>>19225927I was associating degeneracy with societal collapse but I guess the ideas are slightly different. I was actually thinking of decadence rather than degeneracy. The Trojan war was right before the Late Bronze age collapse and the Greek dark ages.
If you took a greek and put him in a modern city, I think there would be 3 stages. First they would panic because there are all these giant buildings, big metal metal chariots making loud noises, flashing lights, and people wearing funny clothes all around them. Second, once they had a greater understanding of what was happening, they would be impressed by all the large buildings (bigger than the great pyramid, and all over the place), modern technology (phones, computers, plastic, electricity, cars, planes, guns, TV, internet, etc), the abundance of food and potable water, sanitation (sewers, potable running water all over, showers in every home, toilets everywhere, garbage trucks), modern medicine (low child mortality, low levels of child sickness, people being able to take pills and cure various diseases), and scientific and mathematical achievements (these ones (especially mathematics) could be more controversial though). Finally they would become disgusted with the city. After seeing the garbage, billboards, criminals, women having equal rights (and acting immodestly), urban sprawl, complexity, and impiety everywhere, they would want to leave. Garbage was a problem with tons of old cities not just modern ones. I know the romans had terrible garbage and sanitation problems but I am not sure about Mycenaean Greece. I would guess the cities had some problems but I have no idea if they were as bad as, better than, or worse than New York's.
