原文 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3Z-RWdoi7ztUqYkPieEJkw

      写在开始前:

      《简明欧洲历史》讲座主要面向本地社区(Bothell及周边)小学高年级到高中的孩子,由我本人整理编写,不作任何商业用途,转载请联系本人授权。我们的Email是:beikunhu@gmail.com

      讲座结构全部延循约翰-赫斯特的著作《极简欧洲史》,部分文字直接引用此书。讲座内容部分来源于柏拉图、修昔底德等人的原著,当然更多内容来源于现代人所写的书籍和论文,例如Robert B. Kebric的GREEK PEOPLE,BBC的《世界历史》,Donald Palmer 的 LOOKING AT PHILOSOPHY等等,地图部分主要引用PAST WORLD—ATLAS OF ARCHAEOLOGY。部分零散资料来源于网络。

      我本人只是一个历史爱好者,所学有限,讲座难免有各种疏漏甚至错误,欢迎所有看到我不足的朋友给我发信,我会及时修正。

      英文版本由北昆翻译,为了符合英文语法习惯,部分是意译,有些部分只是我自己的个人爱好,并没有什么知识点,在英文版本会省略,中英文版本会有略微不同,并非逐字翻译,望周知。

      无论我们多么以自己的文明为傲,我们也不得不承认,现在世界国家普遍运用的科学发展和现代科技都起源于欧洲文明,欧洲的文化历史,政治制度对现在世界的政治制度,文化生态的影响是最大的。

      在欧洲的文明发端之初,主要是由以下三个元素组成的。

      第一:古希腊和罗马文化

      第二:基督教,犹太教的一个奇特分支

      第三:对罗马帝国进行侵略的日耳曼蛮族的战士文化

      我们今天就以欧洲文明的源头古希腊文明开始我们的讲座。

      古希腊文明是欧洲最早出现的文明,持续了大约650年(公元前800年-公元前146年),古希腊不是指某一个国家,而是一个地区的称谓,位置在欧洲东南部,地中海东北部,包括希腊半岛、爱琴海和爱奥尼亚海上的群岛和岛屿、土耳其西南沿岸、意大利东北和西西里岛东部沿海地区。

古希腊文明发展历程

      古希腊文明的前驱是克里特岛的米诺斯文明,宙斯的母亲为了防止他的父亲克诺洛斯吃掉他,就是把他藏在这个克里特岛。米诺斯文明是一个非常繁盛的文明,据考古发现克利特岛的米诺斯文明遗址有庞大的宫殿群,其中装置的复杂的取水和排水系统,到近代为止,还没有谁能超过他们。他们的艺术优美艳丽,但是遗憾的是,克里特岛地震频发,后来也许是火山爆发也许是迈锡尼人入侵,克里特米诺斯文明逐渐消失,迈锡尼文明逐渐兴盛。

      迈锡尼人是当时的海上霸主,他们不断地掠夺扩张,迈锡尼时代被一些历史学家称为“希腊-维京时代”。我们在荷马史诗《伊利亚特》和《奥德赛》里读到的特洛伊战争就发生在这个时期,虽然古希腊人认为荷马史诗是毫无疑问的史实,考古发现也确认战争存在,但是原因不是绝世美人海伦而是争夺富庶的港口和通往黑海的黄金航道,迈锡尼人赢得了这场战争,但是自己也逐渐衰败了下去。

日本漫画《王家的纹章》又名《尼罗河女儿》还原了米诺斯文明场景

      在日本漫画《王家的纹章》里有关于这两个文明盛况的生动描画。上图红色主图是考古复原的米诺斯王宫壁画 Prince of Lilies(百合花王子)。另两张是漫画《王家的纹章》中的插图,可以看出还原度很高。这本书里还有米诺斯宫殿以及祭神仪式的完整呈现,也描述了早期迈锡尼人和米诺斯人的冲突。忽略这本书的爱情线,这本书真是一本宝藏之书,从头把每一页的服饰宫殿都对照考古书籍看一下,基本能把除了古华夏和古印度文明之外的初代文明都学完。

多利亚人(后来的斯巴达人)灭亡了迈锡尼文明后,将希腊拖回近乎野蛮的状态,古希腊地区重回氏族部落状态。约公元前十二世纪到公元前九世纪,进入了荷马时代(Homeric Age)也叫英雄时代(Heroic Age)、黑暗时代,这一时期的历史主要是由荷马所写的史诗记录,叙述了迈锡尼文明的旧闻,也表述了当时社会的情况(荷马描述的是距离他的时代已经有几百年的英雄们的故事,所以他描述的某些情形是参考了他自己所处时代的实际情况)。和他几乎同一时代的赫西俄德写出了伟大的诗歌《工作与时日》《神谱》,《神谱》描写的是宇宙和神的诞生,讲述从地神盖亚诞生一直到奥林匹亚诸神统治世界的故事,终于把人物关系错综复杂的希腊诸神整理成体系。

      古风时期是希腊城邦最初形成的时期,自由民开始出现在历史舞台,城邦大量建立,从氏族部落向奴隶制社会过度。

      希腊世界出现了标志希腊文明光辉的一系列重大发展:希腊人袭用腓尼基字母,创造了自己的文字;第一届奥林匹克运动会于公元前776年举行,使希腊各邦有了共同的传统节日和历史纪年。希腊当时有四个大满贯赛事(到罗马时期扩大到七大赛事)包括奥林匹克赛会、德尔斐赛会、科林斯的地峡赛会、内美亚赛会,后来希腊各城邦把两届奥林匹亚运动会之间的周期称为奥林匹亚德(Olympiad)),成为城邦之间共通计算年份的方法。

      在希腊的诸城邦中斯巴达和雅典逐渐兴起,他们之间的合作和战争占据了古希腊历史中的大部分篇幅。

      虽然我们想象中希腊人是拿着葡萄酒在长廊漫步探讨哲学问题的形象,但是实际上希腊人的日常最多的是战争,他们的战争如此频繁,以至于每个希腊男人一生中必然有一次会上战场。

      古典时期最重要的战争包括让希腊称霸爱琴海的两次希波战争(其中最知名的战役是马拉松战役和温泉关战役),和让希腊衰败的两次伯罗奔尼撒战争,如果感兴趣可以看看修昔底德的《伯罗奔尼撒战争史》,其中提出了一个在贸易战中频频提及的概念“修昔底德陷阱”,是指一个新崛起的大国必然要挑战现存大国,而现存大国也必然会回应这种威胁,这样战争变得不可避免。(这段话是哈佛大学教授格雷厄姆·艾利森在他的著作 Destined for War中提出,其原始来源《伯罗奔尼撒战争史》中的这句话:What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Spart.)

 温泉关战役推荐大家观看由鲁道夫·马特导演的那部《三百斯巴达战士》(The 300 Spartans),比06年法斯宾德参演的那部更符合历史,起码列奥尼达戴了他的头盔。

       伯罗奔尼撒战争(The Peloponnesian War)后整个希腊开始由盛转衰。

      这时候马其顿王国经过两代国王腓力二世和亚历山大大帝的努力,建立横跨欧亚的马其顿帝国,亚历山大帝国是当时世界上领土面积最大的国家,超过同时期古中国战国七雄领土的总和。在亚历山大帝去世后这个庞大的帝国在继承者战争中很快四分五裂了。

附:英文版本,英文版本第一段和中文不同,是直接引用《极简欧洲史》英文原文,关于《尼罗河女儿的部分》省略。

  European civilization is unique because it is the only civilization which has imposed itself on the rest of the world. It did this by conquest and settlement; by its economic power; by the power of its ideas; and because it had thing that everyone else wanted. Today every country on the earth use the discoveries of science and the technologies that flow it, and science was a European invention.

  At its beginning European civilization was made up of three elements:

  1. the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome

  2. Christianity, which is an odd offshoot of the religion of the Jews, Judaism.

  3. the culture of the German warriors who invaded the Roman Empire.

  European civilization was a mixture: the importance of this will become clear as we go on.

  The culture of Ancient Greece is the first civilization that appeared in the Europe, and lasted for about 650 years(800BC-146BC), Ancient Greece is not a country, but a place of many poleis at the southeastern part of Europe, northwest of the Mediterranean Sea, including Greek Peninsula, island of the Aegean Sea and the Ionian Sea along the shores of southwest Turkey, places along the shore of Italy and Sicily.

  Ancient Greek civilization comes from the Mycenae civilization of the Crete. Zeus’s mother once left Zeus on Crete to stop Chronos from eating him. Later the Mycenaeans conquered Crete, and the Minoan civilization slowly fade away, and the Mycenaeans are flourishing.

  The Mycenaeans were the leader of the seas at that time. They kept stealing and expanding their territory, so the Mycenaeans period was called the “Greek-Viking Age” by many historians. We know from Homer’s epics  ILIAD and ODYSSEY that the war of Troy happened at that time, of course the war did not happen because they were fighting over Helen, but over the good port and course. They may have won the war, but their civilization has also come to decline.

  After the Dorians destroyed the Mycenae civilization, they dragged the ancient Greece back to almost savage like. Ancient Greece turned back into clan-tribal situation. About 1200BC to 900BC, ancient Greece entered the Homeric Age, also called the Heroic Age or the Dark Age. Homer’s Epic set down this part of history, the Mycenae civilization’s past.

  The poleis was gradually formed in Archaic Period, free citizen started to appear on history’s stage, a large number of poleis appeared. The clan tribe changed over to Slavery society. There are a series of great developments that appeared in the Greek World. They followed the alphabet of Phoenicia to make their own alphabet. The first Olympic Games are held at about 700BC, from then on every Greek polies have same holiday and historical chronology. The time between two Olympic Games was called Olympiad.

  The Greek polies, Sparta and Athens are slowly increasing their power. The most important wars in Classical Antiquity include two Greco-Persian wars that allowed Greek to be the conqueror of the Aegean Sea (I think perhaps you have heard about the Battel of Marathon and the Battel of Thermopylae), and the two Peloponnesian War that led Greece to decline, if you are interested, you can read Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War. A phrase of this book is often repeated in the trade war: Thucydides Trap-When one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result.

  After the Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greece from prosperity to decline.

  Alexander the Great spent most of his ruling year on an unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, and by the age of thirty, he hand created one of the largest of the ancient world, stetching from Greece to northwestern India. But in the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart.