Ancient Greek civilization laid the foundation of European civilization, and interestingly, contemporary Europe, like ancient Greece, is actually just a "confederation", although it is a whole.
We often say that ancient Greece was actually a regional concept, not a concept of state (empire), Athens, Sparta, Macedonia, Thrace, etc., were all (relatively) independent cities, and there was stable trade between cities, and if foreign enemies invaded, they would form alliances to resist together.
[1] Origins
The creators of the Mycenaean civilization began to migrate to the northern Part of the Greek Peninsula and Macedonia around 3000 BC, and these first immigrants became known as the "Akayas".
By the 13th and 12th centuries BC, the Mycenaean civilization was gradually declining, and according to the Homeric Epic, the Mycenaean civilization was destroyed by a famous war, the Battle of Troy.
The "Athens" we are familiar with, as one of the most shining lights of ancient Greek civilization, began in about the 9th century BC. Athens is located on the Attica Peninsula in Greece, with an area of more than 2,500 square kilometers, which is not a big place. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides and the sea on one side – facing the beautiful Aegean Sea to the southwest.
The geographical environment of Athens is naturally suitable for the development of the sea, the excellent port provides an excellent trade channel, and the Mediterranean climate makes it impossible for the ancient Greeks to suffer from severe cold.
[2] Glory
After the "enlightenment" of the reformer Solon and the "chaos" of tyrant rule, Athens finally ushered in its own "Pericles era". During the decades of Pericles' reign, Athens flourished politically, economically, culturally, academically, and intellectually, so it was called the "Golden Age", during which Athens slowly became the "big brother" among the ancient Greek city-states.
In The Ancient Greeks, Edith Hall, a British classical scholar, a member of the European Academy of Humanities and Natural Sciences, a professor in the Department of Classics at King's College London, and a professor at the Centre for Hellenic Studies, summarizes the reasons for the success of the Greeks as the "ten characteristics" of the Greek nation.
These 10 special qualities are: (1) good at navigation; (2) questioning authority; (3) valuing the individual; (4) intellectual curiosity; (5) willingness to accept new ideas; (6) intelligence; (7) strong sense of competition; (8) admiration for the talents of people of excellence; (9) good expression; and (10) pleasure.)
The Athenians, of course, are excellent interpreters of these 10 special qualities. We can even exaggerate that it was because the great voyages gave the Athenians these qualities, and these qualities in turn cultivated the unique character of the ancient Greeks, and also contributed to the ancient Greek civilization to a height that will impress future generations.
Questioning authority may trigger "lower restraint", but it can also help promote ideological progress, most notably democratic consciousness and various philosophies. And willing to accept new ideas, but also stimulated the progress of the entire ancient Greek society, the ancient Greeks are not a specific nation, can even be understood as a "melting pot of nations", compared to the Athenians, Phoenicians, Macedonians, Spartans, etc. Although they are members of the "pan-Greek circle of friends", they are considered "foreign peoples".
However, the Athenians were not exclusive, but were willing to integrate the national cultural ideas of multiple regions. In fact, speaking of this, there are many views that many of the ancient Greek civilizations were borrowed from the surrounding civilizations, such as ancient Egypt and the Two Rivers Valley.
In my opinion, this is precisely the embodiment of trade promoting exchanges – of course, war can also be.
Of course, the ancient Greek civilization was not cultivated in a day, and from not yet fully civilized to forming its own style, there must be a process of introduction, digestion and sublimation.
Of course, ancient Greek civilization was based on slavery, and because slaves took on most of the heavy work of daily life, the real Greek citizens (or "Athenians") had the leisure to think and enjoy.
The gods in ancient Greek mythology have a divine side and a more human side. At the same time, the ancient Greeks' appreciation and praise of the flesh, the pursuit and exploration of architectural form, the thinking of human rights (such as the "equality" between citizens and slaves), and even the "whimsy" of carnal desire (like the popularity of sexual feelings) can be included in the category of "pleasure".
Here we have to say that "Dionysian spirit". Athens has so many festivals and so many rich that they are even enviable to some extent. These festivals are often associated with myths and epics.
Epics shape heroes, myths create gods, in this regard, the Athenians understand the true meaning of faith, through a variety of gods and heroes related to music, sports competition, poetic art, tragedy, comedy, debate, etc. "competition", so that the gods really live in the heart of every ancient Greek, which produces a unified religious belief.
And the various "competitions" further boosted the spiritual quality of the Athenians and even all the Greeks.
However, this positive cycle necessarily has a zero-cut point of development, and its resistance is twofold: one from the inside and one from the outside.
The internal resistance was Sparta, which had a very different atmosphere from Athens, where everything was almost the opposite of Athens, which advocated freedom and peace, and Sparta embraced unity and violence. If Athens was a fashionable metropolis, Sparta was a backward countryside.
Of course, Sparta was also a slave city-state, with citizens almost all soldiers, and after the boy was 7 years old, he was sent to a dormitory for more than twenty years of military training to become a powerful warrior (killing machine). Until the age of 30, spartans could only marry and start a family. After that, spartans served in the military until they were 60 years old.
The conflict between Athens and Sparta, like whether rice dumplings are sweet or salty, and whether coriander is good or not, is essentially two irreconcilable values.
The external resistance was the massive Persian Empire. The Persian Empire wanted to expand, to see the Mediterranean Sea as an inland sea. All the way to the west, you will naturally encounter the Greek city-states. The famous Greek-Polish War actually has two paragraphs, and the content of the violent aesthetic film "Spartan 300" is actually the second Greek-Polish war.
The Greek-Persian War was fought fiercely, with the Spartan kings killed and Athens almost burned to a scorched earth by the Persians, as was the case with the two largest Greek city-states, not to mention the other small city-states.
However, the united Greek coalition eventually drove the Persians back to their hometowns, and after the peak of material and spiritual civilization, ancient Greece also reached a very costly peak in military competition.
[3] Decay
Like all dynasties, ancient Greek civilization flourished and then declined. And just as "all castles were breached from within", the beginning of the decline of ancient Greece began with the Civil War, the "fire merger" between Athens and Sparta.
Thucydides once proposed a "Thucydides Trap" view - "the real reason for the inescapable of war was the fear of the Spartans caused by the growing power of Athens".
Compared with the "classical democracy" of Athens, Sparta's urban atmosphere of advocating force is often stereotyped and conservative, and after the Persian War, when the whole ancient Greece turned into a kind of recuperation, Athens's adaptability and growth were significantly better than Sparta,and this kind of roommate between Athens and Sparta was not uncommon in the development of human civilization.
The reasons for the roommate are more complicated, and it is easier to understand on the table that before the Greek-Persian War, athens was a well-deserved big brother in the ancient Greek city-states, and Sparta was the second; after the outbreak of the Persian War, Sparta became the hegemon with strong military strength, and Athens condescended to itself.
Once this position is changed, the leadership of both sides will play their own calculations, and those who sit in the top position will certainly not want to come down, and the original boss will definitely want to seize power.
This relationship of "who controls whom" is first of all a contest of national character (ideas) and will, and then a contest of urban intelligence.
In my opinion, the city of Athens is a bit like the contemporary middle class. The advantage of the middle class is that it likes stability, and the disadvantage is that it "likes stability." As long as there are no accidents in the world, the whole Mediterranean sea is beautiful and peaceful, and it looks extremely friendly. If a wheat-colored girl fell into the water, the ancient Greek literati were estimated to be able to chant "Whose daughter is so delicate, why did she fall on a small bridge?" The green silk turns with the waves, and the powder surface turns the waves. Such words come.
In the event of an accident, then, the middle class would be plunged into extreme panic — the athenians' lives would collapse in an instant, and the friendly world would collapse completely. If the king of Sparta had not led a group of dead soldiers to sacrifice at the hot springs pass, I am afraid that the ancient Greeks might not have been able to bring out the long-lost blood.
The sense of crisis made the Athenians try to return to their peak, and the departure of the Persians made the two feuding city-states of Athens and Sparta finally put aside their opinions and decided to start a "world war", the Peloponnesian War.
The Peloponnesian War was a war between the Athenian-led Delosian League and the Spartan-led Peloponnesian Alliance—in fact, in form, it resembled the "Cold War" of the last century.
The war, which lasted for decades (431-404 BC), involved almost all the ancient Greek city-states, and as a result, Sparta won the final victory, but in fact, the city-states involved in the war burned away the capital for many years.
The Treaty of Nisias was a peace agreement between the two alliances, which was like the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, which only gave each other a temporary buffer time, after which Athens and Sparta had many wars (I will not talk about it here, too much content, too lazy to write), Athens was defeated, Sparta finally achieved a "relatively long", the good times were short-lived, philip II of Macedonia "quietly entered the village" and became the "last yellow sparrow" at the time of the ancient Greek city-states.
Of course, the last laugh is the ancient Rome, which not only fully accepted the land of ancient Greece, but also received the cultural ideas of ancient Greece. Interestingly, Rome, though a material conqueror, was spiritually conquered. Whether it is the Roman period, the Byzantine period, the Renaissance, or the modern period, we can "rediscover" the shadow of ancient Greek civilization from our side.
Ancient Greece did eventually decline, but it did not "die". As long as human civilization does not survive, the ancient Greek civilization should last forever.
[4] The Ancient Greeks read to the north
The copy of "Ancient Greeks" in my hand is a new edition published by the China Pictorial Publishing House in January 2022, in fact, in January 2019, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press has already published a version – let's call it the old version.