World History / Unit 2: Classical Greece and Rome
2.3 The Golden Age and the Peloponnesian War
Notes
Under Pericles (about 461 to 429 BCE), Athens enjoyed a Golden Age of art, drama and thought.
- The Parthenon, a temple to Athena, was built on the Acropolis. Greek architecture used columns and balanced proportions.
- Drama: tragedies by Sophocles and comedies by Aristophanes. Herodotus and Thucydides wrote histories.
- Philosophers used reason to study the world: Socrates asked questions to test ideas (the Socratic method) and was sentenced to death in 399 BCE; Plato wrote The Republic; Aristotle studied logic, science and politics.
- Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BCE): Athens and its allies fought Sparta and its allies. Sparta won, and the war weakened all the city-states.
- Excerpt from Pericles's Funeral Oration, as reported by Thucydides (Jowett translation, 1881): "It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few."
Practice
Read the excerpt: "It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few." Pericles is expressing:
Pericles praised Athenian democracy in a speech honoring the war dead.
A teacher keeps asking students questions until they find the flaws in their own beliefs. This method is named for:
The Socratic method uses questioning to examine ideas.
What was a major result of the Peloponnesian War?
Long fighting drained the city-states, and Philip II of Macedonia soon took control.
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