Greece
The Archaic Era (650-500 BC).
Politics:
Athens: Gli ateniesi non ancora contagiati dal virus del consumismo, si accontentavano di poco e si potevano dedicare ai piaceri dello spirito e della conversazione.
Sparta: Sparta aveva invece un regime duro (vedi Unione Sovietica)
Philosophy: Philosophy among the Greeks is believed to have begun around 650BC in the city of Miletus (Milas in Turkey), the richest and most powerful Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor. Miletus was on the edge of interacting cultures: Greek, Mesopotamian and Egyptian. The people of Miletus traveled, giving them an awareness of conflicting ideas, which encouraged thinking. And among the aristocrats of Miletus was an independence of thought that was a part of an effort toward individual excellence that had been encouraged as justification for their privileges.
Philosophy came to the Greeks after writing had been around for a while. It came when people were searching for exactitude rather than the flights of the imagination that were traditional in verbal stories, and it came after people had become free of tribal conformity. In Greece, as in India, it was pursued by those who were free from having to labor through each day at menial tasks. Philosophy was the preoccupation of only a few - mainly aristocrats. Among the Greeks, philosophy began as an investigation of the properties of nature - a move beyond accepting all as spirit and the product of magic. They criticised the myths and looked for rational or natural explanations behind the variety and confusion that they saw. They laid the fundations for science, including the science of logic.

Persian Empire
(550-30 BC)
Persians were one of the minor Indo-European tribes of Iran Cyrus conquered Mesopotamia and reunited the Near East

Palestine
(Hebrews ® Israelities ® Jews)
In 539 BC Cyrus allowed Judah people to return to their homes and Palestine became a subject state of the Persia Empire. Judaism was not a mystical religion and had many rigid prescriptions. It was a religion for men who lived in this world but those who accepted it realized that physical temptations and material requirements were secondary. The basic books of the Law were published as a guide to the conduct of life. Those who accepted this Law and worshiped at Jerusalem may be called Jews and their faith Judaism, a blend of ritual and ethical purity: the result of seven centuries of priestly and prophetic contributions.
Until the late 18th century (the Age of Enlightment), the terms Jews and adherents of Judaism were practically synonymous, and Judaism was the prime binding factor of the Jewish people regardless of the degree of adherence. Then a gradual transformation occurred during which many Jews came to view being a member of the Jewish nation as separate from adhering to the Jewish faith. The State of Israel, of which Jerusalem is the capital city, was created in 1948. With a diverse population of primarily Jewish background and religion, it is the world's only Jewish State.

By around 500 BCE (0.048 seconds ago), there were empires in the Middle East, Iran, India, China, and Greece, approximately on equal footing; at times one empire expanded, only to decline or be driven back later.

Italy
By 509 BC the Roman Kingdom was established and was going to expand its control over the Italian peninsula until 264 BC.

Greece
Nel 490 Dario comando’ l’invasione della Grecia, la cui flotta persiana verra’ sbaragliata. Segue la Grande Alleanza Ellenica per proteggere la Grecia dal pericolo asiatico. Nel 480 Agrigento, Siracusa e Gela vivono il loro periodo di massimo splendore e si alleano per sconfiggere Cartagine. Sempre nel 480 Serse, figlio di Dario, attacca la Grecia con un esercito formato da tutti I popoli dell’impero asiatico e viene sconfitto (battaglie di Termopili, Salamina, Platea [479] ). Atene e Sparta diventano le potenze militari piu’ forti dell’epoca. Le guerre Greco-persiane, come spesso I grandi conflitti, imprimmero forti accellerazioni ai processi di maturazione dei popoli.

Atene conobbe un periodo molto fecondo sotto Pericle (495–429 BC). Uni’ piu’ di 400 citta’ greche cotto Atene, costituendo una specie di ONU. Idée democratiche.
Divisioni di classi: I manovali e I ricchi (gli unici a cui erano riservate istruzione e nobilta’ d’animo)
Creano le poleis che secondo alcuni rappresentano la dimensione sociale che forse e’ la sola veramente vivibile per l’uomo. “Nessuna vera e civile comunita’ e’ davvero ipotizzabile, quando si superano I limiti di una reale, anche se teorica, possibilita’ di conoscere o incontrarne, a tu per tu, una volta o l’altra, tutti I membri.” (Grytzko Mascioni)
L’insegnamento era condotto da uomini saggio, ciascuno circondato da un gruppo di allievi, che camminavano su e giu’ per le strade di Atene parlando del Bene e del Male. I discepoli ascoltavano con la massima attenzione e di tanto in tanto interrompevano il maestro per fargli delle domande. In genere non esisteva un tema fisso: si discuteva a braccio, ed erano quasi sempre gli allievi a proporre gli argomenti. Si discuteva dell’anima, dell’amore, dell’essere, del divenire, delle leggi e chi piu’ ne ha piu’ ne metta.