Ancient Civilizations

Introduction

This paper discusses all about Ancient civilizations and allows us to study and glance back into the history books. Ancient civilizations are the cornerstone of the world as we know it today, built on the ruins of more than 10,000 years of advanced cultures such as the Roman, Greek, Mayan, Mesopotamia, Indus, Egyptian, and others that we know primarily through archaeology and some known records.

Although the civilizations mentioned above have their own culture, traditions, lifestyles, religion, social problems and epic monuments, there are some impeccable phenomenon are worth remembering. We will discuss 2 civilizations and see how they match up in terms of their charismatic anthropology and social traditions. (Gibb, pp. 158-362)

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is the kind of civilization that flourished at its peak during 6th to 8th century.

Ancient Greece is categorized further in to the following periods.

Archaic period

The Archaic Age (776-500 BCE. This was the period when there was a huge change in Greece. People moved from place to place and started to resettle the cities throughout the Greek mainland, which formulated into autonomous city-states. Although scattered, the Greeks had something in common to promote loyalty. They were of the same race, spoke the same language, worshipped the same pantheon of gods, held many of the same religious and national myths, and participated in pan-Hellenic cult centers located at Delphi, Delos, and Olympia. Monarchs, members of families of nobility, ruled the city-states at the beginning of the Archaic Age; however, tyrants (Greek tyrannoi) ousted the monarchs and were the primary rulers by the end of the age. In conjunction with, and in contrast to, the move toward tyranny was the extension of citizen rights to people outside nobility, usually expressed in the form of city councils.

Classical Greece

The Classic Age (500-338 BCE) was more a polishing of Archaic customs and traditions of a distinct age. War, both internal and external, prevailed this period. The Spartans, under oligarchic rule, won on land, and the Athenians, under democratic rule, won on sea. These differences in political ideology set the stage for a later clash between these two city-states and their allies. Furthermore, the defeat of the Persians was one of the most defining events of Western civilization, galvanizing a conflict between the East and the West that is still present today. (Joyce, pp. 379-384)

Hellenistic Greece

This period marked the end of the great era of Alexander the great, to the cancellation of Roman Public by the Greek in 146 BC. Although the formation of Roman rule did not actually break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the beginning of the Christianity, which correctly and justifiably marked the end of Greek political independence.

Social Problems

One of the most difficult propositions that stayed from the start of the Greek periods was their social problems. Although this wasn't a problem for roman as the Greeks never found this problem too urgent. The issue of slavery was something to ponder. They were the differences between the citizens and non citizens ...