Section+5-3+Democracy+and+Greece's+Golden+Age

Key Words:

 * __Direct Democracy__: Citizens rule directly, no representatives.
 * __Classical Art__: Values of harmony, order, balance, and proportion.
 * __Tragedy__: A serious drama, love, hate, and betrayal.
 * __Comedy__: A drama with slapstick situations and crude humor, make fun of politics and respected people and ideas.
 * __Peloponnesian War__: A war between Athens (navy) and Spartans (army).
 * __Philosopher__: Greek thinkers, means "lovers of wisdom."

Key People:

 * __Aeschylus__: Dramatists, wrote over 80 plays.
 * __Sophocles__: Wrote over 100 plays.
 * __Euripides__: Dramatists, featured women in his plays.
 * Aristophanes: Wrote the first comedies.
 * __Herodotus__: Recorded the accurate events, for a period he lived in Athens.
 * __Thucydides__: Believed certain events would repeat overtime, studied events to understand his present time.
 * Protagoras: A Sophists who questioned the existence of Greek gods and that there was no universal truth.
 * __Socrates__: A Sophists who believed in justice and truth.
 * __Plato__: A student and recorder of Socrates
 * __Aristotle__: A student Plato, questioned world's nature and human beliefs, thoughts, and knowledge.

Pericles' Plan for Athens:

 * For 32 years (461-429 B.C.) Pericles led Athens, his goals: stronger democracy, hold and strengthen kingdom, and glorify Athens.
 * Stronger Democracy:**
 * Paid public officials, the poor could now be self-government involved.
 * Athens, and a few others, had direct democracy, male citizens would gather in an assembly and establish the government.
 * Athenian Empire:**
 * When Athens took control of the Delian League, Pericles used the money to make Athens' navy the strongest: trading and keeping the empire.
 * Saw other Delian League members as under his power, started to form an alliance against Athens.
 * Glorifying Athens:**
 * The Delian League money also went to ivory, gold, marble, and the artists paid to glorify Athens, without the Delian full approval.

Glorious Art and Architecture:

 * Pericles' plan was to have glorious sculptures, and buildings, including the Parthenon.
 * Architecture and Sculpture:**
 * The Parthenon was a 23,000 foot temple made with techniques used for over 200 years, made for Athena, Phidias made a 30 foot statue of Athena out of ivory and gold.
 * Sculptures of this time showed figures with grace, and strength, faces were only serenity, goal was beauty, not reality.

Drama and History:

 * First theater built in West, Greeks invented drama, Athens showed plays showing their tribute to gods, leadership, and justice, very dramatic.
 * Tragedy and Comedy:**
 * Tragedies usually included a hero, with powers, a downfall, usually pride or hubris.
 * Aeschylus wrote the three-play series //Oresteia// (King Agamemnon commanded Greeks at Troy), Sophocles wrote //Oedipus the King// and //Antigone//, and Euripides who wrote Medea.
 * Aristophanes wrote comedies, such as //The Birds// and //Lyistrata// (wives making husbands end the Peloponnesian War), showed freedom of speech in Athens.
 * History:**
 * Dorian period has no written records, not accurate, Herodotus wrote the first book of history on the Persian War, and Thucydides work helps historians today.

Athenians and Spartans go to War:

 * As Athens' power grew, many wanted them to go, including Spartans (both leaders wanted to go to war against one another), Spartans declared war in 431 B.C.
 * Peloponnesian War:**
 * Both wanted to wait for the other to get away from their advantages (Spartans wanted to fight on the land, Athens on the sea).
 * Spartans destroyed their crops, Athens kept food supplies from other cities, kept everyone in the city.
 * In the 2nd year-a plague in Athens, 1/3, including Pericles, continued to fight until 421 B.C. where a treaty was signed between the two city-states.
 * Sparta Gains Victory:**
 * Athens attacked the island Sicily with 20,000 soldiers in 415 B.C., defeated, defended Athens for 9 years before defeat in 404 B.C.

Philosophers Seek for Truth:

 * After Athens' defeat, doubt in democracy, many philosophers had ideas: universe put together in a certain way, people can understand through logic and reason.
 * Sophists, a group of philosophers who studied justification, beliefs, and ideas.
 * Socrates:**
 * Encouraged Greeks to look in themselves: search moral characteristics, a misunderstood old man.
 * He was 70 years old in 399 B.C., sent to trial for disrupting Athens' peace, killed by the slow poison hemlock.
 * Plato:**
 * Wrote //The Republic// in 370 B.C., explains his perfect government: groups: farmers, artists, warriors, and ruling class, the one with the most wisdom would be philosopher-king, writing dominated for over 1,500 years.
 * Aristotle:**
 * Summarized most of what happened up to his time, created a method for arguing, used it to solve problems in physics, biology, and psychology, which is the basis for scientific method today.
 * Famous pupil: Alexander the son of King Philip II, 343 B.C., began tutoring the 13-year old, stopped when king asked him home three years later.