The set of the Greek towns of the old world receives a denomination, Hellas. The first record of this term dates from the Homeric period and was used to refer to the region of Thessaly, the homeland of the Hellenes. However, the word Hellas is not used in a purely geographical sense but rather refers to the set of values and ideas that make up Greek civilization.
Greek civilization settled in the territories of Attica and the Peloponnese, the coasts of the Aegean Sea and the islands of the region. The different Greek peoples did not make up a nation as we understand it today, but they did have a language that brought them together, Greek, as well as traditions that kept them culturally united.
Hellas cultural manifestations
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey written around the Vlll century BC. C constitute the cultural germ of this civilization. It should not be forgotten that in both poetic works the key episodes that make up the history of the Greeks are told, such as the Trojan War or the different real and fictional characters of their culture, from Achilles and Apollo, through Vulcan or Ulysses.
In the art world, Praxíteles stands out in sculpture and Arquíloco in poetry. In dramaturgy it is worth mentioning Hesiod, Sophocles and Aeschylus. On the other hand, the Greeks were lovers of sports and periodically organized competitions such as the Olympic Games or the Pythian Games.
The Greek mentality had two fundamental pillars: mythological tradition and rationality
The myths served to explain their own traditions and customs, but these stories began to lose strength with the emergence of a new knowledge, philosophy. In this way, strictly rational explanations were gradually imposing themselves as the only valid model to explain the different phenomena of nature.
The legacy of Hellas
For the Greeks of the ancient world, the idea of Hellas referred to a shared way of understanding life. Each polis or city-state was totally independent from a political point of view, but they all had a common culture. Your world is part of the past, but it is very present today. In this sense, art, politics, philosophy or science as they exist today have as their remote origin the cultural context of Hellas.
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