Civilzations seem to flourish and slow down as time passes by. They thrived during a certain time period and faded away while others took the stronghold later on. One more intriguing and interesting aspect of civilization is it originated in one part of the world but its customs and innovations got transferred and deeprooted in other parts of the world. The Greek civilization can be taken as the base of human development, that paved the way for other civilizations to enrich the field of philosophy, politics, theology and even science and technology. While the western world boasts so much about their superiority over the rest of the world, they could reign over others only after they copied the ways of life from rest of the civilizations. Just going back to the 14th or 15th century the South Asian subcontinent on the heart of Indus valley civilization, I guess, was no less better than the western world at that time. While Europe and America has very little to show about their ancient heritage, Nepal's Kathmandu valley still has so much to offer, that has been preserved from its early civilization. It's sad to see the late Roman civilization triggered so much prosperity in the west, while Greek, Egyptian, Indian, Chinese civilizations slowed their pace and faded away. But the world is transforming and it won't be any wonder if things made the opposite turn around over the matter of few centuries. ;)