Clues to the development of ancient Greek culture and important characteristics of each period

First, the formation period, 800-500 BC

In the12nd century BC, with the invasion of Dorians, Greece fell into the "dark age" (see Chapter VI and Chapter IV). During this period, Greece was dominated by agriculture, with tribal system and aristocratic politics, and its activities were limited to the Aegean region. By the end of the 6th century BC, all this had changed. Tribal organizations gave way to polis; Other social classes rose to challenge the aristocratic class; Industry and commerce began to play a major role; Greek colonies gradually spread all over the Mediterranean coast. All these developments constitute a comprehensive transformation of the Greek world in its formative period, which paved the way for the later classical era.

The geographical features of Greece are a basic factor contributing to these developments. Greece is not rich in natural resources, nor can it find fertile river basins and vast plains, but only by possessing these natural conditions and developing and utilizing them reasonably can it support the complex imperial organizations established in the Middle East, India, China and other places. In the coastal areas of Greece and Asia Minor, there are only endless mountains, which not only limits the improvement of agricultural productivity, but also divides the land into small pieces. Therefore, the Greeks, the natural geopolitical center that can be used as the basis of regional merger, do not exist. After the invaders invaded, they settled in the isolated village. These villages are usually located near the easy-to-defend highlands, because the highlands can not only set up temples to worship gods, but also serve as shelters in case of danger. These settlements expanded from villages are generally called "city-states", while the places that provide refuge are called "Acropolis" or "High City". City countries are usually strategically located near fertile soil or commercial roads, thus attracting more immigrants and becoming major cities in the region. Many small city-states are formed in this way, isolated from each other, full of vitality and independent.

At first, these city-states mainly depended on natural agriculture, grazing and fishing for a living. However, by the early 8th century BC, this self-sufficient economy was destroyed by a dense population. Farmers who are eager for land have to go out to sea to be pirates, businessmen or colonists, or, as often happens, both. By the 5th century, the whole Mediterranean region, including the Black Sea, was surrounded by prosperous Greek colonies, which became overseas city-states exactly the same as their home countries (see Chapter 7, Section 2).

These developments caused a chain reaction, which eventually changed the whole Greek world. The colonial department sent all kinds of raw materials, mainly grain, to overpopulated Greece. In return, it got wine, olive oil and finished products, such as cloth and pottery. This trade has made Greece's own economy develop rapidly. Greek soil is more suitable for olive orchards and vineyards than wheat fields. Because the rocky hillside can be used to grow vines and olive trees, the cultivated area of the land has greatly increased. Therefore, turning to commercial agriculture will increase the population that can be fed by two to three times compared with the previous natural agriculture; In addition, it has greatly promoted the development of manufacturing industry, which can be seen from the excavation of a large number of Greek pottery, not only around the Mediterranean, inland, in central Russia, southwestern Germany and northeastern France. At the same time, the Greek merchant fleet has also achieved great success in transporting goods back and forth. At that time, goods and luxury goods were completely different and huge. This is the first time in history to transport and sell them nationwide on such a huge scale.

In the 6th century, the reform movement was greatly strengthened. This is because the aristocratic cavalry, which used to play a decisive role in the battlefield, has been replaced by armored and heavily armed infantry, that is, heavy armored soldiers. Heavily armored infantry, with a shield in the left arm and a spear in the right hand, arranged in a solid phalanx with dense team reports, kept pace in combat, so they could be defeated by dense formations when confronting invincible cavalry in the past. This new thing not only disintegrated the military foundation of the aristocratic regime, but also improved the status of independent farmers and craftsmen who could equip themselves into the phalanx and strengthened their influence.

Economic reform and military reform have led to corresponding political changes. In the dark ages, the city-state began to implement monarchy, and then gradually turned to aristocratic oligarchy. By the 7th century, the polis had been ruled by a dictator called a tyrant. These ambitious leaders are generally of noble birth. They support the people's demands, thus winning their support and personal rights. The word "tyrant" refers to those who rule without legal power, and they will not feel morally condemned. In fact, tyrants usually support civilians against the privileged class and often accelerate the arrival of democratic politics, but this is not always the case.

Sparta in the southern Peloponnesian Peninsula is a typical example of the development trend of other Greek city-states. About 100 BC, Dorian, the ancestor of Sparta, invaded the fertile Orotas Valley, turning the aborigines into slaves, so they were called Helos. In the late 8th century, Spartans conquered the fertile plains of nearby Melcer, thus eliminating the need to expand overseas. However, the price paid is heavy and inevitable. Sparta can't enjoy the economic and intellectual improvement brought by foreign exchanges, and can only live a rarely changed agricultural life. Moreover, in order to control a large number of residents under our jurisdiction, we have to organize our country like a military camp.

During this period, the Athenians developed a completely different society. The Athenians were not a group of invaders who camped among hostile residents, but boasted that they were indigenous to Attica. Like the Greeks in other city-states, the monarchy was implemented at first, and then it gave way to oligarchy presided over by nine consuls. These nine consuls are the main consuls, all of whom belong to the nobility. However, unlike Sparta, Athens later developed towards democratization. The rapid development of trade has created a powerful middle class, which has joined forces with farmers who have lost their industries and demanded political self-reform. Solon's measures to alleviate social pain were simple and severe. He returned all the land ownership lost by the debtor to the debtor, liberated all the civilians who became slaves because of debt, and banned debt slavery forever. In the political field, for the first time, civilians without property were allowed to participate in the citizens' assembly, but the power of the citizens' assembly was still limited. In addition, it is also stipulated that wealthy businessmen can serve as consuls; It also established a new and more popular jury court to replace some of the powers of the aristocratic Supreme Court. In a word, Solon's contribution is that he laid the foundation for the establishment of the famous Athenian democracy in the future.

Second, the classical era, 500-336 BC

Rickery declared at his famous memorial service to the Athenian soldiers who fell in the battle with Sparta in 43 1 BC: "Our city is open to the whole world. ... Athens is a Greek school. " This boastful remark is completely correct. In the 5th century BC, Athens eclipsed Sparta and all other Greek city-states. This is the golden age of Athens in Pericles, and it is synonymous with the golden age of classical Greece.

Athens was able to occupy a dazzling position at that time because it played the most important role in the process of defeating the huge Persian Empire. In addition, it is also related to the Athenians' lucky discovery of Laurian silver mine shortly before the Greek-Persian War. After they got this wealth, they decided to build a navy and built more than 200 latest three-layer paddle warships. This fleet played a decisive role in the subsequent war.

The root of the struggle was that the Persians conquered the Greek city-states in Asia Minor in the middle of the 6th century BC. The Persians violently interfered in the internal affairs of these city-States, which led them to launch an uprising against Persia in 499 BC. They turned to the Greek polis for help and got a positive response. To some extent, this is because the external expansion of the Persian Empire is crossing southern Russia and threatening Balkan countries from the north. Although the city-state of Asia Minor was aided by the navy across the Aegean Sea, it was conquered by the Persian Empire in 494 BC. Then, the Persian emperor Darius decided to punish the Greeks for their stubborn resistance. He sent an expeditionary force to the marathon in northwest Athens in 49O BC. Although the Athenians were almost alone because of the hostility between the polis, their phalanx dealt a heavy blow to the invaders and greatly improved the morale of the Greeks. Historian Herodotus wrote: "among the Greeks, those who saw Persian costumes and people wearing Persian costumes dared to deal with them bravely were the earliest;" Before that, the Greeks were frightened when they heard the names of Persians. "

Ten years later, the Persians made a comeback, gathering much more troops than ten years ago, this time by land from Thrace and Thessaly. A mixed army under the command of Spartans fought bravely to the death in the hot spring pass to stop the Persians. Although the Persians invaded and looted Athens, the Athenian navy defeated the Persians in the nearby Salamis Bay. When the Persians retreated from the Aegean Sea, the Greek joint fleet followed closely and won another naval battle. Soon, the Greek city-states in Asia Minor got rid of Persian rule in succession, and the Greeks became the victors of the largest empire in the world.

The victory of the Greeks had a great impact. First of all, the Greeks were rescued from the rule of oriental absolutism and were able to maintain their own characteristics and make their own unique contributions to human civilization. This is also recognized by Plato; He wrote: "If the common determination of the Athenians and Spartans fails to stop the imminent slavery, we may say that the Greek city-states are mixed, and the Greeks are mixed with barbarians. Their situation is almost the same as that of those peoples living under Persian tyranny. These peoples are torn or pitifully mixed together."

The victory of the Greeks, especially the victory of the Athenian navy, also promoted the development of democratic politics. Because the rowers who take part in the battle are citizens who don't have the financial resources to equip themselves to become heavy infantry, the role played by the urban poor in the army is even more important than that of the heavy infantry with property. This naturally strengthened the development of the democratic political movement. Democratic politics reached its climax in Pericles (46 BC1-429 BC).

Athens played an important role in the Greek-Persian War, which eventually led to the establishment of Athenian hegemony, while Sparta was still in a state of stagnation because of its fixed economy and was often threatened by heroic uprisings. Athens took the lead in uniting the Aegean islands and the Greek city-states of Asia Minor to form an alliance; Because the headquarters of the alliance was originally located in Taylor Island, it was called Taylor Alliance. The purpose of the alliance is to guard against possible further attacks by Persians, thus ensuring the security of the allies. In principle, all allies have equal status, and each participating city-state has only one vote when holding a regular meeting of the whole alliance. But in fact, from the beginning, Athens sent generals to take charge of administrative leadership; Allies without warships or unwilling to provide warships must pay tribute to Athens. Athens also gradually tightened its control over participating countries: the alliance treasury was moved from Taylor to Athens; Athens coins became the same medium of exchange; States that join the Union may not leave the Union. Therefore, by 450 BC, the Union had become an empire, and in the words of euripides, the power of Athens had "extended outward to the Atlantic Ocean" from Ionia.

Athenian imperialism is more enlightened and kind, which can be seen from the following facts: most of Athens' allies remained loyal to Athens until the Peloponnesian War really ended; Moreover, when they really launched a rebellion, they were all dissidents who advocated oligarchy, because the general public usually did not regard the Athens citizens' assembly as an oppressor, on the contrary, regarded it as a protector against their oppressors. However, due to the continuous expansion of Athens, it caused the fear of Sparta; Therefore, the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 43 1 BC was probably inevitable.

On the one hand, it is a maritime power, on the other hand, it is a land power. The war lasted for ten years. Although the Spartan army attacked Attica every year, it failed to break through the Great Wall connecting Athens and the sea, and it could not guarantee the supply of follow-up materials. The Athenians, on the other hand, suffered a severe plague in 429 BC, nearly half of the population died, and even Pericles died of illness, so they had to attack the coastal areas of the Peloponnesus at will. In 4 15 BC, Athens decided to send a fleet to Sicily to cut off the food supply of Sparta, and the result ended in a fiasco. Thucydides wrote: "The fleet and the army were wiped out from the surface of the earth, and nothing was preserved." As a result, the allies in Athens defected one after another, and the Spartans finally destroyed the Great Wall. In 4O4 BC, Athens was besieged, hungry and cold, and had to surrender. Athens only retained its status as a city-state, lost its fleet and empire, and even lost its self-proclaimed democracy because the victorious Sparta imposed a short-lived aristocratic oligarchy.

As a result of this devastating war, the whole Greek world fell into the plight of the poor and the rich, and none of the existing problems were solved. Sparta was overbearing, and Thebes and Athens formed a new alliance for mutual protection. In 37 1 BC, Thebes made the Spartans suffer their first military defeat in 200 years and ruled Greece for the next ten years. Then, bloody battles prevailed again, and the polis was once again swallowed up by the chaos caused by rapidly changing alliances and small-scale wars. The existence of this chaotic stage enabled foreign powers to conquer Greece and unify Greece by violence. In 335 BC, King Philip II of Macedonia defeated the combined forces of Thebes and Athens in Coronha. He deprived most Greek city-states of their autonomy, but he was assassinated in 336 BC before he could further implement the eastward invasion plan. His successor is his world-famous son Alexander the Great.

The classical era is over and the Hellenistic era is about to begin. Before discussing the Hellenistic era, let's stop and look at the civilization of the classical era; It is generally believed that civilization in the classical era is a great victory of human wisdom and spirit.

Third, the civilization of the classical era.

"The Golden Age of Pericles", "The Miracle of Greece" and "The Glory of Greece"-these are some exaggerated expressions that people usually use when referring to the 5th century Greek civilization.

In the future, we will see that this civilization has its shortcomings, but those excessive praises are understandable and most of them are deserved. Why is this? What is the basis of Greek "genius"? We can safely believe that the genius mentioned here is not a genius in the literal sense; Because Indo-Europeans who migrated to the southern Balkans are not genetically superior to those who migrated to the Middle East, India or Western Europe. Therefore, only by comparing the historical development of Greeks with that of Indo-Europeans who settled in other parts of Europe and Asia can we find the answer.

The results of the comparison put forward two explanations for the extraordinary achievements of the Greeks. First of all, the Greeks lived near the earliest centers of civilization in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and could benefit from the latter's earliest achievements, but they were not too close to maintain their own characteristics. In fact, the main significance of the Greek-Persian war is that the result of the war enabled the Greeks to do these two incompatible things at the same time and kill two birds with one stone.

Classical Greek civilization is not primitive civilization. Like all other civilizations, it has borrowed a lot from past civilizations, such as the Middle East civilization. However, what the Greeks borrowed, whether it was the Egyptian art form or the teaching and astronomy in Mesopotamia, was branded with the unique wisdom of the Greeks. These characteristics boil down to being open-minded, curious, good at thinking, eager for knowledge and rich in common sense. Greeks often travel abroad, in this respect, even businessmen, soldiers, colonists and travelers of other nationalities are dwarfed; When traveling, they always keep a skeptical spirit and a critical eye. They explore everything and move all the problems to the rational judgment seat for investigation. Plato wrote in the "Defense" that Socrates advocated that anything judged wrong by his own reason should not be thought about or done, even if it is forced by the authorities or any court, it should be resisted at any cost-"... An unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates also pointed out the importance of free debate to society. It is based on this view that he defended his life in the trial. This unrestrained freedom thought is unique to the Greeks, at least in terms of its universality and intensity. The secular outlook on life is also unique to the Greeks; They firmly believe that the most important thing for people to live is to fully express the personality of people here and now. The combination of rationalism and secularism enabled the Greeks to think freely and imaginatively about various issues concerning human beings and society, and to express their thoughts and feelings in great literary, philosophical and artistic creations. Their works are still eye-catching and significant.

These unique characteristics of the Greeks are clearly reflected in their religious thoughts and customs. The Greeks thought that their gods were actually very similar to themselves. The only difference was that they were stronger, longer and more beautiful. Believing in such a god, the Greeks felt that they lived in a world ruled by familiar and understandable forces, so they felt carefree and comfortable. The relationship between Greeks and gods is essentially an equal exchange relationship; The purpose of their prayers and sacrifices is to expect the gods to be kind to them. As Herodotus said, this religious relationship is maintained through "ordinary shrines and sacrifices" rather than through church organizations and religious beliefs. Although Homer's Iliad and hesiod's Divine Score outlined the popular religious thoughts at that time, Greek religions never systematically put forward the religious teachings of * * *, nor did they compile religious classics. Comparing Greek religion with Mesopotamian religion, this feature of Greek religion is very obvious. According to the Mesopotamian explanation of the origin of things, human beings were specially created by the Lord God to build temples and worship gods. Therefore, the responsibility of building temples and offering sacrifices actually constitutes the reason for human existence. This is quite different from the idea of the Greek philosopher xenophanes in the 6th century BC.

Religion in classical Greece is an integral part of city-state life, so it permeates all aspects of city life. It explains the material world, daily sacrificial activities and various social systems, and is also the main source of inspiration for poets and artists. Every Greek temple is the center of local culture and national culture. Many people specialize in developing a certain skill, more or less by accident. The miracle worker who first became a skilled doctor grew up in the activity of worshipping Aeschylus, the legendary god of medicine, on Kos Island. The famous Hippocrates is one of the most outstanding. His medical papers are extremely objective, and his diagnosis of each case is based on objective observation to avoid confusing the cause or treatment of the disease with witchcraft. When talking about the "sacred disease" sheep leprosy, he wrote: "I don't think this disease called" sacred disease "is more sacred than any other disease. Like other diseases, it has natural causes. People think it is sacred because they don't understand it. ..... In fact, everything is the same in this respect, and there are reasons to be found. "

Similarly, actors grew up in the worship of Dionysus Dionysus. They first performed the ceremony of worshipping Dionysus in a dramatic way, and then gradually created far-reaching tragedies and hilarious comedies. This kind of literature and art can only develop in Athens in the 5th century BC, which is unimaginable in other places. Every religious festival in Athens, the state pays to perform plays and organizes citizens to watch them collectively. The balance and normality of the development of Athens drama should be attributed to the close relationship between playwrights and audiences. Aeschylus staged his adaptation of The Persians in front of the citizens who won the Battle of Salamis. Sophocles often mentions the gods in his tragedies, but his main concern is not religious issues, but all kinds of people-noble and admirable people, those who face forces beyond their control, those who do evil and those who are severely punished. The heroic spirit of Oedipus who dares to endure hardships in the face of catastrophe is the essence of Sophocles' tragedy, which reveals the meaning of life to some extent and puts forward some problems that all people face together.

If Sophocles is not interested in traditional religion, then euripides is actively skeptical. He mercilessly described the shortcomings of God and satirized those who believed that God was brilliant. He is good at criticism, and he is a soldier who is fighting for the unpopular cause wholeheartedly. He supported the rights of slaves and foreigners, strongly advocated women's liberation and attacked the praise of war. This is especially true of aristophanes, whose comedies are full of social satire. He is a conservative who yearns for the good old days, so he laughs at the leaders and policies of the Democratic Party. In the play Lucie Trast, he described a group of women who were frightened by the endless killing and refused to share a room with their husbands until they gave up the war. In the play Knight, aristophanes mocked democracy by trying to persuade a sausage seller to take the side of the Democratic leader Cleon.

Greek art is also a unique product of city-state civilization. Because the temple has become the non-religious and religious core of city-state culture, art and architecture get the highest performance in the temple. These temples are the residences of respected male and female protectors. For example, the Parthenon, the holy place of the Acropolis, was built for the goddess Athena. Sculpture is the maid of architecture, and the temples of the gods are decorated with sculptures. Master sculptors such as phidias and Praxy Torres not only carved on the walls and triangular walls of the temple, but also created statues for the inside of the temple. Their works are very different from the realism of later Roman sculptures, and they are comprehensive, that is, they only emphasize the basic characteristics of proportion, rather than copying one model after another. Speaking of Greek sculpture; Nor should we ignore Greek coins, which provide some of the best examples of sculpture in this era. In a word, all Greek art embodies the basic ideas of Greek balance, harmony and moderation. This is even more obvious if we compare the Parthenon with the pyramids in Egypt, the pagodas in Mesopotamia, or the original Greek statues before that and the grandiose sculptures of all ethnic groups in the Middle East.

The same contrast obviously exists in philosophical speculation. On the nature of the world, the Ionian rationalist philosophers along the coast of Asia Minor in the 6th century BC first rose to challenge the traditional supernatural explanation. They asked a basic question, "What is the world made of?" . Thales speculated that everything originated from water, because liquid, solid and steam are all forms of water. Heraclitus believes that the starting point of everything is fire, because fire is very active and can be transformed into everything. Anaximenes holds that Qi is the starting point of all things. He thinks that when gas is diluted, it becomes fire; When gas gradually condenses, it becomes wind, clouds, water, earth and stone. According to modern science, these views seem simple, but what is important is that they ask questions and seek answers through the free use of reason, without asking for God's help. In the same way, the Greeks of this period also adopted the observation data of Egyptians and Mesopotamians in astronomy, and removed the astrological elements from them; Moreover, the latter's mathematical knowledge, which is still in the empirical stage, has also been absorbed and developed, making it have a very organized logical structure.

Around the middle of the 5th century BC, with the situation of Greek society becoming more and more complicated, philosophers shifted their attention from the material world to people and various issues related to people. This is especially true as far as the wise school is concerned. Its most outstanding spokesman is protagoras. He has a famous saying: "Man is the measure of all things"; What he means by this sentence is that everything varies from person to person, so there is no absolute truth in the world. Paying attention to people makes the wise send people to accuse slavery and war and support the cause of most people. On the other hand, many Greeks, especially those conservatives, are very concerned about the relativism of the wise, fearing that it will endanger social order and morality. Socrates is the main representative of conservatives. At that time, he was deeply worried about corrupt politics and the lack of any clear standard of living. He talked endlessly with his friends and developed a dialectical science, that is, he examined all existing viewpoints by asking and answering questions until a universally recognized truth was established. He insists that in this way, we can find ideas about absolute truth, absolute goodness or absolute beauty, which are completely different from the relativism of the wise, which has become an excuse for personal indulgence and moral corruption and will provide permanent guidance for personal behavior.

Plato, a disciple of Socrates (427-374 BC), was born in a noble family. He and his friends are proud of Athens, but they don't trust the people of Athens. When Athenian democracy sentenced Socrates to death, this distrust deepened and turned into hatred. Therefore, Plato's goal is to realize a society that can not only maintain aristocratic privileges, but also be accepted by the poor class. His Republic divides people into four categories: protectors, philosophers, warriors and working people. This classification is permanent; Plato used a myth as his theoretical basis, that is, "noble lies". According to this myth, these four grades were created by God with four metals: gold, silver, copper and iron. Plato had hoped that the ruler of Syracuse would accept his theory and put it into practice to realize his political ideal, but failed to do so, so he had to return to Athens and paint a group of disciples to give lectures for 40 years. He taught his disciples that everything in the world is an imperfect copy of the corresponding idea, so the whole real world is an imperfect copy of the perfect idea world. Plato believes that goodness is not an understanding of the ever-changing real world, but an understanding of the real world of ideas.

Another great thinker in this historical period was Aristotle (384-322 BC). He was a disciple of Plato at first, but after his teacher died, he founded Leisen College. Aristotle is a collector and rationalist, not a mystic; He is a logician and a scientist, not a philosopher. In order to establish his own theory, he absorbed all aspects of knowledge, covering a wide range of knowledge fields, which can be said to be unprecedented and unprecedented. His outstanding contributions are mainly in the fields of logic, physics, biology and humanities, and he is actually the founder of these disciplines. As a great encyclopedic scholar, he sought order in all aspects of nature and human life. He believes that in the whole nature, minerals are the lowest, plants are above minerals, animals are above plants, and humans are at the highest level. He corresponds all classes of human society to all levels of nature, thus proving that it is natural for human beings to be divided into natural masters and natural slaves. He said:

Some people are born to obey, while others are born to rule; ..... The Art of War is a natural art about acquisition, because it includes hunting; Dealing with wild animals and those who are born to be ruled but unwilling to obey is an art. This kind of war is certainly just.

When discussing classical Greece, Herodotus and Thucydides must be mentioned. They narrated all kinds of exciting events of their time, and in the process of narration, they created a new literary type-history. Herodotus lived among the Greeks in Asia Minor who had fallen under Persian rule, and later came to Athens, where the Persians suffered unprecedented defeat. Herodotus attributed this great victory of the Athenians to their democracy. Therefore, his book History is the first great ode to democracy. The moral of this work can be illustrated by a few words of a Greek he agrees with. When talking about their compatriots to the king of Persia, the Greeks said:' Although they are free men, they are not free in all aspects; The law is their master, and they are afraid that this master is more afraid of you than your subjects. They do what the law requires them to do; The legal provisions are consistent. The law forbids them to escape in the face of war, no matter how many enemies they meet; Ask them to be rock-solid when fighting, or defeat the enemy or be killed by the enemy. "

After describing the extraordinary achievements of the Greeks in so many fields, we must point out some shortcomings according to the usual practice. That is, women's social status is very low; Slaves are exploited; Although slaves and foreigners, that is, foreigners living in Athens constitute the majority of the residents, they do not have Athenian citizenship. These situations are all true, but they have nothing to do with the overall situation. The evaluation of classical Greece should be based on the actual situation at that time, not on the current practice, or worse, on utopian standards.

On the issue of citizenship, the Athenians, like all other Greeks, considered themselves a big family, and only people of the same descent could become citizens, and foreigners could not stay any longer. It is worth noting that although Hakkas are immigrants of their own free will and can leave whenever they want, many people still live in Athens for a long time and generously contribute their talents to the city where they adopted, which shows their satisfaction and loyalty to Athens to some extent. Similarly, although slavery has caused many bad consequences (which will be analyzed in the last book of this chapter), it is not as common as usually thought. The vast majority of citizens-two-thirds to three-quarters of citizens-have no slaves and live as farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers or sailors. It is often said that ordinary Athenians can go to the theater, hold public office and discuss philosophy and politics all day, because they have slaves to support them, which is unrealistic.

Classical Greece should be judged not by what it did, but by what it did. If this standard can be established, then the contribution of classical Greece and its historical significance will be extremely obvious and prominent. The spirit of free inquiry, the theory and practice of democracy, various forms of art, literature and philosophy, and the emphasis on individual freedom and personal responsibility-all these constitute the glorious legacy left by Greece to mankind.