Please correct me if I’m wrong. Wasn’t part of the reason for the eventual downfall of the classical Greek civilization pederasty and homosexual acts being held in high esteem?
As to modern-day Greece, it does seem to be yet another lurch - from seeming half-sanity back into desire for oblivion.
Yep. It appears they want to repeat their earlier downfall.
The reasons for its downfall had nothing to do with homosexual acts imho.
Greece reached its heights due to trade and setting up colonies right from the Black sea to Sicily. Their culture was high due to city-states.
all that talk of Sparta defeating the Persians etc. forget that the Persians were of a high culture as well.
Athens was a dominant power in the Eastern Meditteranean in the 4th century but it overstretched and tried to bully other Greek states leading to the Peloponniesian war.
Then the Macedonians played off one against the other and dominated the Greeks (Philip II did this).
Then Alexander spread Greek culture as far east as India -- but this was with Macedonian/Thracian warriors too and over time the Greeks merged with the locals.
Greek culture influenced Gandhara art and there were Greek, Graeco-Parthian, Graeco-Bactrian, Indo-Greek and Greek influenced Kushan kingdoms there for centuries until the 8th century -- in fact in parts of Kashmir and AFghanistan there were worshippers of Greek gods right up until the 1800s and many Afghanis have traces of Greek blood.
They collapsed because the Romans were more disciplined warriors.
Though in the end the Romans were enamoured by Greek culture and adopted it - as some Latin poet wrote "Captive Greece captured Rome" -- can't remember who...