Why Greece?

Ancient Greece's philosophy, science, and culture influenced modern civilization a lot because it was the inception of Western culture. The best demonstration of this is a quote by British philosopher Sir Alfred North Whitehead: “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato”.  Through Roman culture, the culture of Christianity and Islam, culture of the Renaissance we can see how the heritage of ancient Greece has influenced our world and how we feel and understand it. So it is interesting to see: why did ancient Greece play such a role? Firstly I would like to consider the deep reason for such a strong influence on the heritage of Ancient Greece: the desire of the ancient Greeks, even in things that seem strange to us now, to find some kind of logic and the desire not only to streamline knowledge but to try to find proof of this knowledge. As a result, Ancient Greece played a decisive role in the development of scientific knowledge and, in general, demonstrated a qualitatively higher level of rationalization. In our time it has become fashionable to criticize Western culture in the framework of post-colonial discourse, as something that was imposed on the conquered peoples, however, although it seems to me that the influence of this factor is now exaggerated due to political reasons, it cannot be denied that this factor is significant and I will consider it in this essay. Thus, the “conquering” factor made it possible to expand the territory on which the heritage of ancient Greece is known and studied, and the factor associated with a deep awareness of the importance of the rationalization of the ancient Greeks made it possible not to lose its importance even now.

Ancient Greece arose on the ruins of two even more ancient civilizations - Cretan and Mycenaean. The Cretan civilization was the world's first thalassocracy, it was a civilization that relied on its ships, and actively colonized the islands in the Aegean Sea and Cyprus. It was a relatively peaceful civilization - it is known in particular that they did not have protective walls. Why exactly here arose the first thalassocracy? The sea, mountains, and rugged landscape interfered with land travel, so the fastest way to travel was by sea, in addition, the sea was rich in fish and other marine life (in particular, Cretan frescoes often contain images of octopuses and dolphins) therefore bestowed on those who were skilled in navigation. In addition, the Cretans, as well as in the future, the Greeks actively participated in trade with all the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, in particular, a Cretan fresco was found in the city of Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos rulers of Egypt in that time.

However, the Bronze Collapse and the mass migration of peoples destroyed both the Cretan civilization and the Mycenaean civilization, which was mostly located in the Peloponnese. These catastrophic phenomena were so strong that in the territory of the future Hellas, writing (Linear A, Linear B) will be forgotten for a long time and will return only in the form of a modified Phoenician letter.

 Thus Greece enters the historical arena from the dark ages in which there was only an oral tradition that can be characterized by the famous Homer and Hesiod. It is interesting that, based on these oral traditions, it turned out that getting to the extreme points of the world known to the Greeks - the Pillars of Hercules and Colchis in those days was really a feat, but after a relatively short time, by historical standards, the Greeks began to trade and establish colonies even in those far from Greece places. Thus, the geography of the place in which the Greeks lived and their predecessors - the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization, influenced the fact that the Greeks became very skilled in navigation. In addition, the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization greatly influenced Greece in terms of culture, for example, the Greek columns associated with antiquity were adopted from the Cretans, who built using columns magnificent palaces.

Also, the geography of the place was an important factor in the lack of political unity in ancient Greece, due to the fact that due to the indented coast and mountains, it would be difficult for someone to unite Greece. Because of their small numbers, the citizens could agree on the form of government they wanted. However, it often happened that citizens did not have sufficient power, and power was seized by force. One way or another, these conflicts between ordinary citizens and the aristocracy gave rise to a variety of political forms that Aristotle would then outline - monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and ochlocracy. All these polises with various political forms of government competed with each other, thus there was no such thing as anyone force would force the recognition of the correctness of some idea by force throughout Greece, as was often the case in other countries of that time. In addition, geography also influenced the fact that in Greece there is very little land suitable for cereals, the basis of nutrition of that time, but the Greek stony soil was suitable for olives and grapes from which it was possible to make wine and olive oil, which was highly valued everywhere and thus could be exchanged them to cereals from the Egypt of the Middle East or the Greek colonies. On the one hand, this influenced the fact that to be craftsmen began to make more sense, and Greek amphoras can now be found everywhere, and this also influenced politics, because the craftsmen wanted representation. On the other hand, this created a high demand to establish more colonies, which were also often located near the sea and were not continuously inhabited, which provoked the creation of a polis system in them, as in the Peloponnese. 

The Greeks, colonizing many other lands, got acquainted with various cultures and technologies (for example, they learned anesthesia with opium from Ancient Egypt, before that they had to knock out the patient with a blow to the jaw), thus they could accumulate great knowledge about the world. For example, the knowledge of the variety of beliefs and how they are connected with the peoples who profess them allowed the Xenophanes of Colophon to judge that traditional religious views of his time were just human projections. Thus, following Karl Popper, I believe that exactly the political system of polises formed those public institutions in which it was important to speak correctly and fluently (rhetoric), the desire for wisdom (philosophy), and criticism of everything even the gods. A large number of craftsmen influenced the importance of practically directed knowledge. It seems to me that these three internal factors influenced why ancient Greece had such a strong influence on culture, science, and philosophy.

When we talk about the reasons that allowed the Greek heritage to develop "in breadth", it should be noted that the same colonies that helped the Greeks to know the world and trade were often used as starting points for buying or capturing slaves. And although in Attica the ratio between slaves and free citizens was approximately 1:3 (for comparison, in the countries of the ancient Near East, this ratio reached 1:10), it is clear that this allowed free citizens to spend a lot of time in the agora, participating in various symposiums in which and created the culture we love.

In addition, it should be noted that Greek culture and philosophy took their place in history through the creation of a single Hellenistic world that extended to the borders of India due to the conquests of Alexander the Great. It seems to me that an important reason for claims to capture the world of Alexander was not only the fact that he saw himself as the ancestor of the Greek gods but also his scholarship with Aristotle. It is not known for certain what exactly Aristotle taught Alexander, but I am sure that it was by studying with Aristotle that he would be fully imbued with the spirit of Greek culture and expand its influence to the east as far as he could. Having captured such gigantic territories, Alexander died, but Hellenistic states appeared on the ruins of his empire, led by the Greeks, in addition, it is worth canceling the colonization by the Greeks on the territory of the former Persian empire, which was so strong that it led to a significant depopulation of Greece. All this led to the fact that the life typical of the Greeks with the agora, symposiums, and philosophy could be seen even in distant Bactria. In addition, it is worth noting that Greek culture and philosophy will be associated with the Roman Empire and in general with the Western world, which, due to the fact that it colonizes most of the globe, will make influence of the Greek heritage worldwide.

It seems to me that in this essay I have revealed why the reason for the origin of Greek philosophy and culture arose not only because of slavery, which allowed citizens to lazy talk about various cool things (as marxists believe), and is not connected only with the conquests of Alexander Great and Western World, but largely tied to the geographical features of Greece itself and the prehistory of the development of civilization in this region.