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Transcript
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!