How Did Ancient Greece Influence Modern Society

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Greece and Rome, two ancient societies, both influenced many aspects of modern life. Their advancements were utilized in many later cultures. They influenced almost every part of today’s world, such as government, language, and architecture, as well as making scientific advancements. Also, the successes of these two civilizations lead to many countries modeling most of their public facilities and systems after the ones found in Greece and Rome.

Ancient culture strongly influenced modern culture by means of language. Henry Bradley, in his work The Legacy of Rome, states that “...Over the greater part of Western Europe the subject peoples learned to speak the language of their conquerors and forget their native tongues, so that at present day what was once the local dialect of (Rome) is … spoken… by half the nations of the civilized world.” This quote shows how Rome, by conquering the Mediterranean and assimilating the people into its own culture, …show more content…

The Hippocratic Oath, written around 300 BC, outlines many of the current guidelines for physicians. Though the procedures have greatly changed, the oath is still commonly used, and parts are even written into modern laws*.School systems are even further affected by the ancient people, to the point that the entirety of the modern educational laws are taken from the ideas of the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his piece, The Politics. He was one of the first ones to come up with the idea of legislation to make education compulsory, so that the population was all taught the same things in the same way. He was against allowing parents to teach their kids in any way they wished, such as is shown in Aristotle’s own words “(...) education must necessarily be one and the same for all, and that the superintendence of it should be common and not on a private basis