1. Day 3 – Golden Age & Peloponnesian War
Ancient Greece
Day 3 – Golden Age & Peloponnesian War

2. Golden Age of Athens Pericles led Athens in this period (461 BC)
Athens stood for all that was the best in Greek civilization (“school of the Hellas”)
Artists excelled at:
Architecture
Sculpture: Classical Art-nothing to excess
Painting
Built huge, beautiful public buildings-Parthenon
Them. Rebuilt Athens with the long walls
Funeral oration of Pericles – comp. To Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address…”we regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs as a useless character.”
Temple of Athena built by Pericles/ sculpture public & religious; later realistic

3. The Agora

4. The Parthenon
Statue of Athena 30 ft tall, gold & ivory

5. Peloponnesian War (431 BC-404 BC)
Most cities joined the Delian League for protection against the Persians, pirates
Athens led the D.L., which really turns into the Athenian Empire
Sparta & others create an anti-Athens alliance
Sparta had no navy, made a deal w/Persians to get $ for navy
c. Athenians behind their city walls, relying on sea power; attacked Sicily (Syracuse – big failure) 413 BC
e. Forced to tear down Long Walls & navy reduced to 12 ships

8. E. Athens weakened by a plague & ruined crops; forced to make peace in 404 BC.
Effects: Ruined fields, city-states ripe for take over, Athenians lose faith in their democracy

9. The Greek Mind
Early scientists – Pythagoras (math) & Hippocrates (father of medicine)
Socrates ( BC) was a philosopher who believed in absolute truth
He was interested in how people learned to think for themselves
Developed the Socratic Method: asking pointed questions and giving no answer. He would oppose their answer with logical arguments
Socrates was viewed as a threat to the polis and was sentenced to death
(see handout on the three philospophers…)

11. C. Plato ( BC) started the Academy and wrote the first book on political science, The Republic (state more important than individual – anti-democratic & pro-Sparta). Also had the “Parable of the Cave” – concept of forms
c. Academy lasted 900 years

12. D. Aristotle (384-322 BC) wrote on philosophy, science, & govt
D. Aristotle ( BC) wrote on philosophy, science, & govt. – influenced western thinkers greatly until the Renaissance (c AD). Tutored Alexander the Great.

13. Writers of History Herodotus: known as the “Father of History”
1st true historian—separated fact from fiction
he wrote Historia on the Persian Wars
wrote on political, social, and religious customs
Sometimes exaggerations
Thucydides: wrote about the Peloponnesian War
Only accepted eyewitness accounts
Tried to be more scientific and factual
Rejected the idea that the gods played a role in history