Ancient Athens, at its peak, had a total population of less than 300,000 people.... | Hacker News

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		nkoren on March 7, 2016 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Portolan Charts 'Too Accurate' to Be Medieval Ancient Athens, at its peak, had a total population of less than 300,000 people. They represented the urban elite of an empire of a few million people at best. I think it would be difficult to find any comparably-sized contemporary population with a remotely similar genius per capita ratio.

cfcef on March 7, 2016 | [–]

They probably also benefited from low-hanging fruit. No one today has the opportunity to invent 'logic' or 'the Pythagorean theorem' or 'the tragedy'.

_wo6a on March 7, 2016 | [–]

Good article on Ancient Greek IQ: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/ancient-greeks-not-geniuses/

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