Download Ancient Greece Part 7 * Greek Achievements

 Sculptures
 Admired for realism, natural look, and
details.
 Sculptors tried to make them look perfect to
show how beautiful people could be.
 Carefully studied the human body,
especially how it looked in motion, and
then replicated it
 Paintings
 Again, admired for realism and detail.
 Often painted on vases, pots, and other
vessels
 Often showed scenes from myths or athletic
competitions
 Usually created using only black and red
(fading over time often makes it appear
orange)
 Greeks took great care in designing
buildings, especially temples.
 Rows of tall columns surrounded
temples to make them look stately
and inspiring.
 Columns in a row create an optical
illusion of curving in the middle, so
Greek columns bulge in the middle to
make them look perfectly straight.
 Structures and carvings were not just
white, but were often brightly
painted.
 Most famous and impressive of all ancient Greek
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buildings
Located on the acropolis in the middle of Athens.
Temple to Athena built in the 400s BC
46 Doric columns
Elaborate carvings on the west side show a contest
between Athena and the god Poseidon to decide who
would be honored in the city.
Inside the Parthenon was a magnificent statue of
Athena by the sculptor Phidias.
Many of the carvings are found in the British
National Museum, which is a great source of
controversy.
Severely damaged in 1687 during a war between the
Ottomans and Turks. It was being used to store
gunpowder and got blown up.
Restoration began in 1975 and is still going on today.
Rick Steves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP-FsX0QW88
From Drone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t__6SpDVtWg
History
 Greeks were amongst the first
people to write about history.
They were interested in the
lessons history could teach.
 Thucydides – one of the
greatest Greek historians. He
wrote a history of the
Peloponnesian War based in
part on his experiences as an
Athenian soldier. Tried to be
neutral in his writing. He
studied the war and tried to
figure out what had caused it.
Later historians modeled their
works after his.
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Drama
Greeks created drama, or plays, as part of
their religious ceremonies.
Actors and singers performed scenes in
honor of the gods and heroes.
Actors wore distinct masks.
Women’s roles were played by boys or
men with high voices.
These plays became a popular form of
entertainment, especially in Athens.
Huge amphitheaters were built where
plays could be performed, usually into a
hillside which naturally created good
acoustics (ability for people to hear even
though there were no microphones and
the theaters were huge).
Epidaurus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNAM3PzGcow
 Tragedies – described the hardships
faced by Greek heroes. Sophocles was
the most famous playwright. His play
Oedipus Rex tells about a Greek hero
who unknowingly kills his own father
and marries his own mother. When he
later learns that they were his parents,
he shoved a pin in his eyes and blinded
himself.
 Comedies – made fun of people and
ideas. One famous comedy writer was
Aristophanes. He used his comedy to
make serious points about war, courts
of law, and famous people.
 Although the ancient Greeks
worshipped gods and goddesses
whose actions explained many
mysteries of the world, by 500 BC, a
few people had begun to think about
other explanations. We call these
people philosophers. They believed
in the power of the human mind to
think, explain, and understand life.
 Greece’s most famous philosophers
were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle,
though there were many others.
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HH Diogenes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnbMJH-drwA
 Was a teacher as well as a thinker. Taught
by asking questions. Today this type of
teaching is called the Socratic method.
His questions were about human
qualities such as love and courage. He
would ask, “What is courage?” When the
people answered, he challenged their
answers with more questions.
 Believed that people must never stop
looking for knowledge and wanted to
make people think and question their
own beliefs.
 He made many people angry and even
frightened. They accused him of
questioning the authority of the gods.
 For these reasons, he was arrested and
charged with corrupting the young people of
Athens and ignoring religious traditions. He
was sentenced to die by drinking poison.
 He spent his last hours surrounded by his
students. One of them, Plato, later described
the event in detail:
“Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily
and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And
hitherto most of us had been able to control
our sorrow; but now when we saw him
drinking . . . My own tears were flowing fast;
so that I covered my face and wept . . . Socrates
alone retained his calmness: What is this
strange outcry; he said . . . I have been told
that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then,
and have patience.”
 Student of Socrates
 Teacher and philosopher
 Created the Academy, a school to
which students, philosophers, and
scientists could come to discuss
ideas.
 Wrote many works, the most famous
of which was called The Republic,
which described his idea of an ideal
society based on justice and fairness
to everyone. To ensure this fairness,
Plato argued that society should be
run by philosophers as he thought
that only they could understand what
was best for everyone.
 Perhaps the greatest of the Greek thinkers
 Student of Plato
 Teacher of Alexander the Great
 Taught that people should live lives of moderation, or
balance. For example, people should not be greedy, but also
shouldn’t give away everything they own. Aristotle believed
that moderation was based on reason, or clear and ordered
thinking.
 Believed people should think about their actions and how
they will affect others.
 Made great advances in the field of logic, which is the process
of making inferences. He argued that you could use facts you
knew to figure out new facts. For example, if you know that
Socrates lives in Athens and that Athens is in Greece, you can
conclude that Socrates lives in Greece. While this is a very
simplified example, this idea about logic helped inspire many
later Greek scientists.
 Wrote about logic, physics, biology, politics, ethics, and many
other subjects.
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Aristotle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umHDO_VODWA
 One of the world’s greatest
mathematicians.
 Lived and taught in Alexandria,
Egypt.
 Wrote about the relationship
between math and other fields like
astronomy and music.
 Best known for work with geometry,
the study of lines, angles, and shapes.
Much of what you will learn in
geometry today comes straight from
his writings.
Pythagoras
 Pythagorean theorem
 HH Pythagoras Stupid Death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IkNQRnNvW4
 Archimedes
 Famous Greek mathematician and
inventor
 Perhaps the most famous Greek
mathematician/scientist and
inventor.
 Discovered the relation between
surface and volume of a sphere, and
its cylinder.
 Invented the water screw which
brings water from a lower level to a
higher one. Still used today.
 Well-known for running through the
streets naked, yelling, “Eureka!” after
he solved a particularly difficult
problem regarding a gold crown.
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Eureka Story/Archimedes' Principle
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Real Eureka Story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v86Yk14rf8
 “Father of Western Medicine”
 Credited with being the first person
to believe that diseases were caused
naturally and were not due to
superstitions or the gods
 Made diagnoses and prescribed
treatments such as diet, hygiene, and
sleep.
 Hippocratic Oath
 Founder of Hippocratic School of
Medicine