War, without a doubt, hurts a civilization but their effects of their short period of suffering always outshines their suffering. This is proven to hold true in two major wars in the course of history, the Trojan War and the Persian Wars. Immediately after the war is over, civilizations go through a period of hardship. But after that period, the civilizations go through a strife period of fertility and great creations. Although war can hurt a civilization, the ways the civilization comes back from the harm overshadows how much the impact of war hurt at the time.
In the Trojan Wars, the split up civilization of Mycenae suffered for a period of time but emerged through that time forming great Greek city-states that are to this day, well known. The broken up civilization endured a harsh period of time called the “Dark Ages”. Although it was named that, the time truly wasn’t that harsh. People learned from their mistakes made during the war and started to flourish.
In the time after the Dark Ages, epic poems were written, famous kouros sculptures were built, the first famous olympic games were held and even a new polytheistic religion was born.
This period of time was one that truly impacted the world positively. If not for having the Trojan Wars, this amazing time period with many creations probably wouldn’t have happened. During the Iron Age, the time just after the Dark Ages, trade also began to develop with other city states. The suffering from the war definitely pushed civilizations to become better as they learned from all the mistakes they made to cause their suffering in the war.
The same holds true in the Persian Wars. With the end of the wars, came the Classical Age, a period where many stunning accomplishments were made. There were great improvements in government, literature, art, architecture and more. Many of those achievements still astonish us today. The time period after the Persian Wars, city states in Greece developed great feats of architecture such as various designs of columns, friezes and more. Much of which has influenced architecture today. The end to the wars also sparked a period of philosophers which have also heavily impacted the way people think today. The Persian Wars did cause some suffering in Greece but the result of that suffering caused something even greater.
These are just many wars of many that have yielded the same results. The hurt caused from the war did affect the civilization but the outcomes of suffering left a bigger impact. Civilizations learn from the mistakes that caused their suffering and end up performing greater feats. The suffering is just a step to learning and becoming a better civilization. War doesn’t always hurt a civilization because it produces astounding periods of time of great productivity and development of the civilization.
The Negative Impact of the Trojan and Persian Wars. (2023, Feb 14). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/the-negative-impact-of-the-trojan-and-persian-wars/