Ancient Greece culture and society

Ancient Greece

That ancient Greece has contributed to the modern world is in little doubt. That it had an influence on the ancient world, even nations it did not conquer, is not often understood. Nor is it understood that Greece, for all its might, borrowed from other parts of the ancient world, both those regions it had conquered and those it had merely visited. Much of Africa is therefore of prime consideration for anyone attempting to assess the give-and-take nature of ancient Greek culture.

For example, in both The Illiad and The Odyssey, Homer refers to Africa, and particularly Ethiopia. In doing so, he suggests that there is Greek descendancy from Ethiopians, as well as form Egyptians and Libyans. "In The Illiad, the Achaians -- the Greeks of Mycenae -- continuously refer to themselves as 'Danaans,' the descendants of Danaus. Within the mythological and historical framework, they understood their heritage, by way of Argos, to be Egyptian and therefore African" (Keita, 1994, 147+).

That might be meaningless, except for the fact that all of this was connected with the Greek pantheon, a pantheon that has influenced mythology, and arguably racial memory, throughout all the ages since ancient Greece. In Book I of The Odyssey, the gods assemble to determine Odysseus' fate, with Poseidon absent. In fact, he is described as being away for a visit to the Ethiopians "who live at the ends of the earth, some near the sunrise, some near the sunset...." (The Odyssey, quoted by Keita, 1994, p. 147+).

Keita insists that Homer was not simply employing a literary device to get Poseidon away from the council. Rather, Keita suggests that the passage displays "an intrinsic esteem and meaning with which he [Homer] attempts to inform the reader of the values of his world" (1994, p. 147+).

The high esteem in which the Greeks held the Ethiopians is traceable to what the Greeks regarded as the Ethiopians' sterling quality, including piety, justice and wisdom. The Greeks even believe that the sun had "kissed" the Ethiopians, explaining the deep color of their skin. In fact, according to one of the sources Keita quotes, the Ethiopians "pioneered" religion, inventing many of the customers that existed later in Egypt; according to that same source, the Egyptians were descended from the Ethiopians. Indeed, Herodotus asserted that almost all the names of the Greek gods came from Egypt, and that those names had been known in Egypt "from the beginning of time...." (Keita, 1994, p. 147+). The Greeks, the source maintains, taught the Greeks about ceremonial meetings, processions and liturgies and to assign a day to a deity and to engage in prognostications and use of omens.

On the other hand, it is unlikely that, without the Greeks to conquer lands on both sides of the Mediterranean, the spread of religion and liturgy and myth -- ascribed to the Egyptians and their forebears, the Ethiopians -- that western culture would have the religion- and story-based shape it has today. The ancient world, too, of course, would have lacked these essential cultural attributes.