Before traveling to Greece, one must familiarize themselves with the culture, history, and food in order to navigate the culture efficiently. As I was packing for my trip to Greece, I realized that I knew nothing about what I should wear while there or what foods I had to try. The culture of Greece developed over centuries and consists of a combination of different cultures such as Mycenaean, Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Frankish, Ottoman, Venetian, Genoese, and British. Greece also claims the title of the “cradle of Western culture and democracy.” It “pioneered in many fields that rely on systematic thought, including biology, geometry, history, philosophy, and physics” and “introduced important literary forms as epic and lyric poetry, …show more content…
The Acropolis still exists as one of the oldest artifacts in Greece. While the area around Attica was inhabited during the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000-10,000 BC), archeological evidence suggests that the small caves around the Acropolis rock and the Klepsythra spring were in use during the Neolithic Period (3,000-2,800 BC). In Mycenaean times small towns developed around a fortified citadel where the king resided and controlled the surrounding area. Acropolis in Greek literally means “the highest point of the town.” Athens was a thriving Mycenaean center that very early in its existence became the center of a “synoikismos,” an alliance and peaceful coexistence of all the adjacent towns. Legend says king Theseus united the towns into one administrative entity, and this synoikismos appears to be instrumental in the city’s survival when all other Mycenaean centers were destroyed around 1200 BC by invading hoards from mainland Greece, or due to a possible invasion of tribes from the North. Athens was ruled not by one king but by a group of men, the Aristocrats. When Paul arrived in 51 CE, the Corinth he saw was little more than 100 years old but was five times as large as Athens and the capital of the province. Ancient Corinth, the original Corinth, founded in the 10th Century BCE, had been the richest port and the largest city in ancient Greece. Strategically located guarding the narrow isthmus that connects the Peloponnesus (as southern Greece is called) to the mainland, it was a powerful commercial center near two seaports only 4 miles apart. It's easy to see why Paul chose Corinth as headquarters for his mission to the west. The city was young, dynamic, not hidebound by tradition, a mix of dislocated individuals without strong ethnic identities seeking to shed their former low status by achieving social honor and material success. Paul was not intimidated by a big,