Transcript Hellenic Period 479-323 BCE

Plato
&
Aristotle
From Raphael’s
School of
Athens
Hellenic Period
479-323 BCE
The battle of Plataea to the
death of Alexander the Great
Hellenic Ideals
With the final defeat of the Persian
invaders, the Greek ideal became one
of moderation and the balanced life.
A balance between extremes
Apollo and Dionysus
Apollo and Dionysus
Apollo: associated with the urban life
Dionysus: associated with the rural
life. Drunken women known as
maenads followed and worshiped
him. In Athens, the drunken worship
of Dionysus was transformed into a
civic festival, the Dionysia.
Hellenic Ideals
The fusion of the civic and the
religious
The Parthenon
The Dionesia, a civic festival (from
which tragedy was born)
Hellenic Ideals
Classicism—a scholarly term
denoting the principles expressed
through the culture and arts of ancient
Greece and Rome.
Simplicity
Balance
Symmetry
Order
Restraint
Hellenic Politics
The Hellenic Age can be divided into
four distinct phases:
The Delian League: a defensive alliance
formed in 478 to prevent further Persian
attacks.
Wars in Greece and with Persia and the
ensuing Thirty Years’ Peace.
The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)
Spartan and Theban hegemony and the
triumph of Macedonia.
The Peloponnesian War (431-404)
When Corinth went to war with
Corcyra in Western Greece, Corcyra
appealed to Athens for aid. The
Corinthians persuaded the Spartans
to join together in the Peloponnesian
League. The Peloponnesian War had
begun
Greek Tragedy
--Evolved from religious chanting
and dancing in honor of Dionysus
-- Not necessarily a dark, dismal
play
-- A play with a serious moral
intention.
-- Cathartic effects of tragedy
Greek Tragedy
During the City Dionysia, three
playwrights were invited to compose a
cycle of 4 plays.
-- Three tragedies + one Satyr Play
Each playwright performed his entire cycle
in a single day.
Greek Tragedy
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
(525-456 BCE) (496-406 BCE) (480-406 BCE)
The Oresteia
Agamemnon
-- the only
Oedipus Rex
Antigone
-- the most
surviving
complete trilogy;
proud and
patriotic.
philosophical of
the early
dramatists
Medea
The Bacchae
-- a skeptical
view of Greece
and its “noble”
values
Greek Comedy: Aristophanes
In Lysistrata, Aristophanes points out
the absurdity of the prolonged
Peloponnesian War and, by
implication, all war. In the play,
Lysistrata, an Athenian matron,
persuades the women of Athens and
Sparta to withhold sex from their
husbands until they sign a peace
treaty.