6 Funny Things You Didn’t Know About Ancient Greece

In Ancient Greece, men would throw apples at women they were in love with. It was considered to be a sort of marriage proposal. I wonder how many women got hit in the head because they weren’t looking.

Ancient Greeks considered the unibrow a sign of intelligence and beauty. Women who did not have them actually drew a unibrow on with make up.

In Ancient Greece, the word ‘idiot’ was used to describe people who were not involved in politics. It was very important for people to be involved and contribute. People saw those who didn’t care about politics as selfish. They called these people “idiotes” which stems from “idios”. Idios means the self.

There are some that say the Chinese invented the yo-yo as a weapon, but the yo-yo as we know it today was first documented in Greece. The first mention of the yo-yo comes from a Greek vase. It depicts a person playing with a disk-shaped object on a string. They made yo-yos out of wood, metal or clay. The clay ones were probably not played with much, because they were so breakable. They were possibly used for a coming of age ceremony where a child of a certain age gives the gods one or more of their toys.

Ancient Greeks were afraid of the dead rising from their graves. This is supported by some of their writings, describing the dead stalking people who wronged them. There were also multiple graves found with large, heavy clay vases on them. There were even some found with large rocks placed directly on the body. They also found some spells found at grave sites that were meant to bring back the dead and have them do the spell caster’s bidding. Necromancy, y’all! Regarding the illustration: For those of your unfamiliar with the American infomercial for the adhesive, Flex Seal, the guy in the commercial creates a motor boat out of it and rides it around. It’s funny, I swear.

After an athlete competed, they would get rubbed down with olive oil and scrape the oils, dirt and sweat off their skin. They would bottle these scrapings and sell them. The skin scrapings and sweat of athletes were thought to be powerfully anti-inflammatory. This was considered a luxury and people paid a lot for them.