【Paper sharing】Chen Cunfu: The definition of the concept of Mediterranean cultural circle and its significance

[Original source] Chinese Social Sciences (Beijing), No. 1, 2007, pp. 55-64

【About the author】Chen Cunfu, born in 1937, is a professor at the Center for Christian and Intercultural Studies of Zhejiang University.

【Summary】 The "Mediterranean Cultural Circle", which has the most historical status in ancient times and echoes the "Yellow River-Yangtze River Cultural Circle" and the "Indus-Ganges Cultural Circle", began in the two river basins of West Asia, then moved west to Greece, and then to Rome. By the Middle Ages, "Europe" and "Western culture" (European culture) in the modern sense had replaced the "Mediterranean cultural circle". The Mediterranean culture, which has a common quality in cultural types, is decomposed into: Arab culture with a predominance of Islam, and modern Western culture with Christianity and later. Although the "Mediterranean doctrine" has lost its cultural typological significance, the concept of the "Mediterranean cultural circle" helps us to understand the relationship between the cultures in the region and the differences as a whole from the other two cultural circles mentioned above; it helps us to interpret late Greek philosophy, to historically evaluate "European" and "Western culture", and to examine the "Arab world" and the "Western world".

【Key words】Cultural circle/Mediterranean/intercultural studies

Marked by the new edition of The Cambridge Ancient History (CAH), since the 1970s, a number of works and papers on Mediterranean regional culture have been published, including the study of dynastic history and national history, as well as the investigation of special histories of economy, religion, language and people. These treatises not only cite a large number of new historical materials, new archaeological excavations, and lead the study of history to depth, but also introduce emerging interdisciplinary theories and methods, the most notable of which is the comprehensive study of the ancient Mediterranean. On the basis of a comprehensive investigation of recent research on the Mediterranean world, this paper proposes and clarifies the concept of "Mediterranean cultural circle", discusses the relationship between the concept of "cultural circle" for the study of ancient cultures, especially for the study of the significance of "European" and "Western culture" in the study of late Greek philosophy and history.

I. A Survey of Mediterranean World Studies

In 2000, Columbia University established the "Center for the Ancient Mediterranean" (The Center for the Ancient Mediterranean), a multidisciplinary convergence. In September of the following year, an international symposium on the theme of the Mediterranean was held in New York. Participants and invited thesis providers came from scholars from all over the world in the disciplines of history, archaeology, religion, etymology and cultural history, economic history, and social history. In 2005, Oxford University Press published a publication by W. Bush. V. Harvis edited a collection of conference papers (including three invited papers) titled Rethinking the Mediterranean. In the preface and in his own paper, the editor says that in the second half of the 20th century many treatises on national and thematic histories occurring in the Mediterranean region were published, but "in a sense, we are only the beginning." As of 2000, no one had published a single book on the ancient history of the Mediterranean rather than the history in the Mediterranean, in other words, no one had written a book on the study of the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean coast. How to study the Mediterranean? ...... These issues still haunt us today. Can the Mediterranean world as a unity be established? If it is true, does it refer to cultural identity or to the broader category of anthropology? Or the existence of a "Mediterranean Ecology." Most advocate "cultural unity". If so, is there an isomorphism between cultures like Hebrew, Egyptian, and Greek? What regions and countries does the Mediterranean region include? Where is the lower limit of Mediterranean history? Before the Middle Ages? Until the Middle Ages? Or do you include modern times? If the lower bound is medieval, then there is a question of the relationship between the Mediterranean and Western and Arab cultures; if the lower limit is modern, then its political, economic, and military significance is far greater than its cultural significance. Most scholars believe that the Mediterranean as a whole should be examined (at least as a whole). Then this investigation or research and its results, as a framework of knowledge, are named "Mediterranean doctrine" (Mediterranean theory), or "Mediterranean Context", the Mediterranean Paradigm or just a "Mediterranean Reception", anything can be loaded into it. In recent years, the study of the Mediterranean has received much attention, and a number of institutes, magazines, monographs and websites have emerged. Some of them are mainly on the contemporary Mediterranean, such as the study of the Mediterranean domain in the post-Cold War period by the Mediterranean Research Society of the University of London; the International Mediterranean Research Group (The BISA Working Group on International Mediterranean) established by the British Association for International Studies (BISA) in 2005, which mainly studies contemporary European politics and the Middle East; and the Canadian province of Ontario, which focuses on ancient and modern." The Kingston Association for Archaeology and Mediterranean Studies, a mediterranean studies association jointly organized by the Canadian Institute for Mediterranean Studies of the University of Toronto, Canada, the University of Kansas in the United States, and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. The Mediterranean Studies Association focuses on the western Mediterranean culture from the near antiquity to the Renaissance; in addition to Columbia University mentioned above, there is The Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies in the Humanities School of the University of Pennsylvania. Institute of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies", Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, co-organized by the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom and the University of Michigan in the United States. The journal service company, based in Germany and New York, USA, reprints all or part of all kinds of journals for customers since its inception, of which 114 are the preferred journals for Middle Eastern and Mediterranean studies in English, and unfortunately only 7 in the ancient Mediterranean.

In summary, the international academic research on the Mediterranean is mainly concentrated in North America and Western Europe. Most research institutes and journals, while both ancient and modern, focus more on the contemporary economy, politics and military associated with the Mediterranean. Journals, in particular, mostly focus on the contemporary Middle East, the Near East, and North Africa. The study of the ancient Mediterranean, mainly archaeology, is mostly the study of regional history and special history that occurred in the Mediterranean region. Perhaps due to geopolitical or other reasons, China has so far not had an institution, journal or treatise devoted to any aspect of the history, culture, economy and politics of the mediterranean, both ancient and modern.

In the field of social history research, some overseas scholars are good at empirical investigation and case analysis, involving interdisciplinary and cross-cultural fields, and some attach importance to the creation and application of new theories, but because they despise or ignore Marx's materialist view of history, and even despise Hegel's view of history, and because of the influence of anti-metaphysics and empirical thought since the middle of the 19th century, many scholars do not recognize the inherent regularity of historical development and do not attach importance to the process of examining objects historically as a whole. In his later years, marx wrote down anthropological notes and historical notes that are still quite enlightening today based on the very limited materials at that time. Based on Grote's history of Greece, Engels expressed his unique insights into the evolution of the economic and political systems of Greece and Athens in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Today, the data conditions are so complete that the new edition of the Cambridge Ancient History has been doubled to 14 volumes and 19 volumes, but the overall theoretical thinking ability of the academic community has not been developed synchronously. China must change the extreme backwardness of the study of prehistory and ancient history in the Mediterranean region, cultivate a group of people who understand various ancient languages, master complete archaeological excavation materials, master cross-cultural and interdisciplinary knowledge, and the theoretical thinking achievements in the field of social history so far, and establish a "Mediterranean studies" with their own unique views.

I believe that although the Mediterranean world has an important political, economic and military status today, as well as a considerable place in the European Middle Ages, it is culture that makes up the important distinction between the ancient and modern Mediterranean. From the 5,000th century BC to the first century BC, a Mediterranean cultural circle echoing the Yangtze River-Yellow River cultural circle and the Indus-Ganges cultural circle was gradually formed in the Mediterranean region. The center of this cultural circle was first in Western Asia and Egypt in the eastern Mediterranean, and then moved west to Athens and then to Rome. After the fusion and collision between the Mediterranean cultures of hellenistic and Roman empires for nearly 800 years, the Mediterranean cultural circle was finally formed. The extent of this cultural circle is roughly consistent with the geological and geographical conditions of the Mediterranean, stretching from Pan-Mesopotamia and the Nile in the east, to the present-day French part of Spain, to the south of the North African coast, and to the north to the southern foothills of the Alps. With the westward expansion of the Arabs and the rise of the Islamic movement, as well as the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and the establishment of the Frankish dynasty, the Alps lost their geopolitical boundaries, and the Mediterranean cultural circle was replaced by the successor Arab cultural circle and the Christian ideology of European culture (or "Western culture"). Therefore, the Mediterranean of the "Philip II" era mentioned by Braudel, the Mediterranean of the "Renaissance era" that other scholars say, the "Mediterranean of the Middle Ages", the "Modern Mediterranean", the "Mediterranean of the post-Cold War era", etc. have long belonged to another category culturally. There is no unified cultural circle in the contemporary Mediterranean world, and what is valued by the world is its economic, political and military status.

At the heart of this insight is the "Mediterranean cultural circle" in the above sense, and our argument revolves around the formation of the Mediterranean cultural circle.

Second, the formation of the Mediterranean cultural circle

Whether the concept of the "Mediterranean cultural circle" can be accepted by the academic community depends on the factual basis and theoretical proof of the argument. We use a combination of methods of genesis, typology, etymology, ecoculturalism, paleoanthropology, comparative religion, and cross-cultural studies to show that from the 5th millennium BC to the first century BC, the Mediterranean cultural circle did indeed form in history. Due to the length of the article, this article will not make a specific argument.

The Mediterranean Sea is at the junction of the Asian-African plate and the Eurasian plate. The author of the new edition of the Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 1, Volume 1, Chapter 2, K. W. Butzer describes the formation of the West Asia-Ring Mediterranean, arguing that it was formed during the Miocene (Tertiary Miocene), Pliocene (Pliocene), and Quzterary (Quaternary) eras, which were only about 30 million years ago. The authors say that "an in-depth study of the Mediterranean basin and West Asia, using the historical methods of contemporary ecology, is strictly speaking only the beginning." (p.95) French scholar Fermond Braudel said: "The ancient Mediterranean sea was much larger than it is now, and the intense and frequent fold movements of the Tertiary period greatly reduced the area of the Mediterranean." The Alps, the Apennines, the Balkans, the Zagros, the Caucasus and all these mountains emerge from the Mediterranean." Therefore, from a geogeographic point of view, it is possible to regard the two river basins of West Asia and the south of the Alps as components of the Mediterranean Sea, bounded by the Alps and Zagros, the Caucasus and the Iranian plateau.

In the Mediterranean region, the earliest form of habitable conditions and the first to enter the era of civilization were the two river basins that later generations called "West Asia", that is, the alluvial plain between the Tigris River and the Euphrates River. The Greeks called it Mesopotamia. It was formed between 20,000 and 10,000 BC, during the post-ice age, when the ice and snow melted from the Armenian mountains, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Iranian plateau. Archaeological data show that around 10,000 BC and 9 millennium BC, there were scattered settlements along the Zagros Mountains and the foot of the Iranian plateau in the Two Rivers Valley. According to excavations, since the 6,000 bc period, there have been fairly clear clues to the social and cultural development of this area. In 1930, archaeologists in Misopotamia proposed the staging framework of ancient Misopotamia that is still in use according to the types of ancient ceramics and the cultural content they contain, named the Ubaid period (5000 B.C.-4000 B.C.), the Uruk period (4000 B.C.-3100 B.C., which is divided into early, middle and late stages), the Jemdet Nasr period (3100 B.C.-2900 B.C.), Early Dynastic period (2900 B.C. - 2350 B.C., divided into three periods), Akkadian period (2350 B.C.—2100 B.C.), UrII period (2100 B.C.—).

From the 2,000th century BC onwards, several cross-dominating empires in Western Asia arose, mainly Babylon, Hittites, and Assyria, and at the same time, some powerful kingdoms at some time and in a certain region, such as Lydia, media, and Phoenicia. In the 2000s BC, Egypt entered the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom, competing with the powers of Western Asia. In the struggle for hegemony among various ministries, countries and regions, this region has changed hands several times, and the cultural and linguistic aspects have penetrated and absorbed each other, accelerating the integration of Eastern Mediterranean culture.

At the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, Western European and North American scholars used new disciplinary theories and methods to organize multidisciplinary teams or engage in new archaeological excavations, or to collate and interpret excavated historical materials to discuss the relationship between cultures in the eastern Mediterranean region. For example, after World War II, Robert Braidwood of the University of Chicago organized a multidisciplinary team of archaeologists and natural scientists to study the interaction of economic organization, social activities and the natural environment in the Misopotamian region. In the 1960s, anthropologists focused on the study of cultural evolution in The Missopotamian region, especially on the social organization of urban and rural areas. The study of cultural evolution, as well as the study of cultural ecology, adopts a "cross-cultural comparisions" approach. They used Missopotamia as a case study and compared it to other regions. Henry. T. Wright and Gregoly Johnson studied the evolution of early states in the region of Missopotamia, applying concepts in management and information theory to the study of economic and political organization. Robert Adams combines cultural ecology with the analysis of political organization to study urban societies.

Norman Yoffee, professor of anthropology and Near Eastern history at the University of Michigan, wrote in Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations, Cambridge University Press, 2001) challenges the evolutionary view of the 19th and mid-20th centuries. This view holds that economically stratified and socially differentiated societies derive from undifferentiated societies, large densely populated cities derive from small settlements and villages, and class societies arise from communities with kinship structures. N. Yoffee does not deny the status and role of this view of evolution, but archaeological data on the formation of the earliest city-states in the ancient days of Missopotamia show that the size and division of labor of social groups depend on survival. Due to the ecological conditions of the periodic flooding of the Two Rivers basin and the Nile, often in a habitable area, without the traditional concept of "evolution", the settlement of a considerable number of people (cities) (see table 3.1 of the earliest countries mentioned in the text on page 43 of the book), they did not evolve from kinship, but for common survival and cultural identity, gathered under a "common symbol". "This common consciousness transcends politically independent states" (p. 44). The author cites two 1997 and 2000 collections of papers, The Archaeology of City-States: Cross Cultural Approches and A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures, to prove that the social organization of ancient Egypt was" Ecological aspects of the Nile Valley caused by the same environment" (p. 47). "The city-states of Misopotamia were multi-ethnic groups, with Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites, Kassites, Hurrians, and many other social groups of other names. Their names were more related to language than to race, and strictly speaking, they all lived in the city-states of Missopotamia. (p. 49) This is an important reason for promoting the cultural identity of the Two Rivers Basin and Egypt.

Multi-ethnic groups live in the Two Rivers basin and the Nile Valley for survival, promoting the integration of languages and cultures.

The early history of the Eastern Mediterranean region played a major role in two language families: Hamita-Semite (or Afro-Asian), Chinese named Hammit-Semim or Afro-Asian; and the other was the Indo-European language family or Indo-Hittite( Indo-Hittite). Indo-European languages include European, mainly Greek, Latin, Germanic, Celtic and Eurasian (mixed Asa-European), mainly Slavic, Sanskrit, and Persian. Afro-Asian consists of five branches: Semitic, Old Egyptian, North African Native (Berber), Gushitic, Chadic, and Hausa (a black language in Sudan). Of the two major language families, it is mainly Asian and African. Among them, flash language is the mainstay.

Semitic language is comprehensively analyzed according to regional, ethnic and linguistic standards, and can be divided into: 1. Northeastern Semitic language, including Akkadian and Babylonian. 2. Northwestern Semitic languages, of which there are mainly two branches: one is cananitic (Canaanic), including the Old Scripture Hebrew, and Phoenician. The second is Arabic (Aramaic) and Syriac and Anamaean.

In this vast region, in the history of nearly three thousand years, there are traces of mutual absorption and mutual influence between the two major language families and the various branches within the two major language families. Ancient Egyptian, which is also an Afro-Asian language, is related to Semitic. Indo-European languages also underwent a process of convergence in Western Asia. Three common roots (roots) were formed before and after: Nasi- (Hittite), Lu(w)i- (collectively known as luwian), and Pala-(hitherto unknown) (a native language of Asia Minor that is still unknown).

Language is the house of existence. The fusion of languages indicates that the Eastern Mediterranean House is taking shape. However, the convergence of language depends on the intercourse of the speaker, and the breadth of man's intercourse in ancient times depended mainly on horses and rivers. Horses and rivers played a major role in ancient societies and ecological cultures. Whoever first learns to use galloping horses will be the first to become a nomadic people and enter the agricultural and cultural area. Whoever first learns to use rivers and bays has control over sea lanes. Archaeological data prove that the inhabitants of the Two Rivers Basin in the Neolithic Era have long learned to sew sheepskin bags together and coat them with asphalt as a means of navigation, ranging from as little as ten to more than a hundred. The Sumerian cylindrical seal from 4000 BC depicts a simple ship. Around 3500 BC, papyrus boats were found on the Nile in Egypt, followed by wooden boats. The Egyptians knew how to cross the sea to lebanon today to harvest high-quality wood to build ships. During the middle of the 2000s BC and the new kingdoms, Egypt competed with Assyria and Syria for sea lanes, and for a time controlled the area around present-day Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Greece's appearance in the Mediterranean began with the West Asians moving from the sea to Crete, followed by two Aryan groups descending from the Caucasus on horseback. The prehistoric cultures of the early Cretan civilization and coast were created by The Perasgi people, the inhabitants of West Asia, and the indigenous peoples. The excavated artifacts and linear script A belong to the Language Family of West Asia and cannot be read since then. From 2100 BC to 2000 BC, the Achaeans entered the Peloponnese And established the Mycenaean civilization dominated by the Mycenaean region, which was the creation of the true Greeks. The first generation of Greeks, the Achaeans, entered the Cretan Peninsula at the beginning of the second millennium BC (around 1800 BC). After World War II, Ventris read the linear B, which proved to be a Greek script. The Trojan War, waged by the Achaeans, lasted 10 years and ended with the destruction of the Trojans around 1183 BC. However, Greece did not rise because another Aryan race, the Doris, entered the Peloponnese from the Caucasus mountains and drove the Achaeans to the sea and the hilly attica. Greece entered the so-called "Dark Ages" for more than three hundred years. I participated in the introduction to the first volume of the History of Greek Philosophy, which I followed the words of Western scholars, believing that the nomadic Doris had destroyed the developed Mycenaean civilization. Now, we have the basis to supplement and revise the traditional sayings. Many of Mycenaean material and cultural products were destroyed. But the intangible culture was passed down from the Achaeans. Linear B, folk myths and legends are all important resources for later Greek culture. Mycenaean culture in general was interrupted, not only because of the destruction of external forces. The fragility of the Mycenaean civilization itself was an intrinsic basis for its inability to withstand setbacks. The reason why the Doris entered Greece for more than three hundred years of "darkness" is that nomadism and agriculture are not like in the vast and fertile West Asia, and there is no possibility of exploitation in the Greek peninsula. They all lived separately and remained unchanged for many years. Therefore, under the condition that ancient ecology played a key role in culture, it was impossible to grow a brilliant agro-ecological culture here.

The way out is still by sea. The Achainians, who had retreated to the sea and attica, used the small islands scattered in the Aegean Sea to associate with the Asians minor on the other side. Ecological determinism is wrong. People's use of the ecological environment depends on the development of human production and cognition. The Achaeans and Doris ignored Attica and went straight to the Peloponnese, for no one knew the treasure at that time. Attica is full of grapes and olives. The soil there is the finest material for natural pottery. The Doris people saw it as a strange shaped stone for the speeding of the obstacle horse, and it turned out to be granite that was far superior to the clay of the Two Rivers Valley. It was only after the Achaeans engaged in maritime trade and learned knowledge and skills from West Asia that Attica, where Athens was located, became another "Garden of Eden". Thus the Dionysus of Asia became the Greek Dionysus, and the oil presses of Asia Minor blossomed everywhere in Attica. A variety of pottery fired from attica's fine soil is shipped to the Mediterranean coast with olive oil and wine. Architectural and sculptural techniques originating in West Asia can now be put to life. No wonder Aristotle, when it comes to material and form, always likes to cite sculpture and architecture as examples. Attica also has the highest purity reserves and easy-to-mine silver mines. The silver coins of Athens later became the world's currency, which was loved by all over the world. In this way, the Achaeans, based on an open industrial and commercial economy, and the Doris, based on a decentralized agrarian economy, found a point of convergence in the city-state system. Thus, from the end of the 9th century BC, the Greeks came out of the "Dark Age" and entered the era of city-state system and foreign colonization. West Asia and Egypt moved from city-states to centralized empires. On the contrary, on the northern shore of the Mediterranean, the region that came to be known as Europe, a city-state democracy related to the culture of the eastern Mediterranean but distinctively characterized was formed. Of course, institutional civilization is only one level, one aspect of culture. The Greeks were proud of the city-states, but not of democracy. Plato, Aristotle, and a considerable number of philosophers and city-state rulers saw democracy as one of three "previation" forms of government. The core of Greek culture and greek national spirit is the moral ethics and political ideas behind the political system, as well as the deep physical and mental pursuits and values of the Greeks. They advocated both sports and wisdom; they created the Olympic Games, which began in 776 BC and were held every four years, and they also created the philosophy and concrete science of the disciplinary form, as well as the epic, tragic, comedy, lyric poems, banquet poems, carols, sculptures and architecture that cultivated emotions. This is the characteristic and essence of Greek culture, and it is also the place where it originated in West Asia and Egypt and is higher than the "teacher".

The Greeks also made two special contributions to the formation of the Mediterranean cultural circle. One was the colonization movement that pushed the developed eastern Mediterranean culture and Greek culture westward, over southern Italy and Sicily to Marseille in present-day France. Second, through the Hellenistic movement, it promoted the great integration of Mediterranean regional cultures. Alexander of Macedon led 43,000 infantry and 5,500 cavalry on a expedition to West Asia in 334 BC, took control of the Euphrates River in 333 BC, conquered Egypt in 332 BC, conquered Persia from 331 BC to 330 BC, and crossed the Indian Kush to Bactria in the spring of 329 BC. Thus the Mediterranean cultural circle extends eastward to the Indus river boundary, bordering the Indus-Ganges cultural circle. Alexander's "Hellenization" expanded the influence of Greek culture in this vast area. But the spread of culture is not like economic plunder and political control. Culturally backward peoples who ruled the advanced cultural regions by military force were assimilated by the occupiers (e.g., the Northern Wei and Qing dynasties in China, the Goths who destroyed Rome). Culturally advanced nations, when they occupy equally developed areas, often form a phenomenon of cultural regurgitation. The period of "Hellenization" from the end of the 4th century BC to the 1st century BC can be said to be the largest and longest-lasting cultural regurgitation process in history. Especially at a time when the Greek city-state system was in decline, the traditional values of the city-state as the center of life were challenged, and the spiritual sky of the Greeks was in crisis. Contrary to the subjective aspirations of the initiators of "Hellenisticization", the regurgitation of culture exceeds the external influence of Greek culture. It is important that the formation of the Mediterranean cultural circle was not a one-way movement that pushed the civilization of West Asia and Egypt to the west through the colonization of Phoenicia and Greece. At the same time, through the two-way circulation opened up by "Hellenization", the culture of each region transcends the regional limitations and the national limitations of the original culture, and moves towards the integration of culture. The most typical of these is the Hebrew culture. Judaism is limited to Jews. Jesus and his disciples broke through the confines of traditional Jews and claimed to be the "light" and "salt" of the whole world, intending to be sprinkled on the whole world, which was formed under the influence of the mediterranean cultural fusion. That is why there was the later apostle Paul and the Jewish philosopher Philo, and there was the New Testament and patristic philosophy in Greek. This is no longer a Palestinian territorial phenomenon, but a religious and cultural phenomenon in the Mediterranean.

"Hellenization" also cleared the way for the Roman Empire to unify the Mediterranean world and eventually form the Mediterranean cultural circle. There are three theories about the origin of Rome since ancient times: one was a city-state built by the Greeks, the other was a city-state built by the Etruscan people, and the third was built by a combination of two heroes of the ancestral lineage of the gods, Aeneas of Troy and Romulus of the Latin Plain. After the 3rd century BC, Rome accepted a third theory: "The Romans decided to become Trojans, knowing that they would gain the support of other Latin villages." The Roman poet Virgil suited the tastes of the Romans and wrote the epic poem of Aeneas. After the fall of Troy, the hero Aeneas led the remnants to flee to the Plains of Latinum, where they merged with the local Latino people and became the ancestors of the later Romans. The two sides quarreled over names, costumes, languages, etc., and the goddess Juno, who represented the Trojan side, agreed to stop arguing with Cupid, "The Latins did not change their names to become Trojans, nor did they change their dress and language." "Their country is called Latium." This mythical story illustrates the relationship between West Asia and Rome.

The Romans controlled Greece and Macedonia through three Macedonian wars (214–205 BC, 201–197, and 171–168 BC). The eastern Mediterranean was controlled through the War of Syria (192-188 BC). Its fierce rival was Carthage, founded by the Phoenicians in present-day Tunisia, and its power developed to present-day Spain. The Romans called it "punic". It took three Punic wars (264–241, 218–201, and 149–146 BC) to be destroyed by Rome. Since then, the Mediterranean world has become the "inland sea" of the Roman Empire.

However, a unified empire does not necessarily have a unified culture. The fundamental reason why the Roman Empire was able to contribute to the formation of the Mediterranean cultural circle was that it was good at reconciling and eclectic from the republican era to the imperial era. This people began by reconciling the various Indo-European tribes of the Latin Plain, and later merged with the Etruscans, who entered Italy in ancient times. Through the Etruscan people, who were deeply influenced by Greek culture, they recognized and respected Greek culture to the point of total absorption. Every time it conquered a nation or a region, it invited the gods who symbolized the culture of the region and the nation into the "Pantheon" of Rome. This is incomparable to many conquerors of ancient and modern times. The conquered succumb to the might of the conqueror, while the culture and national spirit remain. Both alchemy and religion from the east could spread to Rome itself. Christianity also spread to Rome itself in this context. The Romans completed the transition from tolerance to integration, and finally in 392 they made Christianity the state religion. Due to the regional cultures formed in the history of the Mediterranean region (Sumerian civilization, Akadian civilization, Babylonian civilization, Egyptian civilization, Hebrew civilization, etc.) increasingly transcend the boundaries of regions and peoples, and become more flexible and malleable in cross-regional and cross-cultural exchanges; due to the cultural openness and tolerance of greece and Rome, the Mediterranean region with the same ecological background has formed a Mediterranean cultural circle with its own characteristics and common qualities that can be absorbed by each other. This is the basic conclusion of this article", "Reflection on the Mediterranean".

Iii. The Academic Significance of the Mediterranean Cultural Circle Thesis

Viewing the Mediterranean Rim as a cultural circle has new implications for our study of the history, philosophy, religion, and even contemporary Eurasian and African politics and economy of the region. There are only two examples to choose here.

(i) Historical assessment of European and Western culture

Due to the hegemony of the powerful culture and discourse of the contemporary West, people often mistakenly think that there has been a concept of "Western culture", "Eastern culture" and "Far East, Middle East and Near East" since ancient times, and that Europe has had a unique position since ancient times. In fact, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, the first region to enter human civilization is the Mediterranean region of The Western Asia Ring. Before the 9th millennium BC, the northern Alps were still in the late ice age. The earliest living quarter of the Aryans, the main ethnic group in Europe, was the Caucasus. Later, it spread around and became the ancestors of the Goths and Slavs, and the indo-Europeans of West Asia, the Achaeans and Doris of Greece, and the Indo-Europeans of the Indus-Ganges region. The name "Europe" probably originated from Greek mythology. Europa, daughter of the Phoenician king, was kidnapped by Zeus and hid in Crete. In order to escape the Phoenician king's pursuit, he moved to central Greece. The Greeks believed that east of mainland Greece, across the Aegean Sea, was Anatolia, where the sun rose. To the west is Europa, the place where the sun sets in the west and hides Europa. The Romans created another myth where Europa was deceived by Jupiter, who transformed himself into a white bull. The 16th-century Italian painter Titan of the Renaissance created the oil painting "Rob Europa" on this topic. At the end of the Middle Ages, Charlemagne the Great established the "Holy Roman Empire", his origins were in present-day Austria north of the Alps, and he also named the land he conquered Europe. Therefore, there is a historical process of using "Europe" to refer to the Urals, west of the Caucasus, north of the Mediterranean Sea, and on the eastern coast of the Atlantic. (11) Regardless of its etymology, in terms of its level of economic, political, and cultural development, until the Roman Empire, Transgaura and the Northern Part of the Alps were in the late tribal period. Ancient Europe: 8000B, published in 2004. C. to A. D. 1000, two large volumes of 1143 pages, subtitled interestingly: "Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World" (Uncivilized Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World). In the introduction, the editor says: "Our definition of the 'world of the uncivilized man' (or 'world of the barbarians') covers 9,000 years from 8,000 BC to 1,000 AD. This beginning and end point is not arbitrary, but carefully chosen. The starting point is marked by the end of the European Ice Age and the formation of modern climatic conditions. The end point was based on the spread of Christianity in northern and eastern Europe, as well as the establishment of many modern European countries. During these 9,000 years, European society underwent dramatic changes. (12) The book is first divided into six regions: Southeastern, Eastern, Central, Southern, Northwestern, and Southwestern Europe, and charts the level of social development in eight periods from 8000 BC to 1000 BC. It is not difficult to see that Europe at that time was quite backward, and it is no wonder that the editors called it "barbarian world". From the 10th to the 11th century, the Frankish dynasty was divided into three, laying the foundation of Germany, France and Italy, Christianity established ideological dominance, modern cities outside the manorial economy began to appear, and Europe began to move towards the heyday of the Middle Ages. After the Age of Discovery and the rise of cities along the Atlantic coast in the 15th century, the economic and political center shifted to Britain, the Netherlands, France, and later Germany, so that modern Western or European culture based on new economic relations replaced the historical Mediterranean cultural circle. After the formation of the Eurocentric conception set in the Age of Discovery, the concept of the Near, Middle East, and Far East replaced the "Oriental" conception of greece and Rome and even the Crusades. "Asia" is divided into West Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the east coast of the Aegean Sea and Anatolia region is called "Asia Minor". Contemporary people often use modern concepts to refer to these ancient regions, and readers mistakenly think that ancient Greece and Rome represent Europe; Alexander's Crusade, Rome turned the Mediterranean Sea into its own "inland sea", symbolizing Europe's strong position in Asia and Africa. This is contrary to history. The concept of "Mediterranean cultural circle" is conducive to modern people breaking the concept of Eurocentrism, and the junction of the "Asian-African Plate" and the "Asia-Europe Plate" is "around the Mediterranean" as a cultural circle connecting the three worlds of Asia, Africa and Europe. At the same time, it is also crucial to break through the framework of the history of world civilization published at home and abroad today, stand at the height of the advanced cultural construction of the world today, regard the evolution of global culture as a historical process, examine the history of the development of world culture as a whole, sum up the relationship between ancient and modern cultures, and put forward our own cultural development strategy for handling intercultural relations in the world today.

(ii) Late Greek philosophy outside the Greek context

Since 1981, together with Wang Zisong, a teacher at Peking University, and my brother,I have written a four-volume history of Greek philosophy, which has published the first three volumes of more than 2.6 million words. Volume 4 studies the philosophy of Hellenistic to Roman periods for more than 800 years, and if it is still set in Hellenic mainland like the first 3 volumes, many phenomena cannot be explained, and many texts will be interpreted differently. If examined in mediterranean cultural circles, many of the philosophical events that occurred in late Greece and Rome can be reasonably explained. For the cultural center of the Hellenistic period was not the Greek mainland, but the Pergamum in Asia Minor and Alexandria in Egypt. Pagama is not only a strategic stronghold for hegemony by various forces, but also one of the three major cities in Asia Minor. Influenced by Babylon and Assyria, libraries beyond the school were first established. Alexander died in 323 BC, after which The Pagama remained a cultural powerhouse. After Aristotle's death in 322 BC, his school actually moved east to Asia Minor. Before his death in 288 B.C., Aristotle's disciple Theophrastes is said to have entrusted himself and his teacher's writings to Neleus, head of the school's library, back to his hometown of Scepsis in Asia Minor, where he had been hiding for more than a hundred years.

Alexandria was a city-state based on the Athenian model, with citizens' assemblies, tribunals, councils, and laws similar to Athens. After all, this is not Athens, nor is it the Greek colonial era from the 8th to the 6th centuries BC. The number of people without citizenship, mainly Jews, Egyptians, far exceeds that of Greeks who have citizenship. They, such as the Jews, built their synagogues according to their own traditions, which became the meeting place of various cultural traditions. Ptolemy I (Macedonian general, Alexander's childhood friend) weakened the political meaning of the city-state, but highlighted its cultural status, and established the largest library of the time in Alexandria, which not only had the largest collection and variety, but also provided equal access for scholars everywhere. It is not difficult to understand why the major schools of greek philosophy in the late period were inextricably linked to Alexandria. The Stoic school replaced the traditional city-state ethics and city-state politics with "world citizen", "cosmic rationality", and "Punuma (cosmic fire)"; Epicurus and Lucretius used astrology, divination, and astrology as objects of criticism, all of which also had a Mediterranean cultural background. At the turn of the post-century B.C., the Jewish philosopher Philo created a metaphorical hermeneutic method in Alexandria, comparing the Hebrew scriptures with Greek philosophy, arguing that Plato's creationism was consistent with the Old Testament Genesis, thus opening the way for the fusion of the two Greek cultures. All of this is done in the context of Mediterranean cultural circles.

In the centuries that followed, three cultural phenomena were also explained in the Mediterranean context.

(1) Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-211/216, not to be confused with Clement of Rome, Clement of Flavius) and later Origen (184/185-254/255), two scholars of Greek cultural background, converted to Christianity, founded the Alexandria School, and advanced the Greek Godfathers. The Latin fathers used Greek philosophy to formulate the history of Christian doctrine. Alexandria became a gathering place for Judaism, Christianity, Manichaeism and the native religions of Egypt.

(2) Plotinos,207-269/270, who was born in Lycopolis, Egypt (another theory is Roman), but whose greek philosophy was the aim of Greek philosophy, went to Alexandria at the age of 28, studied under Ammonius Saccas there, studied for 11 years, moved to Rome at the age of 40, founded Neoplatonism, and did not do it himself, and his disciple Porphyry compiled it into Enneads (six groups of essays, Each group of 9 chapters, later known as the Nine Chapters), was followed by Iamblichus, who went to West Asia in 300 to establish the Syrian school with the aim of disseminating the teacher's teachings, and another successor, Aetius, who established the same nature of the Pacama school in 330. Disciples of the Neoplatonist Proclus returned to Alexandria in the 5th century to rebuild their school. This school was influential, and they maintained the Greek philosophical tradition without a single Christian language, but their practice of "one" (capitalized One, the only god) relied on "nous, mind" to create the world according to the paradigm of ideas, which coincided with the Christian creationism. The Latin godfather Augustine (354-430), who was born in Carthage, North Africa, transformed it into an orthodox doctrine that ruled the Middle Ages for hundreds of years.

(3) The influence of Aristotle and his school in Mainland Greece took a back seat, but was developed in the Arab world, and his writings were translated into Arabic and Syriac. From the 9th to the 11th century, Ibn Rusty, Ibn Sina published interpretations of Ashi's major works. It was later transmitted back to Europe through Spain, translated into Greek and Latin, and became the intellectual resource of Thomas Aquinas's reformed Christian philosophy. His interpretation and interpretation of 11 works, including Aristotle's Metaphysics, On the Soul, On the Heavens, and Physics, restored and elevated the status of Greek philosophy.

These three philosophical phenomena, together with the fact that the Greek cultural center moved outward to Pergamuma and Alexandria, are enough to show that these are phenomena of the Mediterranean cultural circle, not the Greek native phenomenon. (13) In fact, after the formation of the Mediterranean cultural circle, not only Greek philosophy, but also Eastern alchemy, astrology, divination, Egyptian religion and mythology, Jewish religious concepts represented by the Old Testament, as well as Persian Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and the widely popular Gnosticism, etc., have gradually become cultural phenomena in the Mediterranean, rather than the spiritual products of the region, the country and the people. Figures of different faiths and ideas travel back and forth, absorbing the fruits of different cultures, enriching their own opinions, and teaching their own doctrines or religions. Although each has different doctrines or beliefs, it does not hinder dialogue and exchange between them. Christianity also spread to Greco-Roman and North Africa in this context. If we use the concept of the Mediterranean cultural circle to explain the Hellenistic to the Roman Empire, why so many currents of thought, factions, and beliefs collided with each other in this vast area, and why the major schools of late Greek philosophy aimed at how to achieve peace of mind and spiritual liberation. The answer to why greeks and even Socrates disciple Xenophon were willing to act as mercenaries to Cyrus the Persians, Gentiles (such as Plotino, the founder of Neoplatonism), and freed slaves (such as Epictete, one of the representatives of the late Stoics), could become inheritors or innovators of Greek philosophy is only one: the evolution of Greek philosophy and Greek society is its internal basis, and the formation of the Mediterranean cultural circle is its external condition.

The Mediterranean Sea has been a wonderful sea since ancient times. The ancients could not imagine its size and shape, the Semitic people called it "very wide sea", the Greeks called it "vast sea". The Romans called it "our sea", and had some understanding of its size and shape, so there was the Latin "terra" (terra" (earth), medeo (middle, middle) compound word mediaraneus, and later Latin became the proper noun mediaraneum mare, translated as "sea in the earth" or "Mediterranean". (14) The world seems familiar, but it is also very strange. People seem to understand every aspect of it, but they feel that it is impossible to describe it in its entirety historically. No one dares to boast that this cutting-edge theoretical problem can be won in a few years, and we can only grope forward.

exegesis:

W. V. Harris (ed.), Rethinking the Mediterrnean. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 3; Preface, p. 5.

Ibid., see papers 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12.

Fernand Braudel, Archaeology in the Mediterranean: Prehistory and Ancient History, translated by Jiang Mingwei et al., Social Science Literature Publishing House, 2005, pp. 3-4.

Susan Pollock, Ancient Mesopotamia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 2, 20. There are differences between historians and archaeologists on the details and chronological boundaries of the periods. For detailed chronology of the West Asia region: CAH, vol. 1, part, 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, pp. 997—1001, vol, 2. part, 1,1973, pp. 820—821。

See Susan Pollock, Ancient Mesopotamia, Introduction, Section 3, "Theoretical Framework".

See CAH, vol. 1, part, 1, Ch. 4. § 3; vol. 1, part, 2, Ch.27 "The Great Migration from the North".

The new edition of the Cambridge Ancient History is used here (see CAH, vol. 1, part, 1, p. 246）。 In the 2006 edition of The Trojans and Their Neighbors, Hittite historian Trevor Bryce argued that Homer's epics did not correspond to historical facts, and that in fact Troy died in 1050 B.C.-1000 B.C. (Trevor Bryce, The Trojans and Their Neighbours, London and New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 189—194)

See also CAH, vol. 3, part, 3, Ch. 37 and the appendix "Catalogue of Greek Colonies Established between 800 BC and 500 BC" totaled more than 140.

CAH, vol. 7, part, 2, Ch. 3 , "The Origins of Rome", citation at p. 61.

See Virgil, Aeneid, Vol. 1 and The Ending of Vol. 12. For the quotation, see Loeb Classics Series (La-E), No. 64 Virgil, II.

(11) 参见Oxford Classical Dictionary. Third Edition, 1996, p. 574“Europa”, “Europe”条目；The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 18,2005, pp. 590, 605—619。

(12) Peter Bogucki and Pam J. Crabtree (eds.), Ancient Europe 8000B. C. to A. D. 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World, USA and UK: Thomson, 2004, vol. 1, p. 4.

(13) 参见The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Third Edition, 1996, pp.61—62“Alexandria”; pp. 1138—1139“Peramum”。 关于Alexandria的地位，参看论文集Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece. ed. by W. V. Harris and Giovanni Ruffini, Brill, 2004。

(14) Lewis and Short (eds.), A Latin Dictionary, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 1124.