Transcript Greece #2: Quest for Beauty and Meaning

After
the Persian
War, Greek
culture
flourished
◦Classical art
 Temple
for Athena
◦ Gold & ivory
statue of Athena
by Phidias
 Corrected optical
illusion
 Nashville,
Tennessee has a
replica of the Parthenon &
statue of Athena (see next
two slides).
 White
House (Ionic)
 Lincoln Memorial
(Doric)
 US Capitol Building
(Corinthian)
 Greeks
OBSESSED
with beauty
◦ Realistic & lifelike
 Pottery
◦ Mythological
scenes
◦ Scenes of
everyday life
 Myron
◦Perfect
human form
(Discus
Thrower)
 Tragedy-
unhappy
ending 
 Comedyhappy ending

Dionysus
– god of
wine & pleasure
http://www.tqnyc.org/2005/
NYC051950//miritgreecem
ythology.htm
Sophocles
◦ Oedipus Rex (King who killed his
dad & married his mom– forced to
do these things by the gods)
◦ When he discovers what he’s done,
he blinds himself
 Aristophanes
◦Satires—jokes—
pointed at society &
major leaders
 Wanted
perfect body
 Olympics
◦Throwing, wrestling, running
 Women had one in honor of
goddess Hera
 400s
BC: Sophists (traveling
teachers)
 Believed Greek gods (deities)
had little control over people
 Born
in Athens (470 BC)
 Socratic Method: philosopher
questioning student
 Reason as only authority
◦ 399 BC: “Corrupting the young”DEATH by hemlock poison
 Socrates’
student
 Creates school “The Academy”
 1st political science book, The
Republic (tries to create perfect
govt.)
Just city:
◦ Specialization of 3 classes:
◦ Producers (farmers, craftsmen, doctors),
Warriors, Rulers (philosopher kings)
 Just soul:
◦ 3 parts: Lustful, Spirited, Rational
(rational part rules, spirited part enforce
rational part’s convictions, lustful part
must obey)

 Studied
at Plato’s Academy
 Tutored Alexander the Gr8
 Opened school “Lyceum”
 Scientific Method
 Book Politics
 Herodotus
“Father of
Greek History”
◦ Wrote about Persian
Wars (Historia)
 Thucydides
◦ Peloponnesian War
history
 Thales
◦ 1st to
of Miletus (600s BC)
predicted solar eclipse
 Pythagoras (500s BC)
◦ Pythagorean theorem
◦ Music: shorter the string,
higher the pitch
 “Father
of Medicine”
 Hippocratic Oath-code of
doctors
 Disease caused by things
in nature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ClubbingFingers1.jpg
 Macedonia-north
of
Greece
 359 BC: Philip II King of
Macedon
 Wanted to…
◦unify Greek city-states
◦destroy Persian Empire
 Philip
used Greek phalanxes
 338 BC: Philip II took citystates in Greece
 336 BC: Philip killed by wife
 Olympias set up her son
ALEXANDER as king
 Tutored
by Aristotle
 Throne by age 20
 331 BC: Alexander destroyed
Persia
 WANTED WORLD
DOMINATION!
 Alexander
& troops
married Persian women
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/6793020.html
 At
the Indus River
◦Soldiers-tired of
fighting went home
◦323 BC: Alexander
died of malaria at 33
yrs. old
3
generals divide
empire & war
constantly until
Romans take over
 Hellenistic
Culture-mix
of Persian & Greek
cultures
 Alexandria, Egypt
st
◦1 museum (library,
research center, zoo, &
gardens)



Aristarchus-Earth moves
around sun
EratosthenesCircumference of Earth
Euclid- Geometry book
used until 1900
 Archimedes-
compound
pulley, explained how
levers work, principle of
buoyancy, Archimedes
Screw