Adams Media - History

Greece was the scene of much experimentation with government. The many tribes that had settled on Greek islands formed small, independent city-states, and most went through a political evolutionary process in which monarchies became aristocracies, then tyrannies and oligarchies (power of the few), and eventually the idea of democracy was born. Greek city-states were embroiled in conflict such as the Persian Wars (499 to 449 B.C. ) and Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 B.C. ) with only limited cooperation, for much of their history. Despite the toll of war, Greek civilization flourished even if the city-states could not maintain their independence. Their influence spread over much of the Western world to Asia and India under Alexander the Great (356 to 323 B.C. ), king of Macedonia. Having fought with nearly everyone for centuries, the remaining states fell to Roman rule in 146 B.C.

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History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. Napoleon Bonaparte

We still consider ancient Greece as a period in which learning and thought were newly elevated by many intellectuals including Sophocles, Euripides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Hippocrates. Hellenism, the term for the cultural influence and ideals of ancient, classical Greece, derives from the name Greeks gave themselves.

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Logic and the scientific method are two of Aristotles greatest contributions, but his interests covered many sciences, history, and political and literary theory. His work is vast, yet two-thirds of his original writings may have been lost.

The Middle Ages is a period in European history that dates roughly from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the fifteenth century. The Early Middle Ages saw a decline in population as the influence of Rome decayed, unable to protect citizens from increasing barbarian invasions. Many of the improvements that the Roman Empire had introduced, such as water-supply systems, efficient agricultural methods, roads. and shipping routes, fell into disrepair.

While the Middle Ages are sometimes referred to as the Dark Ages and generally considered a period of cultural oppression, ignorance, and the physical suffering of subjugated peasants, this era is now considered to have set the stage for the idea of a modern Europe. Indeed, a period lasting a millennium and undergoing such radical changes in leadership and social pressures must have produced some positives.