Text/Huan Da Sima (桓大司馬).
Ancient Greece has always been regarded as the source of science and reason, which is quite praised, but among so many ancient civilizations with very different forms, why only Greece has developed science, few people have conducted in-depth investigation. The book "Ancient Greeks" by the British scholar Edith Hall not only deeply explores the reasons for the formation of ancient Greek civilization, but also tells the final end of ancient Greek civilization.
Ancient Greek city-states
The ancient Greek civilization did not emerge overnight, but the cultures of Egypt, the Two Rivers and the Indo-Europeans blended together, and the Greeks formed a new culture based on the Mycenaean civilization established by the Indo-Europeans and absorbing the culture of Egypt and the Two Rivers Valley (Tigris River, Euphrates River).
Before the formation of the Greek city-states, Egyptians and sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian and other countries in the Two Rivers Valley developed a high degree of civilization, and the art, architecture and mythology and astronomy of the Two Rivers Valleys of the Egyptians, as well as the military technology and rationalized warfare methods of the Hittites, who also belonged to the Indo-European language family, profoundly influenced Greek civilization. The Greeks integrated the characteristics of these three civilizations into one furnace, upgraded them, and created the ancient Greek civilization.
A huge military fortress of Mycenaean civilization
The Greeks were able to develop science alone because of the superposition of several factors.
The first factor is that the Greeks were particularly fond of observing, and they were very meticulous. They like to imagine what elements matter is composed of, to what extent the elements that make up matter can be subdivided internally, and the more they deduce, the finer they are, until they reach the "atoms" that are invisible to the naked eye. Ancient Greek philosophers and scientists engaged in heated discussions and debates about this invisible substance, and this endowment helped the Greeks to take the lead in scientific thinking.
The second factor is that the Greeks are good at navigation, have been to many places, and have exchanges with many peoples along the Mediterranean coast, in the process of these exchanges, the Greeks have absorbed the knowledge of other peoples, although the "knowledge" at this time is rich in the elements of witchcraft, but after the comparison and induction of large-scale samples, many commonalities can be summarized, and these commonalities are the prototypes of scientific laws.
The third factor is the advent of coins, which promoted the abstract thinking of the ancient Greeks. The ancient Greeks Chinese ming were most developed by the "Ionians" city-states on the eastern coast of Greece and the western coast of Turkey. In the 7th century BC, in the western part of present-day Turkey, the Lydians invented metal money. The concept that money is the same value scale shared by multiple goods seems to us today, but it was difficult to understand at the time, and the emergence of money undoubtedly dropped a brainstorming bomb on the ancient intellectual circles, so that people on both sides of the Aegean Sea had more abstract thinking to introduce science.
The currency invented by Lydia changed the human mind
There is a fourth factor, which is the methodology of witchcraft. Witchcraft is actually more "scientific" than religion, and wizards believe that whatever he does, he will receive what effect, although this effect is not often effective, and wizards do not know how to do experimental verification, and find that if they do not work, they will change witchcraft at will, but they always believe in the internal law of "doing one thing will lead to one thing", which is exactly what science needs.
Because of these factors, ancient Greece was the first and only to discover science in the world. But these factors themselves do not seem very mysterious.
With the prosperity of science and culture, the Greeks built up strong self-confidence, which made them dare to rise up against the invasion of the Persian Empire.
At that time, the Persian Empire, through the efforts of Cyrus, Cambyses and Darius, had occupied a vast territory from Thracace in Greece in the west to the Amu Darya River in the east, and almost the entire visible world (they were not well aware of the situation in East Asia at that time), and no one dared to oppose the Persian army. However, the confident and equal Greeks looked down on the Persians, and they rejected darius's intimidation, repelled darius and Xerxes, two generations of Persian kings, and achieved the miracle of winning more with less and more with small.
However, the Greek city-states were not monolithic, so many city-states had their own internal thoughts, and after the two most powerful city-states, Athens and Sparta, joined forces to repel Persia, a fierce infighting began, and the defeated Greeks in turn were able to use their powerful national strength and unlimited money to manipulate the internal politics of Greece, and controlled Greece in disguise.
After this, the Greek city-states, based on their politically difficult to integrate weaknesses, were called pawns of the surrounding powers, such as Persia, Macedonia, and Rome.
Philip II and Alexander the Great of Macedonia replaced Persia and took control of Greece, they were keen to learn Greek culture, they were Hellenistic barbarians, as representatives of Greece destroyed the huge Persian Empire, and then split into a number of Hellenistic countries due to Alexander's sudden death, which were finally destroyed by the Roman Republic. The Romans had political qualities that the Greeks did not have, up to how to build large states.
In this process, the Greeks evaluated their literary and martial qualifications, successively known as persian, Macedonian, Roman cultural directors or mercenaries, Greek culture continued to develop, but the ancient Greek era of equality, self-confidence and valuable spirit fell to the end, ancient Greek civilization finally came to an end.
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