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How Did The Greeks Influence Western Civilization

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Greece was a very powerful civilization during the 400s B.C. and helped influence other civilizations. A civilization has many factor that can make it great including: government, specialized work, record keeping, complex institutions, and advanced technology. The Greeks had the majority of these factors in their civilization, which contributed to their success. The Greeks’ government changed multiple times throughout their history and caused them to have multiple types of governments and leaders. All these power changes brought new ideas that helped their civilizations survive, including a new way of medicine. These power struggles also made people begin to think and questions their lives through the study of philosophy. One of the civilizations …show more content…
The Greeks contributed a handful of advancements to Western Civilization including government. Greece had multiple different types of governments, including monarchies, oligarchies, and aristocracy when they were first developing. These ways of ruling changed during the golden age of Greek civilization when they began to use democracy. At its greatest, Greece had a democracy made up of all types of citizens from the poor to the wealthy. As stated in Pericles funeral oration, “ Our plan for government favors the many instead of the few: that is why it is called a democracy… A man may serve his country no matter how low his position on the social scale” (Doc. 1). The Greeks democracy was the beginning of a new form of ruling that allowed citizens to …show more content…
The Greeks were one of the first people to develop different sports and even allow women to participate in them. Their determination in athletics is found in the Western Civilization’s way of life, for they both revolved, in some way, around one sport or another. The Greeks showcased all their athletes in a very important sporting event called the Olympics. These athletes competed in events that included: discus, long jump, long distance, javelin, races, and wrestling. Many of these athletes trained year round and were believed to be heros. One of the praised events in the Olympics was the discus throw, which has many statutes created of it. One famous Greeks statue that is still intact today is “The Discus Thrower”; a gray statue with a man holding a discus swung behind his back with his right arm ( Doc. 5). This statue showed how much people praised their athletes. The Olympics was a way for people to show their praised and continues to be used in the Western Civilization today for this purpose. People also believed that strong healthy citizens helped strengthen the city-states. This is why athletics were so important to the Greeks. This mind set was passed on to the Western Civilization for many of the countries in it believe that health is a very important part of their lives. The Greeks also became one of the first civilizations to practice

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