Democracy means “exercise of power by the whole people ”.
The Greeks meant only the adult male citizens. Women, children, foreigners, and slaves were excluded and had no rights.
The economy of Athens rested on an immense amount of slave labor; the politics of Athens rested on democracy.
奥运会相关
The Olympic games was revived in the year of 1896 in modern times.
The Olympic Games was originated in the ancient Greek in the year of 775 - 776 B.C.
文学相关
Homer was the founder of Greek epics. Two great epics: the Iliad and the Odyssey. Duration time: in the period 1200 - 1100 B.C.
The Iliad deals with the alliance of the states of the southern mainland of Greece.
The Odyssey deals with the return of Odysseus after the Trojan War to his home island of Ithaca. It describes many adventures he ran into on his sea voyage and how finally he was reunited with his faithful wife Penelope.
Drama developed in the 5th century B.C. in the open-air theatres. Actors wore masks.
Aeschylus - Prometheus Bound. There are only two actors and a chorus; the plays are written in the verse. Shelley wrote a parody named Prometheus unbound in the English romanticism.
Sophocles - Oedipus the king. He added a third actor and decreased the size of the play. Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud’s term “the Oedipus complex ” was also derived from Sophocles ’s play.
Euripides - Realism can be traced back to him. He wrote mainly about women (Trojan women). He is more of a realist. His characters are less heroic, more like ordinary people. He may be the first to write the “problem play”. Its origin - Euripides; Its perfection - Ibsen; Its climax - Bernard Shaw. His historical position: “Euripides the human ” commented by the English poetess Elizabeth Browning in the 19th century.
Comedy - flourished in the 5th century B.C. Aristophanes is the best representative of the Greek comedy. He wrote mainly about the nature and the English Lake poets followed suit. His language style: coarse language. His historical position: as for comic Aristophanes, “The dog too witty and too profane is” (by English Swift).
历史相关
Historical writing started early in Greece. Herodotus is often called “father of history”. He wrote about the wars between Greeks and Persians. His history, full of the anecdotes, digressions and lively dialogue, is wonderfully readable.
Thucydides was more accurate than Herodotus as a historian. He traced events to their causes and brought out their effects. His historical position: “the greatest that ever lived ” (by the English historian Macaulay).
哲学相关
Greek philosophy originated with three founders: Pythagoras (All things were numbers. Founder of scientific mathematics. First theory of proportion - point, line, surface), Heracleitus (Fire is the primary element of the universe. Holds the theory of the mingling of the opposites and believed that it was the strife between the opposite that produced the harmony), Democritus (Speculated about the atomic structure of the matter - the atomic theory. Earliest philosophical materialist. Plato’s idealistic ideas are opposed to Democritus’ Materialistic ideas).
Three thinkers: Socrates (We know Socrates chiefly through Plato’s Dialogues. His method of argument by questions and answers is the dialectical method. In 399 B.C., at the age of seventy Socrates was put on trial on a charge of “injuring the city” by not acknowledging its gods and corrupting the young. This trial was recorded by Plato in the dialogue “The Apology of Socrates”), Plato (The Academy is the first school in the world established by him. Works: Dialogues, Republic - the republic ideas initiated by the U.S. are originated from Plato’s Republic, The Apology, Symposium. His historical position: Shelley said, “Plato was essentially a poet - the truth and splendour of his imagery, and the melody of his language, are the most intense that it is possible to conceive.” He built up a comprehensive system of philosophy dealing with how men attain knowledge. Men have knowledge because of the existence of certain general “ideas”. Only these “ideas” are completely real, while the physical world is relatively real. So Plato’ s philosophy is called Idealism. His view of the world has deeply influenced many religious teachers and writers. St. Paul expresses the same doctrine. Many of Plato’s ideas were later absorbed into Christian thought. The “ideas” are the first case, but physical world the secondary), Aristotle (Became the tutor of Alexander the Macedonia king. In 335 B.C., founded his own school at the Lyceum - the second school in the world. His epoch-making works has dominated the European thought for 1000 years - 5th - 15th. His historical position: “The master of those who know” (by Dante). Works: Ethics; Politics; Poetics; Rhetoric. The Aristotle deductive method. Major differences with Plato: Aristotle emphasized direct observation of nature and insisted that theory should follow fact. Aristotle thought that form and matter together made up concrete individual realities. According to Aristotle, man’ s aim in life was happiness which can be achieved by leading a life of reason, goodness and contemplation).
The five contending schools: Sophists (leader: Protagoras. Works: On the Gods. Ideas: “man is the measure of all things”), the Cynics (leader: Diogenes. Ideas: rejected all conventions; advocated self-sufficiency and extreme simplicity in life; proclaimed his brotherhood with the whole human race and animals - “The equality of all beings” can be traced back to the Cynics; had no patience with the rich and powerful), the Sceptics (leader: Pyrrhon. Ideas: Not all knowledge was attainable), the Epicureans (leader: Epicurus. Ideas: believed Pleasure to be the highest good in life, but by pleasure he meant freedom from pain and emotional upheaval, and the freedom could be attained by the practice of virtue. Epicurus was a materialist. Following Democritus, he believed that the world consisted of atoms), the Stoics (leader: Zeno. Ideas: the most important thing in life was “duty”; developed into the theory that one should endure hardship and misfortune with courage; Zeno was also a materialist, asserting the existence of the real world; believed that there is no such thing as chance, and that the course of nature is rigidly determined by natural laws).
科学相关
Euclid is well-known for his Elements, a textbook of geometry. Elements was in use in English schools until the early years of the 20th century.
Archimedes: Important work in Geometry, arithmetic, mechanics, hydrostatics. “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world”. Invented machines which greatly helped his native city Syracuse against the Romans.
建筑相关
Greek architecture can be grouped into three styles: The Doric style (also called the masculine style, sturdy, powerful, severe-looking, showing a good sense of proportions and numbers, but monotonous and unadorned), The Ionic style (also called feminine style, graceful and elegant, often shows a wealth of ornament), The Corinthian style (known for its ornamental luxury). The Acropolis at Athens (437 - 432 B.C.); The Parthenon (447 - 432 B.C.) is considered an outstanding example of the Doric style.
影响相关
Karl Marx: “why shouldn’t the childhood of human society - the stage at which it attained its most attractive development - exercise an eternal charm, as an age that will never return? ” (refers to Greek culture)
Three qualities stand out: Spirit of Innovation - “They invented mathematics and science and philosophy; they first wrote history as opposed to mere annals; they speculated freely about the nature of the world and the ends of life, without being bound in the fetters of any inherited orthodoxy” (Bertand Russell: History of Western Philosophy). Supreme Achievement - The Greeks achieved supreme achievements in nearly all fields of human endeavor: philosophy, science, epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, historical writing, architecture, sculpture, etc. Lasting Effect on Literature - Countless writers have quoted, adapted, borrowed from and otherwise used Homer’s epics, Sappho’s lyrics, the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides, Aristophanes ’s comedies, Plato’s Dialogues, etc. In the early part of the 19th century, in England alone, three young Romantic poets expressed their admiration of Greek culture in works which have themselves become classics: Byron’s Isles of Greece; Shelley’s Hellas and Prometheus Unbound; Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn. In the 20th century, there Homeric parallels in the Irishman James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece Ulysses.
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