Plato

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• Plato
• Aristotle
• From Raphaels
• School of
• Athens

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Hellenic Period479-323 BCE

• The battle of Plataea to the death of Alexander
  the Great

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Hellenic Ideals

• With the final defeat of the Persian invaders,
  the Greek ideal became one of moderation and the
  balanced life.
• A balance between extremes
• Apollo and Dionysus

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Apollo and Dionysus

• Apollo associated with the urban life
• Dionysus associated with the rural life. Drunken
  women known as maenads followed and worshiped
  him. In Athens, the drunken worship of Dionysus
  was transformed into a civic festival, the
  Dionysia.

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Hellenic Ideals

• The fusion of the civic and the religious
• The Parthenon
• The Dionesia, a civic festival (from which
  tragedy was born)

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Hellenic Ideals

• Classicisma scholarly term denoting the
  principles expressed through the culture and arts
  of ancient Greece and Rome.
• Simplicity
• Balance
• Symmetry
• Order
• Restraint

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Hellenic Politics

• The Hellenic Age can be divided into four
  distinct phases
• The Delian League a defensive alliance formed in
  478 to prevent further Persian attacks.
• Wars in Greece and with Persia and the ensuing
  Thirty Years Peace.
• The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)
• Spartan and Theban hegemony and the triumph of
  Macedonia.

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The Peloponnesian War (431-404)

• When Corinth went to war with Corcyra in Western
  Greece, Corcyra appealed to Athens for aid. The
  Corinthians persuaded the Spartans to join
  together in the Peloponnesian League. The
  Peloponnesian War had begun

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Greek Tragedy

• --Evolved from religious chanting and dancing in
  honor of Dionysus
• -- Not necessarily a dark, dismal play
• -- A play with a serious moral intention.
• -- Cathartic effects of tragedy

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Greek Tragedy

• During the City Dionysia, three playwrights were
  invited to compose a cycle of 4 plays.
• -- Three tragedies one Satyr Play
• Each playwright performed his entire cycle in a
  single day.

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Greek Tragedy
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Greek Comedy Aristophanes

• In Lysistrata, Aristophanes points out the
  absurdity of the prolonged Peloponnesian War and,
  by implication, all war. In the play, Lysistrata,
  an Athenian matron, persuades the women of Athens
  and Sparta to withhold sex from their husbands
  until they sign a peace treaty.