Ch. 5.3.4.5 on Ancient Greece

1. Ch. 5.3
Democracy and Greece’s Golden Age

2. Ch. 5.3 Key Terms and People
•Direct democracy
•Classical art
•Tragedy
•Comedy
•Peloponnesian War
•Socrates
•Plato
•Aristotle

3. The Golden Age of Athens
•477-431 BC
•Came about after Greece defeated the Persians
•Drama, sculpture, poetry, philosophy, architecture, and science
flourished
•Also known as the “Age of Pericles”
• Led Athens in the Peloponnesian War

4. Pericles’ Plan for Athens(461-429 BC)
•Three goals for Athens
1. Strengthen Athenian democracy
2. Hold and strengthen the empire
3. Glorify Athens

5. Goal # 1: Stronger Democracy
•Increased the number of paid government jobs which
benefitted people who were not wealthy
•Instituted direct democracy
• Citizens rule directly and not through elected representatives

6. Goal #2: Strengthen the Empire
•Helped establish and eventually led the Delian League after the
Persian Wars
•Alliance of Greek city-states
•Grew Athens navy
•Started dominating other city-states which led to conflicts

8. Goal #3: Glorify Athens
•Used money from the Delian League to buy gold, marble and
ivory
•Used money from the Delian League to hire artists, architects,
and workers to build buildings and sculptures
•Phidias was hired to build the Parthenon
•Greek sculptors focused on beauty, not realism
•Classical art focused on simplicity and being
well proportioned

9. Phidias’ Parthenon

10. Model of Parthenon in Nashville, TN

11. Goddess Athena Statue Inside Parthenon-Phidias

12. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia-Phidias

13. Greek Drama-Tragedy and Comedy
• A tragedy was a serious drama about common themes such as love,
hate, war, or betrayal
• The hero usually was an important person and often gifted with
extraordinary abilities
• A tragic flaw usually caused the hero’s downfall, usually excessive
pride
• Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King , a famous tragedy

14. Greek Drama-Tragedy and Comedy
• A comedy contained scenes filled with humor
• Playwrights often made fun of politics and respected people and ideas
of the time
• Aristophanes was a famous writer of comedies
• The fact that Athenians could listen to criticism of themselves showed
the freedom that existed in democratic Athens

15. The Start of the Greatest Subject in Recorded History
• History
• Herodotus pioneered the accurate reporting of events
• Thucydides believed that certain types of events and political situations
recur over time
• Studying those events and situations would aid in understanding the
present
• The approaches Thucydides used in his work still guide historians
today

16. Peloponnesian War
431-404 BC
• Fought between Athens and Sparta
• Came about as a result of Sparta not
liking Athens growth of wealth and
power in the area
• Athens was acting like a bully
• Sparta had a better army, Athens had a
better navy
• With the help of a plague that hit
Athens, Sparta eventually won
• Video

18. Pericles Plan to Win

19. Rise of the Philosophers
• A philosopher is someone who tries to explain the nature of life
• After losing to Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, people in Athens turned to
philosophers for answers
• Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle

20. Socrates 470-399 BC
•Socrates was a philosopher of Ancient
Greece
•Socrates taught by asking questions
•This method of questioning is still
called the Socratic method
•Put on trial and found guilty for
“corrupting the youth of Athens”
• Put to death-hemlock
•“There is only one good, knowledge,
and one evil, ignorance”

21. Plato 427-347 BC
• Plato was a student of Socrates
• He started a school called The Academy
that lasted 900 years
• Wrote The Republic
• The book talked about a perfectly
governed society-not a democracy
• In his ideal society, all citizens would fall
naturally into three groups: farmers and
artisans, warriors, and the ruling class
• The person with the greatest intellect
from the ruling class would be chosen
king

22. Aristotle 384-322 BC
•Aristotle was a student of Plato
•He wrote about science, art, law, poetry,
government, etc.
•Taught Alexander the Great
•“He who studies how things originated
will achieve the clearest view of them.”

23. Ch. 5.4 Alexander’s Empire

24. Ch. 5.4 Key Terms and People
•Philip II
•Macedonia
•Alexander the Great
•Darius III

25. King Philip II of Macedon 382-336 BC
• Goal was to take over all of Greece and
then to get revenge by taking over the
Persian Empire
• Became King of Macedon in 359 BC

27. Macedonions
• Lived in mountainous villages, not city-
states
• Macedonians considered themselves to
be Greek but were looked down upon
by the big city-states
• Philip II built up his military and
eventually invaded and defeated the
Greek city-states
• Used the phalanx and cavalry to great
effect

28. Alexander the III of Macedon 356-323 BC
“Alexander the Great”
• Took over for his father, Philp, in 336 BC
• Philip was assassinated at his daughter’s
wedding by a former bodyguard(Pausanias)
• Ruled Greece and it’s empire for only 13
years(336-323 BC)
• Due to his great accomplishments, became
known as Alexander the Great
• Was taught by Aristotle
• Died from high fever-possibly from typhoid
fever or malaria

29. • After taking power, Alexander eliminated his opponents to the throne
and then moved to consolidate Greece
• Alexander then turned east to take over of the Persian Empire and
achieve the goal of his father
• After losing some battles, Darius III retreated quickly and offered
Alexander all lands west of the Euphrates River

30. • Alexander the Great refused Darius III’s offer and announced he would
take the entire Persian Empire
• In 332 BC, Alexander the Great moved into Egypt and “liberated” Egypt
from the Persians
• The Egyptians crowned Alexander pharaoh
• Founded the Egyptian city of Alexandria
• After conquering Egypt, Alexander moved into Mesopotamia and
finished the job of defeating Darius III and the Persians
• The capital city of the Persian Empire, Persepolis(in Iran), was burned by
Alexander as possible revenge for the Persians burning Athens

31. • Alexander would continue east into India where he eventually ran into
a strong Indian army
• His troops were tired-fighting for 11 years and traveled more than
11,000 miles
• Even after defeating the Indian army in a battle, the monsoons of India
were having an impact and Alexander agreed to turn back west
• Alexander would
die from disease
not long after

32. Alexander the Great’s Legacy
• Greek Empire split into three sections(map next slide)
• Greek city-states led by Antigonus
• Egypt led by Ptolemy
• Former Persian Empire ruled by Seleucus
•Leaders all ruled with absolute power
•Cultural diffusion between east and west

34. Ch. 5.5
The Spread of Hellenistic Culture
• Hellenistic culture became common all throughout the Greek Empire
• Greek, Egyptian, Persian and Indian cultures mixed
• Language-Koine
• Trade
• Cities
• Science and technology
• Philosophy, art and architecture

35. Alexandria, Egypt

36. Lighthouse at Alexandria

37. Ancient Library at Alexandria

38. Astronomy

39. Mathematics
•Euclid established geometry
•Archimedes estimated the value of pi and the law of the lever

40. Colossus of Rhodes