Spring 2011 Course L312, Ray Beery
http://www.yasou.org/ancient/summary.htm Accessed February 20, 2011
Ancient Greece - Brief Summary
For centuries Greece has exerted an enchantment over the imaginations of
men. The Romans, who incorporated Greece into their empire, and in the
process did not hesitate to sack its cities, were deeply impressed by Greece.
Young Romans were sent to study at the university in Athens, and educated
Romans looked to the Greeks as their masters in philosophy, science and the
fine arts. Despite the Romans’ confidence in their own imperial mission and
their gift for government, they felt, a little uneasily, that there was much in art,
letters and thought which they could never hope to do as well as the Greeks.
When the Italian Renaissance of the 15th Century A.D. brought an intensified
interest in the ancient world, Rome at first held the attention. But behind the
imposing Roman facade, scholars and poets felt the presence of something
more powerful and more alluring. Slowly this was disentangled from the mists
of the past, and the full majesty of the Greek performance, and its subsequent
adoption by the Romans, was revealed. So great was Greek prestige that
Greek ideas on medicine, astronomy and geography were accepted with
unquestioning faith until the 17th Century, when the birth of a new scientific
spirit inaugurated the era of experiment and inquiry into which we ourselves Raphael's School of Athens
have been born. Euclid shown in the foreground
Even today, when we have discarded so many creeds and cosmologies, the Greek view of life excites and exalts
us. Greek thought and Greek assumptions are closely woven into the fabric of our lives almost without our
knowing it, and for this reason alone we are right to wish to know about the Greeks, to assess the value and the
scope of their achievement. No people can afford to neglect its own origins, and the modern world is far too
deeply indebted to Greece to accept in unthinking ingratitude what it has inherited.
At the center of the Greek outlook lay an unshakable belief in the worth of the individual man. In centuries
when large parts of the earth were dominated by the absolute monarchies of the east, the Greeks were evolving
their belief that a man must be respected not as the instrument of an omnipotent overlord, but for his own sake.
They sought at all costs to be themselves, and in this they were helped by the nature of their country.
,
http://www.yasou.org/ancient/summary.htm Accessed February 20, 2011
Ancient Greece - Brief Summary
For centuries Greece has exerted an enchantment over the imaginations of
men. The Romans, who incorporated Greece into their empire, and in the
process did not hesitate to sack its cities, were deeply impressed by Greece.
Young Romans were sent to study at the university in Athens, and educated
Romans looked to the Greeks as their masters in philosophy, science and the
fine arts. Despite the Romans’ confidence in their own imperial mission and
their gift for government, they felt, a little uneasily, that there was much in art,
letters and thought which they could never hope to do as well as the Greeks.
When the Italian Renaissance of the 15th Century A.D. brought an intensified
interest in the ancient world, Rome at first held the attention. But behind the
imposing Roman facade, scholars and poets felt the presence of something
more powerful and more alluring. Slowly this was disentangled from the mists
of the past, and the full majesty of the Greek performance, and its subsequent
adoption by the Romans, was revealed. So great was Greek prestige that
Greek ideas on medicine, astronomy and geography were accepted with
unquestioning faith until the 17th Century, when the birth of a new scientific
spirit inaugurated the era of experiment and inquiry into which we ourselves Raphael's School of Athens
have been born. Euclid shown in the foreground
Even today, when we have discarded so many creeds and cosmologies, the Greek view of life excites and exalts
us. Greek thought and Greek assumptions are closely woven into the fabric of our lives almost without our
knowing it, and for this reason alone we are right to wish to know about the Greeks, to assess the value and the
scope of their achievement. No people can afford to neglect its own origins, and the modern world is far too
deeply indebted to Greece to accept in unthinking ingratitude what it has inherited.
At the center of the Greek outlook lay an unshakable belief in the worth of the individual man. In centuries
when large parts of the earth were dominated by the absolute monarchies of the east, the Greeks were evolving
their belief that a man must be respected not as the instrument of an omnipotent overlord, but for his own sake.
They sought at all costs to be themselves, and in this they were helped by the nature of their country.
,
