The Greek Way

Humanism and the Western Tradition

The Lust for Life

Odysseus and Achilles
I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead.

Greek Dark Ages

1200-800 BCE

Heroes and History

1. The Iliad and The Odyssey
800-700 BCE Archaic Period

- heroic individualism
Homer

A Tale of Two Wars

The Iliad & The Odyssey
ca. 800-700 BCE

The Persian Wars

400s BCE

Herodotus, Thucydides History without myth

Ionian philosophy
1. Rationalism
- nature composed of elements - universe was not random (laws) - gods in-active

2. Thales of Miletus

ca. 600 BCE

Change v. permanence materialism

Environment & Culture

Crossroads of civilization
Necessity and invention

1. The polis
- abstract; artificial

The stateaims at the highest good.

- Aristotle

2. Tyranny
- anti-king, law-givers - merit v. heredity

Cultural life
Centrality of human existence to arts

Discobulus by Myron
400s BCE

II. Hellenic Powers

Sparta and Athens

A. Hoplite Culture
1. Citizen-soldiers
phalanx
Enfranchisement Egalitarian Patriotic Patriarchal

Athenian hoplite

B. Sparta
1. Conquest, class and conflict
helots 600s BCE

2. Reforms of Lycurgus
eunomia

ca. 600 BCE

- state support
kleros

3. Service to the state

- mentors
Delayed citizenship Xenophobia

4. Liberated women

C. Athens

1. Draco

620 BCE

- written codes

2. Along came Solon

wealth corrupted men Militarism cowed men Economic reforms

594 BCE

3. Cleisthenes

508 BCE

- political reform - demos the people

III. The Hellenic Achievement

Classical Age, 500-323 BCE

A. The Persian Wars

1. Miletan Revolt
[ Cyrus the Great d. 530 BCE] - Darius I d. 485 499 BCE

2. Battle of Marathon

490 BCE

3. Greek unity
- Thermopylae 480 BCE Leonidas - Salamis 479 BCE Themistocles

Conclusion?
- Go Greek

B. Athens Advance
1. Pericles
495-421 BCE

- links freedom to expansion

C. Limits of democracy
1. The Delian League
- prosperity / slavery rise
477 BCE

2. Women and public life

- heirs v. wives
Aspasia, a hetaira

Teaching a woman to read and write? Like feeding a vile snake on more poison
- Menander the Athenian

D. Peloponnesian War 431-404 BCE

1. War on land and sea

2. War and democracy

- demagoguery - impatience - slave revolt

Alcibiades

3. Defeat of Athens
- Greece vulnerable to conquest

- dramatic reassessment of human nature, politics

IV. Age of Introspection

The heights of Classical thought
*from external to internal philosophy*

A. Philosophy
1. The Sophists
- radical skepticism / relativism

Man is the measure of all things

- Protagorus

2. Socrates

469-399 BCE

- Socratic Method dialogue or dialectic - knowledge (virtue) developed from within

Challenge all popular beliefs

3. Plato

429-347 BCE

The Republic
- why did Athenian democracy fail?
- Allegory of the Cave

B. The Humanities
1. Drama
- focus on human dilemmas
Sophocles

reality

Oedipus Rex and Antigone

2. History
- Herodotus
lesson, or thesis

- Thucydides
objective, investigative

VII. The Hellenistic Period

A. Macedonians
1. Philip II
d. 336 BCE

- Hellenization - showdown with Persia

B. Alexander
1. War & legitimacy
- Calisthenes
- Granikos River 334; Gaugamela, 331

2. Alexandrian empire

336-323 BCE

C. The Hellenistic Environment

1. Division

2. Cultural fusion
- migration - koine common Greek

3. Decline of the polis

D. Hellenistic philosophy
1. Aristotle
384-322 BCE

- empirical data, careful observation - minimize errors of senses - another early basis of scientific method

2. Anti-Aristotle
Zeno
- Stoicism

Epicurus
- purpose is pleasure

Diogenes
- Cynicism

Hellenistic Legacy
1. Language of the ancient world 2. Western achievement not confined to Greeks 3. Accelerated the rise of Rome