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.

In one of Homers epic poems, the Odyssey Odysseus with his sailors land on the island of the cyclops. The cyclops live on the island living off of their goats and their farming. Odysseus and some of his men go to the cave of the cyclops Polyphemus son of Poseidon to find out if the cyclops are a humane people. After Polyphemus comes home with his goats and sheep he rolls a stone in front of the cave and then finds Odysseus and his men. He takes two of the men and eats them whole. The next morning he does the same thing again and then lets his goats and sheep out and rolled the stone in front of his cave again. Odysseus then comes up with a plan to let them escape. That night Odysseus offers the cyclops wine from the temple of Apollo. The giant becomes drunk and then asks what Odysseus’s name is. Odysseus then replies that his name is noman. When Polyphemus is asleep Odysseus and his men plunge a large stick carved to a point in to the giants eye. Polyphemus howls in pain and because of the yelling the other cyclops come to see what is wrong. Polyphemus then tells them that “Noman is killing me.” Then they leave thinking that he is just ill. The next day Odysseus and his remaining men escape by hiding under the sheep as they go outside because the cyclops was now blinded. They drove the sheep on to their ships and then sailed away.

The Minoans of Crete were settled on the island around 3000 BC. Archaeologists lead by Aurthur Evans started excavating the palace city of Knossos in 1899. They soon found more structures all over the island proving that this was an island wide civilization. The Minoans had what is known as a temple economy. People would bring their goods to the palace to then be distributed amongst the people. The Minoans traded widely with Minoan pottery being found as far away as modern day Israel. The Minoans were accomplished artists with frescoes depicting daily life as well as images of bull leaping. Their pottery had geometric designs with red glazes and was sometimes eggshell thin. The Minoans had no fortifications and they are thought to have been a very peaceful nation. Not very much is known about Minoan religion though multiple shrines and sacred caves have been found. There has been some evidence that the Minoans worshiped goddesses and bones have been found that suggest that they may have taken place in human sacrifices. Around 1100 BC Minoan civilization collapsed and was most likely taken over by Mycenaean Greece.

Mycenaean Greece was not known to exist until Heinrich Schliemann found the city of Mycenae in his quest to prove that the Iliad was real. Mycenaean Greece started about 1600 BC. They were much more warlike than the peaceful Minoans and also traded widely. They had many self governed city states and had advanced innovations. They had magnificent buildings such as the lions gate and were sometimes buried with elaborate masks. Mycenaean Greece ends with a 300 hundred year dark age from 1100 – 800 BC where no trace of their civilization is found.

Abraham started in his homeland of Ur which is modern day Iraq. God told Abraham to go to Canaan and live there. God also gave Abraham a promise that His descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Then in Canaan God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac. At the last minute God prevented Abraham from sacrificing his son and he sacrificed a ram instead.

Issac married Rebekah and they had two sons, Jacob and Esau. When Esau was very hungry Jacob had him sell his birthright to him in return for some stew. When the time came to give the birthright Rebekah helped Jacob in to tricking his father in to giving the birthright to him. When Esau realized this he was very angry and wanted to kill Jacob, so Jacob fled to his uncle Laban’s house.

Jacob worked for Laban for seven years to marry Laban’s daughter Rachel but ended up marrying his other daughter Leah. He worked seven more years for Laban to marry Rachel and then decided to go try and meet with Esau. Esau forgave Jacob and then near Bethlehem Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin. Jacob favored Joseph above his other sons and this made his brothers very jealous. They ended up selling him in to slavery and he went to Egypt to work for Potiphar. Joseph and ended up in prison and got out by interpreting the Pharaohs dreams.

The dreams meant that there would be a famine and now they should prepare a grain supply. His brothers fled to Egypt because of the famine and Joseph revealed himself and told them to bring the Hebrews to come live with him in Egypt. Eventually Moses would lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Canaan.