...The Influence of Ancient Greece on Western Civilization Of all the cultures that have come and gone throughout human history, it was the achievements of ancient Greece that have left the most indelible imprint on Western civilization. In particular, it was greek achievements in the realms of art, democracy, medicine, philosophy and literature that has influenced the modern world the most. It is interesting to note that the loss of Greek thought after Roman civilization inducted a period popularly characterized as the Dark Ages. During this time human life was, in words popularized by Thomas Hobbes, “nasty, brutish and short.” Superstition, disease and a short life span were the hallmark of the age. It is crucial to understand that the middle “dark” ages finally ended with the re-discovery of greek texts to usher in the re-birth of civilization, ie: the Renaissance. It was the Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas that set Western civilization on its current track by reintroducing Greek thinkers to European intellectuals. The popularizing of Greek philosophers renewed Western interest in Greek achievements, specifically within the realms of art, democracy, medicine, literature, and philosophy. While some of these subjects remained underdeveloped in Greek times, such as the discipline of medicine and democracy, others were so advanced as to set a standard to this day in the realm of art, philosophy, and literature. Discussed herein is a brief exploration of those Greek achievements...
Words: 1702 - Pages: 7
...This however was an arduous task in a culture dominated by men who possessed misogynistic perceptions of women’s roles in society and a proto-racist mentality of non-Athenians (O ’Pry, 2012). This is exemplified in Pericles’s (Pericles 451 BCE) proposal on the laws of citizenship (Walters, 1983). The ratification of the Athenian constitution expanded the eligibility criteria and recognised women as citizens and also children, on the provision their parents were Athenian (Issac, 2010, p.38). The citizenship law of Pericles however did not make provisions for slaves or metics, thus excluding them from the political theatre (Bakaoukas, 2005). This proto-racist and misogynistic culture infringed on basic human rights and freedoms which is not reflective of a true...
Words: 1493 - Pages: 6
...often asked regarding whether or not Alexander the Great was homosexual have been in query since the idea of this modern construct has been established and it has faced its share of historical revisionism by scholars time and time again. Although Alexander the Great engaged in homoerotic behavior this was not unusual...
Words: 2233 - Pages: 9
...challenges. Since it covers a period where most of our surviving sources have been written sometimes centuries after the period they are writing about it is hard to find true primary source writings. The first primary source I will be using for my paper is Herodotus’ Histories. He is the first extant source for this period in Archaic Greece and through the Persian Wars, which is when the law of ostracism was enacted. His work is a very broad look into what he thought were the reasons that led to the clash between the Greeks and Persians, and as such is not particularly detailed or focused on ostracism itself. However, he does mention its use and in one case even seems to give a hint to his feelings about it: “… Aristides son of Lysimachus, an Athenian, crossed over from Aegina. Although he had been ostracized by the people, I, learning by inquiry of his character, have come to believe that he was the best and most just man in Athens.” It seems that he does not agree with the ostracism, noting Aristides’ good character and usefulness to Athens as a leader. This use of ostracism against Athens’ “best and brightest” seems to be a reoccurring theme throughout the entire period until it falls into disuse. I do not know if this might show a bias against the people for misusing ostracisms like that of many other authors that come after Herodotus, but it is worth looking into. I believe Herodotus is a reliable enough source for this paper. He does not go into much political detail concerning...
Words: 1981 - Pages: 8
...later Byzantine Empire and was relatively prosperous during the period of the Crusades (12th and 13th centuries), benefiting from Italian trade. Following a period of sharp decline under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Athens re-emerged in the 19th century as the capital of the independent Greek state. Contents 1 Name 1.1 Geographical setting 2 Antiquity 2.1 Origins and early history 2.2 Reform and democracy 2.3 Classical Athens 2.3.1 Early Athenian military history 2.3.2 Artists and philosophers 2.3.3 Peloponnesian War 3 Athenian coup of 411 BC 3.1 Corinthian War and the Second Athenian League 3.2 Athens under Macedon 3.3 Hellenistic Athens 3.4 Roman Athens 4 Middle Ages 4.1 Byzantine Athens 4.2 Latin Athens 4.2.1 Burgundian period 4.2.2 Aragonese period 4.2.3 Florentine period 5 Modern history 5.1 Ottoman Athens 5.2 Independence from the Ottomans 5.3 Modern Athens 5.3.1 Population influx 5.3.2 Athens under the Nazis 5.3.3 Postwar Athens 5.3.4 Athens today 5.3.5 Recent historical population 5.4 Notable Athenians 5.5 Ancient sites in Athens 6 Notes 7 Further reading The contest of Athena and Poseidon. West Pediment of the Parthenon. The name of Athens, connected to the name of its patron goddess Athena, originates from an earlier, Pre-Greek language.[1][verification needed] The etiological myth explaining how Athens acquired this name through the legendary contest between Poseidon and Athena was described by...
Words: 5137 - Pages: 21
...Economics pulls in neophytes with a grand and exciting vision of the world: people are highly responsive to incentives, differences in incentives explain all major variations in wealth and poverty across societies, and easy institutional changes will create the incentives to launch a brave new world. This is the buzz that animates Freakonomics, the book, and now the movie. This is the vision that led Roland Fryer, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, to offer students in the New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC school systems “cash for grades.” Deirdre McCloskey earlier in her career did stellar work advancing this program in economics — her virtuoso writings recruited me to the study of the history of economies. But having over many years considered the general problem of economic growth, and the specific puzzle of the timing and location of the Industrial Revolution, McCloskey has come to a stunning epiphany. This is that incentives explain very little of the huge gaps in wealth across the world. Growth is a cultural production, a society wide embrace of “bourgeois virtues.” Specifically, she claims, growth came because the activities of marketing, profiting, and innovating have become in our society uniquely respected, admired and praised. The rise of the Bourgeois Virtues has created societies such as those of Northern Europe, so primed for growth that even though the grabbing hand of the state is on every shoulder, people continue to produce and innovate. ...
Words: 1438 - Pages: 6
...Athens, the Original Eternal City They say Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither was Athens. Though the Athenians never managed to build an empire the size of Rome’s, they did spread their culture and ideas throughout the Mediterranean. Athens during the Classical, or Hellenic, period (500-340 B.C.E) can easily be compared to Rome at its height in terms of art, and architecture, and far surpassed it in philosophy. While Rome was still struggling for independence from its Etruscan masters, Athens was the center of the Hellenic world. While Alexander the Great was learning from his Athenian tutor, Rome was putting down Latin rebellions. Even under Roman rule, Athens was favored for its ancient accomplishments. Rome may be the Eternal City, but it is simply a backwater pretender to Athens. Democracy is probably Athens most well known characteristic, but it was not always that way. Like every other Greek city during the Mycenaean period (1500-1200 B.C.E.), Athens was once ruled by a king. Little is known of Athens during this period, though the archeological record combined with popular myth from later periods may give us an insight. The names of several legendary kings of Athens have come down to us: in particular Erectheus, the first king, who was believed to have established the worship of the goddess Athena on the Acropolis, and Theseus, killer of the Minotaur, who (according to the Greek historian Plutarch) unified Attica (Connolly 10). Legend tells of...
Words: 5064 - Pages: 21
...AHE 1108 History of sport Examine and discuss the role of women in sport in ancient Sparta By Srdjan Vulic Identification number: S4129049 Name of lecturer: Rob Hess and Matthew Klugman Name of tutor: Fiona McLachlan Tutorial group: 11.30pm, Tuesday, Semester 2, 2014 Date of submission: 3rd September 2014 Sparta was a city in Ancient Greece between 650 B.C and 362 B.C which was seen to have one of the strongest soldiers and women due to their early commencement of training in tough conditions to strengthen their bodies and to toughen them up. Men were always seen as the dominant species compared to women, they were seen to be stronger and had more dominance and respect in the Olympic Games and sport. Instead of encouraging women in Greece to participate in the Olympics they were instead dispirited and some laws were made to prevent them from participating. Spectators would rather watch men participate then women because they believed women were weak and were not as exhilarating to watch as men. Spartan women had more freedom and respect than many other Greek women, ‘Spartan women were allowed to be landholders and they were free to speak for themselves, unlike many other Greeks.’ Spartan women were ordered to do no less body building than the males, Lycurgus the lawgiver of Sparta believed ‘stronger children come from parents who are both strong.’ The women were trained the same way as the men, they would both be taught how to survive in tough conditions and they would be removed...
Words: 1220 - Pages: 5
...to the modern world. The world has learnt a lot of aspects from Greece, being they direct or indirect. One of the things that Greece brought to the world is the democratic system of government. Together with lessons from ancient Rome the world has learned much. Essay1: Differences in terrain and climatic conditions between Athens and Sparta Greece has many cities and towns, however probably the main ones in ancient times were Sparta and Athens. These two cities shaped the political life and history of Greece for quite a long time. The influence mainly centred on land and agriculture. For, about 90% of Greece production was agricultural in nature, with grain production as the dominant area. Incidentally, grain was a staple product and food of Greece. As a result the land that was used for grain production was a vital part of wealth and a valuable asset, for which citizens compete for. This essay is going to explore the difference in terrain between Athens and Sparta and how it affected agriculture and political rights, including democracy as well as how agricultural production had an impact on the distribution of political rights and the powers invested in various category of the Greek populace. Athens has many hills and rocky soils. This means that it has many slopes and up land. The land is not flat and the homogenous. It is also closer to the coastline. The weather is very dry in that land. This meant that by cultivating on hills and rocky grounds the Athenians had to...
Words: 3017 - Pages: 13
...the Acropolis in Athens, is one of the most representative symbols of the culture and sophistication of the ancient Greeks. Part of a series on the | Modern Greece.Septinsular Republic.War of Independence.First Hellenic Republic.Kingdom of Greece.National Schism.Second Hellenic Republic.4th of August Regime.Axis occupation (collaborationist regime).Civil War.Military Junta.Third Hellenic Republic | History by topic.Art.Constitution.Economy.Military.Names | History of Greece | | Neolithic Greece.Neolithic Greece | Greek Bronze Age.Helladic.Cycladic.Minoan.Mycenaean | Ancient Greece.Homeric Greece.Archaic Greece.Classical Greece.Hellenistic Greece.Roman Greece | Medieval Greece.Byzantine Greece.Frankish and Latin states.Ottoman Greece | | Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BCto the end ofantiquity (c. 600 AD). Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in ancient Greece is the period ofClassical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Classical Greece began with the repelling of a Persian invasion by Athenian leadership. Because of conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished fromCentral Asia to the western end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which...
Words: 17888 - Pages: 72
...Introduction to Business Ethics Objectives: * Gain an understanding of why business ethics is important. * Learn how business ethics fits into the broader discipline of philosophy. * Realize that the culture in which we live influences our thinking. Business ethics, some would say, is an oxymoron. After all, the media presents, on nearly a daily basis, the shenanigans of corporate representatives as they ply their trade. Price fixing, anti-competitive behavior, fraud, deceptive advertising, and insider trading are but a few of the many questionable tactics found in the quivers of corporate moguls and their charges. Corporations and their activities have been fair game for attack, both factual and fictional. The level of corruption is epidemic in the estimation of many observers. This rather bleak picture is probably the one most familiar to what has become a very cynical populace. We have come to think of ourselves as current or potential victims of evil corporations. Is business evil incarnate? Of course it isn't. Is business completely innocent of the charges against it? Again, the answer is no. The truth lies somewhere in between. It is, after all, the modern enterprise, with all of its strengths and weaknesses, that has brought to larger numbers of people around the world, a level of material comfort and cultural opportunities than has ever before existed. Businesses must be doing something right. In fact, while business has less than a stellar reputation...
Words: 4762 - Pages: 20
...Georg Simmel pp.409-424, New York, Macmillan © THE DEEPEST PROBLEMS OF modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life. The fight with nature which primitive man has to wage for his bodily existence attains in this modern form its latest transformation. The eighteenth century called upon man to free himself of all the historical bonds in the state and in religion, in morals and in economics. Man’s nature, originally good and common to all, should develop unhampered. In addition to more liberty, the nineteenth century demanded the functional specialization of man and his work; this specialization makes one individual incomparable to another, and each of them indispensable to the highest possible extent. However, this specialization makes each man the more directly dependent upon the supplementary activities of all others. Nietzsche sees the full development of the individual conditioned by the most ruthless struggle of individuals; socialism believes in the suppression of all competition for the same reason. Be that as it may, in all these positions the same basic motive is at work: the person resists to being leveled down and worn out by a social-technological mechanism. An inquiry into the inner meaning of specifically modern life and its products, into the soul of the cultural body, so to speak,...
Words: 5753 - Pages: 24
...In this essay, I will talk about the Greek myth theseus and attempt to connect to our modern culture. I will compare a very important historical figure, Simon Bolivar, and compare him to Theseus and his story. The Central focus of this essay is that the Greek myth of Theseus illustrates that ones achievements deliver positive rewards, and a society that chooses to select leaders based on merit, instead of heredity, tend to be stronger above their peers, this can be for better or for worse. First, we will talk about the myth itself and Theseus’ story before becoming king of Athens this is a long story, but I’m adding this to show Theseus showed his competence as a leader before becoming king, which is probably what lead him to found Story...
Words: 2146 - Pages: 9
...Early Greece and All Its Glory Amy Villegas Matthew Geier Strayer University March 4, 2010 Early Greece and All Its Glory Phoenician Alphabet The Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet. Just like the Phoenicians the Greek alphabet is written from right to left. The direction of writing later changed to ox-turning. Ox-turning is a written language that is written from right to left and on the next line it continues from left to right and so on. Eventually, the Greek alphabet does change to left to right but that’s during the fifth century. (Bantwal, 2008) Greek Education For Greek children, their education mostly consisted of poetry and song. (Hadas, 1950) Education was more popular among young boys but it was not uncommon for girls. The wealthier children remained in school for ten years. Grammatistes, paidotribes and kitharistes were the teachers who taught the children. Grammatistes taught literature, arithmetic, reading and writing. Paidotribes coached boxing, wrestling, and gymnastics. Kitharistes taught music. At age eighteen, boys would train for the military for two years before further education. (Discovery Channel, n.d) The Illiad and the Odyssey Homer wrote the two most classic poems titled the Illiad and the Odyssey. The Illiad is based on the last six weeks of the Trojan War. The main character of the Illiad is Achilles. Achilles and Agamemnon get in a heated argument and Achilles retracts from the war. The Greeks are losing...
Words: 2234 - Pages: 9
...Apology Plato Published: -400 Categorie(s): Non-Fiction, Philosophy Source: http://en.wikisource.org 1 About Plato: Plato (Greek: Plátōn, "wide, broad-shouldered") (428/427 BC – 348/ 347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, the second of the great trio of ancient Greeks –Socrates, Plato, originally named Aristocles, and Aris- totle– who between them laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture. Plato was also a mathematician, writer of philosophical dia- logues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world. Plato is widely believed to have been a student of Socrates and to have been deeply influenced by his teacher's unjust death. Plato's brilliance as a writer and thinker can be witnessed by reading his Socratic dialogues. Some of the dialogues, let- ters, and other works that are ascribed to him are considered spurious. Plato is thought to have lectured at the Academy, although the pedago- gical function of his dialogues, if any, is not known with certainty. They have historically been used to teach philosophy, logic, rhetoric, mathem- atics, and other subjects about which he wrote. Source: Wikipedia Also available on Feedbooks for Plato: • The Complete Plato (-347) • The Republic (-380) • Symposium(-400) • Charmides(-400) • Protagoras(-400) • Statesman(-400) • Ion(-400) • Crito(-400) • Meno(-400) • Phaedo(-400) Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks http://www.feedbooks.com Strictly...
Words: 12654 - Pages: 51
