Читать книгу Western Civilization - Paul R. Waibel - Страница 10

The story of Western Civilization begins around 3500 bc in the area referred to by historians as the Fertile Crescent, a quarter‐moon shaped area that stretches from the Nile River valley, along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf. It was in that area of fertile soil that people learned to farm and irrigate their fields with water from the rivers. Settled farming required organization, which gave birth to the first cities. It was also there that people first learned to write. Organized agriculture and urban life gave rise to a class structure, in which most of the people performed certain tasks, producing the means of livelihood, while a few had the time to contemplate the meaning and purpose of life. Writing made it possible to record not only the mundane affairs of day‐to‐day life, but also what may be described as philosophical and religious speculation.

If one thinks of an axis around which civilization develops and radiates outward, that axis moved from the Fertile Crescent north‐westward to the area of the Aegean Sea, as civilizations appeared along the rim of the Aegean Sea on the island of Crete, the coast of Asia Minor, and the Greek mainland. The Minoan Civilization on Crete and the Mycenaean Civilization on the Greek mainland contributed to the development of classical Greek civilization after 800 bc. With the conquest of the Middle East by Alexander the Great (d. 323 bc) and his successors, the Greek language and humanistic civilization of classical Greece spread throughout the Middle East and Egypt.

The Romans imposed political and, to a degree, cultural unity on the whole Mediterranean world by the end of the second century ad. But, though the Romans conquered the Hellenistic world, they were in turn conquered culturally by the Greeks, thus spreading the Greek language and culture to the western Mediterranean. The axis of civilization shifted westward to the Italian peninsula. It was during the centuries‐long rule of Rome, that the religious thought of the ancient Hebrews and early Christians blended with the classical humanism of Greek civilization.