Do you think that Ancient Greece and Rome were as advanced as other civilizations such as China, India, etc.?

你认为古希腊、古罗马和中国、印度等文明一样发达吗？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Raisal Ven

Why are Rome and Greece considered the pinnacle of ancient civilizations? Wasn't there any other more advanced civilization around that time period?

Who conquered most of the world? Europeans, the same Europeans who have their civilizational pinnacle as Graeco-Roman civilization.

Now, if it were, say, the Southeast Asians who conquered the world, we would look towards India and China has the pinnacle of civilisation, and ignore Rome and Greece.

Obviously there were advanced civilizations at the same time, like the Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Persians, Levantines, and Mesopotamians.

谁征服了世界的大部分地区？欧洲人，同样的，希腊罗马文明就是欧洲人的文明巅峰。

如果是东南亚人征服了世界，我们会把目光投向印度和中国这两个文明巅峰，忽略罗马和希腊。

当然，在同一时期也出现过一些先进的文明，比如中国、印度、埃及、波斯、黎凡特和美索不达米亚文明。

Alisdair Gaston

Was ancient Greece as important as Rome?

I’m gonna say “more” important, to whatever extent this kind of thing is meaningful. There could be nothing even vaguely resembling modern society without either of them. However, Greek civilization didn’t require Rome but Roman civilization couldn’t have exsted without Greece. Not just because the Greeks were first, but because the Romans self-consciously modeled themselves after Greece.

我会说古希腊文明"更"重要。如果没有古希腊文明或古罗马文明，就不可能有现代社会。古希腊文明并不需要古罗马，但古罗马文明离不开古希腊。不仅因为古希腊人先出现，还因为古罗马人总是不自觉地模仿希腊人。

Brian Overland

Which civilization was better, Ancient Rome or Ancient Greece?

It is very tempting to say “Greece,” because you can compare the idealism of the Olympic Games to the savagery of Gladitorial combat. But that is looking at only one aspect of the civilizations. We should remember that ancient Greece included Sparta as well as Athens. In the end, then, even although I am tempted to say Greece, the wisest call is really a split decision.

Classical Greece and Rome excelled in such different ways, that this is a classic “apples to oranges” comparison. They are simply too different in their strengths.

可能你会脱口而出，说是“古希腊”，因为高大上的奥林匹克运动会跟野蛮血腥的角斗士相比，高下立现。但这只是文明的一个方面。我们要牢记，古希腊不仅包括雅典，也包括斯巴达。所以，尽管我很想为古希腊打call，但最明智的做法是保留意见。

古希腊和古罗马各有各的精彩。

Greece was by far the more creative and original of the two civilizations. They created entirely new branches of knowledge and laid down its basic foundations. They literally invented logic. Drama. Democracy. The jury system. Epic poetry. Tragedy and comedy. And even the basic axoms of mathematics, not to mention the system of proofs — now considered the essence of mathematical research today.

Compared to the Greeks, the Romans were largely unoriginal imitators in the creative arts. The best you can say about the Romans, when it comes to intellcutual pursuits, is they had the good sense to appreciate what the Greeks did and write intelligent commenatries on it.

在这两个古文明中，希腊明显更具创造力和原创性。他们开创了全新的知识流派，奠定了基础学科。他们发明了逻辑推理、戏剧、皿 煮、陪审团制度、史诗、悲剧和喜剧，甚至还有数学的基本公理，更不用说论证体系了——现在被视为数学研究的根基。

与古希腊人相比，古罗马人在艺术创意方面只是一味模仿。最多只能说古罗马人很懂得欣赏古希腊人的成就。

But the Romans far excelled the Greeks at administrating and ruling large empires. They knew how to keep the peace throughout the known world. They were superb organizers and managers. They didn’t make the same mistake that ancient Athens did, which was to try to expand their empire too quickly. Instead, they built on victory after victory, slowly accumulating through centuries, until no one was left to stand in their way.

但古罗马人在庞大帝国的管理和统治方面远超古希腊人。他们知道如何维持和平。他们是出色的组织者和管理者。他们没有犯古雅典人犯过的错误——过快地扩张版图。相反，他们在几个世纪的时间里，在一个又一个胜利的基础上慢慢壮大，直到势不可挡，无可匹敌。

Roman law was supremely effective, so much so, that even after thousands of years, there are some concepts of Roman law in use even today. And this is (in part) why Latin is the language of so many legal terms.

You might say that the Greeks supplied the head and the heart of the classical spirit… but the Romans provided the bones, muscles, sinews, arms, legs, and lungs… in short, Rome became the body through which the spirit of Greece was transported to Europe, North Africa, and the Near East.

罗马的律法非常优秀，所以在几千年后的今天，我们仍然沿用罗马律法的一些概念。这有部分原因就是许多法律术语依然沿用拉丁文的原因。

也许你会说古希腊人是古典文明的头脑和心脏……那么罗马人就是骨骼、肌肉、臂膀、双腿和肺部……简而言之，古罗马成了载体，将古希腊精神传播到了欧洲、北非和近东。

Matt Riggsby

When you study ancient Rome and Greece and compare them to ancient China, is it biased to say that the former was far more advanced in philosophy and thinking than the East?

Enormously so, yes.

“Advanced” tends to be rather subjective. However, it’s certainly the case that China had quite sophisticated philosophy develo at roughly the same time as classical Greek philosophers. Indeed, Confucius, who is by any reasonable definition one of the world’s foundational thinkers, was active a few generations before Socrates. But both clearly had a lot of philosophers working out a lot of different ideas. Chinese philosophy is certainly different from western philosophy, but just because you or I happen not to agree with a lot of it doesn’t mean it’s not a formidable and highly developed body of works.

古罗马和古希腊在哲学和思想领域比古代中国先进，是偏见吧？我严重同意。

“先进”是很主观的。但可以肯定的是，在古希腊哲学家出现的同一历史时期，中国也有了相当成熟的哲学发展。事实上，孔子作为无可争议的世界思想家之一，活跃在苏格拉底之前几代人的时间。但很明显，这两个国家都有很多哲学家提出了很多不同的观点。中国哲学当然不同于西方哲学，只是因为你我不理解其中要义，并不意味着它不够强大，不够先进。

Brian Overland

Why were ancient Greece and Rome related to each other?

They weren’t, actually, but Rome’s admiration for Greek culture was so great (almost like nothing else in history) that the Romans set up mythological and legendary links….

For example, the Romans were enamored of the Trojan War and Homer. They therefore speculated that one of the few Trojans to have escaped (Aeneas) made his way away from Troy and became the ancestor of all the Romans!

Another thing they did was to adopt some of the Greek gods.

And any Roman who had the time and the willingness to study learned Greek. Greek tutors became very popular for affluent Roman families who wanted to raise “educated” children.

事实上，古希腊和古罗马没有关系，而古罗马非常崇拜古希腊文明，古罗马人强行用神话和传说跟古希腊攀扯上了关系....

比如罗马人喜欢特洛伊战争和荷马。因此，他们推断几个逃脱的特洛伊人(埃涅阿斯)之一逃离了特洛伊，成了所有罗马人的祖先！

他们还吸纳了部分古希腊神。

有时间有意愿学习的古罗马人会学习古希腊语。在希望子女受过良好教育的富裕罗马家庭中，希腊家庭教师非常受欢迎。

Gwydion Madawc Williams

Which ancient civilization was more important and contributed more, Rome or Greece?

Greece invented a lot more.

Though China invented many things not known to the Greeks.

Rome was mostly a western extension of a pattern of civilisation and empire that was a lot older.

古希腊和古罗马相比，古希腊发明了更多东西。

尽管中国也发明了许多希腊人不知道的东西。

罗马基本上是古老的文明和帝国在西方的延伸。

Adam Centurione

Which one was more advanced, Ancient Rome or Ancient China?

The human species is an animal which has evolved like everything else. As an ecologist, I cringe at the worsd ‘advanced'. In generally though, the concept of advancement doesnt exst ecologically, and is only valid in context with specific instances of human cognition which has increased in complexty over time. Even this though does not imply advancement. Surely the automobile is more complex than a wagon, or chariot, however, the enormous amounts of polluting gas which threatens our exstence, and caused mass extinction surely is a serious flaw. No civilization which is competent enough to control their own brains would systematically destroy their world. It's not because burning fossil fuel is bad, its because we massed produced as many as possible to make as much money as we could, and even went as far as to modify the landscape of our entire planet to accommodate the idea, without at all thinking about how roads would effect amphibians, for example.So, advancement is actually just a cultural term the western world uses to justify systemic racism.

人类也是一种动物，也在不断进化。作为一个生态学家，我对“先进”这个词很反感。进步的概念在生态学上并不存在，它只在人类认知的特定实例中有效，而人类的认知随着时间的推移会变得越来越复杂。汽车当然比马车要更复杂，但大量的尾气威胁着我们的生存环境，造成物种大灭绝，这是个很大的问题。有能力控制自己大脑的文明都不会一步步摧毁自己的世界。燃烧化石燃料本身并非错事，但我们为了赚取尽可能多的钱财肆无忌惮地开采燃料，甚至不惜破坏这颗星球的地貌，丝毫不顾及道路会对两栖动物产生什么影响。所以，进步实际上只是西方世界用来为系统性种族主义辩护的一个文化术语。

Some would say we are more advanced than Native Americans which means our culture is more valid-- hence we can ignore what they say ( because they dont have wagons). The goal of Zen is to completely silence the mind. This is Shaolin, but there is no Western equivalet. Another way to think about this is, are you more advanced than a butterfly? What does that even mean? The butterfly is perfect at being a butterfly, and numerous other organisms rely on it to be a butterfly. I wouldn't compare myself to a butterfly, because, despite common thought, evolution isn't about mindlessly competing with everything. Evolution is the result of natural selection, it's not an active process it’ passive. This is another reason why advancement doesnt make sense; natural selection is passive but advancement is active. However we cannot actively evolve, since even if we could modify our Gene's, the concept of gene editing may itself limit our ability to adapt and cause extinction.

有人会说我们比印第安土著更先进，这意味着我们的文化更有用——因此我们可以对他们的话语置之不理。禅宗旨在是让心灵完全平静。这是少林的倡导，但西方没有这样的教义。换一种思维方式，你比蝴蝶更高级吗？这究竟是什么意思？作为蝴蝶，蝴蝶就是完美的。我不会把自己比作一只蝴蝶，因为，进化并不是无意识地与一切事物竞争。进化是自然选择的结果，它不是一个主动的过程，而是被动的。这也是进步为什么没有意义的另一个原因；自然选择是被动的，而进步是主动的。但我们不能主动进化，即使我们可以修改我们的基因，基因编辑的概念本身可能会制约我们的适应能力，导致我们的灭绝。

The greatest metric I believe for complexty of a civilization would be the informatuonal entropy of their ecosystem. Does a civilization enhance or reduce the amount if information within their ecosystem. If a civilization crumbles after 200 years because its destroyed its entire planet, then, I'd say you shouldn't shit where you eat, regardless of how many nanobots you made. If a civilization lasts 10 000 years, and has not only not reduced biodiversity, but increased biodiversity, I'd say those people are the Masters of Life.

我认为衡量一个文明是否先进的最大标准是其生态系统。如果一个文明200年后就会因为毁灭了整个星球而崩 溃，那么不管它制造出了多少纳米机器人都是自掘坟墓。如果一个文明能持续上万年，生物多样性不但没有减少，反而增加了，那么这个文明才能称得上文明。

So I hope this helps.you see my perspective. I am most certainly a descendant of the Romans. It seems like trade with China was somewhat one sided even into the colonial era. If it weren't for China, Italians wouldt have noodles. Or if it werent for China, guns may not have developed without gun powder. I have a lot of respect and gratitude for the Chinese and their ancestors. However, my answer to your question is null. Advancement is a cultural term and not a scientific one. Explicit answers to this question therefore will have inherent bias.

所以我希望我的回答对你有所帮助。你应该知道我所持的观点了。毫无疑问，我是罗马人的后裔。一直到殖民时代，罗马与中国的贸易也基本上是单边的。如果没有中国，意大利人就吃不上面条。如果没有中国，没有火药，枪支也不会得以改进。我非常尊重和感谢中国人和他们的祖先。但是对你的问题，我的回答是无解，进步是一个文化术语，而不是科学术语。所以，要立场鲜明地回答这个问题，就一定会有偏见。

Hammad Shakil

Was Ancient Greece more advanced than Ancient India or China?

Nikiforos Ouranos

mate in science the world is always indebted to indian numerals, if the world used greek maths, it would have stuck in the ancient greek age, the advancement in science was made possible through indian numerals, so greeks barking about their scientific contribution should ponder, why was their ‘’science’’ rejected in favour of indian one, why greek numerals were not used, if greeks were so scientifically advanced, why they failed to come up with the indian numeral system which they developed, pythagoras theorum is attributed to the greeks, despite indians in their sulbasutras stated it first. so what are you even talking about as greek ‘’science’’ mostly overrated by the romanticism of the western europeans, greek science died two thousand years ago with the greeks.

科学界的人总是感谢印度人发明了数字，如果大家沿用希腊数学，它会停留在古希腊时代。印度数字使得科学的进步成为了可能，所以总是强调科学贡献的希腊人应该思考一下，为什么希腊数字被人们摒弃了？如果希腊科学真的那么先进，为什么他们发扬光大的印度数字系统不是他们提出来的。虽然毕达哥拉斯定理的成就归于希腊人，但印度人在他们的绳法经中率先提出这个定理。所以你说的古希腊“科学”成就大多都被西欧的浪漫主义情怀高估了，古希腊科学早在两千年前就和古希腊人一起灭亡了。

architecture

Greek rant about their architecture, you dont know the first thing about indian architecture and the techniques which were used by the indians. Greek architecture as well as their ‘’science’’ is an overrated area, lets for instance take your method of construction which used unscientific post and lintel system not to mention blocks of chiseled stones, you rant about your science, why did you not develop arches for better load bearing purposes, why you stuck to your post and lintel system? do you even know that most of the domestic ‘’ancient greek architecture’’ was based on mud bricks? indians on the other hand already were using much better techniques which didn’t become archaic like the greek architecture and continued to be used to early modern periods. indians for instance came up with pointed arches, vaulted construction, domes, using stones plastering on their brick walls, all these techniques didn’t appear in europe until the romans, most probably learnt from the indians themselves.

建筑

希腊人对他们的建筑夸夸其谈，但你们对印度建筑和印度人的技艺一无所知。希腊建筑和他们的“科学”一样，名过其实了。以你们的建筑方法为例，你们的圆柱和房梁设计不科学，石雕就更不用说了。你们对科学成就大吹大擂，为什么不用承重能力更强的拱门呢？希腊境内的“古希腊建筑”都是泥砖建造的你可知道？相比之下，印度人已经采用了更先进的建筑技术，这些技术不像希腊建筑那样早早过时，一直到现代早期还继续沿用。例如，印度人发明了尖拱，拱形建筑，穹顶，在砖墙上用石头抹灰，这些技术直到罗马人时期才开始在欧洲出现，很有可能是从印度人那里学来的。

art and statues

the greek art and statues were replaced by indian styles in your gothic period where indian techniques of multifoil arched decorations, pointed arches and their niches, the indian finial and pointed towers dominated the european medieval and early modern skyline for hundreds of years, whats the greek contribution to that? neither the roman or greek architecture was really appreciated in the european renaissance, its only after neo classical period that europeans start re adopting and romanticizing the archaic and defunt architecture of the greeks and romans just to purify their identity from foreign influence.

艺术和雕塑

在哥特式时期，希腊艺术和雕像被印度风格所取代，印度的多翼拱形装饰技术，尖拱和壁龛，主宰了欧洲中世纪和现代早期的高楼大厦，长达数百年时间，希腊有做出过什么贡献？在欧洲文艺复兴时期，古罗马和古希腊的建筑都没有得到真正的欣赏，直到新古典时期之后，欧洲人才开始重新采用希腊和罗马过时的建筑风格。