Classical Civilizations:

1. Classical Civilizations: The Golden Age of Greek Culture

2. General • In the 5th Century BC, Persia tried to conquer Greece, but failed. • Art, literature, and philosophy all flourished.

3. Philosophy • Socrates questioned his students about the use of moral terms: What is goodness? What is morality and justice? • Socrates’ enemies had him arrested and condemned to death for corrupting the young. • Plato concluded that values like goodness, beauty and justice exist independent from the appearances of life. • In The Republic, Plato described an ideal city-state. • Aristotle collected and classified things from animals to city-state constitutions, and studied their relationships. • He wrote Politics.

5. Art and architecture • Sculptors and architects tried to design with ideal proportions. (Athletes) • Buildings and statues were brightly painted with bold colors. • The Parthenon was constructed on the hill, the Acropolis, with a giant statue of Athena inside.

7. Science and Mathematics • Geographers like Eratosthenes show the Earth was round and calculated its circumference. • Archimedes contributed to geometry and studied levers and pulleys, measured volume and density, designed catapults, and invented a water pump.

9. Music and Literature • Greeks listened to choral music on instruments like the stringed lyre and flute and developed musical scales. • Herodotus and Thucydides were Greek historians. • Sophocles, a playwright, completed the first comedies and tragedies, which were watched in open-air amphitheaters.

11. Peloponnesian Wars • Athens and Sparta were rivals. • Sparta declared war on Athens. • The Peloponnesian Wars lasted 30 years with Sparta winning. • Poverty became widespread and Athens was completely devastated. • Sparta emerged as the leading city-state.