Meeting the "high" and "low" moments of our history..

*2nd epoch:The Epoch of Advancements (500BCE - 1492CE)*

It was during this epoch that some of the most important and powerful empires came to rule massive amounts of land and provide our world with many great achievements and failures. It was also during this epoch that the fundamental concepts that form the base of democratic governments were formed. I find this weird. Why did it take so long for this way of thinking to develop? Was it because the empires/ civilizations previous to this epoch and also some during this epoch, had just grown so accustomed to not having a strong and influential voice and having monarchies rule over them?? If this kind of thinking didn't exist before, how was it that it sprung up? Why was it that philosophy and science were such a big hit in Greek society? How come, if Greece got to be so big, their ideals on philosophy and science didn't spread to the nearby empires and become as big as it was in Greece?

I mean, clearly, the Roman's tried to do something similar to what the Greek's ideas on democracy were but failed at it. I wonder what it was that made it fail. Was it that even though it was based on the Greek's democracy, it was more guided toward the wealthy in society and that was what unbalanced it and caused it to fail or were there other factors involved. If so, what kind?

I think that the Roman Republic should have tried a little harder to hold power instead of giving up and becoming the Roman Empire and being ruled by a dictator. I also think its strange how Christianity began as a cult and later became the official religion of the Roman's if, correct me if I'm wrong, their first official religion had been polytheistic...?

I think that Europe had so many chances to continue advancing but the fact that such huge empires developed made it hard because once one of those big empires began to fail, so did everyone else who was a part of that empire. (Think Roman). I think that this is the major reason on which why Europe had a downturn in technological, political, philosophical, and social advancements was because a big part of Europe was the Roman Empire so once it fell, every one was left dazed and confused while Asia was just starting to come up with advancements. SO while Europe tried to get itself together, Asia was developing new things one after another. Which is why it was a good thing that the Mongol Empire started the Silk Road all over again because through trade, Asia developed and shared their advancements and Europe got a burst of energy and after the Black Death, began working on further developing themselves again. But why did it have to take a tragedy such as was the disease of the Black Death for Europe to get back into action? I mean it was great that they did get back on their feet and had the renaissance because it was thanks to the renaissance that mostly literature among other things became important and open to the public. I just think that it should have happened earlier.