"In our time all of Greece has been characterized by a reduction in the birth rate and a general decline in the population, due to which the cities have become deserted and crops have ceased to be harvested”. These words, written 2,000 years ago by the historian Polybius, could not be more true than today about Greece. Greeks are now giving up on creating families. The trend was noted also by The New York Times in a feature: “People are saying they can’t afford more than one child, or any at all,” said Minas Mastrominas, a director at Embryogenesis, a large in vitro fertilization center. In 2016, the birth rate was 8.5 per 1,000 people or about 1.3 per household. The death rate was 11.2 per 1,000 people In 2016, the birth rate was 8.5 per 1,000 people or about 1.3 per household. The death rate was 11.2 per 1,000 people. Greece is putting more people in coffins than in cribs. Some 20 percent of Greek women born in the 1970s are likely to remain childless, a level not seen since WWII. Although the next census in Greece will not take place before 2021, the National Statistics Authority confirmed the suicide of the Greek population. According to official data, released by the end of 2016, the country's population amounted to 10,783,748 persons in January, a 0,68 decrease since January 2015. The number of deaths (at 121,212) outweighed those born in Greece (at 91,847), resulting in a net decrease of 29,365 persons. The reasons for this incredible demographic fall are certainly economic, but these tragic numbers point at a cultural and spiritual disease which is infecting the whole of Europe. Fertility, in fact, is falling not only in the semi failed Greece, but also in the wealthy and successfull Germany. Polybius, the Greek general who became the tutor to the future Roman conqueror of Carthage, blamed the Greeks’ refusal to raise children: “In our time all Greece was visited by a dearth of children and generally a decay of population, owing to which the cities were denuded of inhabitants, and a failure of productiveness resulted, though there were no long-continued wars or serious pestilences among us. For this evil grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting attention, by our men becoming perverted to a passion for show and money and the pleasures of an idle life, and accordingly either not marrying at all, or, if they did marry, refusing to rear the children that were born, or at most one or two out of a great number, for the sake of leaving them well off or bringing them up in extravagant luxury”. These words sound like a testament to Europe's contemporary nihilism. Greece and Rome died for the same reason that Western Europe is dying today: by losing the motivation to bring children into the world. The infertile Greeks were conquered by Rome; the Romans later grew childless, they were overrun by a small force of barbarian invaders, just as contemporary, sterile Europe is being taken over by the fertile Muslims.
