What historians typically designate as the ancient Greek period are the years between 1000 B.C. and 323 B.C. when Alexander the Great died or through the 3rd century C.E., when the Christian era began. The legacy of Greek civilization was greatly influential to the succeeding Roman Empire and to subsequent western cultures. 
This period in Greek history was not all calm, however. The many city-states that comprised the Greek culture were allies when having to defend themselves from external forces but could also become enemies of one another in their efforts to attain a dominant role among the Greek league of states. It was during this time that the Greeks fought the Peloponnesian War, wherein Athens and Sparta vied for supremacy in the region. The Spartans prevailed but, weakened by the war and an unhappy population, were soon defeated by another Greek population, the Thebans. The Thebans in turn were overcome by the Macedonian, as was the rest of the Greek league, with the rise of Philip II of Macedon and later his son, Alexander the Great.
Greece is a land of hard limestone mountains and deep valleys cut almost in two by the Corinthian Gulf. To the east the mainland is continued by islands, to the south by the greater island of Crete. Even including the islands, Greece is a small country that has never had more than a few million inhabitants. However, it has always played an important role in the history of Western civilization. Bound by the Ionian and Aegean seas, the Greeks have long been a maritime people, reliant on maritime trade and mobility to prosper. In ancient Greece central control over every district was difficult because areas were separated from one another by mountains or the sea. This largely determined the political make-up of ancient Greece, which was composed of city-states that continually sought to increase their boundaries to accommodate their inhabitants. The isolated nature of the city-states did not stem the flow of ideas, however, particularly aesthetic and philosophical ones, and ancient Greece gave rise to a rich tradition of thought.
During the Classical period of Greece’s history, Athens reached great heights in politics and culture. This was the period during which Pericles developed his democratic ideas, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripedes wrote their great tragedies and Socrates and Plato set up their great philosophy schools.
Through philosophers such as Socrates the Greeks disseminated ideas about man’s existence and search for knowledge. Socrates’ questioning philosophy and his belief in the rational human mind guided other philosophers and established a fundamental base to western philosophical thought.
The Ancient Greek tradition in politics and the growing influence of these ideas throughout Western Civilization would eventually form the foundations of the democratic systems prevalent today. These political ideas, combined with their philosophical explorations of the human experience and the premise that liberty was a fundamental right for the individual - also found its representation in future political ideology. Just as a Greek inhabitant would have detested the thought of being subject to external powers, so his own circle a man claimed for himself the freedom to do all he was capable of in order to realize his full potential within society. Freedom of speech and freedom of movement were fundamental rights, the belief in freedom sustained by a deep respect for personal honor, nurtured by a love for action.
|
The Greeks also had at their disposal a wonderfully subtle, expressive and adaptable language, and they made full use of it. Poetry was given a high place in the cultural life of the Greeks, evoking as much respect and admiration as the visual arts. A poet, said the philosopher Socrates, was “a light and winged and holy thing.” If a person had something important to say he often said it in verse - which would have meant that he said it in song, for almost all Greek poetry was originally sung or spoken with music. | |||||||||||
Tags: Aegean Sea, Aeschylus, ancient greece, Ancient Greek Bronze Cuirass, Ancient Greek city states, Ancient Greek culture, Ancient Greek Hoplite Helm, Ancient Greek Museum Quality Replica Vase, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Ancient Greek Poetry, Ancient Greek politics, Classical Greece, Euripedes, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, importance of visual arts in ancient greece, Ionian Sea, Karyatides statues of the Erechtheion, origins of individual freedom, origins of individual liberty, origins of western civilization, origins of western culture, origins of western politics, personal honor in ancient greece, Plato, Socrates, Sophocles, Spartan Lakonian Sword
