The dysfunction of modern Greece and Italy (relative to the Northern European norm) leaves many to wonder how it was the distant ancestors of Greeks and Italians — presumably, the same lineage of people — accomplished so much and built empires when their present-day descendants are mired in corruption and crushing debt. What happened between then and now?
Here’s an answer to that riddle: Maybe the ancient Greeks and Romans weren’t anything like modern Greeks and (southern) Italians. It could be that the ancients were a different ethnicity/race — Northern European.
Nobody really talks about the race of ancients Greeks or Romans. It’s assumed they were swarthy Southern Europeans like the people who live there today. But if they weren’t, if they were instead races created from migrations of pale-skinned, blond-haired Northern Europeans, then that would upset a lot of blank slatists. It would affirm, once again, that genes matter. That the same genetic heritage which allowed the 19th and 20th century Germanics to invent practically the entire edifice of the modern technologically advanced civilized world is the heritage that propelled the world-beating achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans.