Together these cities and the traditions they established have shaped the European heritage. Along with Athens and Rome, Jerusalem is another important reference point in the formation phase of the European civilizational constellation. While the Roman civilization laid the basic structures of a European civilization, it also created a deep division, which ultimately made impossible less a common European civilization than an interconnecting constellation of different societies. The ancient civilizations should be seen in terms of interacting cultures that underwent considerable variation. They should rather be seen as multiple sources of a tradition whose developmental path was defined at a later stage in history.
They do not constitute an origin that left an indelible mark on the later history. Europe as we know it today is not defined by the classical civilizations.