Over the course of the last 4000 years, Western culture has developed into highly developed and organized people. Starting in 2000 BC with the Mesopotamians, and evolving into the Romans of the first millennium, the cultures of this region and time borrowed ideas from the cultures before them in order to manage their society. All of the cultures from this era contributed new ideas as well, and the progress of these cultures is impressive when looking at all of them in the order that they came. I will discuss the cultures of Western Civilization, starting with Mesopotamia, then Egypt, Persia, the People of the Mediterranean, the Macedonians, Greece, and the Romans. I will focus on the way the religion and politics intertwine and separate within these cultures, and how they affected the success of the culture. I will also try to point out when a new culture develops and borrows any concepts or ideas from a culture before them. .
Between 3000 and 2000 BC, the Mesopotamians came along and made the first true contribution to Western Civilization. They developed along the Fertile Crescent area of the Middle East. Since there is no real culture before them to compare with, a few contributions from these people set the framework for cultures that would follow after them. First, the Mesopotamians established a system of priests. These priests were the dominant members of society. They became a relatively organized society due to the people's faith in their priests. In return, the priests built elegant temples, called ziggurats. These ziggurats were the religious centers of the culture, but they also served as economic and administrative centers as well. The people of this area were brought together in the by Kings for their daily lives and a polytheism approach to the world. So, the Mesopotamians contributed an organized society, with religion and a loose political structure sort of combined in the ziggurats.