I think the Greeks understood that the truth is what you write down and I get the sense they looked around and went "psshh like the Romans are gonna contradict us" and YOLO'd into whatever the fuck facts they felt like fabricating. "I mean yeah the Spartans lost at Thermopylae but that's because there were eleven million Persians and also they were minimum seven feet tall" works just fine until you invent archaeology. As far as salsify and its ilk, let's call it "the sunchoke problem" - yeah you can grow it, yeah you can eat it, yeah you can cook with it, but when its competition includes Uber Eats it bloody better be worth it and we live in a society that went "ZOMFG RED DELICIOUS APPLES MUST DYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" because they weren't as flavorful as Fujis.