>>21349673>but you can't simply dismiss these sources entirely or you misunderstand the nature of cultural memory.Well, this is exactly what I propose but obviously not towards all sources.
Church history is most likely to be entirely made up and we have rock solid (sometimes literally) evidence for it. We know of mass forgeries, from documents to art.
Our time is simply not ready for recognition, similar to the holocaust narrative.
>it stems from Rome’s recognition of Greece’s intellectual and cultural prevalence at that timethat's a North European projection, given that we simply don't have a useful chronology and work from an entirely faulty premise, ie the bible.
in all likelyhood Greece was mostly a shithole and early medieval insular Greeks were culturally enriched by Normans which led medieval Greek Byzantines to retcon their own history which led the church to do likewise which pushed Renaissance Romans to do the same which led us to come up with completely skewed theories.
>You cant just say “ we don’t know” and then overlook the clear patterns of syncretism and political appropriation that shaped Roman identity for centuries to come.Some degree of syncretism is easy to prove but doesn't say much. But that doesn't produce a timeline. Your own theory, while beautiful, is self contradictory in many ways (eg Romans not wanting to produce art but then being blown away by it). You also ignore periods where Rome was allegedly abandoned (which is obviously horseshit) so continuity was no more.
Everything we have is not workable and produces massive errors which are handwaved away to our own detriment.
