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Aeschylus
(525–456 BC), Greek dramatist, the earliest of the great tragic poets
of Athens. As the predecessor of Sophocles and Euripides, he is called
the father of Greek tragedy. Aeschylus was born in Eleusis, near
Athens.
He fought successfully against the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC, at
Salamís in 480 BC, and possibly at Plataea in the following year. He
made at least two trips, perhaps three, to Sicily. During his final visit
he died at Gela, where a monument was later erected in his memory.
Aeschylus is said to have written about 90 plays. His tragedies,
first performed about 500 BC, were presented as trilogies, usually
bound by a common theme; each trilogy was followed by a satyr
drama (low comedy involving a mythological hero, with a chorus of satyrs). The titles of 79 of
his plays are known, but only 7 have survived. The earliest is The Suppliants, a drama with little
action but many choral songs of great beauty; it is believed to be the first play of a trilogy
about the marriage of the 50 daughters of Danaüs, which included the plays The Egyptians and
The Danaïds. The Persians, presented in 472 BC, is a historical tragedy about the Battle of
Salamís, the scene being laid in Persia at the court of the mother of King Xerxes I.
The Seven Against Thebes, produced in 467 BC, is based on a Theban legend, the conflict
between the two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, for the throne of Thebes. It is
believed to be the third play of a trilogy, the first two being Laius and Oedipus. Prometheus
Bound, a work of uncertain date, portrays the punishment of the defiant Prometheus by Zeus.
It is probably the first play of a Promethean trilogy, the others being Prometheus Unbound and
Prometheus the Fire-Bringer.
The remaining three plays, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides,
produced in 458 BC, form the trilogy known as the Oresteia, or story of Orestes. In
Agamemnon, one of the greatest works of dramatic literature, King Agamemnon returns home
from Troy and is treacherously murdered by his faithless wife Clytemnestra. In the second
play, Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, returns to Argos and avenges his father's murder by
slaying his mother and her paramour Aegisthus. This matricide is punished by the avenging
goddesses, the Erinyes. In The Eumenides, the Erinyes pursue Orestes until he is cleansed of his
blood guilt and set free by the ancient court of the Areopagus, through the intercession of
Athena, goddess of wisdom.
By introducing a second actor into the play, he created dramatic dialogue; he also
elaborated the staging of the drama, introducing costumes and scenery. His works are
characterized by the profundity of theme and the grandeur of the poetry recited by the
chorus. The Oresteia, probably his most mature work, offers an insight into his ideas of justice
and mercy, and a belief in a divine will, with the aid of which humanity can achieve wisdom
through suffering.
Sophocles
(496?–406? BC), one of the three great tragic dramatists of ancient
Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Euripides.
Sophocles was born about 496 BC in Colonus Hippius (now part of
Athens), the son of Sophillus, reportedly a wealthy armor-maker.
Sophocles was provided with the best traditional aristocratic education.
As a young man, he was chosen to lead the chorus of youths who
celebrated the naval victory at Salamis in 480 BC. In 468 BC, at the age of
28, he defeated Aeschylus, whose preeminence as a tragic poet had long
been undisputed, in a dramatic competition. The date of the first contest
with Euripides is uncertain; in 441 Euripides defeated Sophocles in one of
the annual Athenian dramatic competitions. From 468 BC, however,
Sophocles won first prize about 20 times and many second prizes. His
life, which ended in 406 BC at about the age of 90, coincided with the period of Athenian greatness. He
numbered among his friends the historian Herodotus, and he was an associate of the statesman Pericles.
He was not politically active or militarily inclined, but the Athenians twice elected him to high military office.
Sophocles composed more than 100 plays, of which 7 complete tragedies and fragments of 80 or
90 others are preserved. The seven extant plays are Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus or Oedipus Rex
(Oedipus the King), Electra, Ajax, Trachiniae (Maidens of Trachis), Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus
(produced posthumously in 401 BC). Also preserved is a large fragment of the Ichneutae (Investigators), a
satiric drama discovered on papyrus in Egypt about the turn of the 20th century. Of the surviving tragedies
the earliest is thought to be Ajax (c. 451–444 BC). Next probably are Antigone and Trachiniae (after 441).
Oedipus Tyrannus and Electra date from 430 to 415 BC. Philoctetes is known to date from 409 BC.
All seven extant tragedies are considered outstanding for their powerful, intricate plots and
dramatic style, and at least three—Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, and Oedipus at Colonus—are generally
regarded as masterpieces. Antigone, an outstanding lyrical drama, develops a main Sophoclean theme,
dealing with the pain and suffering caused when an individual, obstinately defying the dictates of divine
will or temporal authority, or refusing to yield to destiny and circumstance, instead obeys some inner
compulsion that leads to agonizing revelation and, ultimately, to a mysterious vindication of that person’s
behavior and life. Antigone bestows the rites of burial upon her battle-slain brother Polynices in defiance of
the edict of Creon, who was the ruler of Thebes. In so doing she thereby brings about her own death, the
death of her lover Haemon, who is Creon’s son, and that of Eurydice, Creon’s wife.
Sophocles is considered by many modern scholars the greatest of the Greek tragedians and the
perfect mean between the titanic symbolism of Aeschylus and the rhetorical realism of Euripides. The
contributions made by Sophocles to dramatic technique were numerous, and two of his innovations were
especially important. He increased the number of actors from two to three, thus lessening the influence of
the chorus and making possible greater complication of the plot and the more effective portrayal of
character by contrast and juxtaposition; and he changed the Aeschylean fashion of composing plays in
groups of three, each of them part of a central myth or theme, and made each play an independent
psychological and dramatic unity. Sophocles also effected a transformation in the spirit and significance of
a tragedy; thereafter, although problems of religion and morality still provided the themes, the nature of
man, his problems, and his struggles became the chief interest of Greek tragedy.
Homer
Name traditionally assigned to the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two
major epics of Greek antiquity. Nothing is known of Homer as an individual, and in fact
the question of whether a single person can be said to be responsible for the creation
of the two epics is highly controversial. Linguistic and historical evidence, however,
allows the supposition that the poems were composed in the Greek settlements on
the west coast of Asia Minor sometime in the 9th century BC.
Both epics deal with legendary events that were believed to have occurred
many centuries before their composition. The Iliad is set in the final year of the
TROJAN WAR, (q.v.), which forms the background for its central plot, the story of the
wrath of the Greek hero Achilles. Insulted by his commander in chief Agamemnon, the
young warrior Achilles withdraws from the war, leaving his fellow Greeks to suffer
terrible defeats at the hands of the Trojans. Achilles rejects the Greeks’ attempts at reconciliation, but he
finally relents to some extent, allowing his companion Patroclus to lead his troops in his place. Patroclus is
slain, and Achilles, filled with fury and remorse, turns his wrath against the Trojans, whose leader, Hector (son
of King Priam), he kills in single combat. The poem closes as Achilles surrenders the corpse of Hector to Priam
for burial, recognizing a certain kinship with the Trojan king as they both face the tragedies of mortality and
bereavement.
The Odyssey describes the return of the Greek hero Odysseus from the Trojan War. The opening
scenes depict the disorder that has arisen in Odysseus’ household during his long absence: A band of suitors is
devouring his property as they woo his wife Penelope. The focus then shifts to Odysseus himself. The epic tells
of his ten years of traveling, during which he has to face such dangers as the man-eating giant Polyphemus
and such subtler threats as the goddess Calypso, who offers him immortality if he will abandon his quest for
home. The second half of the poem begins with Odysseus’ arrival at his home island of Ithaca (Itháki). Here,
exercising infinite patience and self-control, Odysseus tests the loyalty of his servants, plots and carries out a
bloody revenge on Penelope’s suitors, and is reunited with his son, his wife, and his aged father.
Both epics are written in impersonal, elevated, formal verse, employing language that was never used
for ordinary discourse; the metrical form is dactylic hexameter (see VERSIFICATION,). Stylistically no real
distinction can be made between the two works. It is easy, however, to see why, since antiquity, many readers
have believed that they come from different hands. The Iliad deals with passions, with insoluble dilemmas. It
has no real villains; Achilles, Agamemnon, Priam, and the rest are caught up, as actors and victims, in a cruel
and ultimately tragic universe. In the Odyssey, on the other hand, the wicked are destroyed, right prevails, and
the family is reunited—with rational intellect, Odysseus’ in particular, acting as the guiding force throughout
the story.
In a direct way Homer was the parent of all succeeding Greek literature; drama, historiography, and
even philosophy all show the mark of the issues, comic and tragic, raised in the epics and the techniques
Homer used to approach them. For the later epic poets of Western literature, Homer was of course always the
master (even when, like Dante, they did not know the works directly); but for his most successful followers,
curiously enough, his work was as much a target as a model. Vergil’s Aeneid, for instance, is a refutation of the
individualistic value system of the Homeric epic; and the most Homeric scenes in Paradise Lost, by the English
poet John Milton—those stanzas describing the battle in heaven—are essentially comic. As for novels, such as
Don Quixote (1605), by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, or Ulysses (1922), by the Irish writer James
Joyce, the more Homeric they are, the more they lean toward parody and mock epic. Since Homer’s time, in
fact, an unabashed heroic ethos and the erudition necessary to appreciate Homer have never been combined
in a serious author, and it seems unlikely that they ever will be.
Herodotus
(484?–425 BC), Greek historian, known as the father of history, born in Halicarnassus (now
Bodrum, Turkey). He is believed to have been exiled from Halicarnassus about 457 BC for
conspiring against Persian rule. He probably went directly to Samos, from which he traveled
throughout Asia Minor, Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece. The direction and extent of his travels
are not precisely known, but they provided him with valuable firsthand knowledge of virtually
the entire ancient Middle East. About 447 BC he went to Athens, then the center and focus of
culture in the Greek world, where he won the admiration of the most illustrious men of Greece,
including the great Athenian statesman Pericles. In 443 BC Herodotus settled in the
Panhellenic colony of Thurii in southern Italy. He devoted the remainder of his life to the
completion of his great work, entitled History, the Greek word for “inquiry.”
The History has been divided by later authors into nine parts. The earlier books deal
with the customs, legends, history, and traditions of the peoples of the ancient world, including the Lydians, Scythians,
Medes, Persians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. The last three books describe the armed conflicts between Greece and Persia
in the early 5th century BC. In the History the development of civilization moves inexorably toward a great confrontation
between Persia and Greece, which are presented as the centers, respectively, of Eastern and Western culture. Herodotus's
information was derived in part from the work of predecessors, but it was widely supplemented with knowledge that he had
gained from his own extensive travels. Although he was sometimes inaccurate, he was generally careful to separate
plausible reports from implausible ones.
The History may be the first known creative work to be written in prose. Both ancient and modern critics have paid
tribute to its grandeur of design and to its frank, lucid, and delightfully anecdotal style. Herodotus demonstrates a wide
knowledge of Greek literature and contemporary rational thought. The universe, he believed, is ruled by Fate and Chance,
and nothing is stable in human affairs. Moral choice is still important, however, since the gods punish the arrogant. This
attempt to draw moral lessons from the study of great events formed the basis of the Greek and Roman historiographical
tradition, of which Herodotus is rightly regarded as the founder.
Thucydides
(c. 460–c. 400 BC), Greek historian known for his History of the Peloponnesian War, a conflict
in which he himself had been an important participant. This book earned him a reputation as
one of the foremost historians of antiquity. His concern with objectivity exerted a strong
influence on such later Greco-Roman historians as Polybius and Dio Cassius.
Born in or near Athens, Thucydides was the son of a rich and aristocratic Athenian.
When the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta broke out in 431 BC, Thucydides
discerned the importance of the conflict and formulated plans for recording its course and
outcome. In 424 BC he was appointed one of the generals to command the Athenian fleet off
the Thracian coast but failed to arrive in time to prevent the capture of Amphipolis, which was
besieged by the Spartan general Brasidas. For this failure Thucydides was exiled from
Athens and spent the next 20 years abroad. About 404 BC he was recalled from exile.
Thucydides' great work, the History of the Peloponnesian War, covers three phases of the war: the conflict between Athens
and Sparta from 431 to 421 BC, ended by the Peace of Nicias; the Sicilian expedition of the Athenians from 415 to its
disastrous failure in 413 BC; and the renewed war between Athens and Sparta from 413 to 404 BC. The history is
incomplete, breaking off in 411 BC.
Thucydides brought to his undertaking a practical acquaintance with both politics and military science. His chief
interest was in the military side of the war, which he presented in a straightforward, direct style, avoiding the digressive
storytelling of Herodotus. The account is chronological, by season. Thucydides obtained his material through personal
observation or from statements made by others present at the events. His research, he declared, was made laborious by
the conflicting accounts of eyewitnesses, which he weighed with great care. His approach thus had accuracy as an ideal;
that he achieved it, by and large, has been confirmed by contemporary inscriptions and writings. To lend his history greater
vividness, however, and to portray the leading figures of war, he gave them lengthy speeches. These speeches represent
what he thought was “most opportune” for the participants to have said, although he tried to make them conform to what he
or others remembered of them.
Phidias
(fl. 490–430 BC), Greek sculptor of the classical period, whose outstanding qualities are
perfection of form and expression of a profound and noble character.
Phidias, who was famed also as an architect and painter, was born in Attica.
Knowledge of his works depends on the statements of ancient writers because none of his
original work is believed to have survived. His first known commission was to execute for
Athens a large bronze group of national heroes with the general Miltiades as the central
figure. The Athenian statesman Pericles, head of affairs in the Athenian state, gave Phidias
the commission for the statues, which were to be erected to decorate Athens, and made him
general superintendent of all public works. Phidias directed the construction of the Propylae,
the monumental entrance to the Acropolis, and the Parthenon. He executed the gold and ivory
statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom and protectress of Athens, which stood in the
Parthenon. His colossal statue of Zeus, father of the gods, at Olympia was considered his masterpiece.
The events of Phidias's closing years are much disputed. He was accused by the enemies of Pericles of
embezzling the gold appropriated for the statue of Athena and died in prison or, according to another account, was
banished. Another version relates that he was acquitted of the charge of embezzlement but was condemned for impiety for
introducing his portrait and that of Pericles on the shield of the goddess Athena.
Ancient and modern critics agree that the works of Phidias, along with the tragedies of the Greek dramatist Sophocles, were
the most perfect expression of the spirit of the noblest period of Greek civilization, in which art forms were employed to
reproduce the ideal beauty lying behind the realities of nature and to reveal the typical and permanent elements rather than
the individual and transitory.
Pericles
(c. 495–429 BC), Athenian statesman, so influential in Athenian history that the period of his
power is called the Age of Pericles.
His father was the Athenian commander Xanthippus (fl. 500–479 BC), victor over the
Persians at Mycale in 479 BC. Pericles was especially influenced by two teachers, the Athenian
Sophist and master of music Damon (fl. 5th cent. BC) and the Ionian philosopher Anaxagoras. He
was conspicuous for his dignity and aloofness, but his eloquence, sagacity, uprightness, and
patriotism won recognition from the majority of citizens. Among his friends were the dramatist
Sophocles, the historian Herodotus, the sculptor Phidias, and the Sophist Protagoras; his
mistress was the former courtesan Aspasia, a highly cultivated woman.
In Athenian politics Pericles sought to enable all citizens to take an active part in the
government. Payment of citizens for their services to the state was introduced, and members of
the council were chosen by lot from the entire body of Athenians. His foreign policy was expansionist. Under the DELIAN
LEAGUE, (q.v.), established in defense against the Persians, the Athenians created a great naval empire and embraced, as
equal or subject allies, nearly all the larger islands of the Aegean Sea and many cities to the north. When the aristocratic
leader Cimon, who favored friendship with Sparta, was ostracized (banished) in 461 BC, Pericles became the undisputed
leader of Athens, serving for the following 15 years. He made Athens supreme at the expense of the subject city-states.
With the great wealth that came into the treasury, Pericles restored the temples destroyed by the Persians and built many
new structures, the most splendid of which was the Parthenon on the Acropolis. This program provided employment for the
poorer citizens and made Athens the most magnificent city of the ancient world.
Under Pericles' leadership Athens became a great center of literature and art. The supremacy of Athens aroused
the jealousy of the other Greek city-states, especially of Sparta, long the bitter rival of Athens. The cities feared the
imperialistic schemes of Pericles and sought to overthrow Athenian domination. In 431 BC the Peloponnesian War began.
Pericles summoned the country residents of Attica within the walls of Athens and allowed the Peloponnesian army to ravage
the country districts. The following year a plague broke out in the overcrowded city. The people, exposed to suffering and
death, resented Pericles. He was deposed from office, tried, and fined for misuse of public funds, but he was soon
reinstated. He died shortly thereafter.
Archimedes
(287–212 BC), preeminent Greek mathematician and inventor, who wrote important works
on plane and solid geometry, arithmetic, and mechanics.
Archimedes was born in Syracuse, Sicily, and educated in Alexandria, Egypt. In
pure mathematics he anticipated many of the discoveries of modern science, such as the
integral calculus, through his studies of the areas and volumes of curved solid figures and
the areas of plane figures. He also proved that the volume of a sphere is two-thirds the
volume of a cylinder that circumscribes the sphere.
In mechanics, Archimedes defined the principle of the lever and is credited with
inventing the compound pulley. During his stay in Egypt he invented the hydraulic screw
for raising water from a lower to a higher level. He is best known for discovering the law of
hydrostatics, often called Archimedes' principle, which states that a body immersed in fluid loses weight equal to the
weight of the amount of fluid it displaces. This discovery is said to have been made as Archimedes stepped into his
bath and perceived the displaced water overflowing.
Archimedes spent the major part of his life in Sicily, in and around Syracuse. He did not hold any public office but
devoted his entire lifetime to research and experiment. During the Roman conquest of Sicily, however, he placed his
gifts at the disposal of the state, and several of his mechanical devices were employed in the defense of Syracuse.
Among the war machines attributed to him are the catapult and—perhaps legendary—a mirror system for focusing the
sun's rays on the invaders' boats and igniting them.
After the capture of Syracuse during the Second Punic War, Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier who
found him drawing a mathematical diagram in the sand. It is said that Archimedes was so absorbed in calculation that
he offended the intruder merely by remarking, “Do not disturb my diagrams.” Several of his works on mathematics and
mechanics survive, including Floating Bodies, The Sand Reckoner, Measurement of the Circle, Spirals, and Sphere
and Cylinder. They all exhibit the rigor and imaginativeness of his mathematical thinking.
Hippocrates
(460?–377? BC), greatest physician of antiquity, still regarded as the father of medicine.
Born probably on the island of Kos, Greece, Hippocrates traveled widely before settling
on Kos to practice and teach medicine. He died in Larissa, Greece; little else is known
about him. He may have written about 6 of the approximately 70 works ascribed to him
in the Hippocratic Collection, which probably is the remnant of the medical library of the
famous Kos school of medicine. His teachings, sense of detachment, and ability to make
direct, clinical observations probably influenced the other authors of these works and
had much to do with freeing ancient medicine from superstition.
Among the more significant works of the Hippocratic Collection is Airs, Waters,
and Places (5th cent. BC), which, instead of ascribing diseases to divine origin,
discusses their environmental causes. It proposes that considerations such as a town's weather, drinking water, and
site along the paths of favorable winds can help a physician ascertain the general health of the town's citizens. Three
other works—Prognostic, Coan Prognosis, and Aphorisms—advanced the then-revolutionary idea that, by observing
enough cases, a physician can predict the course of a disease.
The idea of preventive medicine, first conceived in Regimen and Regimen in Acute Diseases, stresses not only
diet but also the patient's general way of living and how it influences his or her health and convalescence. Sacred
Disease, a treatise on epilepsy, reveals the rudimentary knowledge of anatomy in ancient Greece. Epilepsy was
believed to be caused by insufficient air, which was thought to be carried by the veins to the brain and limbs. In Joints,
the use of the so-called Hippocratic bench is described for treating dislocations. Also of interest are Wounds in the
Head, Women's Diseases, Dismembering of the Feotus in the Womb, and the original HIPPOCRATIC OATH, (q.v.).
Euclid
(fl. 300 BC), Greek mathematician, probably educated at Athens by pupils of
Plato. He taught geometry in Alexandria and founded a school of mathematics there.
His chief work was the Elements, a comprehensive treatise on mathematics in 13
volumes on such subjects as plane geometry, proportion in general, the properties of
numbers, incommensurable magnitudes, and solid geometry. The Data, a collection
of geometrical theorems; the Phenomena, a description of the heavens; the Optics;
the Division of the Scale, a mathematical discussion of music; and several other
books have long been attributed to Euclid; most historians believe, however, that
some or all of these works (other than the Elements) have been spuriously credited
to him. Historians disagree as to the originality of some of his other contributions.
Probably the geometrical sections of the Elements were primarily a rearrangement of the works of previous
mathematicians such as those of Eudoxus, but Euclid himself is thought to have made several original
discoveries in the theory of numbers (see NUMBER THEORY,).
Euclid's Elements was used as a text for 2000 years, and even today a modified version of its first few
books forms the basis of high school instruction in plane geometry. The first printed edition of Euclid's works
was a translation from Arabic to Latin, which appeared at Venice in 1482. See GEOMETRY.
Pythagoras
(582?–500? BC), Greek philosopher and mathematician, whose doctrines strongly
influenced Plato.
Born on the island of Sámos, Pythagoras was instructed in the teachings of the early
Ionian philosophers Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. He is said to have been
driven from Sámos by his disgust for the tyranny of Polycrates (r. about 533–522 BC).
About 530 BC he settled in Crotona, a Greek colony in southern Italy, where he
founded a movement with religious, political, and philosophical aims, known as
Pythagoreanism. The philosophy of Pythagoras is known only through the work of his
disciples.
The Pythagoreans adhered to certain mysteries, similar in many respects to the
Orphic mysteries (see MYSTERIES,; ORPHISM,). Obedience and silence, abstinence from food, simplicity in
dress and possessions, and the habit of frequent self-examination were prescribed. The Pythagoreans believed
in immortality and in the transmigration of souls. Pythagoras himself was said to have claimed that he had
been Euphorbus, a warrior in the Trojan War, and that he had been permitted to bring into his earthly life the
memory of all his previous existences.
Among the extensive mathematical investigations carried on by the Pythagoreans were their studies of
odd and even numbers and of prime and square numbers. From this arithmetical standpoint they cultivated
the concept of number, which became for them the ultimate principle of all proportion, order, and harmony in
the universe. Through such studies they established a scientific foundation for mathematics. In geometry the
great discovery of the school was the hypotenuse theorem, or Pythagorean theorem, which states that the
square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides;
Pythagorean numbers are numbers so related, for instance, 5, 4, and 3 (5 2 = 42 + 32).
The astronomy of the Pythagoreans marked an important advance in ancient scientific thought, for
they were the first to consider the earth as a globe revolving with the other planets, including the sun, around
a central fire. They explained the harmonious arrangement of things as that of bodies in a single, all-inclusive
sphere of reality, moving according to a numerical scheme. Because the Pythagoreans thought that the
heavenly bodies are separated from one another by intervals corresponding to the harmonic lengths of
strings, they held that the movement of the spheres gives rise to a musical sound—the “harmony of the
spheres.”
Socrates
(c. 470–399 BC), Greek philosopher, who profoundly affected Western philosophy
through his influence on Plato. Born in Athens, he received the regular elementary
education in literature, music, and gymnastics. Later he familiarized himself with the
rhetoric and dialectics of the Sophists, the speculations of the Ionian philosophers, and
the general culture of Periclean Athens. In the Peloponnesian War with Sparta he
served as an infantryman with conspicuous bravery at the battles of Potidaea in 432–
430 BC, Delium in 424 BC, and Amphipolis in 422 BC. Socrates believed in the
superiority of argument over writing and therefore spent the greater part of his mature
life in the marketplace and public resorts of Athens in dialogue and argument with
anyone who would listen or who would submit to interrogation. Socrates was
unattractive in appearance and short of stature but was also extremely hardy and selfcontrolled. He enjoyed life immensely and achieved social popularity because of his
ready wit and a keen sense of humor that was completely devoid of satire or cynicism.
Socrates was obedient to the laws of Athens, but he generally held aloof from politics, restrained by what
he believed to be divine warning. He considered that he had received a call to the pursuit of philosophy and could
serve his country best by devoting himself to teaching and by persuading the Athenians to engage in selfexamination and in tending to their souls. He wrote no books and established no regular school of philosophy. All
that is known with certainty about his personality and his way of thinking is derived from the works of two of his
distinguished scholars: Plato, who at times ascribed his own views to his master, and the historian Xenophon, a
prosaic writer, who probably failed to understand many of Socrates’ doctrines.
Socrates’ contribution to philosophy was essentially ethical in character. Belief in a purely objective
understanding of such concepts as justice, love, and virtue, and the self-knowledge that he inculcated, were the
basis of his teachings. He believed that all vice is the result of ignorance, and that no person is willingly bad;
correspondingly, virtue is knowledge, and those who know the right will act rightly. His logic placed particular
emphasis on rational argument and the quest for general definitions, as evidenced in the writings of his younger
contemporary and pupil Plato and of Plato’s pupil Aristotle. Through the writings of these philosophers Socrates
had a profound effect on the entire subsequent course of Western speculative thought.
Although a patriot and a man of deep religious conviction, Socrates was nonetheless regarded with
suspicion by many of his contemporaries, who disliked his attitude toward the Athenian state and the established
religion. He was charged in 399 BC with neglecting the gods of the state and introducing new divinities, a reference
to the daemonion, or mystical inner voice, to which Socrates often referred. He was also charged with corrupting
the morals of the young, leading them away from the principles of democracy; and he was wrongly identified with
the Sophists, possibly because he had been ridiculed by the comic poet Aristophanes in the Clouds as the master
of a “thinking-shop” where young men were taught to make the worse reason appear the better reason.
Plato’s Apology gives the substance of the defense made by Socrates at his trial; it was a bold vindication
of his whole life. He was condemned to die, although the vote was carried by only a small majority. When,
according to Athenian legal practice, Socrates made an ironic counterproposition to the court’s death sentence,
proposing only to pay a small fine because of his value to the state as a man with a philosophic mission, the jury
was so angered by this offer that it voted by an increased majority for the death penalty.
Socrates’ friends planned his escape from prison, but he preferred to comply with the law and die for his cause.
His last day was spent among his friends and admirers, and in the evening he calmly fulfilled his sentence by
drinking a cup of hemlock according to a customary procedure of execution. Plato described the trial and death of
Socrates in the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo.
Plato
(c. 428–c. 347 BC), Greek philosopher, one of the most creative and influential
thinkers in Western philosophy.
Plato was born to an aristocratic family in Athens. His father, Ariston, was
believed to have descended from the early kings of Athens. Perictione, his mother,
was distantly related to the 6th-century BC lawmaker Solon. When Plato was a child,
his father died, and his mother married Pyrilampes, who was an associate of the
statesman Pericles.
As a young man Plato had political ambitions, but he became disillusioned by
the political leadership in Athens. He eventually became a disciple of Socrates,
accepting his basic philosophy and dialectical style of debate: the pursuit of truth
through questions, answers, and additional questions. Plato witnessed the death of Socrates at the hands of
the Athenian democracy in 399 BC. Perhaps fearing for his own safety, he left Athens temporarily and traveled
to Italy, Sicily, and Egypt.
In 387 BC Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the institution often described as the first European
university. It provided a comprehensive curriculum, including such subjects as astronomy, biology,
mathematics, political theory, and philosophy. Aristotle was the Academy's most prominent student.
Pursuing an opportunity to combine philosophy and practical politics, Plato went to Sicily in 367 BC to tutor the
new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger, in the art of philosophical rule. The experiment failed. Plato
made another trip to Syracuse in 361 BC, but again his engagement in Sicilian affairs met with little success.
The concluding years of his life were spent lecturing at the Academy and writing. He died at about the age of
80 in Athens in 348 or 347 BC.
Plato's writings were in dialogue form; philosophical ideas were advanced, discussed, and criticized in
the context of a conversation or debate involving two or more persons. The earliest collection of Plato's work
includes 35 dialogues and 13 letters. The authenticity of a few of the dialogues and most of the letters has
been disputed.
The dialogues may be divided into early, middle, and later periods of composition. The earliest
represent Plato's attempt to communicate the philosophy and dialectical style of Socrates. Several of these
dialogues take the same form. Socrates, encountering someone who claims to know much, professes to be
ignorant and seeks assistance from the one who knows. As Socrates begins to raise questions, however, it
becomes clear that the one reputed to be wise really does not know what he claims to know, and Socrates
emerges as the wiser one because he at least knows that he does not know. Such knowledge, of course, is the
beginning of wisdom
The dialogues of the middle and later periods of Plato's life reflect his own philosophical development.
The ideas in these works are attributed by most scholars to Plato himself, although Socrates continues to be
the main character in many of the dialogues. The writings of the middle period include the Apology (Socrates'
defense of himself at his trial against the charges of atheism and corrupting Athenian youth), the Republic
(Plato's supreme philosophical achievement, which is a detailed discussion of the nature of justice).
The Republic, Plato's major political work, is concerned with the question of justice and therefore with
the questions “what is a just state” and “who is a just individual?”
The ideal state, according to Plato, is composed of three classes. The economic structure of the state is
maintained by the merchant class. Security needs are met by the military class, and political leadership is
provided by the philosopher-kings. A particular person's class is determined by an educational process that
those who complete it become philosopher-kings. Plato's ideal educational system is primarily structured so as
to produce philosopher-kings.
Plato's influence throughout the history of philosophy has been monumental.
Aristotle
(384–322 BC), Greek philosopher and scientist, who shares with Plato the
distinction of being the most famous of ancient philosophers.
Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Macedonia, the son of a physician to the
royal court. At the age of 17, he went to Athens to study at Plato's Academy. He
remained there for about 20 years, as a student and then as a teacher.
When Plato died in 347 BC, Aristotle moved to Assos, a city in Asia Minor, where a
friend of his, Hermias (d. 345 BC), was ruler. There he counseled Hermias and
married his niece and adopted daughter, Pythias. After Hermias was captured and
executed by the Persians, Aristotle went to Pella, the Macedonian capital, where he
became the tutor of the king's young son Alexander, later known as Alexander the
Great. In 335, when Alexander became king, Aristotle returned to Athens and
established his own school, the Lyceum. Because much of the discussion in his school took place while
teachers and students were walking about the Lyceum grounds, Aristotle's school came to be known as the
Peripatetic (“walking” or “strolling”) school. Upon the death of Alexander in 323 BC, strong anti-Macedonian
feeling developed in Athens, and Aristotle retired to a family estate in Euboea. He died there the following
year.
Aristotle, like Plato, made regular use of the dialogue in his earliest years at the Academy, but lacking
Plato's imaginative gifts, he probably never found the form enjoyable. Apart from a few fragments in the
works of later writers, his dialogues have been wholly lost. Aristotle also wrote some short technical notes,
such as a dictionary of philosophic terms and a summary of the doctrines of Pythagoras. Of these, only a few
brief excerpts have survived. Still extant, however, are Aristotle's lecture notes for carefully outlined courses
treating almost every branch of knowledge and art. The texts on which Aristotle's reputation rests are largely
based on these lecture notes, which were collected and arranged by later editors.
Among the texts are treatises on logic, called Organon (“instrument”), because they provide the means
by which positive knowledge is to be attained. His works on natural science include Physics, which gives a vast
amount of information on astronomy, meteorology, plants, and animals. His writings on the nature, scope,
and properties of being, which Aristotle called First Philosophy (Protf philosophia), were given the title
Metaphysics in the first published edition of his works (c. 60 BC), because in that edition they followed Physics.
One of the most distinctive of Aristotle's philosophic contributions was a new notion of causality. Each
thing or event, he thought, has more than one “reason” that helps to explain what, why, and where it is.
Earlier Greek thinkers had tended to assume that only one sort of cause can be really explained.
In each context, Aristotle insists that something can be better understood when its causes can be
stated in specific terms rather than in general terms. Thus, it is more informative to know that a “sculptor”
made the statue than to know that an “artist” made it; and even more informative to know that “Polycleitus”
chiseled it rather than simply that a “sculptor” did so. Aristotle thought his causal pattern was the ideal key
for organizing knowledge. His lecture notes present impressive evidence of the power of this scheme.
In astronomy, Aristotle proposed a finite, spherical universe, with the earth at its center. Aristotle also
held that heavier bodies of a given material fall faster than lighter ones when their shapes are the same; this
mistaken view was accepted as fact until Galileo proved otherwise.
In logic, Aristotle developed rules for chains of reasoning that would never lead to false conclusions.
For example, “All humans are mortal” and “All Greeks are humans” so “All Greeks are mortal.” Science also
benefited from this idea with the creation of an early scientific method. By using precise observation and
measurement, a person could assume certain results.
Aristotle's works were lost in the West after the decline of Rome. The influence of Aristotle's
philosophy has been pervasive; it has even helped to shape modern language and common sense. Until the
Renaissance, and even later, astronomers and poets alike admired his concept of the universe. Zoology rested
on Aristotle's work until Charles Darwin modified the doctrine of the changelessness of species in the 19th
century.
Euripides
(c. 480–406 BC), Greek dramatist, the third, with Aeschylus and
Sophocles, of the great Attic tragic poets. His work, fairly popular in his
own time, exerted great influence on Roman drama. In more recent times
he has influenced English and German drama, and most conspicuously
such French dramatic poets as Pierre Corneille and Jean Baptiste Racine.
According to tradition Euripides was born in SALAMÍS, (q.v.) on
Sept. 23, about 480 BC, the day of the great naval battle between the
Greeks and the Persians. His parents, according to some authorities,
belonged to the nobility; according to others, they were of humble origin.
Their son, in any case, received a thorough education. His plays began to
be performed in the Attic drama festivals in 454 BC, but it was not until 442 BC that he won first prize. This
distinction, despite his prolific talent, fell to him again only four times. Aside from his writings, his chief
interests were philosophy and science.
Although Euripides did not identify himself with any specific school of philosophy, he was
influenced by the SOPHISTS (q.v.) and by such philosophers as Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates.
Euripides was austere and considered himself misunderstood by his contemporaries, a conclusion not
without foundation, for he was constantly the object of attack by the Athenian writers of comedy.
Aristophanes in particular made him a subject of a satire in The Frogs (405 BC). Euripides' plays were
criticized for their unconventionality, for their natural dialogue (his heroes and princes spoke the language
of everyday life), and for their independence of traditional religious and moral values. His plays, however,
if not overwhelmingly popular, were famous throughout Greece. In the latter part of his life he left Athens
for Macedonia.
In contrast to Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides represented the new moral, social, and political
movements that were taking place in Athens toward the end of the 5th century BC. It was a period of
enormous intellectual discovery, in which “wisdom” ranked as the highest earthly accomplishment.
Anaxagoras had just proven that air was an element, and that the sun was not a divinity but matter. New
truths were being established in all the departments of knowledge, and Euripides, reacting to them,
brought a new kind of consciousness to the writing of tragedy. His interest lay in the thought and
experience of the ordinary individual rather than in the experiences of legendary beings of the heroic
past.
Although Euripides drew on the old mythology, he treated its characters in a realistic fashion; they
were no longer idealized symbols remote from commonplace life, but contemporary Athenians. Euripides
shared in the intellectual skepticism of the day, and his plays challenged the religious and moral dogmas
of the past, which had not yet fallen into disbelief among the people. His moods and attitudes shifted
between extremes, sometimes within the boundaries of the same play; he was capable of the bitter,
realistic observation of human weaknesses and corruption, and yet just as often his work reflected
respect for human heroism, dignity, and more tender sentiments.
Of the many plays ascribed to Euripides, 17 tragedies and 1 satyr play, Cyclops, survive. The dated
dramas are Alcestis (438 BC), Medea (431), Hippolytus (428), Trojan Women (415), Helen (412), Orestes
(408), and Iphigenia in Aulis and Bacchae (both produced posthumously, 405). Those of uncertain date
include Andromache, Children of Heracles, Hecuba, Suppliants, Electra, Madness of Heracles, Iphigenia in
Tauris, Ion, and Phoenissae.