Bracha Bamberger

April 24th 2020

Humanities

        The Contributions Of The Greeks

     Ancient Greek civilization contributed many ideas and styles of life that affect our daily lifestyles every day. During 400BC a physician named Hippocrates started teaching that every disease had only natural causes. Hippocrates was the first physician known who considered medicine to be a science, and to be separate from religion. Hippocrates gave us the Hippocratic oath, that every new doctor still says to this day.  

     Hippocrates and his medical teachings were not the only things Ancient Greek has taught us and helped us with our daily routine. Ancient Greek was the first civilization that participated in the Olympics. Ancient Greek created the Olympics Games over 2,700 years ago in Olympia, in southwest Greece. Every four years, around 50,000 people came from all over the Greek world to watch and take part. The ancient games were also a religious festival, held in honor of Zeus, the king of the gods. We still take part in the Olympic games but some of the events have changed or been altered throughout the years.

     Along with the Olympics, The Greeks had another form of entertainment which was theater. The Greeks built their theaters on hillsides in a semi-circle shape, and in the center of the theater was a circular dancing floor for the chorus. These theaters could hold more than 18,000 people and portrayed shows of past tragedies or comedies about everyday life. These ideas about theater have contributed to many present-day activities we all love including plays, movies, and even the way stadiums are built in the present day.

     Besides theater, the Greeks gave us the idea of a jury and that helped us create our legal justice system.  The greeks would have a jury system with about 500 to 1501 to help them decide the punishment or even the death penalty for people. The reason the greeks jury was much larger than the jury system we have today is that you can bribe 12 people but none can afford to bribe 500 jurors. Unlike how jurors nowadays decide if someone is guilty or not guilty by having a vote, the jurors in ancient greek would place a metal disk in a jar with one saying guilty and one saying not guilty. Even though it's different from the oath in ancient greek jurors today are still sworn in similar to how they were sworn in, in ancient greek.

     Besides Hippocrates, the Olympics, the theater, and the jury system Ancient greek have contributed many aspects of modern-day life, with things like war and the way we build and design our monuments. Ancient Greek has also contributed to our lifestyles and how it's different from other countries, just like Athans and Sparta, even though they were both parts of Ancient Greece And had some similar lifestyles.