Contributions to Civilization from the Greeks.
Throughout history there have been many contributions to western civilization from the Ancient Greeks. They made long lasting contributions in the areas of architecture, art, government, religion, and sports. In this essay, it will be proven that the Greeks impacted western civilization immensely.
Greek architecture has often been seen as the ideal of artistic symmetry, grace, beauty, and strength. It has spread threw nations around the world. Just as it dominated public squares in ancient Rome, Greek architecture dominates the government buildings of Washington D.C., and many other cities around the United States. In our society, we still use Greek architecture. For example, we still use terms such as Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian order (styles of columns) materials were also explored such as marble, limestone, granite, etc. and most important major structures such as the Parthenon and temples give our society another way of viewing and constructing architecture.
Greek art was also a major contribution to western civilization. Statues such as David and the kouros displayed an exact knowledge of human anatomy. They tried to portray accurately the body at rest and in motion they knew muscles should be taut or relaxed in doing this they were able to transform marble into a human likeness that seemed alive. Their sense of understanding the body gives our society the knowledge needed to create and understand such masterpieces and also help with medical aspects. .
Besides art and architecture the Greeks also contributed their system of government. Today, in the United States we use the democracy system originally devised by the Greeks. In a democracy, the people vote on who they want to be their leaders. There system differed from ours, their people were divided into three groups: upper, middle, and lower class, versus ours were all people are considered equal.
