The Epic of Ancient Greek Civilization

Chapter Nine of Xianglong: The Prelude of Spring The Mythical Kingdom: The Glittering Aegean Sea—The Epic of Ancient Greek Civilization 🐬 Glory belongs to Greece, greatness to Rome. This phrase was the slogan I saw last May Day at the Suzhou Museum while appreciating the ancient Greek sculpture special exhibition from the British Museum. On this return trip, I made a special detour to the Hunan Museum, just to catch a glimpse of ancient Greece, a civilization as ancient as ours, with a splendid culture and a humanistic spirit that still influences us today. 🐬 The developmental process was similar; ancient Greece also slowly transitioned from a settlement form to a city-state nation form. From the Minoan civilization to the Mycenaean civilization, Greek civilization gradually emerged from primitive worship. The early Minoan civilization used marble to create simple ritual objects. By the wealthy Mycenaean civilization, gold was used extensively, much like how ancient China viewed death as life, the Greeks also placed a large number of gold masks, jewelry, gold belts, etc., in their tombs. Correspondingly, the Mycenaean civilization also colonized the Greek islands through powerful military force. 🐬 After hundreds of years of the Dark Ages, came the most splendid classical city-state period of human civilization. Athens and Sparta united in the Greco-Persian Wars to drive away the Persian invaders, but the Athenian states ultimately lost to Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, which was called the Great War of the ancient world. Nevertheless, the culture originating from ancient Egypt, through years of development in Greece, profoundly influenced ancient Rome, French Enlightenment thought, and even the posterity of today with its democracy, law, philosophy, science, opera, sculpture, architecture, etc. 🐬 Why didn't the Roman emperors inherit the throne in a hereditary manner like the dynasties of ancient China? It was actually due to the fear of the Senate and the democracy ingrained in the hearts of all citizens. Even Augustus, who was in fact the founder of the Empire, did not dare to openly claim the title of emperor. And this democracy, deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, was nurtured by Athens. Today's jury system in the European and American legal systems can also find its predecessor in ancient Greece. 🐬 The Greek gods permeated people's lives, reflected in various art forms, the most intuitive of which are sculptures and painted pottery. Mythological figures were the embodiment of the spiritual life of the Greeks, embodying their highest aspirations. 🐬 During the Hellenistic period, the Kingdom of Macedonia under Philip II and Alexander the Great, through painstaking management and campaigns, established a powerful kingdom. The entire territory was deeply influenced by Greek civilization, even spreading far to the East, as evidenced by the Gandhara Buddha statues, the Roman columns in the Bingyang Cave of the Longmen Grottoes, and the colonnade-style caves of the Yungang Grottoes. Greek culture is indeed the cradle of Western civilization. 🐬 Special thanks to: Hunan Museum, National Archaeological Museum of Greece, Acropolis Museum, Olympia Archaeological Museum, Mycenae Archaeological Museum, etc. 🇨🇳 Engage in dialogue with world history, explore human civilization