Ancient
Greece & You
Joe Greenwald, Champlain Valley
Union High School, VT
The Classical World
The man behind A² + B²
= C²
Yes it is you know the equation you use
it everyday but have you ever heard about the man himself? His
name is Pythagoras, he was a Greek philosopher and mathematician.
He lived his life to teach people about what he believed what
the truth of living was. What he called this part of life was
transmigration of the soul he found that the more he taught
people the more that they understood. He used life's surroundings
as objects to help explain to people what and his understanding
of life could be placed parallel to those particular objects.
With his strong love for teaching he opened
up a school that held many people whom he taught all to. During
the uprising period in time many of the other teachers and students
were killed off. It is still uncertain to what amount he played
apart of but whatever the amount he left the school soon after.
He was a man of hard work he would not
give up until the point that he was trying to make was represented
in some way. He died of an unknown cause. Let us not suffer because
he is gone, let us remember him as a person who worked really
hard. Plus we have him to thank for putting thousands of years
of mathematicians work into a simple equation that works great.
The Temple of Zeus at Olympia
Olympia has been a very important city
to us, it is the host city of our Olympic Games and it is home
to the finest temple to the king of our gods Zeus. It is in this
city that we all gather to celebrate our Olympic Games. All war
stops, regardless of what battles are being fought, and weapons
are laid down. We trade swords in for discus and battles in for
wrestling matches. We do this in honor of Zeus and we make sacrifices
to him during the games to give us luck in our competitions.
The Olympic Games are very respected and to be invited to go
and represent your city is a great honor to any athlete. They
come from all over Greece in order to have the chance to compete
at the sacred games and be given the chance to honor their home.
Athletes come from as far as, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and Sicily
to celebrate the Olympics and to worship at the Temple of Zeus,
the king of all gods.
The Temple was built around 450 BC, but
the original design seemed to simple and plain, and did not honor
Zeus the way it should. The people of Olympia decided that because
their city was so important and held the sacred Olympic games
they wanted to have the best temple for Zeus. When visitors came
to compete at the games they should be awestruck at the beauty
and detail of this temple. In order to reach their goal the people
did not make modifications to the temple itself, instead they
built a huge statue. The statue of Zeus sat at the far end of
the Temple and added to the temple what it had been lacking,
a proper honor to Zeus, the king of all gods.
The statue had not begun to be built until
around 440 BC. The artists began the project with visions of
the biggest and the best statue ever made to honor a god. The
statue that they came up with was equivalent to a modern day
four-story building. This statue was so amazing that it became
one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The temple attracted
visitors from all over the world who came to Olympia, not just
for the games, but for the sole reason of worshiping at such
a great temple.
Unfortunately, the temple was closed in
391AD. The Olympic Games had been banned and fewer people came
to the temple. After the temple was closed, the statue was transported
to Constantinople. The statue remained there until 426 AD until
it was destroyed by fire. The temple of Zeus itself met the same
fate as the famous statue. It two was damaged by fire in the
late fifth century.
Euripides
Euripides is the writer of some of the
most famous Greek plays ever written. He wrote during the fifth
century B.C. He may have been inspired by other playwrights of
his time like Aeschylus; he never shared their opinions when
he wrote his plays.
It seems that we learned more about Euripides
when he entered into adulthood and became more inclined to being
a philosopher. We learned that he was almost always determined
to confront or defy any existing claim or belief. Not even the
most sacred beliefs or opinions of the Greeks were safe from
his judgement. He made it his job to show people the other side
of the argument.
He made people think about what it might
be like to be the other person. People didn't like is constant
criticism and they began to dislike him. Strangely enough, this
dislike of the people further enriched his writing. It seems
that is gave him more to say and made his characters even more
interesting. Through his writing he earned respect around the
world and became one of the most successful playwrights of his
time. At the time of his death he was mourned worldwide.
We owe all of our Humor to the Greeks
Its imaginative devises are bold and its
characters are very plain spoken. Yet what gets the audience
so boldly sticks out to the whole audience. When they are addressed
directly they feel the strong pulses of the actors. They are
able to hope right into the play and feel what the play wants
to feel. They make a very clear an interesting connection to
the Athenian political structure and with that and the actors
acting the crowd goes wild.
Comedy had its solemn as well as its political
side to it. With these two things playing a part it is no wonder
the theater and society were run the way that they were. Jokes
were being made continuously throughout all of the plays. The
jokes that were always stated had to do with the town as well
as the audience and the actors as well. You could say that they
enjoyed making fun of themselves and others in a safe environment.
As now it was the same back then they would
have writers that would write the plays. In each play you would
have your main characters as well as others that would be called
the chorus. The chorus would be what we today call the narrators
they are the ones who describe what is going on and how the characters
are dealing with decisions that they are being made to make because
of certain situations. They are the ones who add their opinions
about the whole situation. They kind of help discuss with the
audience what is going on and why it is going on. Some of the
best comedies that the chorus does this in is Wine- bottles,
Clouds, and Caterpillars these plays are still being read
and acted upon to this day.
Without Comedy Athens would not be the
way that it is today. There would be no inventions, poetry, or
anything else. Comedy has also margined and strengthened the
Athenian government. Books were written romance novels emerged
and for the first time people were talking about sex as a regular
open subject.
Such a little thing has taken us to look
at things in a new and different way. The way that we look is
new and exciting. We would not be here at this level of openness
and Industrialization without the invention of comedy. So the
next time that you laugh at a play or at any theater production
remember the Greeks.
Battle of Marathon
When we think of battles and fighting we
usually just take a quick look at what we want to see and not
what really happened. It is not fair to just look at the pieces
that we want to see because to many of the people they saw all
of it. In our society we like to just take a quick few of something
but we must look beyond our personal comfort levels and look
how these other people suffered. The battle at marathon was something
like this. People not wanting to see beyond the common sights
and see the real world.
Were dealing here with Persian wars something
that is important for all of us to know and remember. Way before
our time it was very common for man kind to fight for land and
power. The men in this time period were so determined that it
was scary now when we look back. The fighting started in Asia
minor and as time went on it continued to Marathon where it all
broke out. It is something that started and continued to snowball
as more time went on. Athens had gotten beat in 490 BCE and they
went to new grounds in Aegean to land on Attic soil which was
all located in Marathon. The Persians were very good soldiers
that the time could practically beat anyone one of them. Yet
even though they were the stronger ones the Athenians miraculously
won. Some numbers for you to know more than 6,000 Persians died
and about 200 Greeks died as well. With this Greek win the Greeks
felt as if they had reached a new peak in the life they were
able to take there political state to the level. With the win
under their belt they could win more political powers and gain
more respect that would take the country to the to the next set
of stones.
The battle at Marathon was the start of
many wars. We must not spend all of the time looking at the situation
of fighting but how it has helped us to improve on the society
as a whole. It was one of the Greeks building blocks for forming
a new stronger democracy that would later be used in other countries
then itself.
Classical Philosophy and Socrates
Greek philosophy originally started out
as a way for Greeks to explain the world in general in fairly
simple terms. By the time the classical period had come around
people were using philosophy not just as a tool for understanding
nature, but also as a way to search for inner enlightenment.
The enlightenment was the main goal for many of the best known
philosophers during the classical period. When one speaks of
classical philosophers, they are referring to Athens, which was
in its golden age at the time. Other parts of Greece did not
have nearly as much focus on education and enlightenment. Man
of the philosophers in Athens at the time were Sophists, who
were traveling teachers of sorts. They had a working knowledge
of philosophy, but they did not go nearly as far into depth as
the more well-known philosophers, whose main goal was not just
to make money.
Socrates was one of the most prominent
philosophers in his time. Even though his direct words have not
been written down, people in classical Athens obviously thought
pretty highly of him, and felt that he was worth writing about.
His direct words may not be down on paper, but many things can
be determined about him through the works of some of the classical
period authors that have survived. Socrates was best known for
his arguments. He was seen as a gadfly, an annoying little man
who had a tendency to just wander around bothering people for
long periods of time. The reason that he was a bother to people
was that he asked questuions that they didn't want to have asked,
and forced them to do some thinking about themselves. Despite
his tendency to occasionally annoy people, Socrates had a large
crowd of followers who could see his intelligence and hung on
his every word.
Socrates' style of philosophy is one that
was not at all unfamiliar to classical Athens. Other people wre
influenced greatly by his philosophy, and they also took it in
different directions, and organized the thoughts in a slightly
different way. Most of these philosophers remain under Socrates'
shadow. This does not mean that they were living during a bad
time though. The classical Athens was an incredibly good environment
for people who just wanted to contemplate the world.
Peloponnesian Wars
The Peloponnesian wars were a series of
battles between the Greek city-states Athens and Sparta for the
rule of Greece. Although the first battle was fought in 431 BCE
trouble was evident for many years before that time. Athens was
overstepping its bounds in terms of power, and Spartans were
jealous of the wealth and prestige that Athenians gained through
the Persian Wars. The first clash between the two city-states
occurred after Athens offered help to a city-state that was at
battle with one of Spartas allies. The first clash started a
35 year war between two distictly different city-states.
Although Sparta had traditionally have
the strongest military in the area, their army was matched by
a strong Athenian navy. Battles between Athens and Sparta generally
tended to be pretty one-sided. If it was a land battle the Spartans
tended to win, especially on the flat, open terrain that they
were used to, if it was a sea battle the Athenians tended to
win. Most of the land battles wee fought with hoplites, although
naval and siege warfare techniques improved as the war went on.
The war ended in 404 when Sparta conquered
Athens. The social effects on Athens and the city-states that
Athens controlled were great. Sparta was very definitly not a
democracy, and it was a city-state that was comprised of very
few Spartans who had to control a very large population of Helots
who were not Spartan, and really did not want to be Spartans.
Sparta was not about to let Athens regain its power by setting
up another democracy, but they put a government in place called
the Thirty Tyrants. As the name implies, these rulers were not
incredibly popular. Within a year the city-states were starting
to rise up against Sparta. It was too late to save the glory
of Athens. The Spartans takeover officially ended its golden
age.
The Plague at Athens
The Plague at Athens was a huge disaster.
It first broke out around Lemos and elsewhere, but it never occurred
to such an extent of mortality as in Athens. No one knew how
to treat it. Doctors died in large numbers because they were
more frequently exposed to the disease, trying desperately to
find some way to help the people. Prayers and sacrifices were
found equally useless until the overwhelming disaster put a stop
to all attempts.
The plague first began in Ethiopia, above
Egypt. It then quickly descended into Egypt and Libya, and suddenly
fell on Athens. It attacked the population of Piraeus, which
is why it has been said that the Peloponnesians poisoned the
reservoirs. There is not a certain cause for the plague. All
solutions are debatable, and cause much speculation. It is not
known how the plague was spread or how we could stop it, if it
were to break out today. The Greeks recorded the symptoms, so
if the plague were to break out again, we would be able to recognize
the disease.
People in good health were suddenly attacked
by the plague. They received violently hot fevers, red and swollen
eyes, and the inside of the body, such as the tongue or throat,
becoming bloody, and giving off an unnatural breath. The symptoms
led to sneezing and hoarseness, which then produced a hard cough
and pain in the chest. Victims also suffered very upset stomachs,
and produced discharges of every kind. Vomiting was common, creating
violent spasms, which varied in length.
A person with the plague would not appear
hot to the touch, nor pale, but rather red and the skin bubbling,
breaking into small pustules and ulcers. Internally, the patient
felt as though they were burning up. They could not bear to have
any kind of clothing or linen on their bodies. The sick would
have oved to plunge themselves into cold water, and gulp down
water. They were forever trying to quence and unquenchable thirst.
The patient had the feeling of never being able to sleep or rest,
the disease, however, did not was away the body. On the seventh
or eighth day the patient would have severe internal inflammation.
The disease would then descend further into the bowels of the
patient, bringing violent ulceration and severe diarrhea. Once
at this stage, the disease brought weakness which was almost
certainly fatal.
Survivors of the plague were sometimes
left without fingers, toes, or other body parts, and some were
left without memory. The disease did not care whether its victim
was strong or weak; in good health or not. It attacked everyone
the same. It was such a huge devastation and calamity for all
Athenians, it killed off much of the city, and left many people
disabled.
The Parthenon
The Parthenon was built from 447 BCE to
432 BCE to replace a previous temple that was destroyed by the
Persians between 480 BCE and 479 BCE. The Parthenon was built
to house the Greek deity Athena, for whom Athens was also named.
The Parthenon got its name from the Western Cella, dedicated
to Athena Parthenos, or "the virgin". The Eastern Cella
was dedicated to Athena Polis. In addition to having the building
named for it, the Western Cella was also used as the treasury
for the city. It is believed that this was because the doors
were most likely strengthened with brass bars.
Iktinos, Kallikrates, and Pheilias designed
the Parthenon, and Perikles greatly encouraged its construction.
It is representative of the standard Greek architecture of temples
during that time. The building is basically a rectangular box
on a raised platform. The architecture appears to have been strongly
influenced by that of the Egyptian stone temples. The building
had one small door at the front, and was fenced in by columns
all around; the temple was built in simple Doric style.
Under normal circumstances, only priests
and priestesses could enter the box-like interior of the building.
Public religious ceremonies were held around an open air alter,
located just outside of the east end of the temple. The Parthenon
was damaged by a fire sometime between 150 BCE and 267 CE, and
was then later converted into a Christian church around 600 CE.
The Parthenon was a very significant part of Athenian religious
life while it was in use.
The Parthenon is important because it captures
the impressive Athenian imperial power without the strain of
the Peloponnesian wars, as it was built in a period of peace.
It also communicates a different theme from the metopes in each
of the four directions-North, South, East, and West. The North
displayed the war between the Greeks and Trojans. On the South
wall was the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. The
East wall depicted the battle between the gods and the giants.
The West side told of the mythical battle against the amazons.
Each side had its own story and its own significance. The Parthenon
was an important part of Athenian society for several hundred
years; allowing the polis' citizens to pray and sacrifice to
Athena.
Persia In the Hellenistic Era
At the beginning of the Hellenistic period
Persia had already been weakened by wide-scale economic and political
turmoil due to a string of murder in the ruling families. Babylonia
had been taxed in to a state of advanced decay. Egypt was falling
into disorder, fumed under a harsh rule. Truly all of Asia seemed
ripe for an invasion. But what man could possibly conquer nearly
all the known world? The Persians found an answer to that question.
In the spring of 334 B.C.E. Alexander the
Great lead 35,000 Macedonians and Greek across the Hellespont
and in a few short years he undid an empire that had stood for
centuries. The Persians, even with their vast numbers could not
stand up to the cunning and discipline of Alexander's forces.
The Persians did have the numbers to beat Alexander but due to
the disorder of their government and military their troops were
inadequately trained and armed. At the battle of Issus where
Darius III, the ruler of Persia at the time, stood with an army
half again the size of his enemies but even that force still
was defeated. In that particular battle Darius was said to have
retreated in a panic leaving his mother, wife and infant child
behind. This proved to be the archetype for nearly of the major
battles. But, what seemed to be the utter destruction of the
Persian Empire became a type of rebirth.
As Alexander raged across Asia he left
many governments in the towns and cities he conquered. The governments
that he selected were based on skill, talent, and public approval
and not simply on heredity as the Persians had done previously.
Another blessing in disguise was at one point in Alexander's
journeys he met with Darius' heir to the throne in Babylon. Alexander
challenged and beat the heir in an academic battle about the
great Persian ruler, Cyrus. Throughout his journeys Alexander
changed how the Persian Empire worked and how it viewed itself.
In the end the Persians had been given a fresh start with many
of it temples and monuments having been rebuilt by Alexander.
Alexander also showed that the Greeks were indeed a great people
that were not below the Persians. Because of Alexander's conquest
the people of Greece and Persia mixed and mingled. Plato went
to Persia, Alexander's troops wed to Persian women, and Hellenism
began. Truly, Alexander was the Conquer but also the unknown
unifier.
Alexander the Great
Alexandria: after a long haul with the
army of Alexander the Great, our world had been turned upside-down.
Together the men who fought in the great armada of Alexander,
we have reached the point where we are no longer willing except
the constant warfare and the never ending pittering for domination
of an Empire that really belonged to one man: Alexander himself.
It began with the death of Philip II in
336 B.C.E and campaign for Macedonia and most of Greece. Forces
were conspiring beyond the point to which Alexander suspected
he no longer had the ultimate control of his father's empire.
This was the start of the hell the 35,000 of us were about to
endure. It was the march through Thebes that proved our success.
We were greeted with a battle that was a blood bath for all.
With the Thebans refusal to let us pass through their walls,
a war was fought and lost, resulting with the death of every
one of their men and slavery of all the women and children. After
this point Alexander had no more trouble establishing his right
to his father's empire.
Once his dominance was established, Alexander
took to Persia and most of Asia Minor. This is where the traveling,
the constant warfare, and the unending chaos that accompanies
all of these things drove all of us to near lunacy. Together
we were our soldiers in the same army with the same purpose,
the same one goal in mind: conquer the world. For the most part
we did not accomplish this goal, and Alexander never let us forget.
Our battles were fought for the glory of Alexander, and we were
unstoppable.
Our first conquest was the Celtic population
who gave themselves over almost immediately upon our arrival.
By finding a weakness in their defense we were able to sweep
through their army and surprise them from behind, convincing
them that we were truly the superior force.
Our occupation continued through the regions
of Persia, for Alexander was hungry for war and for land, and
he drove us until we almost dropped. We reined superior throughout
all of Persia. Darius' men held no chance with us whatsoever
as we were victors over far greater armies and superior equipment.
Soon most of Asia Minor was under our power and we were champions.
After we had captured Persia, most of Egypt,
and most of Asia Minor we could go no further, and almost mutinied.
When Alexander died, shortly after in 323 B.C.E, we were decayed
into a chain of land hungry hyenas. It was "to the strongest"
that most of the idiot "commanders" found an excuse
to pillage the dream of one of the greatest generals who lived.
Just when Hellenism found its proper place in the world, we had
to destroy that legacy by creating separate empires, which never
had the power, or the shear brute force, that one of the greatest
armies on this earth possessed.
The Ptolemaic Dynasty
Ptolemaic Dynasty, Macedonian family that
ruled Egypt during the Hellenistic period, from the death of
Alexander the Great in 323BC until Egypt became a Roman province
in 30BC. At various times the Ptolemies also controlled Cyrenaica
(modern Libya), Palestine, and Cyprus.
The dynasty was founded by Alexander's
general, Ptolemy. Named governor of Egypt by Alexander, he established
himself as an independent ruler in 305BC, adopting the name Ptolemy
I Soter. The kingdom prospered under him and his successors,
Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes, who vied with
another Macedonian dynasty, the Seleucids of Syria, for supremacy
in the eastern Mediterranean.
The capital of the Ptolemaic state was
Alexandria--a cosmopolitan city with a large Greek and Jewish
population--which became one of the great commercial and intellectual
centers of the ancient world. Although not of Egyptian origin,
the Ptolemies observed many of the country's traditional customs.
Like Alexander, they had themselves portrayed on public monuments
in Egyptian style and dress, and they participated in Egyptian
religious rituals. They preserved Egypt's ancient architectural
traditions, erecting temples to the Egyptian gods at Edfu, Dandarah,and
other places. Nevertheless, their government, dominated by Greek
and Macedonian officials, was not popular. Egyptian nationalism
remained strong among the people, manifesting itself in frequent
rebellions.
The power of the dynasty declined under
a succession of weak kings in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, when
Rome began to intervene increasingly in Egyptian affairs. The
last and probably the most famous Ptolemaic ruler was Cleopatra,
who ruled independently first through the support of Julius Caesar
and later that of Mark Antony. With her death and that of her
son, Ptolemy XV, called Caesarion, in 30BC, the dynasty came
to an end.
The Seleucids: An Empire With Zeal
The success of Alexander the Great was
incredible. As a general he was an astounding genius of war,
and in his genius he built a masterful empire. For the most part
his continuing success was due to the fact that he was born into
a powerful and cunning family who new how to control and manipulate
people. Phillip II was a powerful leader who, and if it was not
for his subsequent death in 336 B.C.E, could have quite possibly
conquered the world that Alexander did. Olympia, Alexander's
mother, who was by many sources known as a witch or a sorceress,
gave a certain eccentricity to Alexander's hardened character.
In these elements a true ruler was created, and if his family
was not impeded, his dynasty could have gone on for much longer
than it did.
It is sad to note that for a period, after
Alexander's death, this empire was never achieved again. With
his death in 323 B.C.E, Alexander supposedly left his empire,
"To the strongest" and if there was never a greater
misuse of terms, I have not heard of it. Immediately the entire
dynasty was thrown into a state of flux, with wars springing
up everywhere for complete domination of the dynasty that Alexander
of Macedonia fought so hard to build. Several leaders building
their own empires on the foundation of Alexander's own beginning
followed these wars. There was the Ptolemaic empire, the Antilonid
Empire, and finally the Seleucid Empire.
Seleucos I, who was one of Alexander's
premier commanders, founded the Seleucid Empire. As one of Alexander's
commanders he was naturally felt entitled to the land that he
helped to capture, and after the wars of the Diadochi (the successors
of Alexander), he survived and managed to establish the largest
empire of the three empires. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C.E,
Seleucos I was given the satrapy of Babylon in which he was to
rule in Alexander's brother and son, giving him the necessary
power from which to start his own empire. When the empire was
established in 312 B.C.E it encompassed the whole eastern portion
of Alexander's land as well as most of Syria and Asia Minor.
As times progressed other empires rose and broke off from the
whole of the Seleucid Empire. One example is the Parthian empire,
which also gained its form of Greek bureaucracy from ifs motherland.
In a leadership style that was unique to
men at his time, Alexander conquered and created a world. He
was an inspiration to his followers who would emulate him, but
would never be as successful. Many tried to follow in his wake,
but really there was never a man, or a time more that were to
conquer. The Seleucid Empire was the closest following of Alexander's
dream. While never reaching the fame of the neighboring Ptolemaic
Empire, it still made wonderful strides in the Hellenistic age.
The Seleucid Empire was one of the largest and most successful
empires that were left after Alexander's death, and it lasted
until 64 B.C.E until the Romans conquered it.
