Ancient Greece

Human civilization recognizes that there is a boundary between the past and the present, a boundary that delineates the time when society began to emerge out of the diaphanous clouds of mythology and recognize that people lived in a world in which nature and thought, and not the impulsive, retributive acts of the gods, determined the course of the world's direction. It's no surprise that this dividing line between tale and truth first emerged with the Greeks, those lovers of logic, experiment, and argument, as they first gained traction on the slippery slope of human curiosity. Pythagoras, an Ionian Greek, is perhaps the first person to describe himself as a philosopher, a lover of wisdom or, as he defined it, one who attempts to know. Because of his influence on the philosopher Plato, Pythagoras is recognized as a crucial building block in the evolution of Western thought. His contributions to the fields of mathematics, philosophy, music and the sciences are acknowledged as influences which have endured long after his time of influence in the sixth century BCE. In the world of the intellect, the Greeks were heavy hitters and many names have traveled through the centuries, continuing to teach and enlighten us about the universe on a grand scale and our humble selves, on a much less grand, but no less significant, level. Philosophy taught human beings that the unexamined life was not worth living. His colleagues in philosophy turned self-examination into an art and a science, delving deep into human motivation, purpose, and existence. The Greeks ignited a fire of learning in the Ancient World. They were not the only civilization to bestow their intellect upon posterity, but it's a mark of their legacy that centuries after their time of glory, they are still regarded as a high water mark of human achievement. Why, exactly, they were so renowned as the brainiacs of the globe can be attributed to a variety of things, but what is certain is that even when mightier powers such as Rome conquered them, the Romans prized their learning, spreading it throughout their own mighty empire. The seeds of Greek learning were planted in fields far from Athens and eventually would spread across the Mediterranean Sea to become the foundation of Western culture as we know it.