Ty Lowry

11/11/2024

Module 4 Assignment

Video 1: Ancient Greece-Rick Steves

Rick Steves takes us around Athens to show us the centre of the western world. Greece still

thrives as a major and famous city in Europe. There are Greek isles and Athens is the capital

with Delphi, Hydra, and Piraeus surrounding Athens and inside the small area that is modern

day Greece. The Acropolis was the “high city” and part of Athens' Golden Age. Parthenon

was the most famous and was built in the fifth century BC. 25000 years ago the Parthenon

was built. Maidens formed the columns. Dedicated to Athena and Poseidon. The market place

was where everyone had gathered and formed due to it being the hub for social life and

shopping mall. Plato and Aristotle were the founders of the region and made this area famous

by the ideas that they had found. Everything is found to its older age by using modern

technology to rebuild it. Was the patroness of the city. There were three main styles, flat

cracked plates, scrolls, and corinthian.

Video 2: Alexander the Great

Alexander was the most famous and most powerful leader. Alexander's father was the

founder and made his son famous because of what his father had conquered. Aristotle was

Alexander's tutor all because he had destroyed his home town. Alexander tamed a most

famous horse that was named untameable. Alexander was the king of Macedonia after

overthrowing the Persian Empire. Alexander the Great was an ancient Macedonian ruler and

one of history’s greatest military minds. King of Macedonia and Persia,Alexander established

the largest empire the ancient world had ever seen in their own time period due to his power
and reign over the few regions he had taken over throughout his rule and his time as the king

of those regions.

Video 3: Ancient Greek Philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC. Philosophy was used to make sense of

the world using reason. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects such as astronomy,

epistemology, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic,

biology, rhetoric and aesthetics. Epicurus, the Cynics, the Stoics, and the Sceptics were the

four main Greek Philosophy that were used during this day and age and throughout the rest of

history. Philosophers contemplated and theorised about many different ideas such as human

nature, ethics, and moral dilemmas. Ancient Greek philosophers were categorised into three

groups: the Pre-Socratics, the Socratics, and the Post-Socratics.

Reading 1: Ancient Greece: An Introduction

The Mycenaean period of later Greek Bronze Age was viewed by the Greeks as the "age of

heroes" and provides the background to many of the stories told in later Greek mythology,

including epics. Objects and artworks from this time are found throughout mainland Greece

and the Greek islands. Mycenaean pottery was distributed widely across the eastern

Mediterranean. These show the beginnings of Greek mythology being used to decorate works

of art. They come from about the same time that the epics of Homer were reaching the form

we inherit, as the earliest Greek literature. Mycenaean civilization around 1100 B.C.E.

brought about a period of isolation known as the Dark Age. Ancient Greece played a vital

role in the early history of coinage and made many coins that are found around modern day

Greece and are still being found to this day.

The Classical Period in ancient Greece produced outstanding cultural and scientific

achievements. Athens introduced the world to a direct Democracy political system later

adopted and adjusted by western governments like Great Britain, France, and the USA a

thousand years later. The logical approach centred on the concept of logos which initiated a

continuous process of exploring and explaining the world. Democracy and Reason of

classical Greece became the catalysts of western culture. The foundations of its advancement

was demonstrated early in the subsequent Hellenistic Age, and its successor the Roman

Empire that based its values on the same principles. This showed us how the people had

worked through their problems and how these people really relied on people to show how

they were taught and showed the ideas of philosophers.

Reading 3: Hellenistic Greece Polis to Cosmopolis

Throughout the 5th and 4th centuries, the political history of the Greek world degenerated

into oligarchy. Athens lost its leadership from the Greek after being defeated by Spartans.

Sparta found themselves engaged in wars one after the other and let pride and arrogance

consume them after the plethora of wars they had gone through. Greek power became the

fourth century world because of the Macedonian kingdom and Alexander the great.

Macedonians were called barbaroi by the Greeks. Alexander was 20 years old when he had

gained the throne and within 15 months he had gone for rebellions and taken them over.

37,000 men were under Alexander’s command and were all marched by him to Asia and

conquered their land and cities that Asia had. Alexander was called the Great King because

he had called himself that and wanted people to call him the Great King because of what he

had accomplished. Alexander wanted to fuse the East and West together so they were
together and in close range for him to rule them over. Greece had died when Alexander had

finally met his fate.

Reading 4: Greek Philosophers

The Socratic philosophers in ancient Greece were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These are

some of the most well-known of all Greek philosophers. Socrates is remembered for his

teaching methods and for asking thought-provoking questions. Instead of lecturing his

students, he asked them difficult questions in order to challenge their underlying assumptions,

a method still used in modern day law schools. Socrates wrote little about his life or work,

much of what we know comes from his student Plato. Plato studied ethics, virtue, justice, and

other ideas relating to human behaviours. Following in Socrates’ footsteps, he became a

teacher and inspired the work of the next great Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Aristotle, while

also interested in ethics, studied different sciences like physics, biology, and astronomy.

Aristotle is credited with developing the study of logic, as well as the foundation for modern-

day zoology.