Aristotle Found

Greek archaeologists believe they have discovered the lost tomb of Aristotle, the greatest philosopher in history.

Kostas Sismanidis said he was almost sure that a 2,400 year-old domed vault he unearthed in ancient Stagira was the burial place of the man credited with formalizing logic.

“I have no hard proof, but strong indications lead me to almost certainty,” Sismanidis recently stated.

Archaeologists have been working painstakingly at the site – the philosopher’s birthplace in 384 BC in the Greek region of Macedonia – for 20 years.

Sismanidis was due to give further details at a world congress in northern Greece of scholars specialised in Aristotle’s work. He said the architecture and location of the tomb, close to Stagira’s ancient square and with panoramic views, supported the belief that it was the philosopher’s final resting place.

Although few of Aristotle’s works have survived, two literary sources – a mainstay for archaeological discovery – suggest that the people of Stagira may have transferred his ashes from Chalkis on the island of Evia where he is known to have died in 322 BC.

The vault, which has a square marble floor dated to Hellenistic times, appears to have been hurriedly constructed with an altar outside. Coins dated to Alexander the Great and ceramics from royal pottery were also found.

The claim was welcomed by Greece’s culture ministry; a senior aide to the minister, Aristides Baltas, said the academic community was awaiting further details.

“A team of independent archaeologists with no connection to a particular school or department have been working at the site,” the official told the Guardian. “What we know is that their excavation has been meticulous and we await further details with great anticipation.”

Plato’s star pupil, Aristotle was enrolled at the court of ancient Macedonia as the tutor of Alexander the Great.

He thereafter traveled around the Aegean and Asia Minor before returning to Athens where he founded his own school, the Lyceum, in 335 BC.

Remains of that complex were accidentally unearthed in 1996 during construction work for a site then earmarked for a new museum of modern art.

From under the unpaved parking lot the fabled Lyceum emerged, replete with a central courtyard and wrestling area, or palaestra.

Northern Greece has been the scene of several discoveries, though not all of them have been well received.

In 2014, amid great fanfare, a tomb initially believed to be the long-sought burial place of Alexander the Great was found in Amphipolis, also in central Macedonia.

It was not related, scholars agreed, to the Macedonian warrior king, with many accusing authorities of deliberately overplaying the discovery to distract Greeks at a time of economic and social hardship.

An Ailing Economy

The refugee crisis is testing the limits of Greece’s flagging economy, jeopardizing its ability to handle a flow of refugees that shows no signs of slowing.

Added to the existing strains of austerity, the renewed economic pressure from the crisis is stoking fears within the Greek government that a new wave of anti-refugee xenophobia could take hold unless the European Union and Turkey significantly step up to help manage the crisis.

A report by Yannis Stournaras, the governor of the Bank of Greece, confirms as much. 

The report, presented to the European Central Bank’s general council on Dec. 17,compiles existing research on the economic effects of the refugee flows to demonstrate the risks the crisis poses for Greece.

“The continuation/worsening of the [refugee] crisis adds a downside risk factor to the Greek economy’s outlook,” Stournaras argued.That the message came from Stournaras, a finance minister from 2012 to 2014 under the previous center-right government, strengthens the claims.

The increased public spending to absorb the thousands of refugees arriving on Greece’s shores every day will amount to 0.3 percent of GDP this year, or 600 million euros, Stournaras says in the report, citing government estimates.

These expenses will force difficult tradeoffs since they occur"at a time of strict fiscal retrenchment," the report notes.

The report also observes that the massive influx of asylum seekers, the majority of whom are Syrian, has been particularly disruptive to the tourism industry on Greece’s islands and to international trade, which relies on unfettered access to Greek sea lanes.

The vast majority of refugees that arrive in Greece continue onward to wealthier European nations, in particular Germany and Sweden, which have until recently been relatively welcoming.

But with a growing number of neighboring nations closing their borders to asylum seekers coming through Greece it is likely many more refugees will remain in the country, which means the government will also incur expenses to ensure refugees’ semi-permanent housing, food and health care, according to Stournaras' report.

Ironically, wealthier destination countries for asylum seekers, such as Germany, have the greatest potential to benefit economically from the arrival of refugees, the report states, since they have labor shortages in high-skilled sectors that might be filled by new arrivals.

Greece, the main transit point for refugees reaching Europe’s shores, is among the countries least economically equipped to deal with the influx.

(Some 84 percent of asylum seekers who reached Europe by sea in 2015, and 92 percent this year,have come through Greece, according to the United Nations.)

New is not Always Good

Leader of Syriza left-wing party Alexis Tsipras 

speaks to his supporters outside Athens University Headquarters,

 Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) | AP

The left-wing party Syriza won national elections in Greece last Sunday with a program promising to roll back the stringent austerity measures imposed on the country in the wake of the financial crisis.

Syriza wants to renegotiate the terms of Greece's bailout agreements with its creditors -- the troika made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Troika leaders have insisted that Greece must fulfill its commitments, raising the prospect of a confrontation that could destabilize the eurozone, 19 of the 28 members of the European Union using the euro as their currency.

n his first week in power, Greece's new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras signaled that he would not relinquish his anti-austerity campaign pledges. He moved quickly to block the privatization of state assets and promised to rehire public workers, causing the Greek stock market to tumble.

"We are coming in to radically change the way that policies and administration are conducted in this country," Tsipras vowed at his first cabinet meeting.

Economists have disagreed over the right approach to save the Greek economy and whether Syriza's economic proposals will be effective. Some have warned that austerity is a painful necessity and Greece just can't afford the financial instability caused by Syriza's policies. Others argue that austerity is actually harming the Greek economy.

Edward Hadas, the Economics Editor at Reuters Breaking Views, told The WorldPost in a Q&A that while Syriza is inexperienced, the new government could actually be good for Greece.

A lot of serious economists agree that by squeezing cash out of the economy, the austerity measures have made it very difficult to drive demand, increase wages and curb unemployment. The troika plan was badly designed. It made a bad situation worse.

Syriza's finance minister does recognize the underlying problems that led to the bailouts in the first place. The Greek economy has many structural problems, including dependence on imported capital from the rest of the eurozone.

Greek Protests

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A march by thousands of people through central Athens to mark the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of an unarmed teenager quickly turned violent Saturday, as marchers damaged storefronts and bus stations and set fire to clothes looted from a shop.

Clashes continued late into the night in the neighborhood of Exarchia, a haven for extreme leftists and anarchists, with youths ambushing police forces with firebombs and rocks thrown from balconies.

Police said they detained 211 people.

Clashes also broke out between police and demonstrators marching in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades after a crowd beat up two plainclothes policemen.

The marches were commemorating the Dec. 6, 2008, police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the capital, which led to two weeks of the most violent rioting Greece had seen in decades. 

Grigoropoulos and friends were in an argument with two police officers when one officer went to his patrol car, retrieved his gun and shot the youth.

Grigoropoulos' killer, police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas, is serving a life sentence.

On Saturday, about 5,000 people marched in Athens, passing the Greek Parliament and heading toward the spot where Grigoropoulos was killed, police said. At one point, people broke into a Zara clothes shop, took racks of clothes into the street and burned them.

The clashes were soon confined to Exarchia neighborhood. Police cordoned off the neighborhood's central square, firing tear gas and pepper spray.

The marches come at a time when nearly nightly violent protests are being held by supporters of one of Grigoropoulos' friends, jailed anarchist and convicted bank robber Nikos Romanos, 21. 

He was present when Grigoropoulos was killed and is now on a hunger strike, demanding prison leave to attend lectures after he passed university entrance exams.

Romanos, currently hospitalized under police guard, has been on the hunger strike since last month, and doctors have said his health is failing. He was jailed with three young men following a February 2013 bank robbery in which they took a hostage as they tried to escape. 

He was sentenced in October to 15 years and 11 months for the robbery and faces two more trials as an alleged member of an armed anarchist group.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will meet with Romanos' parents on Monday following a request made through their lawyer on Saturday, the government said.