels of study. Many modern classicists/historians are trying super hard to push back on this narrative but it’s not going to be easy to convince people that a many thousand year old narrative is “wrong”. That said, I will point out that Athenian Democracy is a pretty interesting innovation in it’s own right and it shouldn’t be (overly) demonized for it’s absurd contradictions (UnderpantsWeevil’s comment kinda highlights the biggest ). It’s main significance lies in how it involved people directly into “politics” and how that change in conception of “Polis”, and what it represented, changes things downstream of Athens in the historical context.

“But until the sage is dead, great thieves will never cease to appear, and if you pile on more sages in hopes of bringing the world to order, you will only be piling up more profit for Robber Chih. Fashion pecks and bushels for people to measure by and they will steal by peck and bushel.5 Fashion scales and balances for people to weigh by and they will steal by scale and balance. Fashion tallies and seals to insure trustworthiness and people will steal with tallies and seals. Fashion benevolence and righteousness to reform people and they will steal with benevolence and righteousness. How do I know this is so? He who steals a belt buckle pays with his life; he who steals a state gets to be a feudal lord-and we all know that benevolence and righteousness are to be found at the gates of the feudal lords. Is this not a case of stealing benevolence and righteousness and the wisdom of the sages?” Chapter 10 of Zhuangzi (Stolen Chests), Burton Watson translation.