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The border between ancient Europe and Asia-the gathering and spreading area of various civilizations

Chen heng

Abstract: The process of human communication is the process of integration and sublimation of different cultures. West Asia and Central Asia play a "bridge" role in the cultural exchange between the East and the West. These "bridges" not only ferry eastern civilization to the west, but also ferry western civilization to the east. At the same time, the unique "bridge" culture has also had a great influence on eastern and western civilizations. Even the civilizations that belong to the "bridge" are interactive. The process of cultural exchange in the ancient world centered on West Asia and Central Asia is extremely complicated, and it is almost impossible to solve this problem in a short paper. This paper intends to divide the spread of civilization in this area into stages and briefly analyze the general situation of each period.

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The history of mankind itself is the whole history of contact, collision and communication between different cultures. In the words of cultural geographers, this different culture is different cultural circles (also known as cultural areas or cultural areas), that is, regions divided by people according to differences in production methods, languages, religions, political forms, daily life, housing structure, customs and habits, and various cultural phenomena that adapt to nature. The colonial expansion accompanied by the great geographical discovery made Europeans keen to study cultures outside their own. In particular, the outbreak of World War I awakened the progressive dream of westerners, and the western European centralism was challenged. After World War II, the upsurge of national democratic movement in Asia, Africa and Latin America made this problem more prominent, which made people have to look at the history outside Europe and the civilization outside Western civilization with a new eye. Think about how human civilization was formed. What is the development process of each civilization itself? How do civilizations communicate? Wait, wait. To this end, various factions put forward different views, trying to build a system for the complicated and changeable world history and reveal the laws. Regarding the origin of civilization, there are views such as "Egyptian origin theory", "Western Asia origin theory" and "China origin theory". The most representative of the development of civilization is the "civilization ecological history view". Spengler in Germany regards all cultures in the world as organisms, and they all go through a process of origin, growth, decline and disintegration. Just like people, they have childhood, youth and maturity, or like seasons, they have to go through spring, summer, autumn and winter. As for the communication between civilizations, due to its special geographical location in the inland areas of Europe and Asia, it has naturally become the focus of people's attention.

The so-called Eurasian inland area here refers to West Asia and Central Asia in our modern eyes. However, as geographical concepts, it is difficult to have an exact definition of the two words "West Asia" and "Central Asia" because of historical relations. Generally speaking, "West Asia" (also known as "Southwest Asia") refers to a large area of land from the west of China's western frontier to the east coast of the Mediterranean, including Asia Minor Peninsula in the northwest and Arabian Peninsula in the southwest. There are many places in the Amu Darya River basin near China in the northeast and many places in the west near the Indus River basin in the southeast. The north is close to the Caspian Sea and the south is the Indian Ocean. This region includes modern Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain. "Central Asia" mainly refers to the modern nationalities of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, as well as the three autonomous regions of Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang in China.

Simply put, West Asia and Central Asia only play the role of a bridge in the cultural exchange between the East and the West. But this is not the case. While spreading the cultures of other countries, the ancient countries in West Asia and Central Asia also developed their own unique and splendid cultures-some called Sumerian culture, some called Babylonian culture, some called Persian culture, some called Greek culture, some called Arabic culture, some called Mongolian culture and some called Mongolian culture. Therefore, if we want to understand the real situation of ancient cultural exchanges between the East and the West, we can't skip or ignore the existence of these cultures. These "bridges" ferry eastern civilization to the west, and in turn ferry western civilization to the east. At the same time, the unique "bridge" culture has had a great influence on both the east and the west. Even the civilizations that belong to the "bridge" are interactive. Nomadic civilization and farming civilization are two great civilizations in the ancient world. From the development stage, in most areas, such as Central Asia, nomadic civilization precedes farming civilization; According to recent research, in a few areas, such as West Asia, farming civilization precedes nomadic civilization. Therefore, the two worlds in this "bridge" are inextricably linked, with peaceful and sometimes violent exchanges. The process of communication is also a process in which different cultures converge and sublimate here, forming a unique cultural phenomenon in the history of the world: the creation of human material civilization and spiritual civilization can go back and forth with the evolution of the times and emerge in endlessly. This process is shown in the following figure:

The process of cultural exchange in the ancient world centered on West Asia and Central Asia is extremely complicated, and it is almost impossible to solve this problem in a short paper. This paper intends to divide the spread of civilization in this area into stages and briefly analyze the general situation of each period.

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1. the communication between eastern and western civilizations in the pre-classical period. Today, there are still many people who have good reasons to believe that western civilization is very different from other civilizations in the world. It evolved independently from ancient Greek and Roman civilization, through medieval Christian civilization, to modern industrial civilization. Some people even attribute the European political, economic, legal, cultural and educational systems after the industrial revolution to the evolution of the "internal essence" of ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Joseph Scaliger, a French classical scholar in the Renaissance, pointed out that the Greeks benefited from the achievements of non-Greeks.

In fact, in ancient times, Hercules of Miletus believed that the Greeks were descendants of Egyptian civilization for a long time. Herodotus pointed out that Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, the main Greek city, was the prince of Phoenicia, a semitic city, and pointed out that many Greek gods came from Egypt. Joseph ·J·J· Scaliger (1540- 1609), a French classical scholar in the Renaissance, also pointed out that the Greeks benefited from the achievements of non-Greeks. George Sarton, a great expert on the history of science, said: "The foundation of Greek science is completely oriental. No matter how profound the genius of Greece is, without these foundations, it may not be possible to create something comparable to its actual achievements. ..... We have no right to ignore the Greek genius Egyptian father and Mesopotamian mother "; Whitehead also said, "We inherited morality and religion from the Semu people and practice from the Egyptians" (1937). Since 1980s, this view that "the West" has been a civilization tradition since ancient Greece-Rome has been fundamentally questioned. Now more and more scholars find that "Western" civilization actually "originated" from non-Western-more precisely, it was ancient "Oriental" civilization.

Facts have proved that various civilizations in the East-Sumerian civilization, Egyptian civilization, Hittite civilization, Babylonian civilization, Hebrew civilization and Indian civilization, etc. -It has made great contributions to ancient Greek civilization, especially Hittite civilization, and played a bridge role between ancient East and ancient Europe. As early as more than 3,000 years before BC, countries with highly developed and strict political and writing systems were established in what is now called the Near East, including Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. This cultural circle in the Near East has established close ties with the surrounding areas, not only in politics, military affairs, commerce and technology, but also in language, literature and art..

Around 3000 BC, there was a prosperous Crete civilization in the Aegean Sea in the eastern part of the Mediterranean world. This civilization has a very close relationship with Asia and Africa, and is deeply influenced by various civilizations in West Asia and Egypt. At that time, Europe-"Greece" was still an uncivilized region. Unlike the Hebrews, the Greeks had no direct connection with Mesopotamia itself, but in Mycenae's time, the Greeks had close political and economic ties with the Hittites and Canaanites, Mesopotamian neighbors. Through the cities of South Anatolia, Canaan, Cyprus and Crete, material and spiritual wealth are conveyed-there is no doubt that these things will take root and sprout in the land of Greece. A few years ago, a cylindrical seal was found in a cellar in Thebes, Greece. This discovery surprised the public, but it did not shock the archaeological community. To be sure, many such items will be found on Greek soil in the future. Allen wu, a British archaeologist, excavated Al Mina near the mouth of the Orontes River in Syria at the beginning of the 20th century, which confirmed that the Greeks on Ubeia Island had come here at least before the end of the 9th century BC (it might be called Posideion at that time). A large number of unearthed cultural relics showed that the Greeks regarded this place as a trading warehouse, indicating that Greece had a strong trade relationship with West Asia during this period. This trading post flourished for hundreds of years, and the Greeks used it as a stronghold to conduct direct trade with the two river basins. This trade spread bronzes, jewels and ivory ornaments from West Asia to Greece. At the same time, due to the social unrest in West Asia, not only many goods were exported to Greece, but also a considerable number of craftsmen came to the Greek world to make a living. They set up their own workshops in Crete, engaged in jewelry processing and making bronzes, and some craftsmen even arrived in Attica. This kind of communication and contact had an immeasurable influence on Greek culture; Not only in West Asia, the ancient Greeks also built the Naukratis trading post on the Kanoqi River, a tributary of the Nile in Egypt. Egyptian Pharaoh Psammetichus I (663- 609 BC) established a powerful army and fleet for hegemony. Most of his soldiers were Greek mercenaries, and he invited many Greek businessmen to settle in Egypt. At this time, Noclades was established. When I arrived at the Pharaoh Amassis (578- 525 BC), I promised the Greeks that I could build this place into a pure Greek city, where I could build temples in my own form and run the market as I wished. Since then, Noklades has become the commercial center of Egypt, Greece and other Mediterranean countries. It is conceivable that the Greeks learned a lot about Egypt from here. In terms of art, pottery in the period called "primitive Corinthian style" (about 720- 640 BC) has obvious oriental traces. These oriental pottery generally adopt patterns, animal images and mythical figures extracted from oriental textiles or gold and silver handicrafts. Therefore, this early civilization of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, is more appropriate to say that it belongs to the East than to Europe.

With the decline of Mycenae civilization, this connection between early Greece and the Near East ended. This situation was not broken until the eighth century BC, when the Greeks came out of the "dark ages" and were once again shocked by the outstanding achievements of their eastern neighbors. During this period, the Phoenicians in Canaan gave letters to the Greeks, and the Phoenician letters evolved from Egyptian hieroglyphs, and later the Greek letters evolved into Latin letters, eventually becoming the letters of western countries; At the same time, the Miletus school in Asia Minor began to study the works of Babylonian astronomers, introduced sun clock and sundials from Babylonians, divided the day into twelve parts, and began to conduct astronomical research, which reached its peak in the later Athens philosophy school. By the fifth century BC, the Greeks had entered the golden age, and almost all of them showed the influence of the oriental tradition in art, architecture, philosophy and literature.

The contribution of eastern civilization to mankind spread westward through Greece, Hebrew and Christianity, and finally reached the modern western world. Technically, this contribution includes wheels and seeders that are common in people's lives; In science, including the beginning of astronomical research and the hexadecimal number system that has been used so far, such as dividing circles by degrees and dividing hours by minutes and seconds. Astronomical observation in Mesopotamia eventually led to the division of seasons and the determination of moon phases. As astrology came from astronomy, Mesopotamia invented the names of the ecliptic-bull, Gemini, Leo, Scorpio and so on; The popular view that philosophy originated in Greece is obviously absurd. Many centuries ago, Egyptians put forward many views on the nature of the universe and the ethical issues of human society. On the contrary, the contribution of the Greeks makes philosophy more extensive and all-encompassing than before; Politically, Mesopotamia transmitted two most important contents of its political system-city-state concept and sacred kingship to western civilization. The city-state system is distributed in most areas around the Mediterranean, and the concept of kingship-the concept of the monarch's theocracy and the concept that the monarch mainly reports to the gods-has been introduced into the essence of western society. The coronation ceremony of the British monarch today can be said to be the reappearance of the Mesopotamian ceremony; Legally, Mesopotamia passed the written law to the West. Perhaps this is not an exaggeration. The laws of Mesopotamia illuminated most parts of the civilized world. Greece and Rome were influenced by the contacts in the Near East, and the Islamic world didn't have a formal code until it conquered Iran, the heart of ancient Mesopotamia. How many factors in the current law can be traced back to Mesopotamia can be judged, as the British historian H.W.F Sagues said in his book "Greatness belongs to Babylon": "The law on mortgage can finally be traced back to ... the ancient Near East".

Greek literature also shows that it was influenced by many Mesopotamians. For example, the story of the great flood in Mesopotamia is similar to the legend of deucalion in Greek mythology. Deucalion built a ship and escaped the flood, but the flood destroyed other human beings. The theme of dragon slaying in Mesopotamian mythology has similar legends in Greek legends, such as the stories of Jason and Hercules, who both killed several monsters. God's punishment of human plague is the theme of Greek and Mesopotamian mythology. The underworld of Greece and Mesopotamia is also strikingly similar. Both of them are gloomy places, isolated from the real world, and the afterlife is connected with reality only by an ominous river, from which the dead were transported. Similarly, the Greek Elegy of the Dead seems to have similarities in Sumerian works, which were recently translated from clay tablets by Pushkin Museum in Moscow. In his works, a Mesopotamian poet lamented the death of his father and wife in exaggerated language. Even in the form of Greek epics, the Iliad and Odyssey influenced by other media can be found in Mesopotamian epics. At this time, the Phoenician god was also introduced into Greece. For example, in Phoenician mythology, there was a god named "Puang" (Hammer God), which was later renamed "Pygmies" by the Greeks, meaning "God with big fists".

In Greek "wisdom" literature, scholars have not discovered the prototype from Mesopotamia until recently. Several stories in Aesop's Fables have prototypes in Sumer, and the persuasion words in the version of Nongshu in Lianghe Valley in 18 BC are strangely similar to hesiod's Heavenly Farming. Many Sumerian dialogues are now being translated together, which may prove that some works, such as Plato's dialogues, have some prototypes from Mesopotamia.

Therefore, it was Asian and African cultures that influenced Greek culture, especially in the century from 750 BC to 650 BC, which was deeply influenced by oriental culture. In view of the above historical facts, Osvin Murray, a British scholar, first put forward the concept of "Orientalization Age" in 1993, which was immediately accepted by scholars. This new viewpoint affirmed the influence of oriental culture on Greek culture in essence for the first time. It can be seen that in the ancient Mediterranean world, there was a culture of fusion of Greek factors and oriental factors. Of course, this integration is not a simple "merger". The relationship between the two sides is interactive, and it is not always the strong influence of one side on the other. Who has a great influence on whom is determined by various specific and complicated factors in different periods.

2. The exchange of eastern and western civilizations in the classical period In the West, the word "classical" is used in a broad sense and a narrow sense in the historical period. Regarding the former, some people think that the classical period was from 600 BC to 300 BC in Greece and from 300 BC to 300 AD in Rome. Others think that it roughly refers to Greek and Roman culture and art from the tenth century BC to the fifth century BC; Some people think that the whole ancient Greek civilization (even Roman civilization) can be called classical civilization, so the Greek-Roman era is called classical era or classical world; Some people even think that western classical civilization includes the traditions of ancient West Asia, North Africa, South Asia and Central Asia. The western (European) classical era should be counted from the ancient Greek culture in the early period of 1000 BC, plus ancient Rome and countries to the empire, until the demise of the western Roman empire in 476 AD, or extended to the era of Justinian (527-565 AD). At this time, the barbarian invasion ended the European classical culture, so the western (European) classical era was between two historical events of large-scale barbarian invasion, that is, between the first and second dark ages of ancient Europe. In a narrow sense, it refers to the period between the primitive simple period (8- 6 century BC) and the Hellenistic period; In this era, the real classical stage appeared between 460 BC and 430 BC-Attica and the Peloponnesus had a vigorous and unparalleled development period.

Generally speaking, in the history of Greek culture, the 5th century BC is called the peak of classicism, the next century is called the late period of classicism, and sometimes it is called "5th century" and "4th century" with the century as its proper name (excluding the words BC). Strictly speaking, the classical heyday of Greece began from the defeat of Persians in 480 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, while in Rome it began from the last century until the death of Augustus in 14 (that is, the "golden age" in Roman history). Some people think that it started with the marathon, while the late classical period ended in the first 330 years, which is not completely equal to the whole century. The research object of this paper is the classical period in a narrow sense.

During this period, the absorption of eastern culture by western culture was mainly strengthened by the outbreak of the Greek-Persian war. The ancient Persian Empire was founded by Cyrus II, a Persian among Aryans. He destroyed the Medes in 550 BC and then expanded outward. The name Aryan comes from the Aryan language family, including Indians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Celts, Slavs and so on. The Persians, linguistically speaking, also belong to the Aryan language family. However, although these people belong to the Aryan language family, their bones, blood ties, hairstyles, eyes and skulls are not exactly the same. In 500 BC, Miletus, the Greek city-state of Asia Minor, rebelled against the Persian uprising, and the Persians supported the Phoenician fleet to operate in Asia Minor and the Black Sea Strait, which violated the commercial interests of the Greeks and led to the Greek-Persian war, which eventually ended in victory. The impact of this war on world history is far-reaching. Since then, the development pattern of world civilization has gradually formed a trend of coexistence between East and West, which continues to this day. This war greatly broadened the horizons of the Greeks, further promoted their magnanimity and enhanced their self-confidence.

Alfalfa was imported into Greece during the Greek-Persian War. Alfalfa is a good feed for horses. The Greeks called it Mēdikē because it was mass-produced in the Persian rice field and spread to Greece during the Persian War. China is transliterated as alfalfa, which may come from the Persian local dialect būso near the Caspian Sea. The Greeks called peaches Persian apples and plums Armenian apples. They think peaches are from Persia and plums are from Armenia. Laufer said in his book Ilan, China that the Greeks were wrong: peaches originally came from China, and plums originally came from China. Persians and Armenians are just a medium to import peaches and apricots from China to the Mediterranean through Persia.

The ancient Egyptian culture in this period also had a great influence on the Greek culture in the classical period: many great Greek scholars went to Egypt at this time and studied there, such as Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Solon, Pythagoras, eudoxus, Onopides and so on. Contemporary scholars rarely think that all these people have been to Egypt, but few people deny that they have never been to Egypt. More importantly, few contemporary scholars argue about the fact that Egyptian culture had an important influence on Greek civilization.

In the late 1960s, Assyrian scientists Cyrus Gordon, Michael Astoul and classicist T.B.L Webster tried to establish an important connection between ancient Greece and the ancient Near East. However, people at that time were so hostile to this view that in the late period of 1967, the outstanding classical archaeologist R.M. Cook asserted in the Journal of Greek Studies with a little fear that "the style of Egyptian sculpture probably had no direct influence on Greece in the 7th century BC ... and there was no indication that Greek sculptors at that time had ever obtained Egyptian statues". At that time, the main viewpoints about Egypt's influence on early Greece were fully expounded in the article entitled "A Mirage in Egypt" published by Christian Froidefondy in 197 1. In any case, since 197 1, the academic views on the relationship between Greece and Egypt have changed greatly.

Third, the exchange of civilizations between the East and the West during the Hellenistic period. After the Alexander Crusade in 334 BC (355-323 BC), an empire spanning Europe, Asia and Africa was established, which unified the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia for the first time, thus creating a brilliant Hellenistic era in human history (323-30 BC). The Alexander Empire almost included the major civilizations of mankind at that time-Persian civilization, Egyptian civilization, Jewish civilization and even Indian civilization-with the exception of Confucian civilization. As a result, the traffic of the whole Eurasia was opened. However, in the west at this time, the cultural center has shifted, and the cultural center of the Mediterranean world has moved from Athens in Pericles' time to all parts of the East. We can list four of the most outstanding ones: Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile, Pagama in Asia Minor, Antioch in Syria and Rhode Island along the coast of Asia Minor. In the following centuries, these places have been the gathering places of uncivilized Europe and Asia.

The Hellenistic era is the opposite of the Orientalization era mentioned above, in which the influence of the East on the West is the main factor, which fully embodies the expansion of ancient Greek civilization. However, the contribution of eastern civilization to western civilization can not be ignored, especially in religious belief and science. The scope of cultural exchange has also been greatly expanded. From India to Sicily, from the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean, to Meroi, different traditions and different levels of culture all participated in the Hellenistic process.

Sanskrit words such as "book", "pen" and "ink" all come from Greek. This superficial knowledge came into being in India after Indians gained some knowledge from the Greek book trade. It is said that the hydraulic mill was introduced to India by Metrodoros in Greece. In the Nisa Palace in Parthia, the story of Dionysus is engraved on the wine glass, the palace is decorated with statues of Aphrodite, Hercules and Hera, and Greek dramas are also being staged. Little monarchs in Capadocia, Bentu, Pythia and Armenia in Asia Minor also fell in love with Greek culture at first sight. They accepted the name of Greek worship, used the Greek language in the court, built Greek temples and named new cities after themselves, all trying to compare with the Greek-Macedonian monarchy; In Persian currency, the word Basileus (King) has been seen, which shows the deep influence of Greek culture on it.

Of all the social groups in the Hellenistic world, Jews are probably the least susceptible to external influences. However, according to Maccabees's biography, Jason, a senior priest in the Jerusalem church, led his compatriots to adopt the Greek way of life. The trend of pursuing Greek lifestyle and exotic customs has reached a crazy level, so that even priests have lost interest in the sacred system and are not interested in sacrifice. As soon as they saw the signal, they rushed out to take part in the sports meeting prohibited by law. In order to participate in sports competitions, some Jews even went for surgery to remove the scars left by circumcision (1 Maccabee 15).