The Ancient Greeks have brought many contributions into our world like, science, math, philosophy, and government. They have created different social groups in different cities, some with military roots and some based on the human spirit. They are the creators of today’s social, economic structure. Hippocrates was a physician who created The Hippocrates Oath. He lived in Greece from 460 to 377 BC. He developed this oath for all physicians to swear that they will not harm their patient or give them any harmful medicines. He also studied causes of illness and looked for cures.
The Hippocratic Oath is still used today for doctors because they promised that they will not harm their patient in any way. Euclid was a mathematician known as the “Father of Geometry”. He lived around 300 BC. Euclid wrote a book called Elements. Teachers used it for more than 2,000 years. He helped people understand the world around them with geometry. His findings are very important in architecture and construction. He figured out that if “two straight lines cut one another, the vertical or opposite, angles shall be equal” (Document 5). Also, he is famous for his theories on parts of life.
His legacy is still being used in textbooks, construction, and daily life. The Ancient Greeks created the first forms of government. One of those forms was aristocracy. Aristocracy is a form of government that the upper class people that have power to take decisions over civil and financial matters without the opinion of others. Those people are called aristocrats. The word aristocracy means best of the country. Cleisthenes was a Athenian statesman. He was an aristocrat who was banished from Athens. When tyranny disappeared, he changed the Athenian constitution.
The second type of government is an oligarchy. An oligarchy is ruled by the few for the benefit of the few. Oligarchy is two different words in Greek, oligos, which means few and archo which means to rule. The downfall of having an oligarchy is that those who are in charge do not care about the lower class people. They make decisions that only helps themselves. The third type is tyranny, which is ruled by one autocratic leader. The tyrants are individuals, newly self made, and they are against the aristocrats. The last type of government the Greeks created is democracy.
Democracy was governed by the people. It was based on human beings and natural desire to be free. Pericles is describing democracy in this quote, “Our plan of government favors the many instead of the few: that is why it is called a democracy…. As for social standing, advancement is open to everyone, according to ability. While every citizen has an equal opportunity to serve the public, we reward our most distinguished citizens by asking them to make our political decisions. Nor do we discriminate against the poor. A man may serve his country no matter how low his position on the social scale. ”.
His expectations for people living in a democracy are, advancement is open to everyone based on ability not social standing. Every citizen has the opportunity to serve the public and any person may serve his country no matter how poor they are. (Document 3) During the Golden Age, there were two very important philosophers, Socrates and Aristotle. Socrates was a philosopher who lived from 470 to about 399 B. C. E. “ The unexamined life is not worth living. ” is one out of the many quotes Socrates had. In this quote he is urging his students to question the world around them to add value to their lives.
He had a question-answer format to help his students use their reasoning to find answers. He introduced the practice of Dialect, which was to oppose every belief. He was so intelligent in introducing his ideas, that some Greek schools were based on his teachings. Aristotle was another philosopher that lived from 384 to 322 B. C. E in Greece. He believed and promoted the investigation of the world through observation. He believed that people had to use reason to learn about the world around them. Aristotle was Plato’s student and the tutor of Alexander the Great.
He believed that human reason was the most godlike part of human nature. He thought life guided by human reason was much better than a life not guided by human reason. Other than science, Aristotle wrote about many different subjects such as, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, and politics (Document 2). In conclusion, the Ancient Greeks have contributed a majority of ideas that people around the world still use. Greek culture has spread throughout the world. They invented many things that the United States has, such as a democracy and columns.