Tag: greeks

Antiquity

When it comes to history, the word prehistoric doesn’t mean dinosaurs. It means the time before writing. Only then from the pen did we start to get details. The first thousand years from around the Mediterranean and Iran is called classical antiquity. This period includes Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, a bunch of different religions, and interesting people like Alexander the Great. Go online and you’ll find an awesome overview by the Khan Academy that only takes a few hours. So in the span of watching a movie, you can scrunch in 1,000 years.

What’s so special about this period is that it’s had great effect on you. Why? Because Persia affected Greece, Greece influenced Rome, Western Rome became most of Europe, and Europeans incorporated much of Canada and the US. So a lot of our culture comes from this era. 

Persia and Greece

Writing began around 800 BC, but the good stuff came a few hundred years later. Herodotus started recording history, Hippocrates is the father of medicine, Pythagoras and Euclid were really good at math, Plato started the first university, and Aristotle devised the subjects we still study today. These weren’t the first smart people on Earth, they were just the first to write everything down. That being said, they were also pretty smart since many of their philosophies and theories are still being taught today. Not to mention tons of our words and phrases still come from this time.

The Romans

When most people think of Rome, they imagine the empire but that’s not fair. There were three periods. From its founding in 743 to 509 BC, it operated like a regular kingdom with one major exception—sometimes the kings were elected. So it was initially a city-state like everywhere else. Then from 509 to 27 BC, Rome was a republic with senators and consuls. Sometimes senators were elected (by the army) and sometimes they were appointed, while consuls were generally elected by the senate. This system operated in various forms until Julius Caesar won a civil war and declared himself dictator for life. His rule includes the expansion of Rome beyond the Italian peninsula and the story of Cleopatra (who was basically a tramp). 

After Julius, came his nephew—later renamed Augustus. That’s when Rome became known as an empire. Further expansion continued under a number of emperors—some good, some bad—until Constantine, who made the strongest impression by launching the conversion to Catholicism. 

The empire then split into East and West, and the West fell in 476 to Germanic tribes. The East, known as the Byzantine Empire, lasted until 1453, when it fell to the Ottoman Turks. So it’s over 2,000 years from commencement to the Eastern fall, but historians say the official empire only lasted from Augustus in 27 BC to the fall of the West. Still a very long time. 

Summary

CanAmerica is the amalgamation of First Nations people and those previously ruled by Western Rome. This means that in addition to long houses, lacrosse, and the canoe, we have been heavily influenced by Europeans. And this greatly affects you. Why? First, it’s why we have so many Latin words and Greek philosophies. Second, it’s why you were probably born a Christian.

The period after antiquity is called the Middle Ages. It goes for another thousand years and is when small kingdoms and the Catholic Church run most of Europe. It’s also when Charlemagne (a king in France) teams up with the Pope to form the Holy Roman Empire (something completely different), and when you get the formation and expansion of Islam. 

The Middle Ages end around the 1500s when things really start to cook. The Protestant Reformation splits up the Catholic Church, we get modern day democracy and capitalism, Michelangelo and da Vinci hit the scene, and of course there were oodles of inventions. We’ll have another piece on this sometime in the future, which means watching another film. In the meantime, be happy for your past. Among all the gore, a lot of great people did a lot of great work.

P.S. Check out the article on Ancient Greece.

Ancient Greece

The effects of Ancient Greece are strewn throughout the Western world. We use Greek terms, acknowledge Greek gods, and admire Greek philosophers, but why? Western Civilization was formed under the old Roman Empire, which was heavily influenced by the ways of Ancient Greece. Rome overtook Greece in 146 BC and quickly discovered it was a more advanced society, so they adopted much of Greek culture. Hundreds of years later, Rome split into east and west. The West became known as Western Civilization and included most of Europe. Since early North Americans were predominantly of European descent, many elements of ancient Greek culture are still ingrained within us.

Greco-Roman

The time period between the conquest of Greece and the splitting of the Roman Empire is known as Greco-Roman civilization. Along with white columns influencing Roman architecture, the Romans incorporated Greek characteristics in art, music, drama, and dance. They also adopted the concepts of individual freedoms and democracy, and the Greek system of religion—copying their gods, one for one (Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite became Venus, Eros became Cupid, etc.).

Alphabet and language

The first true alphabet was established by the Greeks in the 8th century BC. It was preceded by earlier writing systems of the Middle East but they consisted of only symbols or consonants. The Greeks enhanced the consonant system by adding vowels. And though Latin was the language of Rome, Greek was a fuller, more developed language that was used for many documents of the time, including the New Testament. (Note: like Canadian students take French, children in England used to study Latin and Greek.)

Literature

Greek literature begins with Homer, who is believed to have lived around 800 BC. Homer is known for two famous poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. These pieces are believed to be the oldest available literature in Western culture.

The 24 books of the Iliad describe the mythical war between the Greeks of Sparta and the walled city of Troy (believed to be somewhere in Turkey). It starts with Paris of Troy abducting Helen from the King of Sparta. It ends with the Greeks deceiving the Trojans by sailing away and leaving them a gift of a giant wooden horse. But the horse was filled with soldiers, who exited in the middle of the night and destroyed the sleeping city, thereby winning the war.

Democracy

Back then, people identified with city-states—they didn’t really have countries. In Athens and the area around it, people practiced democracy for 200 years, between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. They convened 40 times per year and practiced true democracy, where individuals voted. It wasn’t a representative democracy like we have today.

Only 20% of the population were eligible since women, slaves, and foreigners engaged in trade were excluded from citizenship. So, from an Athenian population of around 250,000, only 50,000 could vote. They conducted themselves in a theatre that held 10-15,000 people and a quorum was 6,000.

Philosophy

Socrates taught Plato, Plato taught Aristotle, and Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Each will have their own article but take this for now.

  • Plato wrote volumes about Socrates, while Socrates himself didn’t write anything down.
  • Socrates is known for the Socratic Method, which is to admit one’s ignorance about a given subject and then draw conclusions about it from an adversary by means of direct questioning.
  • Plato was a celibate bachelor who established the Academy, which is recognized as the first institution of higher learning in the Western world (the first university). It lasted for hundreds of years. He’s also known for the idea that humans can be divided into body and soul, and that the soul lives on after the body’s death. His views inspired many religious beliefs and the term “platonic relationship.”
  • Aristotle is considered the father of science and much of our modern curriculum can be traced back to him. Though he studied under Plato for 20 years and agreed with the principle of afterlife, he’s not very existential, preferring instead to look for hard evidence. So Aristotle is the practical guy while Plato is the airy-fairy, mystic.

Religion

Though Greek religion was better and more exciting than what Rome had to offer, it was still a belief system that rested in destiny. The Judeo-Christian faith rested in hope. Not only because it offered a peaceful afterlife but also because it taught that each life was unique (therefore worth living). As a result, after incorporating Greece’s religion into their own, the Roman Empire later converted to Christianity.

Western Civilization

The West is widely described as the meeting of Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian faith. Initially, Greco-Roman civilization was the merger of Roman power and Greek culture. It started with Rome overtaking Greece in 146 BC. Major steps forward include the following.

  • In 285 AD, the empire had grown so vast that East was divided from West. The Eastern Empire became governed from Byzantium in modern day Turkey (later to become Constantinople, then Istanbul). To Romans, there was hardly a difference—this was mostly an administrative split.
  • In 313, Western Emperor Constantine and Eastern Emperor Licinius granted Christians the right to practice their religion, ending years of persecution. Constantine himself converted.
  • In 324, Constantine united the two empires by defeating Licinius, and ruled over them until his death in 337, moving the capital from Rome to Constantinople.
  • In 380, the reunited Roman Empire adopted Judeo-Christianity as its state religion.
  • In 395, the East-West division became permanent and the East eventually became known as the Byzantine Empire. It changed its language to Greek (instead of Latin) and would lose much of its traditional Roman flavour.
  • In 476, the Western empire fell to the northern barbarians (the Germans). But life in the Byzantine Empire continued generally unchanged until the mid-fifteenth century when it fell to the Ottoman Turks. Along the way, in 1054, Eastern Christianity severed itself from Roman Catholicism to form its own sect called, Eastern Orthodoxy.

Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian faith are the initial tenets of the Western world. Sure, Britain later contributed economics and the Americans invented disco, but these guys started it all. 

Note: Read a little more about the Iliad and you can watch the movie, Troy, starring Brad Pitt. See also Civilizations, History of Western Faith, and this video about Socrates.