What are the Aspects of the Ancient Greek Culture?

This question is also, about how the Greek developed their ancient Culture. The topic started at Olympia here about the Olympics and Mount Olympus.

Wars between rivals in the ancient Greek and Roman societies were known and leadership was developed through those ancient wars. That was one aspect in the ancient Greek culture.

In spite of the destroying nature of wars, the medicine was the very important aspect of the ancient Greek culture, which reflected well-planned care to develop the health of the empire.

Servitude was also high and this aspect of the ancient Greek culture has developed to create heroes in the real lives and in the myths of the Greek empire.

The cultural backgrounds of the ancient Greek were built through centuries of wars, expansion, servitude, conspiracies, love and hatred, wandering and exiling.

All of the important aspects of the ancient Greek culture have played important roles in the development of the ancient Greek performing arts.

The ancient Greek culture appears also in the ancient Greek language that the Greek had also developed during the building of the empire. This development played important role in the developing of the ancient Greek writing or literature.

The ancient Greek sport was important part of the ancient Greek culture and it was developed in the Greek games and the Olympics of the empire in Olympia

The ancient Greek culture had influence around the Aegean Sea and in most of the countries that overlook the Mediterranean Sea and other countries in Europe up to Scandinavia in the north.

It had influenced the Roman as well. The Hellenic and Romanian cultures travelled with the armies of the empire in the hunt for other worlds beyond their frontiers, in the heart of the European continent.

From Odysseus / Ulysses the Homer's epic poem hero and the Greek king of Ithaca after Trojan and onwards, wanderers also took their cultures to other places, evidently impressing the new lands by such cultures.

The cultural influence started from many ancient places. From the Aegean Greek Islands; and it might be from the beautiful Greek Rhodes Island across the Mediterranean, it travelled to Egypt.

It influenced the Fertile Crescent, the term used by the American archaeologist and historian James Henry Breasted to describe the area across the Middle East overlooking the Mediterranean and spreading further to include Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Many years after the expansion of the empire, the ancient Greek culture travelled also with migrants, merchants, lecturers and scholars to Egypt and then North Africa and south of Egypt.

For example, before the 5the century BC, the Greek built the city of Heliopolis, now Ain Shams or Eye of the Sun. Herodotus pointed out that the Greeks were among the first comers to Egypt.

Alexander the Great ruled the area from 332-323 BC and built the city of Alexandria. Then Ptolemaic dynasty ruled from 323-30 BC starting with Ptolemy, know as Macedonian Greek geographer and astronomer, between 323-283 BC.

The story of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar is well known in the Egyptian history. After her defeat, the Roman controlled Egypt for six centuries.

Alexandria became the centre of the Greek and Hellenistic world and the centre of international commerce, ancient Greek culture, art and sciences. The Lighthouse of Alexandria was one of the ancient seven wonders of the ancient world. See Wikipedia for more details.

Until 1940, there were 250,000 Greeks in Egypt. After 1952, the Greek began to exit. However many thousands of Greeks changed their nationalities earlier and remained in Egypt.

Its influence has shaped many different cultures in the world. It goes from philosophy, to art, music, sport, architecture, literature, drama, science and history to reflect on people's lives in the Mediterranean areas up and beyond.

It is for this reason that the classical or the ancient Greek culture is known as the "cradle of the Western civilization".

Historians consider the ancient Greek culture to be the source of knowledge and to enrich the cultures in many countries in the world until the present days. It does not only make the foundation of the western civilization, but it also enriches the cultures of other parts of the world.

Until recent days and especially in arts and architecture, the classical Greek culture has shaped the production of these kinds of arts in the Mediterranean countries and some other countries in the world.

Useful Resources

From the Archaic period to the Greco-Roman age, the figure of the wanderer held great significance in ancient Greece. In the first comprehensive study devoted to this theme, Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture

unearths the many meanings attached to this practice over the centuries.

Employing a broad range of literary and philosophical texts, Silvia Montiglio demonstrates how wandering has been conceptualized from Homer's Odysseus -the hero "who wandered much"— in the eighth century BCE to pagan sages of the early Roman Empire such as Saint John the Baptist in the first century AD.

The following poem has inspiration of wandering.

The Sorrow of Love!

"W.B.Yeats" from "The Rose" 1893.

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation of the leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.

Attitudes toward wandering have evolved in accordance with cultural perspectives, causing some characterizations to persist while others have faded.

For instance, the status of wanderers in Greek societies varied from outcasts and madmen to sages, who were recognized as mystical, even divine.

Why did the Greeks associate the figure of the wanderer with the condition of exile? How was the expansion of the world under Rome reflected in the connotations of wandering? Does a person learn by wandering, or is wandering a deviation from the truth?

Examining the act of wandering through many lenses, "Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture" shows how the transformation of the wanderer coincided with new perceptions of the world and of travel and invites us to consider its definition and import today.

The ancient Greek medicine as a very important aspect of the ancient Greek culture coincided the development of this culture as well as you read on the lines above. The science has developed through cultural treatments. Here's another useful sources for this topic.

Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing in Fifth-Century Greece: Between Craft and Cult

Delving deeply into ancient medical history, Bronwen L. Wickkiser explores the early development and later spread of the cult of Asklepios, one of the most popular healing gods in the ancient Mediterranean.

Though Asklepios had been known as a healer since the time of Homer, evidence suggests that large numbers of people began to flock to the cult during the fifth century BCE, just as practitioners of Hippocratic medicine were gaining dominance.

Drawing on close readings of period medical texts, literary sources, archaeological evidence, and earlier studies, Wickkiser finds two primary causes for the cult's ascendance: it filled a gap in the market created by the refusal of Hippocratic physicians to treat difficult chronic ailments and it abetted Athenian political needs.

Wickkiser supports these challenging theories with side-by-side examinations of the medical practices at Asklepios' sanctuaries and those espoused in Hippocratic medical treatises. She also explores how Athens' aspirations to empire influenced its decision to open the city to the healer-god's cult.

In focusing on the fifth century and by considering the medical, political, and religious dimensions of the cult of Asklepios, Wickkiser presents a complex, nuanced picture of Asklepios' rise in popularity, Athenian society, and ancient Mediterranean culture.

The intriguing and sometimes surprising information she presents will be valued by historians of medicine and classicists alike.

This is not all that the ancient Greek culture had in the past, which may reflects until this time in other cultures worldwide. The topic is very wide and this is a glimpse on it.

Here are more references to the Ancient Greek Culture on Beautiful Greek Islands, which include most of the beautiful Greek islands.

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