Transcript A brief history of ancient Greece

A brief history of ancient Greece
 1. The
Persian
Wars, 499 479 B.C.
The greatest extent
of the Persian
Empire, ca. 490
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A brief history of ancient Greece
 2. The Golden Age, or
Periclean Age, 480 - 431
B.C. (In art history, this
period is referred to as the
“Classical Period”)
 Socrates was born in
469 B.C., near the
beginning of the Golden
Age.
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A brief history of ancient Greece
 Plato was born in 428 B.C., near the end
of this age.
 Ancient Greece was a federation of 150
city-states.
 The defeat of the Persians brought a
new awareness of the commonness of
these peoples in language, religion, and
customs.
 But they never achieved political unity.
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The
maximum
extent of
the
Athenian
Empire

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From John Boardman,
Jasper Griffin, & Oswyn
Murray, The Oxford
History of the Classical
World (NY: Oxford
University Press, 1986):
134.
A brief history of ancient Greece
 The golden side of the Golden Age
• Government support for widows and
orphans
• A high rate of literacy
• A great building program
– The Parthenon
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A brief history of ancient Greece
• Great playwrites
– Euripides, Aristophanes, Sophocles
• The physician, Hippokrates
• The historian Thucydides
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A brief history of ancient Greece
• Cleisthenes initiated the democratic
form of government c. 508 B.C. (a bit
before the Golden Age)
– The form of democracy - very
direct vs representative
– But excluded women, slaves, the
allies of Athens
– About 40,000 adult males were
eligible to vote
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A brief history of ancient Greece
 The tarnished side of the Golden Age
• Slaves made up one-third of the
population
• Women were not educated, had no
property rights, and were for the
most part excluded from the public
sphere
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A brief history of ancient Greece
• Growing tension between alliances of
city states centered around Athens
and Sparta
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A brief history of ancient Greece
 3. The Peloponnesian War, 431 - 404 B.C.
• Between alliances centered around
Athens and Sparta
• Athens lost
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A brief history of ancient Greece
 4. The Hellenistic Age, 338 B.C. - 200 A.D.
• In 338, Philip of Macedonia
conquered Greece
• When Philip was assassinated in 336
B.C., Alexander took over the empire.
• Alexander spread the Greek language
and culture throughout his expanding
empire.
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A brief history of ancient Greece
 Mosaic of
Alexander
fighting
Darius
(Persian
King)
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A brief history of ancient Greece
• Hence the word “Hellenic,” of or
pertaining to the ancient Greeks.
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Socrates: Life
 Socrates (c.470 - 399 B.C.)
 Born in Athens to a wealthy family
 Married, had several sons
 Distinguished himself in the
Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 B.C.)
 His profession was a travelling teacher
• His debates with other members of
his profession and the label,
“sophist”
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Socrates: Life
 Socrates
 Vatican Museums
 Rome
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Socrates: Life
 His innovative method of teaching, still
known as “the Socratic method”
 His interest in teaching ethics and his
claim that virtue is a kind of knowledge
• Might be called “ethical
intellectualism”
• It follow that virtue can be taught
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Socrates: Life
 His most famous student - Plato
 Socrates wrote nothing!
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Socrates: Life
 His famous trial
• The Apology give Plato’s account of
the trial
• Occurred in 399 B.C.
• The charge
• Socrates was found guilty
 Executed by taking poison
– David’s painting of the death of
Socrates
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Socrates: Life
•
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•
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Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748-1825)
The Death of Socrates
1787
Oil on canvas
51 x 77 1/4 in. (129.5 x 196.2 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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