Are we children of Greek culture?
Gulf of Ambracia (Ionian Sea). In the 15th century a. 2 September 31. The Romans achieved victory in the naval battle of Accio and ensured control over Egypt. Therefore, the Greek hegemony in the Mediterranean is concluded on that date, but the Hellenic influence has remained so far. Alien Wisdom, written almost half a century ago by historian Arnaldo Momigliano (1908-1987): At the beginning of The Limits of Hellenization (1975) he stated that “homo europaeus is intellectually conditioned by Hellenic ancestors to this day.” This work was translated into Italian in 1980. Under the title L’Ellenism e le altre culture. And in 1988 they put the following title to the Spanish translation: The wisdom of the barbarians: the limits of Helenization. The words foreign, barbaric and barbarian can be considered synonymous in this case, since the word barbarian of Greek origin meant this: foreigner, foreigner. But in Greece itself, and more and more in Rome, the word had a derogatory tone that denoted, in his view, its dominion over the cultures of the environment.
But Momigliano, in his work, without denying Helenist influence, works on relations with other cultures: Roma, Celts, Jews, Egyptians, Persians… And he concludes that, sometimes, Greek influence was not as profound as was thought, for example, in Judaism. Greek thought had a superficial influence on closed Judaism. And furthermore, although Hellenism was dissolved under Roman pressure, Hebrew culture had the ability to survive.
In other cases, Momigliano says that the influence was also significant in the opposite direction. As for the Persians, for a long time. In the 15th century a. In the sixth century the Persians conquered Lidia and Jonia, which allowed the exchange of the two cultures. Thus, Momigliano says that the influence of the Persians is evident, for example, in the concept of justice of Heraclitus or in the astronomy of Anasimandro, and at the birth of philosophical thought Zaratustra had to say.
“We are all Greeks,” said poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Historian Arnaldo Dante, for his part, explained that we were born from multicultural relations.
In 2017, Indonesia and the Netherlands signed an agreement to return the heritage stolen by the European country because of colonialism for three centuries. The Indonesian responsible for the return process, Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja, explained that this agreement "was important in... [+]
Greece 1975. The country began the year as a republic, three weeks earlier, in the referendum on 8 December 1974, after the citizens decided on the end of the monarchy.
A decade earlier, in 1964, when King Paul I died, his son Constantine took the throne at the age of 23.
But... [+]
For pedagogical or methodological reasons, historians tend to fragment and divide historical periods of the past into deadlines. There are traditional times that we all know (Prehistory, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern and Contemporary Ages), but also several sub-ages.
These... [+]
Copenhagen, 18 December 1974 At 12 noon a ferry arrived at the port, from where a group of about 100 Santa Claus landed. They brought a gigantic geese with them. The idea was to make a kind of “Trojan Goose” and, upon reaching the city, to pull the white beard costumes... [+]
Tennessee (United States), 1820. The slave Nathan Green is born, known as Nearest Uncle or Nearest Uncle. We do not know exactly when he was born and, in general, we have very little data about him until 1863, when he achieved emancipation. We know that in the late 1850s Dan... [+]
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