GREEK

CIVILIZATION
 The Birth of History
The Peloponnesian War brought one
positive development: the beginning of
historical writing.
* Herodotus (ca 485-425 BCE), known as
the Father of History wrote THE HISTORIES
which narrated the Persian War.
* Thucydides (ca460-400 BCE) wrote an
account of the Peloponnesian War and
was considered the Father of Scientific
History.
 Greek Thought and Culture
Thales (ca 600 BCE), the first to explain that water
was the basic element in the universe.
Anaximander, believed that the original material
in the universe was air.
Heraclitus, said it was fire.
Aesop, gave his attention, not to natural science
but to ethics, the rules of moral behavior.
Hippocrates brought the philosophers into new
areas of specialization
- Father of Medicine, taught that natural means
could be employed to fight disease.
 Phythagoras, accomplished the most
significant Greek mathematical work.
He developed elaborate theories of
numbers, classifying them into various
categories such as odd, even, prime,
composite and perfect.
He discovered the theory of proportion,

and proved for the first time that the sum of

the three angles of any triangle is equal to
its two angles.
 SOCRATES
Born in Athens, in 469 BCE.
Though not a Sophist because he did not teach
for a living, shared the Sophists belief that
human beings and their environment are the
essential subjects of philosophical inquiry.
His approach when posing ethical questions
and defining concepts was to start with a
general topic and narrow it down to its
essential.
He did continuous questioning and conducting
running dialogues with his students.
PLATO (427-374 BCE)
Socrates student
He founded the Academy.

His abstract doctrine of ideas was

believed rooted to Socratic ideas.

He believed that all visible, tangible
things are unreal and temporary,
only the mind, not the senses, can
perceive external forms.
The highest form is the idea of good.
 Such method today is called as Socratic method.
In 399 BCE, he was condemned to death on a
charge of corrupting the youth and introducing
new gods. The real reason for the unjust sentence
was the outcome of the Peloponnesian War.
Athenians turn against him because of his close
association with the aristocrats and traitor,
Alcobiades, and the criticisms of popular belief.
Believed in an ideal state, proposed in his
Republic.
He divided the society into three principal classes:
lowest class, middle class, and the highest class
 ARISTOTLE (384-322)
A student of Plato
Believed in the use of logic as his method of scientific
discussion.
He served as a tutor to the young Alexander the
Great.
He led a school of his own, LYCEUM until his death in
322 BCE.
He differed from Socrates and Plato in some
respects.
He had a higher regard for concrete and practical.
He was an empirical scientist with interests in Biology,
Physics, and Astronomy.
 Unlike Plato, he believed that
form and matter are equal
importance.
He believed in the Golden

Mean, an affirmation of the

characteristic Greek ideal of
sophrosyne nothing too
much.
Literature
AESCHYLUS (525-456 BCE), the first of the
great Athenian dramatists, who wrote trilogy
of plays, The Aresteia, Agamemnon, and
Prometheus Bound on themes of guilt and
punishmenta.
He was the father of Greek Tragedy.
SOPHOCLES (496-406 BCE), is often
considered the greatest of the tragedians.
His most famous play is Oedipus the King,
the story of a man doomed by the gods to
kill his father and marry his mother.
 EURIPEDES (ca 480-406 BCE), also explored
the theme of personal conflict within the
polis.
To him, the gods were far less important
than human beings.
His best known tragedies are Alcestis,
Medea, and the Trojan Women.
The epic of heroic deeds is the most
common medium of literary expression in
the formative age of a person. (e.g. Iliad
and the Odyssey by Homer)
The Hellenistic Civilization
Alexander the Great, one of the most
remarkable men in history who transformed
Hellenic culture and created a new one
the Hellenistic culture.
The victory of Philip of Macedonia over the
combined Theban-Athenian forces in the
Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, ended the
freedom of the Greek city-states.
Philip installed his despotic rule. He
prepared his son for kingship. Alexander
received his formal education from Aristotle.
 In 336 BCE, Alexander inherited not only
Philips crown but also his policies.
Alexander proclaimed to the Greek world
that the Greek invasion Persia was to be a
great crusade, a mighty act of revenge for
the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BCE.
Despite his youth, he led an army of
Macedonians and Greeks into Western Asia,
winning three major battles at the Granicus
River, at Issus and at Gaugamela against
the Persians in 331 BCE.
Hellenistic Era: Government
and Economy
When Alexander died, he left no
legitimate heir.
His friend asked him to designate his
successor, he replied To the strongest.
Seleucid kings in Western Asia and
Ptolemies in Egypt were the most powerful
successors who ruled as despots,
representing themselves as semi-divine.
Some Greek city-states developed a
federal type of government in the
mainland.
 This evolved into two confederate leagues:
the Aetolian League and the Achaean
League until 146 BCE, when they fell under
the imperialism of Rome.
The Hellenistic world was generally prosperous
because of the growth of long-distance
trade, finance, and cities.
Alexanders conquest created a vast trading
area and cities in the Mediterranean basin
became steady trading partners.
The growth in population resulted in the
expansion in commerce and industry.
The longest and most famous of all Hellenistic
cities was Alexandria in Egypt.
Hellenistic Culture
The Hellenistic culture spread throughout
the Hellenistic world, providing a sense
of unity that Alexander strived hard to
achieve.
Combined the best of the Greek and
Oriental cultures.
Was a period of cultural

accomplishments especially in science

and philosophy.
 Science- the theory of Aristarchus that
the sun is at the center of the universe
while the earth rotates around the sun in
a circular orbit.
The mathematician Euclid wrote the
Elements, a textbook in plane geometry.
ARCHIMEDES, the most famous scientist
during the period. Worked on geometry
of spheres and cylinders as well as the
value of the mathematical constant pi.
 Philosophy, exhibited major trends that centered in
Athens.
EPICURUS, the founder of philosophy called
Epicureanism, believed that the highest good is
pleasure and happiness is the goal of life.
ZENO, founder of Stoicism, believed that happiness
and the supreme good, could be found only by living
in harmony with the will of God, by which people
gained inner peace and could bear whatever life
offered.
DIOGENES, earliest Hellenistic philosophical
movements Cynics. Believed that happiness was
possible only by living in accordance with nature and
foregoing luxuries.
 Literature and Art. The two most
prominent forms of Hellenistic
literature were established genre of
drama and the new one, the
pastoral.
Menander, the exclusive subject
comedies was romantic love, with its
pains and pleasures, its intrigues and
seductions, and its culmination in
happy marriage.