Did Classical Greece Live On? | Greece's Legacy

Classical Greece is over. But what ended up conquering more territory than any hoplite army ever could dream was Greece's culture. This is Classical Greece's legacy. Greece lay devastated. Athens, the shining city on the coast, had lost much of their population. The recurring plague from the previous century took its toll. The Spartans did the rest. But it wasn't the Spartans either, who stood supreme. After war with Thebes, they were thoroughly humiliated, and their helot slaves freed. Without their slave labor, Spartan society couldn't function like it had. Thebes lost their general during the Battle of Mantinea, and along with that, lost their brief period of hegemony by 362 BCE. So as not to focus on their shortcomings, this video will deal with all that Greece has left our societies, the cultural achievements that made Ancient Greece so special. We will get to Greece's ultimate fate next chapter, so be sure to subscribe. When most people envision Greek culture, it tends to be wise, often older men, sitting and discussing the very nature of the world. These philosophers, or lovers of wisdom, would become arguably the most famous parts of Classical Greece. While there were many, the three most popular, all had links to Athens. These were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Born around 470 BCE, about a decade after the Persian invasions, Socrates became such a force in philosophy, that the philosophers that came before him are called pre-Socratic. These pre-Socratic philosophers dealt with cosmology, or the nature of the universe. They would ask questions about the natural world and human society, seeking answers that went deeper than merely supernatural. The movement began in the 500s BCE, in Miletus, in Ionia. The Miletian school of thought consisted of three philosophers, considered to be the first in Ancient Greece, and the first in Western philosophy. Being in the Near East, they had influence from both the Egyptian and Babylonian sciences. Born in the 620s BCE, Thales of Miletus began the conscious speculation about nature, offering hypotheses rooted in the natural world. He is often regarded as the father of science. Thales and his followers believed the substance of all matter, the Akri, or fundamental element, was water. Following in his master's footsteps, Anaximander, contributed to numerous fields of study. Using his expertise in geometry, he invented the gnomon, for the sundial. Anaximander would be the first Greek to attempt a map of the world, which contributed to the field of geography. He built on Thales' hypothesis of the Akri, but instead of water, claimed it was a pyron, or the unlimited. One of Anaximander's students, was the third and final philosopher from the school, Anaximenes. Anaximenes went further, and instead of water or a pyron, claimed the Akri, was created from air, mist, or vapor. He believed the earth was flat, and flew through space as would a frisbee. Apart from Anaximenes, it's thought Anaximander had another student named Pythagoras. Though not from Miletus, Pythagoras came from a wider Ionian school, along with Collectively, the Ionian school, which includes the Milesian, were the first to offer hypotheses for the natural world. The Eleatic school, originating in southern Italy, developed a bit later, and added epistemology to their studies. On the Greek mainland, sophists would travel to Athens to train young statesmen on how to be virtuous, and offer expertise on different subjects like philosophy, music, or rhetoric. Over time, these sophists would become debate lords, having public discourse, but often using rhetoric to win arguments. The first recorded sophist was Pythagoras, and his most famous discourse was with Socrates. Socrates is credited with being profoundly intelligent, by ironically admitting he knows nothing. The Socratic method, involved a cooperative argument, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking, rather than to just win. Many of his dialogues end without firm conclusion, known as a poria. His question and answer methods attempted to get to the true nature of virtue, and what is good. Socrates would become a polarizing figure in Athens during the Peloponnesian war, and was accused of impiety, and corrupting the youth. His trial lasted but a day, and his defense became a Socratic dialogue of its own. Despite various offers of help, Socrates accepted his fate and was sentenced to death. In 399 BCE, he was forced to commit suicide, drinking hemlock, and dying an excruciating death. His trial and death were recorded by one of Socrates' students, Plato. Plato, along with Xenophon, was also responsible for writing down Socratic dialogues. His most famous work, was the Republic, written around 375 BCE. It is one of these Socratic dialogues, involving discussion about the best kind of city-state, using the hypothetical Calypolis as an example, a utopia ruled by a philosopher-king. In this same written work, Plato uses his famous allegory of the cave. The story takes place in a cave, where there are prisoners, chained up since childhood, and forced to look at a wall. Behind them, is a large fire. People then walk across behind the prisoners, holding up objects, or puppets of animals. The prisoners, not knowing anything else, believe this to be reality, even though there is a full world right outside the cave. Should a prisoner simply turn around, the fire itself would pain one's eyes, so they would turn back around to be comfortable. Should a prisoner be freed or get dragged out of the cave, the brilliant sunlight would be even more uncomfortable, but they would be free, to examine the real world. The story is related to Plato's theory of forms, which states that the world we can perceive through our meager five senses is not true reality, and that we are all in the cave of our own sensations, and that the forms are the highest kind of reality. He states that a true philosopher is one who realizes they live in the cave, and that the shadows are not all there is. Plato founded the Academy of Athens, and from here would emerge the third generation of Athenian philosophy, through Aristotle. Aristotle moved to Athens around 367 BCE, and enrolled at the Academy. Many of his treatises have survived, addressing a wide variety of subjects like logic, optics, metaphysics, politics, poetry, botany, and zoology. His approach was more based in inductive reasoning, as opposed to his predecessors. His peripatetic school of philosophy was founded at the Lyceum, a temple dedicated to Apollo Lyceus. A less conventional school of Greek philosophy was The name is derived from the word kynikos, meaning dog-like. Those who were part of this school were to shed all desires of wealth, power, and fame, and to live in the most natural way possible. The most famous of these philosophers was one of its founders, Diogenes. After taking a vow of poverty, he would end up living in a ceramic jar on the streets of the Athenian marketplace. He was notorious for disrupting Plato's lectures, often bringing food and eating to distract the listeners. Cynicism would continue long after Diogenes, and would branch off into Stoicism. Though Aristotle was adept at many subjects, most of our history involving ancient Greece comes from two sources, Herodotus and Thucydides. Herodotus is regarded as the father of history, as he was the first to do systematic investigation of historical events. His famous work, Histories, dated to 430 BCE, was the story of the Greco-Persian Wars. Though he tended to embellish numbers, he was adamant that the information was from either what he witnessed, or what was told to him. One of his future critics was Thucydides. His most famous work was the History of the Peloponnesian War, a recounting of most of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides also caught the plague that hit Athens during the war, so wrote of his experience with the ailment as well. His analysis of historical cause and effect, and adherence to gathering evidence has won him the title of father of scientific history. During the beginnings of the 5th century BCE, theatre also rose to prominence. The two main genres to emerge were tragedy and comedy. Tragedies began as an extension of ancient rites to honour the god Dionysus. The plays were often taken from myths or stories from oral tradition. They would typically have three parts. The prologue would introduce the story and characters, and the parodos tells the story, played out numerous episodes. In between these episodes, could be a stasema, which explains or comments on the situation. At the end, is the exodus, which concludes the story. Aeschylus, is regarded as the father of tragedy, probably not a name one should aspire to in any other circumstance. He invented the trilogy, a series of three plays performed over the course of a day, ending at sunset. A satyr play may occur afterwards. One of his rivals, was Sophocles. He would challenge the cycle of trilogies, and bring in the concept of scenery to the theatre. His plays had less explanation, and more character-driven dialogue. Many plays would even end with certain mysteries unexplained, some injustices unavenged. A stark reminder of the real world. Euripides, the third famous tragedian, introduced experimental aspects to his plays. His prologues would transition to become monologues which informed the audience of the backstory. Euripides would also use a plot device that would solve a seemingly unsolvable problem, by using a new character, ability, or object. This was known as the deus ex machina. Out of all the Greek tragedies written, we only have 32 surviving texts by these three authors. Comedy, was the other main form of theatre in ancient Greece. The most famous of the old comedy dramatists is Aristophanes. Not only filled with political satire, there was also sexual innuendo. Political in nature, prominent figures would be impersonated and ridiculed, including Socrates. Middle comedy dropped impersonations of specific people, and ridicule was more general. There aren't any full bodies of work though for proper analysis. New comedy came later, in the late 300s BCE. Plays became more grounded, becoming more like situation comedies. There was less satire and less focus on larger themes. Everyday life was featured more, and the gods weren't physical characters anymore. The subject of love, became prominent in these new comedies. The most successful new comedian was Menander, as his comedies focused on the everyday man. These open-air theatres, often had a certain style, part of classical Greek architecture. The earliest ones were built a bit earlier than 500 BCE. The crux of classical architecture was the building of temples. Each specific style belonged to an order, such as Doric, Ionian, or Corinthian. The Doric, originating in the western Doric region of Greece, was the first, and most simple style. The Parthenon, the sacred temple of Athena, patron goddess of Athens, was constructed in the Doric style, although it does have some Ionic elements as well. The Ionic order was more popular in Ionia, and the island of the Aegean. The Corinthian order developed later, and was the most intricate of the three. It would become quite popular with the next main players of classical antiquity. Hippocrates of Kos, came to be known as the, father of medicine. He revolutionized the medical field, distinguishing it from the practice of rituals, and philosophy. He contributed the use of prognosis, and clinical observation. Humorism was the theory that the human body is made up of the humors, or vital fluids. These were phlegm, blood, and yellow and black bile. Any excess or deficiency in the humors was the cause of illness. Hippocrates brought over this theory to the medical field. Greek thought would continue past its classical age. Some of the greatest minds of Greece were yet to be born by the mid 300s BCE, like Euclid, or Archimedes. With Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, completely changed from their glory days, there was a power vacuum in Greece by the mid 300s BCE. And it would be filled. But next episode, there was another. The colonies that coalesced into Magna Graecia had always had rivals, deeper into mainland Italy. Next episode, the sun sets on ancient Greece, and rises, on another. Not only a new power, but the most potent power Europe had ever seen. Next episode, it's the origins of a future empire. Next episode, the birth of Rome.