Describe the contributions of the Greeks and Romans to Western Civilization, explaining their accomplishments and the classical virtues they developed

The civilization of Greek and Romans are considered to be the most ancient ones, and historian when describing the impacts on world especially on the field of arts, literature, and philosophy these two civilizations have left on the west. The question which often raised that what are the reasons that Greeks and Romans became popular in history is because they secured the significant place on conception. The Greeks were the one who created the intellectual culture through scholars and writers of philosophy because of the Hellenic culture. Whereas, the Romans civilization founded back in 800BC was one of the mightiest empires which started as a system of the monarchy but turned into a republic even before turning into an empire. The culture of Rome was influenced by ancient Greece (Spielvogel, 2014).

The first contribution of these two civilizations was about the perception and understanding of religion. Both the civilization emphasized the importance of religion in the lives of people because it helps to make it better and purposeful. The praised several Gods and built many beautiful temples to show their devotion in the form of praying there together. The contribution of religious beliefs leads them to develop the cultural art of music and dance performances which are still known to be the most aesthetic and unique. The second most influencing contribution of this civilization was in the field of politics. The system of politics which they developed was by the government instead of wealthy rulers who only favors the wealthy. They introduced such system to provide rights and justice equally. They designed such system of governance which developed the better economic and social structure.

The third contribution of Roman and Greek Civilization was defining the roles of men and women to run the society. The men were assigned specific tasks like farming and business to provide their families. The women and children were the charges of their homes when the men were out working. The women looked after the homes and managed slaves. The Roman civilization specially liberated women and provided them the liberty of doing jobs and removed the restrictions. The women started teaching during the roman civilization (Pyne, 2016).

2. Discuss how the Roman Catholic Church grew during the Middle Ages from a fragmented and localized institution to one that was highly centralized and explained how this development brought the Church into conflict with secular powers in Europe.

The middle age was period when the Roman Empire met the collapse, and those were the time when only one institution left, and that was Roman Catholic Church. Despite the fact that the church was under the supervision of some of the authorities of rulers at that time, but within the church, it was controlled by local bishops due to the designed hierarchy. The reason for its strength was its base which was the Christian believers who were shattered by the collapse, but God’s kingdom was ultimate hostile when the day of deliverance would come. The hierarchy of church was built once again with the additional leader who replaced empire ruler, and that was Pope. He was considered to be the supreme power after that. The Pope started placing innovations in the readings, and at that time the literacy was no longer the requirement for the clergy. These new steps were taken to facilitate the people of that time so that they manage the time and knowledge. All these decisions taken by Pope made the church the centralized institute, and all decisions were only by the Pope.

When all of these happens in which the Church imposed the religious rules and regulation on the state and set the boundaries according to Christianity, the Roman Empire rules came against those rules. It brought the overlap of both the powers. Even though both the rules tried to negotiate but the conflict only raised. The other reason historian states behind the reason for the conflict was not due to the power but the wealth which church fathers started to carry. Church authorities advised people to live a simple life, and they took luxury lives by the donation of people. The conflict stayed a long time, and other reasons were also raised which contradicts the teaching which was given by the Church, but at the end, Romans lost the complete power because everybody took the side of the church (Grzymała-Busse, 2015).

References

Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western civilization. Cengage Learning, 2014.

Pyne, S. J. (2016). Fire in mind: changing understandings of fire in Western civilization. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 371(1696), 20150166.

Grzymała-Busse, A. (2015). Nations under God: How churches use moral authority to influence policy. Princeton University Press.