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Ancient Greece

According to the Percy Bysshe Shelley, the great Romantic English Poet, “we are all Greeks”. There are many ways as to how the current world generation emulates the Greeks. This ways of the Greeks would be seen from the western Culture including the European and American cultures. The western culture has grown greatly to all continents and given that the culture emulates the ancient Greeks way of life, it follows that the Greeks’ culture has grown vastly around the world. When Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet, said that people were all Greeks, he meant that almost all cultures have a great aspect of the ancient Greece culture.

The western culture’s resemblance to the Greece culture could be viewed from various points including philosophies, architecture, politics, as well as in other areas of civilization. Mesopotamia is in one way or another considered being the soul to western culture (McEvilley, 3). It is claimed that the western culture was born in Greece since there has been many admirations of the Ancient Greece activities and cultures by the western communities. Most of the historical discoveries and inventions are related to the Greeks and that the western world only went ahead to improve whatever the Greeks had invented. These inventions could include various architects including the wheel, pulley systems, and related sciences.

In terms of superiority and power over other nations, the western way of gaining power over most world nations could be associated with the way the Greeks ruled over the barbarians after the Persian Wars. These wars had Alexander the Great as a key figure and made the nation the most inseparable part within the Eastern sphere of cultures (McEvilley, 135). The Greece influence spread to the Neo-Babylonian empires extending all the way to the west. It seemed that influence of culture, art, science, politics, and philosophy was a move from the east to west since the Greeks and Ionians accepted influence from the eastern region of their location. The Greeks notion of superiority and the existing documentation of cultural influence towards the west are adequate to point that the Greece culture gave birth to the western culture.

The interaction of the Greek culture, Hellenistic culture and Buddhist culture was influenced by Alexander the Great who went on to concur various parts of Europe and Asia such as Achaemenid Empire and Central Asia (McEvilley, 234). This Greet man is emulated greatly by various western political leaders as a way of gaining power over other nations especially during the World War I and World War II. The emulation of the Greeks range from politics, through religion, to science, and artistic works done by the Greeks As far as religion is concerned, one would say that religion originated from the east through the Greeks and landed to the western culture. It then happened that the western culture countries such as Britain had the ability and resources to pass the same culture perhaps in a twisted version to other parts of the world including America, Asia, and Africa.

The palace structure according to historical descriptions of its beauty has been for many years a key attractive feature to the United Kingdom and British culture. The palace belonged to King Ashurnasirpal II in early ninth century BC (PARPOLA, 9). The attraction of the palace structure to the British culture is evident in the Assyrian Galleries belonging to the British Government. An artistic gallery of the palace is located behind the British royal throne to depict a sense of power, holiness, among other traits associated with kingdoms. From the Ancient Greece superiority notion and the Greek cultural attractions to the western way of life, it follows that the western culture was born from the Ancient Greece culture. The growth of these cultures to all parts of the world strengthens the fact that “we are all Greek”.

Works Cited

McEvilley, Thomas. The Shape of Ancient Thought. Comparative studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. NY: Allworth Press and the School of Visual Arts, ISBN 1-58115-203-5, 2002.

PARPOLA, SIMO. The Mesopotamian Soul of Western Culture. 2012. 29 Jan 2013 <http://www.atour.com/education/pdf/SimoParpola-TheMesopotamianSoulOfWesternCulture.pdf>.