Plutarch was a Roman historian who lived from 46 – 119 AD. In Plutarch’s book , “The Life of Alexander” he compares Alexander to the Roman emperor Julius Ceaser. In one episode Plutarch tells about how Alexanders father, king Philip, bought a wild horse and went down to the pasture to see it. He quickly realized that the horse could not be ridden because it was so wild and fierce. But Alexander, who had gone with him, told the king that he would buy the horse instead. Philip agreed and Alexander went to the horse and faced him towards the sun because he had notice that the horse was scared of its shadow. Then he spoke gently to the horse and when the horse was calm he sprang on to the horses back and rode away. When they rode back the whole court congratulated him and king Philip then sent for the philosopher Aristotle to teach his son. This demonstrates the skill and cleverness that Alexander possessed.

The time after Alexander died and his kingdom was divided up between his generals is called the Hellenistic period, which means Greek ish or Greek like. One of the philosophic groups during this time were called the Epicureans. They believed that pleasure was the highest goal, but they were unlike the Cyrenaics in that they did not believe in pleasures of the moment. Such as they did not believe in getting drunk every night or over eating all the time because you do not feel good afterwards. Instead they believed in long term pleasures. They also did not believe in religion or if there were gods that they did not care about you. The leader of the Epicureans, Epicurus believed that the world was only materiel and that there were no immaterial things. But they did believe in free will unlike the Atomists.

This vase dates from around 700 BC during the geometric era. The geometric era lasted from about 800 BC to 600 BC. It is a black on red design where black shapes were painted on the red clay. It could also be done the opposite way where figures were drawn on the clay pot and then black was painted around the shapes. This era of art was known known for the geometric designs which adorned its pottery. Sculptures from this era usually had some geometric shape to it. You can see that the top of this vase is adorned with a geometric pattern. The horses on the vase have the two horse halves joined together by a cylinder. Vases are the most numerous artifacts we have from ancient Greece, though it seems that Ancient Greeks did not think very highly of vase painting. This is unfortunate since we have very little other Greek forms of art such as sculptures and bronzes.

Greek religion had two sides the domestic religion and the common gods of Mount Olympus. In every home there was an alter and this fire was thought to be that households god. The religious practices of every household were held secret and people outside the household could not participate. The prayers and ceremony’s of every home were different and the tomb of the houses ancestors was kept beside the alter. It was the responsibility of the head of the house to give offerings to their deceased ancestors to let them live happily in the underworld. There were also the head Gods of Mount Olympus which were worshiped in temples.

In 507 BC Athens sent an embassy to Persia to negotiate a pact between the two nations to subdue threats from Sparta. At first the Persian rulers did not know who the Athenians were because they had not heard of Athens. The Persians asked the Athenians to give them tokens of water and earth as a symbol of the Persians supreme authority over all the seas and earth before they would help them. The Athenians gave it to them not knowing what the symbols meant. After they returned from Athens and realized this they were horrified at what they had done. In 499 BC the Greek colony of Ionia, which was under Persian rule, began to revolt against their Persian overlords. They sent ambassadors to Athens and Sparta to ask for help. Sparta refused but Athens sent 20 ships of her 50 ship navy. The Ionian revolt ended in 493 with the Persians winning, but the Persians were furious that Athens had helped the Ionians and gone against their treaty. This lead to the beginning of the Persian war in 490 BC.

The city state of Athens was a democratic state. The beginning of Athenian law began under Draco with reforms under Solon until in the 5^th century BC we see the Athenian government that we see today. The Athenians had the assembly the counsel of 500 and the court of 600. The counsel of 500 decided what issues would be brought before the assembly and were chosen by lot from the citizens of Athens each year. Only Athenian citizens were allowed to participate in government, Which meant that you had to have two Athenian parents. Women, slaves and immigrants to Athens could not participate in government. From the court of 600, 501 were chosen to be jurors for a case, because it would be hard to bribe 501 people and so that there could not be a tie. In the assembly matters of politics would be decided and anyone who was a citizen could attend. To Athens democracy meant that the people would choose what to do instead of choosing the people to represent you.

Aristotle has been one of the most influential philosophers of all time. So important that in the middle ages people just called him, “The philosopher.” Aristotle was one of Plato’s students at the academy. He viewed him highly even though they did have some disagreements. One of Aristotle’s most famous books is probably Nicomachean Ethics in which he discusses how people should live their life. He in it he says that people should live lives of virtue. Aristotle made the first study of logic that was the dominant source of formal logic until the 19^th century. Even now people argue say that logic reached its completion with Aristotle. Aristotle was also the first person to speculate in his book Meteorology there was a landmass in the southern high altitude that he called Antarctica.

Sparta did not start out as a militaristic state. It originally started out as a state with some philosophy and art. But then then in the 7^th century BC they conquered the nations of Messenia and Lakonia and made them all slaves. The slave population out numbered the Spartans 10 to 1 with the slaves ready to rebel at any moment. In response the Spartans became a militaristic society with every man being a soldier. They were able to live this way because the slaves did all of the work. Spartan boys were taken away at the age of 7 to have 13 years of grueling military training. From then on they had to constantly be in the army until the age of 30 when they became a citizen. From then on they could live at home but they still had to eat at public mess halls to remind them that those men were their family. The slaves were beaten yearly to remind them that they were slaves and could also be killed for military training or killed because they were too weak.

In ancient Greece there was a group of pre Socratic philosophers called the Sophists. The Sophists taught people rhetoric, which is the art of speaking, to make any argument seem persuasive. But the Sophists also taught with Protagoras in particular that ,”Man is the measure of all things.” This means that there is no absolute truth so what may be right for you will be wrong for me, but what may be right for me may be wrong for you. But Socrates was opposed to this idea of relativism. Because if there are no absolute truths even the statement, “Man is the measure of all things” might be wrong for some people. So really that statement cancels itself out because even that is not an absolute truth. Socrates believed that there must be absolute truths such as murder is wrong for society to work.

In one of Plato’s most discussed diolog’s The Republic, Plato describes his ideal city state. In his ideal city state there would be the working class or artisans. These would be the people to grow crops and do all the regular work. Then there would be the auxiliarys. They would be the people to become soldiers to protect the city state and they would receive some education. The ruling class would be the Guardians. These people would have a high education being taught philosophy and Platos idea of the forms. The would be forbidden to read Homer because it portrayed the Gods in an immoral way. They would be censored from certain types of plays and music. They could only reproduce at certain times and then their children would be taken away to prevent favoritism and so they would view the entire city state as their family. Everybody would do their job and obey the guardians but for the most part would be left alone.