Chapter 11 Study Guide
Greek Religion: polytheistic – the belief in more than one god
Honored their gods by imitating them, held festivals in their honor, built temples for them
Golden Age of Learning – “Classical Age of Greece”
-due to advanced efforts to do their best
-each city-state worshipped their own gods
Oracle – person who it was believed was able to speak to the gods
Prophecy – a statement about what might happen in the future
Oracle of Delphi –the most-important and famous oracle; they believed Delphi was the center of the Earth
Pancratium – combination of wrestling and boxing
Pentathlon- five events, the winner was considered the best overall athlete
-running, jumping, throwing discus, throwing javelin, and wrestling
Tragedies – stories about suffering
Comedies –stories with happy endings
Mount Olympus – home of the gods
-12 major gods and goddesses lived there
-Greeks believed people put on Earth only to obey and serve the gods
-temples built to honor them- people only worshipped outside the temples because they felt that it was the gods true home
Olympics-a festival held every four years to honor Zeus
-athletes from Greece and their colonies in Italy, Africa, and Asia Minor participated
-only men were allowed to participate
-chariot races held in the Hippodrome
-winners of events were considered heroes in their city-states
-crowned with an olive leaf wreath
-poets wrote stores about them
-some received free meals for a year
-between events, poets read their works aloud
-the first recorded Olympics was in 776 BCE- written about by :
Herodotus- considered “father of history”
Theatre- came from festivals honoring Dionysus
3 writers of tragedy: Aeschylus – wrote about power and its effect on people
-Sophacles –wrote about people suffering due to their sins and mistakes
-Euripedes – wrote about people suffering due to them doing bad things
Aristophanes- writer of comedy, found something funny in everyone
Tragedies were performed in the morning and Comedies in the afternoon
Plays were given in open-air theatres, if couldn’t afford to pay, you were admitted free
Support of the theatre was a public duty, wealthy citizens paid for the performances
Intellect – the ability to learn and reason
Philosophia –studying the laws of nature and asking questions of many things
Discoveries: natural events are not caused by the way gods behave, the world is governed by natural laws
Socrates- an Athenian philosopher interested in the thinking process
-spent his time searching for truth, believed people could discover truth through questioning
Socratic Method- process of asking questions in order to achieve a step by step analysis to find a final conclusion or truth
-accused of denying the gods, corrupting the youth, and trying to overthrow the government. Found guilty by a jury of 500 and sentenced to death
-executed in 399 BCE at the age of 70, he left no writings
Plato- an Athenian aristocrat and student of Socrates
-recorded the speeches of Socrates at his trial; gave us all we know about Socrates
-set-up a school outside Athens called ‘The Academy’- to train government leaders
-Wrote “The Republic” the first book on political science and “The Dialogues” a book about discovering the truth. He used conversations between people.
Aristotle- a student of Plato, he was known as “The Master of them that know”
-Founded a school in Athens and wrote over 200 books
-First to classify or group together plants and animals
-Provided a third step to the Scientific process: you must test the hypotheses
-Developed syllogism- a method of reasoning that uses 3 related statements to reach a conclusion. The third statement is the conclusion based on the first two:
Example: Athenians are Greek
Socrates is Athenian
Therefore, Socrates is Greek
Thales of Miletus- developed the 1st 2 steps of the Scientific Method: form a question, make hypotheses
Hippocrates – the “Father of Scientific Medicine” – considered to be the “perfect physician”
Believed diseases came from natural causes and devised a list of rules that doctors were to live by, called the “Hippocratic Oath”