The Classical Age of Greece

This is Unit Four of Western Civilization One, part two of two: the philosophers and artists of the Classical Age, the four procedures the exam tests on it, and the arc that holds the achievement and the exclusions together. Part one ended with Herodotus and Thucydides inventing history two ways. Carry the same idea through this part. The anchor's humanism, humankind as capable and creative, worth studying on its own terms, now reaches philosophy, where the central question was whether nature or custom makes an institution right, and the schools answered it four ways: the Sophists said there is no truth, Socrates said find it by questioning, Plato said grasp it by mind, Aristotle said observe. It reaches art, where the ideal body was composed from real ones and a temple fixed by a ratio. And it ends where part one began, with the ironies: the ten percent who voted, the women who were wards, the third who were property, the allies who paid. The exam asks facts inside both halves and never for a verdict. By the end you will be able to state the question and distinguish the four answers. To describe the Parthenon, the bronzes and Pytheas. To read a tragedy and classify a thinker. To compare the historians and read Pericles against his own ideals. And to state the arc.

Four entries on the question every school answered: the Sophists who asked it, and Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who answered by questioning, by Forms, and by observation.

The question every school answered.

WC1 0315 Nature or Custom? The Sophists

Greek philosophy's central question was whether institutions and ethics are natural or merely conventional. The Sophists, traveling tutors, taught that no absolute truths exist, that both sides can be argued, and that virtue is success. The witnesses use the word over a hundred times and the anchor defines it. Sophist is not an insult in this unit; it names a school.

Questions until the bias shows.

WC1 0316 Socrates and the Method of Questions

Socrates, four sixty-nine to three ninety-nine, wrote nothing, and Plato recorded him. Essential truths exist but need relentless self-questioning: the Socratic method asks questions until bias and gaps show, leaving a sounder belief, against the Sophists' relativism. Writing, he held, destroys memory. Socrates is known only through others, so what you read is Plato's Socrates.

Forms more real than objects.

WC1 0317 Plato: Forms, the Republic, the Academy

Plato, four twenty-eight to three forty-seven, held that the senses deceive and truth is grasped by mind: Forms are more real than objects, the Form of Justice above any court. The Republic proposes philosopher-kings trained by education, not war, and the Academy lasted until Justinian closed it about five twenty-nine, an anchor date. That the philosopher-king influenced rulers into modern times is the anchor's claim, attributed.

The senses are reliable enough.

WC1 0318 Aristotle: The Senses, the Political Animal, the Lyceum

Aristotle, three eighty-four to three twenty-two on the witness, founded the Lyceum after being passed over for the Academy. The senses are reliable enough, and the philosopher's duty is detailed knowledge of the world; humans are political animals whose politics can be improved. He tutored Alexander and remained an authority into the Renaissance despite his errors. That he founded four disciplines single-handedly is the anchor's claim.

Three entries on art and the edge of the world: the Parthenon's proportions, the bronzes we know as marble copies, and the sailor who fixed a latitude past Gibraltar.

Perfection by proportion.

WC1 0319 The Golden Ratio and the Parthenon

Greek art pursued perfection through balance, symmetry and geometry, and the anchor names the golden ratio. The Parthenon, Athena's temple on the Acropolis, sets its height to width by that ratio, its columns and carvings the anchor's elegance and grandeur, and it was built on Delian League money. The ratio claim rests on the anchor; the Parthenon itself is witnessed sixteen times.

Bronze originals, marble copies.

WC1 0320 Greek Sculpture and Why We Know It Through Rome

Sculpture moved from stiff Archaic grave statues to lifelike bodies composited from several models, the anchor's artistic humanism. The medium was bronze, melted down in later centuries, so most works survive as Roman marble copies; the bronze Zeus or Poseidon is one of the few originals. A Roman copy is evidence of Greek art, not Roman, so check the caption.

Around Britain, and scorned for lacking monsters.

WC1 0321 Pytheas Sails Past Gibraltar

Greeks knew the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, Egypt and Persia directly and the rest by hearsay, and Carthage's garrison at Gibraltar closed the Atlantic. About three thirty Pytheas of Massalia slipped past, sailed around Britain, and fixed his home's latitude within eight miles; his book was scorned for lacking monsters. Pytheas rests on the anchor alone, and the Greek world stayed Mediterranean.

Two procedures: four questions that find the tragedy in any plot, and two questions that name a thinker's school.

Four questions to ask of any plot.

WC1 0322 Reading a Greek Tragedy's Structure: Flaw, Hubris, Fate

Handed a plot summary, ask four questions: who is the powerful figure, what is the flaw, is the fall from the flaw or from fate, and where does the chorus stand. Hubris is the usual flaw and pathos the effect sought. Take a course-invented plot: a king who saved his city swears to find a killer at any cost, and the killer is himself. The figure is the king, the flaw his certainty of his own righteousness, the fall from flaw and fate together, and the chorus the pleading citizens. A second plot: a victorious general murdered by his wife for sacrificing their daughter. The flaw is ambition over family, the fall from the flaw, the chorus watching and warning. If the passage invites you to laugh at the powerful, it is Aristophanes' form, not the tragedians', whose names come from the witnesses.

Does truth exist, and how is it found.

WC1 0323 Classifying a Thinker: Sophist, Socratic, Platonist, Aristotelian

Given a position, ask two questions: does truth exist, and how is it found. Sophist: no absolute truth, argue either side, virtue is success. Socratic: truth exists, found by questioning until error shows. Platonist: truth exists in Forms, found by mind, distrusting the senses. Aristotelian: truth exists in the world, found by careful observation. A teacher paid to make the weaker argument win is a Sophist. The table you see as a shadow of the true Table is Platonist. Constitutions collected to see which works in practice is Aristotelian. A dialogue ending with the questioner admitting ignorance is Socratic. Humans as political animals whose institutions can be improved by invention is Aristotelian. Plato wrote the dialogues, so classify by what the passage argues, not who wrote it.

Two more procedures: the two historians compared on four features, and Pericles' funeral oration read against the four groups it leaves out.

Subject, explanation, method, stance.

WC1 0324 Herodotus and Thucydides Compared as Historians

Compare the historians on four features: subject, explanation, method and stance. Herodotus: the Persian War, explained by how cultures respond to pressure, by travel and inquiry, curious about foreigners yet calling them barbarians. Thucydides: the Peloponnesian War, explained by a thesis about power, evidence marshaled to defend it, a participant writing analysis. A history that pauses over Egyptian customs before the battles is Herodotus. One that declares the war's true cause and proves it is Thucydides. One whose author traveled collecting stories he could not verify is Herodotus. The anchor's real father of history is Thucydides, for the thesis defended with evidence. Herodotus is not the credulous one: he asked whether cultures could be judged, which Thucydides did not. The exam wants the method contrast, not a ranking, and the death dates are about.

Praise of Athens, and who it leaves out.

WC1 0325 Reading Pericles' Athens Against Its Own Ideals

When the exam quotes praise of Athenian democracy, list who the praise includes and set it against the anchor's four exclusions: women, free non-citizens, slaves, and allies. The funeral oration Thucydides gives Pericles is the classic passage, read in translation. A democracy in the hands of the many: the many are adult male citizens of two Athenian parents, about ten percent. Poverty bars no man from service: true after pay for office, and only for men. Athens open to the world: true for trade, and paid for by allies who could not leave. Citizens self-reliant in every pursuit: silent on the enslaved third who did the work. What the passage assumes is that the polis is its male citizens, and that the empire, the women and the slaves lie outside the account. Do not answer that Pericles was lying; the anchor calls Athens among the fairest governments of its world and then names the ironies, and both halves stand.

One capstone entry: humanism followed through five fields, and the four exclusions stated as plainly, with no verdict.

One idea, five fields, four exclusions.

WC1 0326 Humanism and Its Ironies: The Classical Achievement in One Arc

The exam's questions on Classical Greece test what the Greeks achieved and who was left out, and the anchor ties both to humanism. Follow it through five fields. In drama, human choice at the center, and a flaw rather than a god destroying the hero. In science, earthquakes by water and disease by humors, wrong most of the time, yet asked without appealing to Zeus, which is why the anchor prizes the spirit over the conclusions. In history, wars explained by how people respond to pressure and by what power does to those who hold it. In philosophy, the question of custom against nature answered three ways: Socrates by questioning, Plato by Forms, Aristotle by observation. In art, the ideal body composed from real ones and a temple fixed by a ratio. Now the ironies, stated as plainly. The democracy that let ten percent vote was paid for by an empire its allies could not leave. The city that praised human capacity kept its women as wards, confined by rank and silenced in the sources. The people who wrote that poverty barred no man from service held a third of their population as property and worked some to death in mines. The philosophers who asked what justice was never asked it of slavery. Humanism was real and it was partial, and the anchor's Classical Greece is both at once. The exam does not ask for a verdict, and the course gives none. It asks facts inside each half, what hubris is, what the Socratic method does, what the citizenship law required, who could vote, and the arc is there to remember that they belong to one city in the same decades. The anchor's largest claims, that democracy vanished until the late seventeen hundreds, that Aristotle founded four disciplines alone, that mines were like plantations, are its own, attributed.

Look at what you can now do. You can state the question of nature against custom and distinguish the Sophists' no truth, Socrates' questioning, Plato's Forms, and Aristotle's observation. You can describe the Parthenon set by a ratio the anchor names, explain that bronze originals were melted and survive as Roman marble copies, and say that Pytheas sailed around Britain and fixed a latitude. You can read a tragedy by four questions, figure, flaw, fall and chorus, and classify a thinker by two, whether truth exists and how it is found. You can compare Herodotus and Thucydides on subject, explanation, method and stance, and read Pericles' oration against women, non-citizens, slaves and allies. And you can state the arc, humanism through five fields, real and partial, which is this unit's one idea. Unit five opens on the king whose army ended the age, Philip of Macedon, and the son who carried Greek culture to India and left its politics at home.