The wars between Persia and Greece are usually portrayed as a struggle between occident and orient, with Greek's defeat of Persia beginning the idea of Europe as separate from Asia, with its own peculiar destiny, talents and perspective. Can you challenge this?
Europe is just a penniusular of Asia made up of different groups and cultures, as with all large areas inhabited by the human race. I tend to see Greece as a perifery culture of Asia, which I believe is more realistic than seeing it as inseperably culturally connected to German, Balkan and Scythian tribes or peoples then inhabitating most of Europe. Ancient Greece was I feel an anomaly although its occasional democratic forms can be found also in later German tribes.
Lastly, what would have occurred had the Persians won? Your views.....
We are all from Adam. Also the real Europe came from Phoenicians.
Stanley
As you know, the history of the ancient world is very complex. Ancient Greeks were colonizing the west coast of Turkey where TROY is located (if we believe the Trojan Wars). Also, the Phoenicians had influenced Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Italy and ultimately Europe more than 400 years before Persian wars. The influence of Asia on Europe started with the founding of Carthage around 814 BC in present day Tunisia. Note that Rome was build around 753 BC! Hence, your assumption relative to causation of the construction of Europe as a concept after Alexander's conquests around 330 BC ignores much of the earlier history and interactions that occurred earlier between East and West.
Amir
Not really, Amir. Would any European have considered themselves different-that is geographically appropriate? I believe that, if anything, the urbanised areas of present-day Europe would have justifiably seen themselves as within the so-called Asian paradigm, the arc of urban (also African of course) cultures then dominant. Mycenae was in most matters a reflection of Near East societies. There had been a bronze-age urban culture in Spain long before Phoenician (Canaanite) involvement in North Africa but it did not impress its identity on Europe-or not as we can see at present.
This is not entirely a straight-forward historical question but involves perceptions.
Herodotus described the Persian wars as a dichotomy, that is different cultural perceptions clashing-East/West/ tyranny (kings) and people-centred. My point is, this is not sound. The division is not and never has been clear. Many Greek cities had tyrants and really the so called democracies look to me like primitive tribal constructs. Evidence has it, that these societies were common almost cultures in a certain pre-state stage of development.
This question concerns the evolution of the concept of Europe as a distinct cultural entity.
At certain points in history, Europe, according to historians, has undergone orientalism, whereby Eastern behaviour has shaped European populations. This happened in Greece, as well as and after the Mycenaen period, in about 700 BCE-or slightly later. This piece regards the construction of a separate European identity as false. Orientalism occurred throughout history with Christianity and the concept of kingship that produced the Roman Emperors and the Papacy, with all its garish splendour.
The Persian Wars appear to have frightened the Greek states so much that, I suggest, they conceived a concept of 'otherness', that is they were different from urban cultures around them. That rather than being part of Asian urban culture they were distinct-they were European.
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