138-636: (Redirected from Classical Period ) Classical period may refer to: Classical antiquity , the Greco-Roman world from the 8th century BCE to the 5th century CE Classical Greece , a specific period (c. 510 – c. 323 BCE) within classical antiquity Classical India , a period in Indian history (c. 322 – c. 550 CE) Classic stage , a period in North American prehistory (c. 500 – c. 1200 CE) Classical Islam ,
276-502: A Western and an Eastern one, each with their own emperors, capitals, and governments, although ostensibly they still belonged to one formal Empire. The Western Roman Empire provinces eventually were replaced by Northern European Germanic ruled kingdoms in the 5th century due to civil wars, corruption, and devastating Germanic invasions from such tribes as the Huns , Goths , the Franks and
414-434: A res publica as long as it continued to use Latin as its official language. Rome acquired imperial character de facto from the 130s BC with the acquisition of Cisalpine Gaul , Illyria , Greece and Hispania , and definitely with the addition of Iudaea , Asia Minor and Gaul during the 1st century BC. At the time of the empire's maximal extension during the reign of Trajan (AD 117), Rome controlled
552-641: A linear development of the West can be traced from Ancient Greece and Rome , while others argue that such a projection constructs a false genealogy. A geographical concept of the West started to take shape in the 4th century CE when Constantine , the first Christian Roman emperor, divided the Roman Empire between the Greek East and Latin West . The East Roman Empire , later called the Byzantine Empire , continued for
690-491: A major influence on the world today. Latin language has been the base from which Romance languages evolved and it has been the official language of the Catholic Church and all Catholic religious ceremonies all over Europe until 1967, as well as an or the official language of countries such as Italy and Poland (9th–18th centuries). In AD 395, a few decades before its Western collapse, the Roman Empire formally split into
828-674: A millennium, while the West Roman Empire lasted for only about a century and a half. Significant theological and ecclesiastical differences led Western Europeans to consider the Christians in the Byzantine Empire as heretics. In 1054 CE, when the church in Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Byzantium , the politico-religious division between the Western church and Eastern church culminated in
966-575: A period in Islamic history (various definitions) Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire (1453–1566) Classical period (music) , a period in European music (c. 1750 – c. 1820) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Classical period . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to
1104-601: A plea to the Pope in Rome to send military aid to restore the lost territories to Christian rule. The result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. Unfortunately for the Byzantines, the crusaders (belonging to the members of nobility from France, German territories, the Low countries, England, Italy and Hungary) had no allegiance to
1242-669: A population of 100 million. From the time of Caesar (100–44 BC) to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Rome dominated Southern Europe , the Mediterranean coast of Northern Africa and the Levant , including the ancient trade routes with population living outside. Ancient Rome has contributed greatly to the development of law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology and language in the Western world , and its history continues to have
1380-664: A result of the crisis of the third century . During Late antiquity Christianity became increasingly popular, finally ousting the Roman imperial cult with the Theodosian decrees of 393. Successive invasions of Germanic tribes finalized the weakening of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century, while the Eastern Roman Empire persisted throughout the Middle Ages , in a state called Romania by its citizens, and designated
1518-511: A result, its political, legal , linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread throughout the Western world . In the aftermath of the Second World War , decolonizing efforts were employed by all Western powers under United Nations (ex- League of Nations ) international directives. Most of colonized nations received independence by 1960. Great Britain showed ongoing responsibility for the welfare of its former colonies as member states of
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#17328447797941656-714: A scramble for new markets for European industrial products and financial services in Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and especially in Asia (Western powers exploited their advantages in China for example by the Opium Wars ). This resulted in the " New Imperialism ", which saw a shift in focus from trade and indirect rule to formal colonial control of vast overseas territories ruled as political extensions of their mother countries. The later years of
1794-623: A series of conflicts of the 4th and 3rd centuries, the Samnite Wars , Latin War , and Pyrrhic War . Roman victory in the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars established Rome as a super-regional power by the 2nd century BC, followed by the acquisition of Greece and Asia Minor . This tremendous increase of power was accompanied by economic instability and social unrest, resulting in the Catiline conspiracy ,
1932-478: A series of political developments in Asia in the last decades of the 14th century, which put an end to further European exploration of Asia: namely the new Ming rulers were found to be unreceptive of religious proselytism by European missionaries and merchants. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turks consolidated control over the eastern Mediterranean , closing off key overland trade routes. The Portuguese spearheaded
2070-601: A system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture, and seldom resorting to executions. This very profitable Central European Fourth Crusade had prompted the 14th century Renaissance (translated as 'Rebirth') of Italian city-states including the Papal States , on eve of the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation (which established the Roman Inquisition to succeed
2208-457: A unique civilization, differentiating from others like Islam , giving rise to the concept of Western civilization. By the 15th century, Renaissance intellectuals solidified this concept, associating Western civilization not only with Christianity but also with the intellectual and political achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Historians, such as Carroll Quigley in "The Evolution of Civilizations" , contend that Western civilization
2346-454: A vast Middle Eastern area, when it ended. Conquest was enforced using the Roman legions and then through cultural assimilation by eventual recognition of some form of Roman citizenship's privileges. Nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline and ultimately fall of the Roman Empire . The Roman Empire succeeded the approximately 500-year-old Roman Republic ( c. 510–30 BC). In 350 years, from
2484-716: Is a term to describe the ancient Roman society that conquered Central Italy assimilating the Italian Etruscan culture , growing from the Latium region since about the 8th century BC, to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea . In its 10-centuries territorial expansion, Roman civilization shifted from a small monarchy (753–509 BC), to a republic (509–27 BC), into an autocratic empire (27 BC – AD 476). Its Empire came to dominate Western, Central and Southeastern Europe, Northern Africa and, becoming an autocratic Empire
2622-790: Is also closely associated with Christianity , the dominant religion in the West, with roots in Greco - Roman and Jewish thought . Christian ethics , drawing from the ethical and moral principles of its historical roots in Judaism , has played a pivotal role in shaping the foundational framework of Western societies. Earlier civilizations, such as the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians , had also significantly influenced Western civilization through their advancements in writing, law codes, and societal structures. The convergence of Greek-Roman and Judeo-Christian influences in shaping Western civilization has led certain scholars to characterize it as emerging from
2760-632: Is credited with creating the modern university, the modern hospital system, scientific economics, and natural law (which would later influence the creation of international law ). European culture developed a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism , mysticism and Christian and secular humanism , setting the stage for the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, which fundamentally altered religious and political life. Led by figures like Martin Luther , Protestantism challenged
2898-521: Is estimated to have first reached one billion in 1804. Also, the new philosophical movement later known as Romanticism originated, in the wake of the previous Age of Reason of the 1600s and the Enlightenment of 1700s. These are seen as fostering the 19th century Western world' s sustained economic development. Before the urbanization and industrialization of the 1800s, demand for oriental goods such as porcelain , silk , spices and tea remained
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#17328447797943036-467: Is often considered to begin with the earliest recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer (8th–7th-century BC) and ends with the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. Such a wide span of history and territory covers many disparate cultures and periods. Classical antiquity may also refer to an idealized vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe 's words, "the glory that was Greece, and
3174-556: Is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the interwoven civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome known together as the Greco-Roman world , centered on the Mediterranean Basin . It is the period during which ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished and had major influence throughout much of Europe , North Africa , and West Asia . Conventionally, it
3312-670: Is the time when the Huns (part of the ancient Eastern European tribes named barbarians by the Romans) from modern-day Hungary penetrated into the Dalmatian (modern-day Croatia ) region then originating in the following 150 years in the Roman Empire officially splitting in two halves. Also the time of the formal acceptance of Christianity as Empire's religious policy, when the Emperors began actively banning and fighting previous pagan religions . The Eastern Roman Empire included lands south-west of
3450-468: Is to be sought... only among those who are called Catholic or orthodox Christians, that is, guardians of truth and followers of right." Over time, the Western Christianity gradually identified with the "Catholic" label, and people of Western Europe gradually associated the "Orthodox" label with Eastern Christianity (although in some languages the "Catholic" label is not necessarily identified with
3588-584: Is where the idea of "the West" began to emerge. The Eastern Roman Empire , governed from Constantinople , is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire after AD 476, the traditional date for the fall of the Roman Empire and beginning of the Early Middle Ages . The survival of the Eastern Roman Empire protected Roman legal and cultural traditions, combining them with Greek and Christian elements, for another thousand years. The name Byzantine Empire
3726-637: The ancient Western world was partly preserved during this period due to the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire and the introduction of the Catholic Church ; it was also greatly expanded by the Arab importation of both the Ancient Greco-Roman and new technology through the Arabs from India and China to Europe. Since the Renaissance, the West evolved beyond the influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans and
3864-466: The 15th to 20th centuries . This influence persists through the exportation of mass culture, a phenomenon often referred to as Westernization . There was debate among some in the 1960s as to whether Latin America as a whole is in a category of its own. Western culture , also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, or Western society, refers to the diverse culture of
4002-509: The Atlantic slave trade between the 1490s and the 1800s, which also contributed to the development of African intertribal warfare and racist ideology. Before the abolition of its slave trade in 1807, the British Empire alone (which had started colonial efforts in 1578 , almost a century after Portuguese and Spanish empires) was responsible for the transportation of 3.5 million African slaves to
4140-711: The Black Sea and bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean and parts of the Adriatic Sea . This division into Eastern and Western Roman Empires was later reflected in the administration of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Greek Orthodox churches, with Rome and Constantinople debating over whether either city was the capital of Western religion . As the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches spread their influence,
4278-522: The British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35,500,000 km (13,700,000 sq mi), 24% of the Earth's total land area. At its apex, the phrase " the empire on which the sun never sets " described the British Empire, because its expanse around the globe meant that the sun always shone on at least one of its territories. As
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4416-531: The British —derived from colonization , and immigration of Europeans —factors that grounded such countries to the West. Depending on the context and the historical period in question, Russia was sometimes seen as a part of the West, and at other times juxtaposed with it. Running parallel to the rise of the United States as a great power and the development of communication–transportation technologies "shrinking"
4554-485: The Byzantine Empire by later historians. Hellenistic philosophy was succeeded by continued development of Platonism and Epicureanism , with Neoplatonism in due course influencing the theology of the Christian Church Fathers . Many writers have attempted to name a specific date for the symbolic "end" of antiquity, with the most prominent dates being the deposing of the last Western Roman Emperor in 476,
4692-597: The Byzantine Papacy . The Eastern Roman empire's capital city Constantinople remained the only unconquered large urban site of the original Roman empire, as well as being the largest city in Europe. Yet many classical books, sculptures, and technologies survived there along with classical Roman cuisine and scholarly traditions, well into the Middle Ages, when much of it was "rediscovered" by visiting Western crusaders. Indeed,
4830-409: The Catholic Church in particular maintained Latin language, culture, and literacy for centuries; to this day the popes are termed Pontifex Maximus which during the classical period was a title belonging to the emperor, and the ideal of Christendom continued the legacy of a united European civilization even after its political unity had ended. The political idea of an Emperor in the West to match
4968-731: The Dalmatia , a region of interest to the maritime medieval Venetian Republic moneylenders and its rivals, such as the Republic of Genoa) rebelling against the Venetian economic domination. What followed dealt an irrevocable blow to the already weakened Byzantine Empire with the Crusader army's sack of Constantinople in April 1204, capital of the Greek Christian -controlled Byzantine Empire , described as one of
5106-792: The German Empire . At the close of the Spanish–American War in 1898 the Philippines , Puerto Rico , Guam and Cuba were ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris . The US quickly emerged as the new imperial power in East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean area . The Philippines continued to fight against colonial rule in the Philippine–American War . By 1913,
5244-579: The Hellenistic Jewish culture from which the earliest Christians and the Greek New Testament emerged. The eventual Christianization of Europe in late-antiquity would ensure that Christianity , particularly the Catholic Church , remained a dominant force in Western culture for many centuries to follow. Western culture continued to develop during the Middle Ages as reforms triggered by
5382-785: The Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia . Japan was involved primarily during the Meiji period (1868–1912), though earlier contacts with the Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch were also present in the Japanese Empire 's recognition of the strategic importance of European nations. Traditional Japanese society became an industrial and militarist power like the Western British Empire and the French Third Republic , and similar to
5520-562: The Industrial Revolution , would produce powerful social transformations, political and economic institutions that have come to influence (or been imposed upon) most nations of the world today. Historians agree that the Industrial Revolution has been one of the most important events in history. The course of three centuries since Christopher Columbus' late 15th century's voyages, of deportation of slaves from Africa and British dominant northern- Atlantic location, later developed into modern-day United States of America , evolving from
5658-425: The Medieval Inquisition ). There followed the discovery of the American continent, and consequent dissolution of West Christendom as even a theoretical unitary political body, later resulting in the religious Eighty Years War (1568–1648) and Thirty Years War (1618–1648) between various Protestant and Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire (and emergence of religiously diverse confessions ). In this context,
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5796-626: The Mediterranean basin and Europe , and later circulated around the world predominantly through colonization and globalization . Historically, scholars have closely associated the idea of Western culture with the classical era of Greco-Roman antiquity . However, scholars also acknowledge that other ancient cultures, like Ancient Egypt , the Phoenician city-states , and several Near-Eastern cultures stimulated and fostered Western civilization. The Hellenistic period also promoted syncretism , blending Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures. Major advances in literature, engineering, and science shaped
5934-423: The Middle Ages Western culture in fact entered other global-spanning cultures during the colonial 15th–20th centuries. Historically colonialism had been justified with the values of individualism and enlightenment . The concepts of a world of nation-states born by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, coupled with the ideologies of the Enlightenment, the coming of modernity , the Scientific Revolution and
6072-411: The Muslim conquests of the 7th century finalized the irreversible loss of all the largest Eastern Roman imperial cities besides the capital itself. The emperor Heraclius in Constantinople , who reigned during this period, conducted his court in Greek, not Latin, though Greek had always been an administrative language of the eastern Roman regions. Eastern-Western associations weakened with the ending of
6210-507: The New World , which today constitutes much of the "geographical" Western world. Starting from the late 1960s, certain parts of the Western world have become notable for their diversity due to immigration . The idea of "the West" over the course of time has evolved from a directional concept to a socio-political concept that had been temporalized and rendered as a concept of the future bestowed with notions of progress and modernity. The origins of Western civilization can be traced back to
6348-479: The Oxford English dictionary , the earliest reference to the term "Western world" was from 1586, found in the writings of William Warner . Countries that are considered to constitute the West vary according to perspective rather than their geographical location. Countries like Australia and New Zealand, located in the Eastern Hemisphere are included in modern definitions of the Western world, as these regions and others like them have been significantly influenced by
6486-523: The People's Republic of China , though this is disputed, since the People's Republic of China, as communist, had friendly relations—at certain times—with the Soviet bloc, and had a significant degree of importance in global geopolitics. Some Third World countries aligned themselves with either the US-led West or the Soviet-led Eastern bloc. A number of countries did not fit comfortably into this neat definition of partition, including Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, and Ireland , which chose to be neutral. Finland
6624-499: The Pope in Rome as the Holy Roman Empire (Latin Christian revival of the ancient Roman Empire, under perpetual Germanic rule from AD 962) inheriting ancient Roman Empire's prestige but offending the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople, and leading to the Crusades and the East–West Schism. The crowning of the Emperor by the Pope led to the assumption that the highest power was the papal hierarchy , quintessential Roman Empire's spiritual heritage authority, establishing then, until
6762-480: The Roman Empire , the destination of a massive influx of pagans (meaning "non-Christians" ) Bulgars and Slavs , an area where Catholic and Orthodox Christianity met, as well as the meeting point between Islam and Christianity. The Papal Inquisition was established in AD 1229 on a permanent basis, run largely by clergymen in Rome, and abolished six centuries later. Before AD 1100, the Catholic Church suppressed what they believed to be heresy, usually through
6900-432: The Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, resulting the integration of Latins and Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, though settlements on the Palatine Hill may date back to the 10th century BC. According to legend, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus . As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and
7038-538: The Social War and the First Triumvirate , and finally the transformation to the Roman Empire during the latter half of the 1st century BC. The precise end of the Republic is disputed by modern historians; Roman citizens of the time did not recognize that the Republic had ceased to exist. The early Julio-Claudian Emperors maintained that the res publica still existed, albeit protected by their extraordinary powers, and would eventually return to its earlier Republican form. The Roman state continued to term itself
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#17328447797947176-409: The Vandals by their late expansion throughout Europe. The three-day Visigoths's AD 410 sack of Rome who had been raiding Greece not long before, a shocking time for Greco-Romans , was the first time after almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and St. Jerome , living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote that "The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken." There followed
7314-471: The ancient Mediterranean world . Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are generally considered to be the birthplaces of Western civilization—Greece having heavily influenced Rome—the former due to its impact on philosophy , democracy , science , aesthetics , as well as building designs and proportions and architecture ; the latter due to its influence on art , law , warfare , governance , republicanism , engineering and religion . Western Civilization
7452-536: The classical orders of architecture. The philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas was derived largely from that of Aristotle , despite the intervening change in religion from Hellenic Polytheism to Christianity . Greek and Roman authorities such as Hippocrates and Galen formed the basis of the practice of medicine even longer than Greek thought prevailed in philosophy. In the French theater , playwrights such as Molière and Racine wrote plays on mythological or classical historical subjects and subjected them to
7590-539: The fall of the Byzantine Empire ), granting Portugal navigation, war and trade monopoly for any newly discovered lands, and competing Spanish navigators. It continued with the rise of the Dutch East India Company by the destabilizing Spanish discovery of the New World , and the creation and expansion of the English and French colonial empires, and others. Even after demands for self-determination from subject peoples within Western empires were met with decolonization , these institutions persisted. One specific example
7728-463: The medieval renaissances , the influence of the Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily (including the transfer of technology from the East, and Latin translations of Arabic texts on science and philosophy by Greek and Hellenic-influenced Islamic philosophers), and the Italian Renaissance as Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople brought ancient Greek and Roman texts back to central and western Europe. Medieval Christianity
7866-430: The red-figure style , developed by the Andokides Painter in about 530 BC. Greek colonisation refers to the expansion of Archaic Greeks , particularly during the 8th–6th centuries BC , across the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea . The Etruscans had established political control in the region by the late 7th-century BC, forming the aristocratic and monarchial elite. The Etruscans apparently lost power in
8004-496: The sack of AD 455 lasting 14 days, this time conducted by the Vandals , retaining Rome's eternal spirit through the Holy See of Rome (the Latin Church ) for centuries to come. The ancient Barbarian tribes, often composed of well-trained Roman soldiers paid by Rome to guard the extensive borders, had become militarily sophisticated "Romanized barbarians", and mercilessly slaughtered the Romans conquering their Western territories while looting their possessions. The Roman Empire
8142-528: The telescope and acceptance of heliocentrism . 18th century scholars continued to refine Newton's theory of gravitation , notably Leonhard Euler , Pierre Louis Maupertuis , Alexis-Claude Clairaut , Jean Le Rond d'Alembert , Joseph-Louis Lagrange , Pierre-Simon de Laplace . Laplace's five-volume Treatise on Celestial Mechanics is one of the great works of 18th-century Newtonianism. Astronomy gained in prestige as new observatories were funded by governments and more powerful telescopes developed, leading to
8280-502: The 13th and 14th centuries, a number of European travelers, many of them Christian missionaries , had sought to cultivate trading with Asia and Africa . With the Crusades came the relative contraction of the Orthodox Byzantine 's large silk industry in favor of Catholic Western Europe and the rise of Western Papacy . The most famous of these merchant travelers pursuing East–west trade was Venetian Marco Polo . But these journeys had little permanent effect on east–west trade because of
8418-420: The 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest period of classical antiquity occurs during a time of gradual resurgence of historical sources after the Late Bronze Age collapse . The 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely protohistorical , with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing during the first half of the 8th century. The legendary poet Homer is usually assumed to have lived during
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#17328447797948556-527: The 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" ( hegemony ) by military influence and economic dominance, to direct rule (a revival of colonial imperialism ) in the African continent and Middle East . During the socioeconomically optimistic and innovative decades of the Second Industrial Revolution between the 1870s and 1914, also known as the " Beautiful Era ", the established colonial powers in Asia (United Kingdom, France, Netherlands) added to their empires also vast expanses of territory in
8694-514: The 19th century. John Milton and even Arthur Rimbaud received their first poetic educations in Latin. Genres like epic poetry, pastoral verse, and the frequent use of characters and themes from Greek mythology affected Western literature greatly. In architecture, there have been several Greek Revivals , which seem more inspired in retrospect by Roman architecture than Greek. Washington, DC has many large marble buildings with façades made to look like Greek temples , with columns constructed in
8832-579: The 8th or 7th century BC, and his lifetime is often considered as the beginning of classical antiquity. During the same period is the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games , in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from ports in Canaan , by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean . Carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had established strongholds in Sicily , Italy and Sardinia , which created conflicts of interest with Etruria . A stele found in Kition , Cyprus commemorates
8970-483: The Americas, a third of all slaves transported across the Atlantic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 by the French Revolutionary Wars ; abolition of the Roman Catholic Inquisition followed. Due to the reach of these empires, Western institutions expanded throughout the world. This process of influence (and imposition) began with the voyages of discovery , colonization, conquest, and exploitation of Portugal enforced as well by papal bulls in 1450s (by
9108-435: The Byzantine Emperor and established their own states in the conquered regions, including the heart of the Byzantine Empire . The Holy Roman Empire would dissolve on 6 August 1806, after the French Revolution and the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon . The decline of the Byzantine Empire (13th–15th centuries) began with the Latin Christian Fourth Crusade in AD 1202–04, considered to be one of
9246-422: The Commonwealth of Nations . But the end of Western colonial imperialism saw the rise of Western neocolonialism or economic imperialism. Multinational corporations came to offer "a dramatic refinement of the traditional business enterprise", through "issues as far ranging as national sovereignty, ownership of the means of production, environmental protection, consumerism, and policies toward organized labor." Though
9384-425: The Dark Ages). In pottery, the Archaic period sees the development of the Orientalizing style , which signals a shift from the geometric style of the later Dark Ages and the accumulation of influences derived from Egypt, Phoenicia and Syria . Pottery styles associated with the later part of the Archaic age are the black-figure pottery , which originated in Corinth during the 7th-century BC and its successor,
9522-404: The Eastern European world such as the East and South Slavic peoples. Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe, as such, maintained a distinct identity particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance. Even following the Protestant Reformation , Protestant Europe continued to see itself as more tied to Roman Catholic Europe than other parts of the perceived civilized world . Use of
9660-420: The Eastern Roman capital ( first in 674–78 and then in 717–18 ) severed the economic, cultural, and political links that had traditionally united the classical cultures around the Mediterranean, ending antiquity (see Pirenne Thesis ). The original Roman Senate continued to express decrees into the late 6th century, and the last Eastern Roman emperor to use Latin as the language of his court in Constantinople
9798-421: The Emperor in the East continued after the Western Roman Empire's collapse; it was revived by the coronation of Charlemagne in 800; the self-described Holy Roman Empire ruled central Europe until 1806. The Renaissance idea that the classical Roman virtues had been lost as a result of medievalism was especially powerful in European politics of the 18th and 19th centuries. Reverence for Roman republicanism
9936-613: The European spice trade with Asia, who had journeyed overland to the Far East contributing to geographical knowledge of parts of the Asian continent. They are of enormous significance in Western history as they marked the beginning of the European exploration, colonization and exploitation of the American continents and their native inhabitants . The European colonization of the Americas led to
10074-565: The Great in 323 BC. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias , son of Peisistratos . Cleomenes I , king of Sparta, established a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras . The Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC), concluded by the Peace of Callias ended with not only the liberation of Greece, Macedon , Thrace , and Ionia from Persian rule , but also with
10212-798: The Great Schism or the East–West Schism . Even though friendly relations continued between the two parts of the Christendom for some time, the crusades made the schism definitive with hostility. The West during these crusades tried to capture trade routes to the East and failed, it instead discovered the Americas . In the aftermath of European colonization of the Americas , an idea of the "Western" world, as an inheritor of Latin Christendom emerged. According to
10350-567: The Greeks. Fathers had great power over their children, and husbands over their wives. In fact, the word family, familia in Latin, actually referred to those who were subject to the authority of a male head of household. This included non-related members such as slaves and servants. By marriage, both men and women shared property. Divorce was allowed first during the first century BC and could be done by either man or woman. The Roman Empire began to weaken as
10488-628: The Human Mind (1794), from primitive society to agrarianism , the invention of writing, the later invention of the printing press and the advancement to "the Period when the Sciences and Philosophy threw off the Yoke of Authority". French writer Pierre Bayle denounced Spinoza as a pantheist (thereby accusing him of atheism ). Bayle's criticisms garnered much attention for Spinoza. The pantheism controversy in
10626-490: The Islamic world, due to the successful Second Agricultural , Commercial , Scientific , and Industrial revolutions (propellers of modern banking concepts). The West rose further with the 18th century's Age of Enlightenment and through the Age of Exploration 's expansion of peoples of Western and Central European empires, particularly the globe-spanning colonial empires of 18th and 19th centuries. Numerous times, this expansion
10764-588: The Protestant Reformation (1517) may be viewed as a schism within the Catholic Church . German monk Martin Luther , in the wake of precursors, broke with the pope and with the emperor by the Catholic Church's abusive commercialization of indulgences in the Late Medieval Period , backed by many of the German princes and helped by the development of the printing press , in an attempt to reform corruption within
10902-533: The Protestant Reformation, the civilization of Western Christendom . The earliest concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simple geographic term) is believed to have been formed by Alcuin of York during the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century, but was limited to the territories that practised Western Christianity at the time. The Latin Church of western and central Europe split with
11040-512: The Senate and had Superbus and the monarchy expelled from Rome in 510 BC. After Superbus' expulsion, the Senate in 509 BC voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government . The classical period of Ancient Greece corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, in particular, from the end of the Athenian tyranny in 510 BC to the death of Alexander
11178-643: The West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident (from Latin occidens 'setting down, sunset, west') in contrast to the Eastern world known as the Orient (from Latin oriens 'origin, sunrise, east'). The West is considered an evolving concept; made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Definitions of "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives. Some historians contend that
11316-459: The Western Church). This was in note of the fact that both Catholic and Orthodox were in use as ecclesiastical adjectives as early as the 2nd and 4th centuries respectively. Meanwhile, the extent of both Christendoms expanded, as Germanic peoples, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Finnic peoples, Baltic peoples, British Isles and the other non-Christian lands of the northwest were converted by
11454-738: The Western Church, while Eastern Slavic peoples, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Russian territories, Vlachs and Georgia were converted by the Eastern Orthodox Church . In 1071, the Byzantine army was defeated by the Muslim Turco-Persians of medieval Asia , resulting in the loss of most of Asia Minor . The situation was a serious threat to the future of the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire . The Emperor sent
11592-516: The Western World. The term "Western" encompasses the social norms , ethical values , traditional customs , belief systems , political systems , artifacts and technologies primarily rooted in European and Mediterranean histories. A broad concept, "Western culture" does not relate to a region with fixed members or geographical confines. It generally refers to the classical era cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome that expanded across
11730-557: The area by the late 6th-century BC, and at this time, the Italic tribes reinvented their government by creating republics , with greater restraints on the ability of individual rulers to exercise power. According to legend, Rome was founded on 21 April 753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas , Romulus and Remus . As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited
11868-471: The authority of the Catholic Church and promoted ideas of individual freedom and religious reform , paving the way for modern notions of personal responsibility and governance. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the ancient tyrannical and imperialistic Graeco-Roman times. The Eastern Mediterranean was home to the highly urbanized cultures that had Greek as their common language (owing to
12006-415: The church. Both these religious wars ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which enshrined the concept of the nation-state , and the principle of absolute national sovereignty in international law . As European influence spread across the globe, these Westphalian principles , especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order. In
12144-596: The city of Constantinople (today's Istanbul ) in modern-day Turkey as the "New Rome" when he picked it as capital of his Empire (later called " Byzantine Empire " by modern historians) in AD 330. This internal conflict of legacies had possibly emerged since the assassination of Julius Caesar three centuries earlier, when Roman imperialism had just been born with the Roman Republic becoming "Roman Empire", but reached its zenith during 3rd century's many internal civil wars . This
12282-505: The closing of the last Platonic Academy in Athens by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I in 529, and the conquest of much of the Mediterranean by the new Muslim faith from 634 to 718. These Muslim conquests, of Syria (637), Egypt (639), Cyprus (654), North Africa (665), Hispania (718), Southern Gaul (720), Crete (820), and Sicily (827), Malta (870), as well as the sieges of
12420-615: The creation of a new Greek state in 1832. After the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Russian Czars (a title derived from Caesar) claimed the Byzantine legacy as the champion of Orthodoxy ; Moscow was described as the " Third Rome ", and the Czars ruled as divinely appointed Emperors into the 20th century. Despite the fact that the Western Roman secular authority disappeared entirely in Europe, it still left traces. The Papacy and
12558-647: The cultures of Persia , the Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah , Central Asia and Egypt . Significant advances were made in the sciences ( geography , astronomy , mathematics , etc.), notably with the followers of Aristotle ( Aristotelianism ). The Hellenistic period ended with the increase of the Roman Republic to a super-regional power during the 2nd century BC and the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC. The Republican period of Ancient Rome began with
12696-480: The disappearance of imperial authority in the west. This tendency reached its maximum when Charlemagne was crowned "Roman Emperor" in the year 800, an act which resulted in the formation of the Holy Roman Empire . The notion that an emperor is a monarch who outranks a king dates from this period. In this political ideal, there would always be a Roman Empire, a state the jurisdiction of which extended through
12834-463: The discovery of new planets, asteroids , nebulae and comets , and paving the way for improvements in navigation and cartography . Astronomy became the second most popular scientific profession, after medicine . A common metanarrative of the Enlightenment is the "secularization theory". Modernity, as understood within the framework, means a total break with the past. Innovation and science are
12972-601: The distance between both the Atlantic Ocean shores, the US became more prominently featured in the conceptualizations of the West. Between the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, prominent countries in the West such as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand have been once envisioned as ethnocracies for Whites . Racism is cited as a contributing factor to European colonization of
13110-638: The dominance of Athens in the Delian League , which resulted in conflict with Sparta and the Peloponnesian League , resulting in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), ending with a Spartan victory. Greece began the 4th century with Spartan hegemony , but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers dismissed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost its naval supremacy. Athens , Argos , Thebes and Corinth ,
13248-567: The drive to find oceanic routes that would provide cheaper and easier access to South and East Asian goods, by advancements in maritime technology such as the caravel ship introduced in the mid-1400s. The charting of oceanic routes between East and West began with the unprecedented voyages of Portuguese and Spanish sea captains. In 1492, European colonialism expanded across the globe with the exploring voyage of merchant, navigator, and Hispano-Italian colonizer Christopher Columbus . Such voyages were influenced by medieval European adventurers after
13386-453: The driving force behind European imperialism in Asia, and (with the important exception of British East India Company rule in India) the European stake in Asia remained confined largely to trading stations and strategic outposts necessary to protect trade. Industrialization , however, dramatically increased European demand for Asian raw materials; and the severe Long Depression of the 1870s provoked
13524-585: The early 4th century, the central focus of power was on two separate imperial legacies within the Roman Empire: the older Aegean Sea Greek heritage (of Classical Greece ) in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the newer most successful Tyrrhenian Sea Latin heritage (of Ancient Latium and Tuscany ) in the Western Mediterranean. A turning point was Constantine the Great 's decision to establish
13662-787: The eastern Greek patriarchates in the Christian East–West Schism , also known as the "Great Schism", during the Gregorian Reforms (calling for a more central status of the Roman Catholic Church Institution), three months after Pope Leo IX 's death in April 1054. Following the 1054 Great Schism , both the Western Church and Eastern Church continued to consider themselves uniquely orthodox and catholic. Augustine wrote in On True Religion: "Religion
13800-510: The entire Mediterranean as well as Gaul, parts of Germania and Britannia , the Balkans , Dacia , Asia Minor, the Caucasus , and Mesopotamia . Culturally, the Roman Empire was significantly Hellenized , but also incorporated syncretic "eastern" traditions, such as Mithraism , Gnosticism , and most notably Christianity . Classical Rome had vast differences within their family life compared to
13938-630: The entire civilized western world. That model continued to exist in Constantinople for the entirety of the Middle Ages, where the Byzantine Emperor was considered the sovereign of the entire Christian world. The Patriarch of Constantinople was the Empire's highest-ranked cleric, but even he was subordinate to the emperor, who was "God's Vicegerent on Earth". The Greek-speaking Byzantines and their descendants continued to call themselves " Romioi " until
14076-529: The fringes of India . The classical Greek period conventionally ends at the death of Alexander in 323 BC and the fragmentation of his empire, which was at this time divided among the Diadochi . Greece began the Hellenistic period with the increasing power of Macedon and the conquests of Alexander the Great . Greek became the lingua franca far beyond Greece itself, and Hellenistic culture interacted with
14214-561: The good, representing the modern values of rationalism , while faith is ruled by superstition and traditionalism. Inspired by the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment embodied the ideals of improvement and progress. Descartes and Isaac Newton were regarded as exemplars of human intellectual achievement. Condorcet wrote about the progress of humanity in the Sketch of the Progress of
14352-451: The grandeur that was Rome". The culture of the ancient Greeks , together with some influences from the ancient Near East , was the basis of art, philosophy, society, and education in the Mediterranean and Near East until the Roman imperial period . The Romans preserved, imitated, and spread this culture throughout Europe, until they were able to compete with it. This Greco-Roman cultural foundation has been immensely influential on
14490-542: The inhabitants of Constantinople continued to refer to themselves as Romans, as did their eventual conquerors in 1453, the Ottomans (see Romaioi and Rûm .) The classical scholarship and culture that was still preserved in Constantinople were brought by refugees fleeing its conquest in 1453 and helped to begin the Renaissance (see Greek scholars in the Renaissance ). Ultimately, it was a slow, complex, and graduated change of
14628-465: The intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Classical_period&oldid=1254790269 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Classical antiquity Classical antiquity , also known as the classical era , classical period , classical age , or simply antiquity ,
14766-412: The language, politics, law, educational systems, philosophy , science, warfare, literature, historiography, ethics, rhetoric, art and architecture of both the Western , and through it, the modern world. Surviving fragments of classical culture helped produce a revival beginning during the 14th century which later came to be known as the Renaissance , and various neo-classical revivals occurred during
14904-543: The late 18th century saw Gotthold Lessing attacked by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi over support for Spinoza's pantheism. Lessing was defended by Moses Mendelssohn , although Mendelssohn diverged from pantheism to follow Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in arguing that God and the world were not of the same substance (equivalency). Spinoza was excommunicated from the Dutch Sephardic community, but for Jews who sought out Jewish sources to guide their own path to secularism, Spinoza
15042-570: The latter two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War , which ended inconclusively in 387 BC. Later, in 371 BC, the Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas won a victory at the Battle of Leuctra . The result of this battle was the end of Spartan supremacy and the establishment of Theban hegemony . Thebes sought to maintain its dominance until it
15180-507: The legacies of Athens and Jerusalem , or Athens, Jerusalem and Rome . In ancient Greece and Rome, individuals identified primarily as subjects of states, city-states, or empires, rather than as members of Western civilization. The distinct identification of Western civilization began to crystallize with the rise of Christianity during the Late Roman Empire . In this period, peoples in Europe started to perceive themselves as part of
15318-515: The line between Eastern and Western Christianity was moving. Its movement was affected by the influence of the Byzantine empire and the fluctuating power and influence of the Catholic church in Rome. The geographic line of religious division approximately followed a line of cultural divide . In AD 800 under Charlemagne , the Early Medieval Franks established an empire that was recognized by
15456-562: The most important events, solidifying the schism between the Christian churches of Greek Byzantine Rite and Latin Roman Rite . An anti-Western riot in 1182 broke out in Constantinople targeting Latins. The extremely wealthy (after previous Crusades ) Venetians in particular made a successful attempt to maintain control over the coast of Catholic present-day Croatia (specifically
15594-613: The most profitable and disgraceful sacks of a city in history. This paved the way for Muslim conquests in present-day Turkey and the Balkans in the coming centuries (only a handful of the Crusaders followed to the stated destination thereafter, the Holy Land ). The geographical identity of the Balkans is historically known as a crossroads of cultures, a juncture between the Latin and Greek bodies of
15732-472: The official language of the empire. The inhabitants called themselves Romans because the term "Roman" was meant to signify all Christians . The Pope crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans of the newly established Holy Roman Empire , and the West began thinking in terms of Western Latins living in the old Western Empire, and Eastern Greeks (those inside the Roman remnant of the old Eastern Empire). In
15870-505: The older empire of Alexander the Great and of the Hellenistic successors ), whereas the West was much more rural in its character and more readily adopted Latin as its common language. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the medieval times (or Middle Ages ), Western and Central Europe were substantially cut off from the East where Byzantine Greek culture and Eastern Christianity became founding influences in
16008-403: The only valid method of arriving at truth". Its precursors were John Milton and Baruch Spinoza . Meeting Galileo in 1638 left an enduring impact on John Milton and influenced Milton's great work Areopagitica , where he warns that, without free speech , inquisitorial forces will impose "an undeserved thraldom upon learning". The achievements of the 17th century included the invention of
16146-431: The overt colonial era had passed, Western nations, as comparatively rich, well-armed, and culturally powerful states, wielded a large degree of influence throughout the world, and with little or no sense of responsibility toward the peoples impacted by its multinational corporations in their exploitation of minerals and markets. The dictum of Alfred Thayer Mahan is shown to have lasting relevance, that whoever controls
16284-625: The overthrow of the Monarchy c. 509 BC and lasted more than 450 years until its subversion through a series of civil wars , into the Principate form of government and the Imperial period. During the half millennium of the Republic, Rome increased from a regional power of the Latium to the dominant force in Italy and beyond. The unification of Italy by the Romans was a gradual process, brought about by
16422-555: The ratification of the Constitution of the United States by thirteen States on the North American East Coast before end of the 18th century. In the early-19th century, the systematic urbanization process (migration from villages in search of jobs in manufacturing centers) had begun, and the concentration of labor into factories led to the rise in the population of the towns. World population had been rising as well. It
16560-406: The seas controls the world. Eric Voegelin described the 18th-century as one where "the sentiment grows that one age has come to its close and that a new age of Western civilization is about to be born". According to Voeglin the Enlightenment (also called the Age of Reason ) represents the "atrophy of Christian transcendental experiences and [seeks] to enthrone the Newtonian method of science as
16698-433: The socio-economic structure in European history that resulted in the changeover between classical antiquity and medieval society and no specific date can truly exemplify that. In politics, the late Roman conception of the Empire as a universal state, commanded by one supreme divinely appointed ruler, united with Christianity as a universal religion likewise headed by a supreme patriarch , proved very influential, even after
16836-468: The son-in-law of Servius Tullius , Superbus was of Etruscan birth. It was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock , enraging the people of Rome. The people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia , a patrician Roman, by his own son. Lucretia's kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus (ancestor to Marcus Brutus ), summoned
16974-622: The state, as can be seen in the architecture of the Panthéon , the Arc de Triomphe , and the paintings of Jacques-Louis David . During the revolution, France transitioned from kingdom to republic to dictatorship to Empire (complete with Imperial Eagles) that the Romans had experienced centuries earlier. Classical antiquity is a general term for a long period of cultural history . Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many rather disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" often refers to an idealized vision of later people, of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe 's words, "the glory that
17112-520: The strict rules of the classical unities derived from Aristotle's Poetics . The desire to dance in a manner allegedly similar to the manner of the ancient Greeks caused Isadora Duncan to create her brand of ballet . Western world The Western world , also known as the West , primarily refers to various nations and states in the regions of Western Europe , Northern America , and Australasia ; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute
17250-508: The successful and deadliest war with the Phoenicians began in 218 BC to the rule of Emperor Hadrian by AD 117, ancient Rome expanded up to twenty-five times its area. The same time passed before its fall in AD 476. Rome had expanded long before the empire reached its zenith with the conquest of Dacia in AD 106 (modern-day Romania ) under Emperor Trajan. During its territorial peak, the Roman Empire controlled about 5,000,000 square kilometres (1,900,000 sq mi) of land surface and had
17388-771: The term West as a specific cultural and geopolitical term developed over the course of the Age of Exploration as Europe spread its culture to other parts of the world. Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World , as settlers in the colonies of Spain and Portugal (and later, France ) belonged to that faith. English and Dutch colonies, on the other hand, tended to be more religiously diverse. Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans , Dutch Calvinists , English Puritans and other nonconformists , English Catholics , Scottish Presbyterians , French Huguenots , German and Swedish Lutherans , as well as Quakers , Mennonites , Amish , and Moravians . Ancient Rome (6th century BC – AD 476)
17526-467: The then-occupied and presently independent Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Warsaw Pact countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, East Germany (now united with Germany), and Czechoslovakia (now split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia). The Third World consisted of countries, many of which were unaligned with either , and important members included India, Yugoslavia , Finland ( Finlandization ) and Switzerland ( Swiss Neutrality ); some include
17664-443: The victory of King Sargon II in 709 BC over the seven kings of the island, marking an important part of the transfer of Cyprus from Tyrian rule to the Neo-Assyrian Empire . The Archaic period followed the Greek Dark Ages , and saw significant advancements in political theory , and the beginnings of democracy , philosophy , theatre , poetry , as well as the revitalization of the written language (which had been lost during
17802-431: Was Greece , the grandeur that was Rome !" During the 18th and 19th centuries AD, reverence for classical antiquity was much greater in Europe and the United States than it is now. Respect for the ancient people of Greece and Rome affected politics , philosophy , sculpture , literature , theatre , education , architecture , and sexuality . Epic poetry in Latin continued to be written and circulated well into
17940-427: Was accompanied by Catholic missionaries , who attempted to proselytize Christianity. In the modern era, Western culture has undergone further transformation through the Renaissance , Ages of Discovery and Enlightenment , and the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions . The widespread influence of Western culture extended globally through imperialism , colonialism , and Christianization by Western powers from
18078-418: Was as important as Voltaire and Kant. During the Cold War , a new definition emerged. Earth was divided into three "worlds". The First World , analogous in this context to what was called the West , was composed of NATO members and other countries aligned with the United States. The Second World was the Eastern bloc in the Soviet sphere of influence , including the Soviet Union (15 republics including
18216-510: Was born around AD 500, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire , leaving a vacuum for new ideas to flourish that were impossible in Classical societies. In either view, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance, the West (or those regions that would later become the heartland of the culturally "western sphere") experienced a period of decline, and then readaptation, reorientation and considerable renewed material, technological and political development. Classical culture of
18354-489: Was emperor Maurice , who reigned until 602. The overthrow of Maurice by his mutinying Danube army commanded by Phocas resulted in the Slavic invasion of the Balkans and the weakening of Balkan and Greek urban culture (resulting in the flight of Balkan Latin speakers to the mountains, see Origin of the Romanians ), and also provoked the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 in which all the great eastern cities except Constantinople were lost. The resulting turmoil did not end until
18492-438: Was finally ended by the increasing power of Macedon in 346 BC. During the reign of Philip II , (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded into the territory of the Paeonians , the Thracians and the Illyrians . Philip's son, Alexander the Great , (356–323 BC) managed to briefly extend Macedonian power not only over the central Greek city-states but also to the Persian Empire , including Egypt and lands as far east as
18630-415: Was first used centuries later, after the Byzantine Empire ended. The dissolution of the Western half, nominally ended in AD 476, but in truth a long process that ended by the rise of Catholic Gaul (modern-day France ) ruling from around the year AD 800, left only the Eastern Roman Empire alive. The Eastern half continued to think of itself as the Eastern Roman Empire until AD 610–800, when Latin ceased to be
18768-437: Was strong among the Founding Fathers of the United States and the Latin American revolutionaries; the Americans described their new government as a republic (from res publica ) and gave it a Senate and a President (another Latin term), rather than use available English terms like commonwealth or parliament . Similarly in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, republicanism and Roman martial virtues were promoted by
18906-407: Was the requirement that post-colonial societies were made to form nation-states (in the Western tradition), which often created arbitrary boundaries and borders that did not necessarily represent a whole nation, people, or culture (as in much of Africa), and are often the cause of international conflicts and friction even to this day. Although not part of Western colonization process proper, following
19044-418: Was under the Soviet Union's military sphere of influence (see FCMA treaty ) but remained neutral and was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact or Comecon but a member of the EFTA since 1986, and was west of the Iron Curtain . In 1955, when Austria again became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remain neutral; but as a country to the west of the Iron Curtain, it
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