The slide is related to the course The European Historical Experience.

1. Why the Greeks could create
a great culture?
The European Historical Experience
Lecture 1

2. 1. Greek Culture not the
earliest
o Hellenes Culture
o Other Cultures (like Egyptians, Mesopotamians,
Indians, Chinese…)
o Organized Governments, evolved social and economic
life, created religious and spiritual values, invented
alphabet, language and literature, foundation of science
and contributed much to art and architecture
o Egyptians experienced their golden age, Sindhu
Valley culture had risen and fallen, Indians composed
hymns of Rig Veda and Chinese had evolved as a full
fledge culture
o No place in the cradles of earliest cultures.

3. 2. Learnt Wisely from other peoples
o As children learnt from other adult like cultures (Egyptians,
Babylonians, Phoenicians, Cretans, Indians)
o Had wisdom and genius to discover good things from
earlier cultures, learn them and benefit from them.
o Capacity to discover and learn quickly made Greek culture
superior from other earlier cultures.
o They imbibed oriental ideas in science, religion, technology
and philosophy.
o Oriental coinage and credit financing system borrowed.
o Cleverly chose the Phoenician alphabet over Babylonian
cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyph.

4. Babylonian Cuneiform

5. Egyptian Hieroglyph

7. 3. Great Thinkers
o loved new ideas and wished to think freely and
independently
o sense of wonder and curiosity
o always wished to know ‘why’ and ‘how’ of things
o Greek Culture : Freedom of thought
o Socrates
o Free thinking means of superiority from other cultures
o Socrates said, “The unexamined life is unlivable for a
real human being.”

8. 4. Great Ideals
o men of great ideals
o never satisfied with the things as they found them
o had great aims and aspirations and pictured ideals which
they tried to reach
o Plato in his book Republic presented thought of great
political ideals for the welfare of the people

9. 5. Sense of Perfection
o borrowed much from their neighbors and predecessors
o never satisfied with borrowed things only
o Their want of better things forced them to improve the
borrowed things
o They showed their love of perfection in organizing a
democratic government, writing an epic, painting a picture,
in carving a statue, playing Olympic games and in other
activities.
o The sense of perfection made Greek culture superior to
other cultures
o sense of perfection also lead to create a complete human
being with the motto ‘A sound mind is a sound body.’

10. 6. Spirit of Experimentation
o Desire to improve and have better things made the
Greeks to nourish the spirit of experimentation.
o For example in political field : never satisfied with one
form of government.
o In the beginning, started with monarchy
o when it degenerated, turned to aristocracy
o then turned to tyranny and lastly to democracy.
o In many cultures, from beginning to end only one form of
government, monarchy, prevailed.

11. 7. Rational and Scientific Approach
o approach rational and scientific
o Aryans (India): emotional, religious and metaphysical
approach
o Greeks: scientific and logical approach.
o Great Greek thinkers like Socrates and Aristotle keenly
observed and investigated.

12. 9. Humanism
o emphasis on humanism
o focus on human being rather than matter as center of
study
o stressed the importance of happiness here and now, not
after death
8. Eye on Truth and Beauty
o Literature
o Architecture

13. o other cultures built huge kingdoms and empires
o Greeks could not go beyond small city states until the
rise of Alexander the great.
o even if in small city states, they reached great heights of
glory (ex: Athens, Sparta)
o City state or the polis was neither city nor state. It was a
well knit community, a true commonwealth or republic.
oshared common life and purpose
o spiritually self-sufficing unit (according to both Aristotle
and Plato)
o regarded as highest form of social organization
o purpose: achieving a good life, a life of virtue, reason
and happiness.
10. Great Achievements in Small City States

14. 11. Classical Culture Providing Foundation to
European Culture
o high standard earned the epithet ‘classical’
o worked as foundation for European culture
o In that sense it can be said that Greek culture is a
mother of European culture.
o We should not underrate or underestimate oriental
culture from which Greek culture borrowed much.
o However, many or most of the western historians have
given exaggerated importance to Greek culture ignoring
the contribution of oriental culture willingly or
grudgingly