Western Civilization I

Notes from 1/31/01 and 2/7/01
(2/5 was a snow day)

Culture of "Classical Greece"

The period between the defeat of the Persians (479 B.C.E.) and the Macedonian invasion (338 B.C.E.) is often referred to as the "classical" period in Greek culture.   In thought, art and literature, classical culture reflected a number of growing tensions within the society.

Greek Religion

We briefly discussed the Greeks' polytheistic religion, particularly the qualities of the Greek pantheon of gods.  Certainly the most important quality was that gods were immortal; it was immortality that distinguished gods from humans.  Gods also had powers, and, for a modest sacrifice, they could be petitioned to intervene in human affairs.  The Greek gods were anthropomorphic, meaning that they had human appearances and traits (including rage, jealousy, vanity, etc.).  Greek mythology is full of stories involving direct relationships between mortals and the gods. Unlike many of the pre-Grecian societies we've discussed, the Greeks themselves did not seem particularly concerned about their own afterlives.

Because of their gods' relative accessibility, there was no need among the ancient Greeks to establish a separate priestly class; priests performed only a minimal role in Greek religious life.  Perhaps the insignificance of priests in the day-to-day life of the ancient Greeks explains why they might have been inclined to think more critically about their religion, and to develop rational, scientific approaches to understanding the world around them.

Greek Thought

I talked about how ancient Greek civilization is characterized by an on-going inquiry into human nature -- Why are we here?  Towards what should we be laboring?  You can see this in the epic poetry of Homer (Iliad and Odyssey) and Hesiod (Works and Days), and, in a different way, in the lyric poetry of Sappho, Archilochis and Tyrtaeus of Sparta.

I showed some examples of the Greek visual arts, emphasizing the beauty of the human form, a central component of Greek culture.

The philosophers Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.), Plato (429-347 B.C.E.), and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.), created a vibrant intellectual debate about the nature of civic virtue and the role of the polis in society.  Having inherited from earlier thinkers the ability to fashion argument (sophistry), they questioned fundamental institutions, including the family, organized religion, and the ownership of private property.  Classical Greek philosophy emphasized a secular, human-centered, skeptical rationalism.  As we will see next week, after the Macedonian conquest, and the end of the self-governing polis, Greek philosophy turned away from these examinations of civic virtue and democracy.   New philosophical movements, particularly the Epicureans (emphasizing sensual pleasures) and the Stoics (fusing philosophy and religion and emphasizing patience and self-discipline) came to dominate Hellenistic thinking during this time (after 338 B.C.E.).

(On 2/7, I showed the 30 minute film "Trial of Socrates" (available in the library).  The film depicted the trial of Socrates in 399 B.C.E., ostensibly for having "corrupted the youth of Athens" and "introducing new gods into the city."  The trial takes place only five years after Athens' final defeat in the Peloponnesian War, and to some extent it is clear that the Athenians blame Socrates for the decline of their own city-state relative to Sparta and (later) Thebes.)

Although we did not discuss it fully, Greek theater also flourished during the classical period.  The tragedies Oedipus Rex ("Oedipus the King") and Antigone, by playwright Sophocles, have survived to this day.  Like other Greek tragedies of the period, they involve complex moral and ethical questions.  Aristophanes is the best known of the comic playwrights of ancient Greece.  Through plays such as Lysistrata (in which Athenian women go on a sex strike to force the men of Athens to end the long Peloponnesian War) and The Clouds (in which Aristophanes lampoons the philosopher Aristotle), and The Knights (in which the democratic leaders who succeeded Pericles are ridiculed), Aristophanes perfected the art of political and social satire.   Although freedom of expression was by no means absolute, the fact that playwrights such as Aristophanes could openly attack authority and question basic values was quite remarkable.

The classical period also witnessed the development of a more rational, "scientific" approach to areas such as history (Herodotus and Thucydides), medicine (Hippocrates) and mathematics (Pythagoras), although the Greeks, like all ancient societies, certainly had their share of superstitions and misconceptions about the world around them.  The idea that all matter was made up of small particles called "atoms" (in Greek, "a-toma," meaning impossible to divide) was also articulated by theorists of the classical period (Leucippis and Democritus).