Greece and the Foundations of the West
Here's a list of disciplines and traditions that came out of Ancient Greek civilization, which either developed them from scratch or gave them form:
Astronomy (Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, Ptolemy)
Athletics (Olympic Games)
Biology (Aristotle)
Chemistry (Democritus)
Comedy (Aristophanes)
Democracy (Cleisthenes, Pericles)
Ethics (Aristotle)
Geography (Ptolemy)
Geometry (Euclid)
History (Herodotus, Thucydides)
Logic (Aristotle)
Mathematics (Pythagoras, Archimedes)
Medicine (Hippocrates, Galen)
Metaphysics (Aristotle)
Philosophy (Socrates, Plato)
Physics (Aristotle)
Political Science (Plato, Aristotle)
Realistic Art (Myron, Phidias, Polyclitus)
Science (Thales and the Ionian School)
Theater (Thespis)
Tragedy (Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus)
The Western disciplines and traditions
described above differ in many important respects from their Classical counte
rparts described above. Some even have their origins in the Middle Ages, not Antiquity. The West is infinitely more indebted to Christianity and Rome than it is to Greece.
In Byzantine times the native Greeks were displaced by various barbarian tribes. Greece today is no more like ancient Greece then pre Saxon Briton is like Briton today.
Modern science is mostly an outgrowth of the renaisance and to a certain degree the High Middle ages.
The West is in many ways a reversal of the Classical World.