Palmer Chapter 1 Study Guide A History of the Modern World Chapter 1 The Rise of Europe 1 Ancient Times Greece Rome and Christianity pp 11 17 A Introduction 1 Whatever their backgrounds and willingly or not all peoples in the twentieth century are caught up in the process of modernization or development which usually turns out to mean acquiring some of the skills and powers first exhibited by Europeans 2 Factors continuing to effect relationships among nations include a interdependence based on science and technology on one lever trade and finance on another b drive for equality as nations seek to arouse the energies and support of their populations c questioning of old ways and old values and the negative reaction by conservative factions d demand for individual liberation e revolution of rising expectations B GREEKS 1 The Greeks proved to be as gifted a people as mankind has ever produced achieving supreme heights in thought and letters They absorbed the knowledge of the to them mysterious East They added immediately to everything they teamed It was the Greeks of the fourth and fifth centuries BC who first became fully conscious of the powers of the human mind who formulated what the Western world long meant by the beautiful and who first speculated on political freedom 2 The Greeks lived in small city states independent and frequently at war Politics were turbulent Democracy alternated with aristocracy oligarchy despotism and tyranny From this rich fund of experience was born systematic political science as set forth in the unwritten speculations of Socrates and in the Republic of Plato and the Politics of Aristotle in the fourth century before Christ The Greeks were the first to write history as a subject distinct from myth and legend Thucydides in his account of the wars between Athens and Sparta presented history as a guide to enlightened citizenship and constructive statecraft 3 They prized and defined classical virtues order balance symmetry clarity and control Their statues revealed their conception of what man ought to be a noble creature dignified poised unterrified by life or death master of himself and of his feelings Their architecture as in the Parthenon made use of exactly measure angles and rows of columns The same sense of form led to the production of epic poems lyrics drama history and philosophic dialogues each with rules and principles of composition and they long remained the forms used by Western men to express their thoughts 4 Greeks created myths but they looked for rational or natural explanations of what was at work behind the variety and confusion they saw They observed that sickness was the result of natural conditions which could be understood they saw the universe as composed of atoms designated as earth air fire water Some believed change to be an illusion while others saw it as the only reality Others like Pythagoras found the only reality in mathematics The final great codifier of Greek thought on virtually all subjects was Aristotle who lived in Athens from 384 322 BC 5 Greek influence spread widely and rapidly in the Mediterranean world The greatest of the later Greeks came from Alexandria in Egypt Strabo in geography Galen in medicine and Ptolemy in astronomy in the first and second centuries A D C ROME Although ruthless conquerors the Romans were civilizing agents transmitting a significant portion of earlier cultures to the Western Mediterranean The Romans allowed cities and city states a good deal of autonomy but maintained control through a pyramid of imperial officials and provincial governors The Empire kept peace the Pax Romana and even provided a certain justice as between its many peoples Roman law came to hold that no custom is necessarily right that there is a higher or universal law by which fair decisions may be made and that this higher universal or natural law or law of nature will be understandable or acceptable to all men since it arises from human nature and reason They also held that law derives its force from being enacted by a proper authority maiestas or sovereign power and they attributed it to the emperor Thus law was not custom nor was it capricious It was formed by enlightened intelligence and was consistent with the nature of things and its was associated with official power Roman law did favor the state or the public interest as seen by the government rather than the interests or liberties of individual persons D CHRISTIANITY 1 The Christian teaching spread at first among the poor who had the least to delight in or hope for in the existing world But it soon spread following a half century of heavy persecution 240 290 AD Constantine became a Palmer Study Guide Chapter 1 1 Christian and legalized Christianity By the fifth century the Roman world was Christian and tolerated no other religions 2 Christianity brought an altogether new sense of human life Christians explored the soul and they taught than in the sight of God all souls were equal that every human fife was sacrosanct and inviolate and that all worldly distinctions of greatness beauty and brilliancy were in the last analysis superficial Love took on overtones of sacrifice and compassion Greek and pagan pride was replaced by ideals of humility and the brotherhood of man 3 The problem was reconciling the place of religion in an all powerful state where the ruler was regarded as a god Jesus solved this dilemma render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar s and to God the things that are God s This dualism was systematically expressed by one of the greatest early Christian thinkers St Augustine of Hippo in his book The City of God The city of Man was Rome the domain of state and political authority and obedience but this state was not absolute it could be judged amended or corrected It was subordinate to the higher spiritual authority of the City of God Yet was this City of God only spiritual or a spirit of idealism which dwelt in all crude human approximations of the divine or was it the institution of the Church in the world No clear answer was forthcoming but one result was clear Caesaropapism e g the control of both church and state by the same individual as Byzantine or Russian emperors or the Ayatollah Khomeini was NOT to become a permanent part of Western Civilization Church and state were separate and in spite of the strong efforts of the medieval and Renaissance Popes would remain separate 2 THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES THE FORMATION OF EUROPE pp 17 26 Rome