Western civilization: Important societies

France.
What else?

npjnpj wrote: I'm English myself.

Slartibartfast wrote: Raff wrote: The orgy? That was brilliant! BTW, we Italians do eat stuff as well, and plenty of it! Also, let's not forget the naughty artwork.

Well, the Greeks had their share too... Ever seen some of the pictures on those vases?

The orgy? That was brilliant!

BTW, we Italians do eat stuff as well, and plenty of it!

^

npjnpj wrote: the French eat stuff and the English first colonised the world and then imported the whole bloody place back to England.

Greece because of it's philosophers and the development of democracy.

rpe9p wrote: I think this thread needs to turn into a debate about health care in the US.  I think the US was excluded from this poll because it does not have universal health care and is therefore not an important society.

wow....Internet Hero in the making.


Actually the US should be here.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution have been pretty important documents.

birdwithteeth11 wrote: I'd put Greece and Rome on pretty even footing. But Greece did a lot of things first whereas the Romans copied them and improved on their ideas. So Greece it is.

This is a very typical approach to history. Greece was to Rome what Rome is to us today (and there are more of us). But that's just a superficial approach.

Greece was a Polis culture, i.e. vast wilderness doted with a few tiny slave labor and peasant requisition supported cities who formed no whole country or nation. It had limited grasp and nothing compared to the Macedonian Empire or later Roman Empire. While the Greek economy was the most advanced of the time other major civilizations competed with Greece: the Egyptians and Persians for example. The Persians are major Eastern civilization and it was the Persians who almost conquered Greece, not the other way round.

Almost everything with Greece is overemphasised. Even compared to other epochs the ruling class has been bloated in historical consciousness to the point of obscuring how it teetered on a primitive and volatile base. Athens is overemphaized. A single dot on the dark, dark map, its "democratic" council of lord slave/landowners was a product of its secure economic position. Otherwise Greece was ruled by Oligarchy and Tyrants, with only a brief "golden age." Greece was a virtual annex of Macedonia and Rome for the following millenia.

Rome built a centralized world empire of millions of people, excelled to a point infinitely beyond the Greeks in all aspects of technology and culture, build vast townships, cities, incorporated thousands of distinict nationalities, brought every great empire down to its knees and incorporated them. It build roads that crisscrosed the world, great ships and endless documentation and education. It converted 30% of the known world's population into slaves to propel its economy. It established an economy that reached the far reaches of Asia and was integrated with Rome. Rome and Constantiople were like New York if you take Athens as a small town. Compared to the running strip at Olympus They had sports arenas that sat hundreds of thousands: like the Coliseum and the HIppodrome at Constantinople.

For a thousand years after the fall of Rome the Byzantine Empire remained the most powerful and richest country in Europe - until the 1500s. The Holy Roman Empire, the biggest nation in Europe proper (germany and surronding areas) continued the traditions of Rome and operated with its name. This was the most powerful nation in Europe proper until the 1700s. Charlemange made himself the Roman Emperor, Rome continued as the base of the Vatican and the whole of western Christianity. Papal authority commanded all Kings. From Constantinople the Eastern Orthodox religion was run.

The Crusades came from both of their authorities.

I could go on. 

Romans kicked butt, man. As a semi-linguist, it's fun to see how just how powerful of a language Latin was and has been to this day. Cool stuff. It's kind of a toss up in general, though, between Rome and Greece. Greece was first and Rome built off a lot of it. It's hard to say.