Civilizations; Round 2

As we leave the Ancient civilizations of the Indus valley and Mesopotamia, we transition into a new realm of new civilizations. Ill start with the Greeks, unlike the disjointed Mesopotamian city states, Strayer noted that the Greeks were a much more proud people. Despite Athens and Sparta always butting heads, the early Greek city states had a great deal of individuality and unity. It was not until the Persians failed to capture Athens that Greece became noted for its mighty military prowess. However, the Greeks were more known for their system of laws and their republic style government. It was the building blocks of democracy, a ideal that would not be realized for several thousand years. The Greeks were the first to try this system of government, after their Macedonian takeover, the Greek ideals assimilated their way into most European societies inducing the Romans. The Romans adopted a lot of the Greek ideals however, after their massive campaign the Romans switched to a dictatorship abandoning their original republic ideals. This change ultimately led to their downfall because they had no effective way to control their empire full of unhappy citizens. This same dictatorial issue occurred in China as well; the Chinese tried to create a empire based on a dictatorship but it ultimately failed because the people were unhappy with the way things were. India however did not really ever have a marked rise and fall in this second round. India became united under one banner several times but did not ever stay that way until much later. Their pride in their civilization was the fact that they did not want violence but preferred peaceful means of solving problems. This second round of civilizations helped form the civilizations of the the third round coming in the next chapter.