@@TheMysteryDriverthose were not city states but rather Italian peninsula was in a sense balkanized. Difference in this case is that 19th century nationalism promoted unity of Italian people under a common national identity instead of break up into smaller states with strong regional identity, lik3 what happened to Yugoslavia
And both considered the Egyptians tens of thousands of years more ancient still. Pliny thought Babylon went back even further and was a bonkers 770,000 years old. Bonus points to who knows were I got that last fact from :p
The interaction between City States and Hellenistic Kings is fascinating stuff. They didn't pay tax, but gave "voluntary gifts" of gold crowns regularly. They were free to run their own affairs, but had to ask permission to import grain. They freely chose without external pressure to build shrines to their overlords, but those that did just happened to receive substantial benefactions. It very much has a sense of _"you are free to do whatever you like, as long as you dont do anything we disapprove of."_ But whenever blatant direct rule was imposed, all hell broke loose (like Pyrrhus' last months in Sicily).
The most similar things to [con]federations in the Hellenistic world were the leagues, most famously the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues amongst others. Those were a bunch of city states that banded together by forming a super-state were they agreed to make some decisions (mostly of war and peace) together. Somewhere between NATO and the EU in terms of integration. It was based, to various degrees, on the equality of the member _poleis_ . The relations between cities and kings (later emperors) was different in that it was fundamentally asymmetric in power. There is no good modern analogy IMO. Perhaps the medieval relations between Free Imperial Cities and the Emperor of the HRE would be close, but the HRE is so complicated and with so many layers I'm not sure it's a useful comparison. I'm not sure it's similar to constitutional monarchies at all. In those, the monarch has _de jure_ power but _de facto_ none. The Hellenistic ones were the opposite (in relations to cities, not in general).
Decline is somewhat relative, the Greeks did not produce much new art but Hellenic science continued. The greater part of the scientific and technological development of the Roman Empire were done by Greeks.
@@cliffpinchon2832 only if you look only at the philosophers, in my opinion a very dubious Greek legacy. But if you look at the works of Archemeaies, Euclid, Heron of Alexandria, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Galen, and many more, you’ll see brilliant scientific discoveries and minds. Their discoveries and methods are the seed bed from which modern science comes. For all the talk of art and philosophy they are trivial.
@@cliffpinchon2832 Partly true. Yes, the scientific method wasn't a thing, but they still were discovering some crazy stuff, like the mini steam engine of Heron. That's half a step from the Industrial Revolution
I am curious about the Roman tradition of removing a finger of the deceased before cremation and placing with the ashes. If you make a video about the details of their funerary practices, including the reason behind this would be of interest. Your work is appreciated very much!
Would you consider doing an accuracy critique on the (2014) film Pompeii. I don't know that it deserves it, but might provide interesting educational opportunities or just fun. I'd love to see more of the Greek provinces under Rome. It tends to be rather obscure.
In a dark humorous way, the major intellectual influence of conquered Greece reminds me of the important role German scientists who were "captured" by American troops and "imported" into the USA at the end of WW2 in Europe, played in the rapidly expanding field of aeronautics, in which several German scientists were the recognised top world experts. Meanwhile, though, their Germany homeland was in a rebuilding phase and momentarily halted in its ability to function under the strict new conditions that were imposed upon losing the war in 1945.
Did it really decline? Being brought into the Roman state gave the polis more stability and prosperity. In turn Greece became the cultural capital of the Empire.
Problem about Carthage is just how little is known. I've read a few books on them and, outside of their interactions with Greeks or Romans, there's just so little that can be said. Any attempt to go beyond a simple "Who did what where when" ends up being conjecture. A video on Tophets and child sacrifices would be cool, there's some textual and archaeological data to go on, but not yet a clear consensus. In a 10min video, Garrett could probably cover literally everything about it lol.
@@watchesandcoins.7738 - the cemeteries of the sacrificed children are still extant and multiple authorities have a consensus on their being the remains of babies offered to their deities
The Persian wars and the following city-state rivalry in the classical period itself created a dynamism and greatness in the cities. Once life got easier under imperial rule people relaxed and focused more on maintaining status quo.
as far as I know, the only place from which scientific and philosophical development came was just Athens and maybe Corinth. Sparta was a very conservative society with dual ruling monarchy. only interested in its military and control over the rest of Peloponnesian peninsula. no innovations whatsoever. after the Persian invasions and the wars against Athens, Sparta became irrelevant even as a military power. funny how Alexander The Great didn't even bother to invade Sparta tho. or convince them to join his campaign of conquest over Persia. Sparta was completely out from the picture. a shell of its former glory.
So perception? So where is the actual decline? The rise of Christians? The advance of the Ottomans? The occupation of the Nazis? It is no easy task to objectively measure the quality and quantity of material and moral change, especially when the baseline itself is so subjective.
I've been thinking about the parallels between the collpase of ancient civilizations and the collpase of modern ones. One of the most intertesting statements to me was Polybius had claimed that, "The population had collapsed after the parents had become too decedent to raise their own children." Could you provide the historical source for me?
Polybius seemed to blame people's aversion to having children: "One remarks nowadays over all Greece such a low birth rate and in a general manner such depopulation that the towns are deserted and the fields lying fallow, although this country has not been ravaged by war or epidemic. The cause of this harm is evident. By avarice or by cowardice, the people, if they marry, will not bring up children that they ought to have. At most, they bring up one or two ... It is in this manner that the scourge, before it is noticed, has rapidly developed. The remedy is in ourselves, we have but to change our morals." (Polybius, Histories, vol. 37; as cited by Plutarch?)
@@Ramser03 we do what we do to get laid and for our children. thats the fundamental truth thats been lost over decades of neomalthusian brainwashing in the modern world as it was lost repeatedly in the past.
This makes me wonder if ecological or economic factors also contributed. Were the fields overworked and exhausted of fertility? Did large landowners with slaves out-compete small landowners, like in Imperial Roman Italy?
Realistically speaking, Greek farmers were probably being viciously impoverished by extortionate imperial tax collection, causing them to be unable to have children. But the rich - whose wealth causes the poverty and misery of the poor - always blame the poor for the consequences of their poverty. Nothing ever changes, does it.
@@nebojsag.5871 Except the poorest countries have the highest birth rates, in line with our own society where lower socioeconomic people have higher birth rates, so that can't be it.
I sont think it starts as a big idea, personally i think it is shaped and created by surroundings, problems that come from those surroundings. Only then years(perhaps hundreds) does it ripe into a full on idea, that gets more and more bigger and complex as you mentioned. The collapse always happens through collision with alother people / culture. The more the other party influences grand ideas the more the long growing ideas become fragile from shock until it is taken or changed. At least how i see it
As you have been at Thasos, I am sure you have walked around the antique cities fortifications build from megalithic blocks. I am looking forward to hear your notes about this enormous building. Not to mention the museum of antiquities in Thasos!
Greek conquered Rome and then the world through its culture. Physical empires are all doomed to die, yet, the strongest will have its language, philosophy and life-style to live on.
What can we learn from this for modern Western civilization? Perhaps that we should always respect the cultural works of the past, but always innovate and develop new ideas and new cultural products. Perhaps that national autonomy and competition are essential ingredients to drive cultural productivity.
Although I generally and almost completely agree with you, a lot of self-identified innovators tend to be unconscious and vulgar imitators. True creativity, such as the Greeks did with the most basic concepts (about time, place, piety, reason, etc) and modes of living - very rarely come. Even technological and scientific developments are still very much derivative on deeper cultural strata - much of our science (despite the revolutions) is primordially Greek. True beginning is hard, though it's probably not impossible. Who knows, we might see something of the sort after the political and cultural chaos after the climate situation starts to unleash and abate.
@@erlinacobrado7947 i mean.. of course we haven't seen progress on those ideas. the reason is that they have been explored and there's no need to innovate on such concepts. it's like trying to invent the wheel again, no point in doing it. making a better wheel? of course. but you can't make something completely different from the fundamental idea. i actually think going overboard on trying to invent new culture while there's no need for it is actually pathological for society (like people debating what is a woman.. *sigh*). there will be a time and place for new culture soon, but forcing it is not good. i honestly think that moment will come when artificial intelligence will reach a certain level and humanity has to rethink its place and role in society.
Ofc they had declined. Traditional city states were in shambles. Only Hellenic kingdoms held power at that point and ofc they lost it mostly by infighting.
Well, in reality, the Greeks never declined until 1453. Because the Eastern Roman Empire was Roman just in name. And Greeks called themselves Rhomaioi just by name. Because by all means, it was a quintessential Greek state. Language, ethnic composition, culture, literature etc were almost or entirely Greek. Calling yourself something doesn't mean you are indeed. Greeks by default could never be actual Romans. They only called themselves as such, because politically they were the successors of the actual Roman Empire, and through the Edict of Caracalla could call themselves Romans. But only politically.
Greeks rose again in the eastern Roman empire, kinda gets forgotten thanks to the west and Catholics. They just hated them Orthodox boys, them Greeks we're the true legacy of Rome.
Ancient Chinese philosophy also flourished during the Spring and Autumn period, when countless micro-states dotted the lands of what is now North-Central China. Once unified imperial dynasties began to appear, most schools of thoughts disappeared as the despotic rulers found that Confucian thought with a Legalist core was the optimal choice to cement their rule, and everything else lost their patronage.
Why would they cause the decline? I would think it’s the opposite, expansion of your population into colonies and conquered lands expands your civilization. Like Europe’s global expansion, or America’s westward push, or the explosion of Islam.
@@Nom_AnorVSJedi But those kingdoms split after Alexander's death and never reformed. They fought with each other and never unified which is a massive difference from those groups. As such, a loss in population in Greece would weaken that area and the other kingdoms wouldn't come to help when Rome started invading. They just got taken out one by one by Romans/Parthians because of how fragmented they were.
Greece had always been devided. City states were the rulers of that part of the world. While speaking the same language and sharing their devines and a common cultural background, every city state was for itself. They did colonize because they had to. Greece is a very mountanous region with not enough farm land to support large populations. And that was also the cause for a lot of wars between the city states. After seeding the fields in the spring, they went on military campaigns to fight each other. And then returned to harvest in the late summer (early autumn). There have been occasional hellenistic federations to counter threats from outside, like the Persians. But it was more of a loose alliance. And often enough the alliances crumbled under some missbehavior - like Athens used the savings from other cities to gain more power and to build a wall from their city to their harbour. Philipp I. - the father of Alexander the Great - unified Greece with his military campaigns. He did this with military reforms and innovations, like artillery (ballistas for example), or modifying the phalanx formation that wasnt changed by anyone for hundreds of years, or even the extensive use of cavillary. After the death of his father, Alexander had immediately to fight again for a unified Greece under his rule. Expeditions to Persia werent anything new back then. Look at "Xenophon" for example (very interesting story about 10,000 men lost in Persia that had to go back to Greece). Alexander conquered half of the known world, but his time was too short to really "save" his achievements. His generals devided his empire, and decades after his death, their offsprings fought each other again. The Romans just took advantage about this infighting, and they were even welcomed by the local populations, who were fed up fighting over some dirt over and over again.
Idk if Greece really declined at all. It was small little city states with no order. As their technologically, population, military and sailing grew and trade routes became more vast and established….things consolidated and spread. Egypt, the ruling class of rome, Greece, Middle East, and the Roman Empire after Rome fell were all Greek. Ancient Greece really lasted until 1450 something until constanipol fell then all their literature, culture, epics and philosophy was sent to Europe in which all nobility, wealthy merchants, royalty studied and learned. The ottomans and czars studied and idolized Greece too. It kinda never declined
I like to liken it to the British empire then the US world order. The English language, and to a large extent political at least culture was adopted and taken up by another hegemon. Which then actually presided over a period where the originating culture still thrived and was somewhat looked up to.
I actually think in the long run the British Empire/US Hegemon will be seen as more akin to the split of the Roman Empire in 286. They're both basically fruits of the same loin, and to a some extent remain so. The king and the president both sit at the resolute desk, Donald Trump's mother is Scottish, Boris Johnson was born in NYC and so on. After the death of Diane Feinstein there are even rumours that Meghan Markle is going to run for office, which would put the royal family back in charge in one state! (weird times)! Now certainly military, cultural, and economic power has overwhelmingly shifted to America in the 20th century, but they're still joined at the hip to some extent, especially when you factor in places like Canada, which is still a commonwealth nation.
The US didn't really take up English language/culture. They started with it, from the moment colonisation started in New England. That makes the parallel with Rome rather weak IMO.
@QuantumHistorian I mean, all analogies break down eventually. And in the case of USA it wasn't such a clear cut thing. More americans are of german descent and at one point there was a vote on which language to adopt. Plus wouldn't you want to distance yourself from your imperial overlord against which you fought a revolutionary war? To me the different circumstances make it a harder test. What I am pointing to is a pattern amongst hegemons- admiration for the preceeding culture then taking it under the wing. Athens/Rome Eastern Rome/Venice Holland/Britain Britain/US
@@elbapo7 Most (white) Americans are of German descent, but most Presidents, bankers, etc. -- i.e. the people who call the shots -- are of British descent.
Persian culture was probably better for Greece. Iranians had much more great regard for impractical poetry and philosophy as compared with the Romans. Despite their political strife, it was well known Greeks and Persians did get along well on a personal and cultural level and admired each other. The Roman admiration for Greek culture was more one sided, as ancient and classical Greeks seem to have been rather neutral or mildly disgusted towards Roman culture. Of course, western culture as we would know it probably would not exist today, but I reckon the originary innovative genius of Greece would be more preserved and would benefit from a cultural near-equal like Persia, rather than the obviously less civilised Romans at the inception of their relationship.
because any society that normalizes the sexual abuse of minors should and will fail. Some historians say we cannot judge them for such heinous acts because it was culturally acceptable to do so but not all cultures practiced this in the ancient world. Some knew then, as we know now, that it was an abomination.
All great cultural epochs are epochs of political decline: that which is great in the cultural sense has been unpolitical, even anti-political. Culture and the state - these are adversaries. The one lives off the other, the one flourishes at the expense of the other. Where culture is ascendant, there the state is in decline; where the state increases in power, there culture languishes.
Did British culture decline during their ascendancy after Napoleon? Di Roman culture thrive while it was getting dismantled? Did Spanish culture flourish while being violently occupied by the French?
Without a common enemy, Greeks reverted to doing what they did (and still do) best. Bicker amongst themselves. Fighting each other was like national sport to them. The military devolved to just using phalanx and without innovation all was ripe for Rome to sweep in, further divide the already divided Greeks and conquer.
As a Greek it's really hard to answer because "ancient greek" can mean very different (to my perception) forms of the greek language. Thw concept is simple, thw further back in time, the more difficult to comprehend it. In the classical era there where many different variants, dialects, like Doric, Ionian and Attic. Of these, Attic is the easier to us, modern Greeks, but still pretty much unintelligible because the grammar has changed a lot and a big part of the vocabulary too. During the hellenistic times the Koine Greek (Koine means common) was formed, primarily from elements of Attic Greek (that is the reason why of all classical era dialects Attic is more easily understood). Koine was kinda simplified and from this our modern language evolved over a period of like 2000 years without changing too much (all with respect to the time passed). But does "ancient greek" stop at hellenistic era Koine? To other cultures "ancient" means 5th - 8th century. Greek from those times is kinda understandable to us. In all, greek has been changing constantly (like all languages) but with some proper education I don't find it too difficult to interpret at least Koine Greek.
My theory on the fall of Rome is that it was a breakdown of the water system. They had an extensive network of aqueducts and canals. But, as the population grew and demand increased, maintenance and new construction couldn't keep up. This was before computers and advanced mathematics. The maintenance depended solely on a few geniuses and a hierarchal network of foremen and skilled trades. Remove a few key ppl and the house of cards comes down. Water was to Rome what oil is to modern society. This is also a likely cause of the collapse of the Khmer empire. Having been there, I can tell you they spared no expense on canals and aqueducts. But, they didn't have the computing power to manage the system once it grew.
I’m going to guess before I watch the video in a “check all that apply” fashion: Weakened by infighting following the unification and subsequent collapse of Alexander’s single-generation empire. Weakened by centuries of warfare before Alexander was even hatched. A general trend towards individualism and xenophobia among city-states preventing them from uniting against more powerful enemies in defense of their common culture. Natural disasters/ Famine/ Disease Gerontocracy and political dysfunction leading to social and military paralysis. Poor colonial infrastructure leading to a “stretching” of forces, creating strategic weaknesses.
records of the byzantine empire show that in the year 1000 the state was raking in the same yearly revenue as italy+spain+france+england combined. One can only imagine the fortune the Greeks were making in the 300s that they preserved for 1,100 years and what they did with that money, that could make whole kingdoms.
@@orijut There were around for around 300 years with almost entire roman empire to tax then around 400 years with the yearly revenue of 12 million ducats while England and France each had 2 million yearly ducats. each year the during the 300s the Greeks should have made around 32 million ducats per year for 160 years. After the fall of the west the Greeks would have made 20 million ducats per year for 300 years. then after the 600s it should have been 12 million ducats per year until manzikert. in total around 5120 million ducats from 300-460. 2800 million ducats from 460-600. 6000 ducats from 600-1100. from 1100-1200 around 600 million total ducats. after 1200 the state should have been thoroughly looted and devastated. France should have made from 1-2 million ducats from the 500s-1700 for 2600 million ducats assuming France was as developed in 500 as in 1000. It is very probable that far less yearly revenue were obtained in the first centuries of Frances establishment until around a few centuries past the 500s.
Hello Sir, thanks for a great video ! I can tell that since I earn my life making sounds and noises sometimes scattered in a musical form which the strong counterpart visual artistic side is carried by My wife, Art and Culture, even Fashion suffer the same luck as the Greek Classical period era, we see. Nowadays there are tendencies in music, painting, video and photography that are not eager for innovation or at least a hint of getting ahead. To the contrary they are carried by technology that embraces the pristine, sometimes so perfect/unreal sound or image. Hardly there is any real artistic evolution, to the contrary just to enhance experiences over cultural content. Repetition under technology capacity, rules the artistic world nowadays. Hopefully this will prove to change in our future. Have a most fantastic day.
@1:12 wow, that makes a whole lot of sense to be honest. A cost of living crisis might be the ultimate contraceptive known to man in the developed economies of the world. But, having housemaids and nannies in the developing world, has indeed led to a decline in birthrates, and below-replacement level birthrates are just around the corner. It’s either having a new kid, or paying the monthly payroll for the Help for those people.
depravity and population decline might be the biggest catalysts of the fall of great civillizations. and those two are probably the result of initial prosperity and then complacency
Oh absolutely. I totally agree. Just look at the modern Western World. It indeed is a “Strange Death of Europe” just like Murray’s book, along with the usual historical reasons, as stipulated in your comment, or those that I’ve stumbled upon in various book, about different civilizations across history. What was that saying again? Strong men make good times, good times make weak men, and weak men make bad times.
Absolutely, and one might argue, across the world, through various indicators, that all lead back to one form of depravity, decadence, and complacency or another. I also thought globalization and neo-liberalism have made it possible, for various chunks of the world, to undergo the same dilemma, through different ways, at the different points in time, along with various paces of speed or acceleration, from one geographic location to another, and one culture to another. It’s definitely more apparent in countries with high-income economies, be they developed or developing nations. 🤷♂️
@@khalidalali186 So you're saying that what once would've been a fall of a localized prosperous civillization could now be a worldwide phenomenon because of globalization, no matter the specific circumstances of each nation? Interesting point, might be true. Because of how interconnected we are, the top countries are basically "exporting" the symptoms that will cause their downfall to all the others. Kind of agree, pretty sad that some countries are getting all of the drawbacks without most of the benefits.
The biggiest factor of the decline was the decline of food production in Greece - importing cheeper wheat, cheeper olive oil and so on let the Greek cities grow but gettin dependent to the trade. If that trade got disturbed the city got weaken.
This dependence on trade started with the Classical period though, at the exact same time Greek culture exploded outwards. In fact, it's probably trade (especially with the Ionian states) that brought new ideas into mainland Greece and started the intellectual revolution.
Strangely you didn't mention the lack of democracy after the Classical period. All the greatness from Ancient Greece came overwhelmingly from one single city-state, Athens, and that city-state had a very particular political system that was erased by the Macedonian conquest and later Hellenistic kingdoms, and was not really ever put back into practice in the world until 24 centuries later.
Why Did Ancient Greece Decline ? Why does any culture or civilization decline ? There are only a few reasons why they decline barring natural cataclysm or the odd circumstance. Take all the great civilizations throughout history and look closely and you will find a pattern emerge. Sometimes it's slow Sometimes it's fast Sometimes it's deliberate Sometimes not Other times by accident, But Beware of what you may end up knowing.
7:35 "In political terms, post classical Greece was more stable than ever before. Economically many cities flourished, but it's culture was embalmed." Perhaps I'm being too pedantic but i wouldn't call this a "decline".
Something interesting, but I got the feeling that many of the colonists in the Middle East during the Roman Empire were actually Greek. Is that a correct observation? The question is, why? Why were there so many Greeks in Caesarea despite it being a Roman city in Judea?
The conquest of Philip and his son Alexander, led to "Greece" being ruled from somewhere else for over twenty centuries. Funny that modern day Greeks worship Alexander, when he was a foreign conqueror that ended their golden age.
The Roman Empire marked the Dark Ages for the Greek World, from which Greece escaped by "conquering" the eastern part of this empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, by soon transforming it to the very much Greek Byzantine Empire an entity which rapidly lost every prior influence from the Western part. And while the Western Roman Empire literally *sank* into the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire with no influence from the Western part simply flourished.
@@thevisitor1012 Yeah, but it was the west that during the 4th crusade managed to raid and loot Constantinople, weakening the empire more than the Arabs ever did (the empire fully recovered from the Arabs), marking its decline and eventually its fall, and regardless the fact that the Byzantines tried several times to protect the west. Eight hundred years after the 4th crusade came the apology by pope John Paul 2nd who expressed twice his Church's sorrow for how the events transpired.
Please. Run your. Audio through. A filter which. Removes the air gap. Between words. It is very. Harsh to listen. To your audio when. There is a constant. Pause.
Ancient greek cultural stagnation. Modern academic (archeology and the physical sciences) progress & breaking new ground asphyxiation thus death from within ... Not the same. But the same.
Migration, Creek as with Rome where the Richest and strongest civilization of there time ,and attracted,less wealthy people to them,thus diluting the local people along with there customs and traditions. The Creek and Rome empires did not collapse ,what was left of those empires collapsed.
>"captive greece tamed rome" not the last time the region would have an effect like that. byzantium had an immense effect on islam, that uses the ancient flag of byzantium as its symbol to this day.
The same in many regards can be said about today, but today we shun alot of the past rather than using it to produce a prosperous society. Much of the greek derived culture such as religon was being driven by rome and a weird combination of lots of different beliefs combined with a growing number of beliefs from elsewhere including north africa likely devided the societ. Which is also mirrored today in europe.
