Download W7M1: Ancient Greece

10.28 The Golden Age of Athens
AFTER THE UNEXPECTED GREEK VICTORY
AGAINST THE PERSIANS IN 449 BCE, THE
GREEK CITY-STATES WERE ABLE TO ENJOY
THEIR RENEWED INDEPENDENCE AND
FREEDOM. THE WAR ALSO ESTABLISHED
ATHENS AND SPARTA AS THE LEADING CITYSTATES OF GREECE.
Results of the Persian Wars
 Spartans and Athenians alike had
worked hard to drive the Persians
from their homeland. After the
war, the Spartans returned home,
concerned with keeping the helots
subjugated, whilst the Athenians
had bigger plans.
 As a result, many Greek citystates were concerned that the
Persians might yet again regroup
and attempt to attack them in the
future.
 So two years later, in 478 BC they
formed an alliance called the
Delian League. Since Sparta
declined to participate, Athens
naturally took the leading role as
the leading city-state.
The Golden Age of Athens
 Video Everyone was required to send gold
and/or ships to help defend the other citystates in the league. Athens was in charge
of how much each city-state had to send.
Gradually though the relationship between
Athens and the other city-states soured.
 Athens started to treat the other city-states
less like allies and more like colonial
subjects. Other city-states were required to
swear an oath of allegiance, and could not
leave the league.
 This money, or tribute, allowed Athens
(from 479 BC till the end of the
Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, or for 75
years) to fund the Golden Age of
Athens.
Pericles Cont…
 Pericles was not one to waste
time with frivolous things. He
worked hard and made good use
of his time.
 It was said that the only time you
might see him on the street was
when he was walking to and from
government buildings on official
government business.
 Legend also has it that he only
went to one party in his life, and
even then he left it early.
Pericles
 A very influential man, Pericles (495-429 BC)
was one of the key figures to lead Athens during
its Golden Age. He was reelected to the strategoi
for nearly thirty years, and would eventually
become the de facto leader of Athens.
 One of the main reasons for his success was his
great oratory skills. One of his biographers
described him as having words like “thunder and
lightning.” As he was convincing, smart, and
respected, the Assembly would usually go along
with whatever he suggested.
 Can you think of any other similar leaders?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Barack Obama
Winston Churchill
Adolf Hitler
Pericles’ Leadership
 Athens grew and strengthened
under Pericles’ watchful eye. He
led them to victorious campaign
one after another. He made sure
the other city-states in the
Delian League stayed in line,
and even supervised the
establishment of new, Athenian
colonies.
 He also worked to develop a
series of better, stronger walls to
ward off invaders and attackers.
They called these the long
walls, which stretched from
Athens to the nearby seaports
of Pireaus and Phalerum.
These allowed Athens to have a
way to get supplies, even when
under siege.
Pericles Cont…
 Pericles also helped make Athenian
Democracy more available to more
citizens. For instance, though every
citizen was able to participate, the
poorer ones could not afford to do
so, because they were not making
any money while serving on juries,
or other government work.
 Pericles convinced the Assembly to
pay citizens for government work,
thus allowing more to fully
participate.
Pericles’ Building Projects
 Pericles was also a patron of the arts; he supported
sculptures, dramatists, architects, and painters. In
449 BC, he even suggested the idea that Athens
ought to rebuild the temples and buildings in
the Acropolis, an area that overlooked the city but
had been destroyed in the Persian Wars.
 Although it would be expensive, Pericles offered a
solution to this. He argued that they ought to use
some of the tribute from the Delian League to fund
the project.
 Most of the other city-states in the Delian League
thought this was a frivolous use of the funds, and
even some Athenians didn’t like the idea. However,
Pericles used his oratorical skills to convince the
Athenians, and the threat of the sword against the
other league members. Pericles suggested that if their
allies were being protected, then using some of the
spare funds was no problem.
The Parthenon
 The most famous of all the buildings in the
Acropolis was one known as the
Parthenon. This was a temple built to the
goddess of wisdom, Athena, the patron
goddess of Athens.
 Built between 447 & 432 BC, even today,
after thousands of years, it is considered
the greatest of all Greek buildings and a
treasure of human culture.
 Though it was badly damaged in an
explosion in the late 1600s (it was used to
store gunpowder at the time), it still stands
today as a testament to the greatness of
Athens, and many thousands of tourists
still come to visit it today.
Construction
 Pericles wanted a building that would
both honor Athena, but also leave no
doubt about the greatness and wealth
of Athens. So he hired two of the time’s
best architects to do the job.
 They designed a temple larger than
any other such temple in all of Greece,
being about 230 ft long, 100 ft wide
and 60 ft high, using more than
20,000 tons of marble. On each of the
four sides, there was a colonnade, or
row of columns.
Columns
 The Parthenon certainly had
a lot of columns, but most
Greek buildings did. The
Greeks were very fond of
them, so much so that 3
main variants developed
over time. There were three
main types: Doric, Ionic,
and Corinthian.
 The Doric is the oldest and
simplest design, the Ionic
was tall and slender with
curlicues at the top, and the
Corinthian was most ornate
with smaller curlicues and
layers of leaves on it.
Doric
Ionic
Corinthian
Examples of
different
columns /
colonnades
More Examples
The Parthenon, cont…
 Pheidias, the master architect hired by Pericles to design the
building, made sure that the building was the finest piece of
architecture the world had ever seen (and arguable has ever seen
since). The Doric columns he chose to make were magnificent,
and considered to be the best examples of the style ever.
 There were many other parts of the temple that required exact
care. The carvings on the sides, and on top of the colonnades
depicted epic battles between gods and mortals, as well as
religious ceremonies.
 Inside the temple was perhaps the most magnificent part of all: a
40 ft tall marble statue of Athena, aka the Athena
Parthenos, that was covered with ivory and gold. The statue
alone cost more than the rest of the building…but sadly nothing
still remains of it (though a smaller copy of it has survived).
Indeed, it would have been a sight to behold.
 The Parthenon
The Theater of Dionysus
 Athenian Architects also built large outdoor
theatres, for meetings as well as community
performances. The most important one in Athens
was the Theatre of Dionysus, located just below
the Acropolis, close to the Parthenon.
 This semicircular outdoor theatre allowed 15,000 to
watch the proceedings, and the acoustics were so
nice that even up in the farthest sections you could
easily hear what was happening on the stage.
Artist’s
Rendition of
the Original
The
Amphitheatre
of Dionysus,
Today
Video
Greek Influence
 Why is the Parthenon (and other Greek Architecture)
seen as so influential today? Why should we care?
The U.S. Supreme Court Building
Courthouse Delaware County
Local Examples
Utah State Capital
American Fork Amphitheatre
Can you think of any other examples? Please share!
End of an Age
 Eventually, the other Greeks had had enough. The
Peloponnesian War broke out, led by both Sparta
and Athens. For a long time, due to Athens’ navy and
the Long Walls, the Spartan-led armies could not
defeat Athens and her allies.
 Eventually however, sickness and plague overcame
the Athenians, and that was the moment their
enemies were able to exploit. Athens was defeated,
and the Golden Age of Athens was over.
HW: Due on Monday
 …Just Kidding! Enjoy Your Weekend!